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Ned Arnel Mencía (born October 22, 1967), better known by his stage name Carlos Mencia, is an American comedian, writer, and actor. He is currently the host of his own show on Comedy Central, Mind of Mencia.
Biography
Mencia was born “Ned Arnel Mencia”, the seventeenth of eighteen children in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. His father, Roberto Holness, is from Honduras, and his mother, Magdelena Mencia, is from Mexico. He was raised in East Los Angeles, California by his aunt Consuelo and uncle Pablo Mencia. "ut of respect for his father", he went by the name Ned Holness as a boy. By his own admission, staying out of trouble was difficult growing up, but with the help of his family he excelled in school and stayed out of gangs. He majored in electrical engineering at California State University, Los Angeles, but left early to pursue a career in comedy after a successful performance at open mic night at The Laugh Factory. He also has an older brother named Joseph Mencia who is the co-host of Mind of Mencia.
Career
Mencia was a quick success at such venerated LA stand-up venues as The Comedy Store and The L.A. Cabaret. This led to appearances on The Arsenio Hall Show and Buscando Estrellas, where he attained the title “International Comedy Grand Champion.” Then, in 1994, Mencia was chosen to host HBO's latino comedy showcase Loco Slam.
Mencia followed up Loco Slam by hosting Funny is Funny! on Galavision in 1998. He would continue to do stand-up, including a very successful tour in 2001 with Freddy Soto and Pablo Francisco, “The Three Amigos.” Mencia also did two half-hour specials on HBO, the second of which won him a CableACE Award for Best Stand-Up Comedy Special. After the release of his first comedy album by Warner Records, Take A Joke America, Mencia performed his break-out performance on Comedy Central Presents in 2002.
By the time his career began to take off in the early 2000s, Mencia was also working as an actor doing guest appearances in the television shows Moesha and The Shield, and starring in the film Outta Time and the animated show The Proud Family.
At the end of 2004, Comedy Central began talks with Carlos Mencia for his own program, shortly after their renewal of comedian Dave Chappelle's contract for Chappelle's Show. In March of 2005, prior to Chappelle’s April 28, 2005 departure from the production of Chappelle’s Show and subsequent trip to Africa, Comedy Central announced Mencia's own half-hour comedy show, Mind of Mencia. The show mixed Mencia's stand up comedy with sketch comedy, the same basis for the highly popular Chappelle's Show. The show achieved moderate success in its first season and was brought back for a second season in the spring of 2006, becoming Comedy Central’s second highest rated program, and again for a third season that summer.
Maxim magazine recently named Mencia as the 12th-worst comedian of all time, although television viewers themselves had voted him into 2nd place of the Top 25 stand-up comics in Comedy Central's 2006 "Stand Up Showdown".
Comedy
Like many comedians, he focuses on race, sexual orientation, politics, religion, class and society, but in a style which intentionally violates rules of what is politically correct by, for example, making a point to use racial epithets or terms such as “retarded” rather than “disabled” or “mentally handicapped” and otherwise going out of his way to offend liberal sensibilities, such as by advocating capital punishment and sustaining a generally high level of raunchiness in his material. A staple of his material is diatribes denouncing the actions of people he considers to be stupid, often using his trademark “DEE-Dee-dee!.” He has stated that the phrase doesn’t refer to people “who were born retarded,” but rather people “who were born, and are now retarded.” He often advocates Social Darwinism “survival of the fittest” type solutions to this perceived problem of too much stupidity. Some consider his jokes to be intentionally provocative and racist, focusing on stereotypes for the sake of publicity or easy laughs. Mencia, however, says he does not focus on any one race, but that he creates comedy about all races, ethnicities and religions equally, without the desire to have his words taken too seriously. He has the opinion that life should be filled with comedy, as shown by his catchphrase "If you ain't laughin', you ain't livin'".
Accusations of plagiarism
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Comedian Joe Rogan wrote a post on his website publicly accusing Mencia of being a plagiarist, alleging that Mencia stole jokes from a number of comedians.
Mencia responded to the accusations while being interviewed on the Tucson, Arizona The Frank Show, stating that Joe Rogan had fabricated the plagiarism charge out of jealousy. On his own website, Mencia argued that the material in question was too generic to be attributed to any single comedian.
On February 10, 2007 Rogan confronted Mencia on stage at the Comedy Store on Sunset and continued his allegations of plagiarism. A video of the altercation (created and edited by Rogan) was posted on youTube, but was later removed due to alleged copyright violation. In the video, Joe Rogan's arguments were backed by numerous different audio and video clips from other comedians including George Lopez. The Comedy Store later canceled Joe Rogan's upcoming shows at that particular venue.
Mencia has also been accused of plagarizing material from Bill Cosby and Sam Kinison.
Trivia
- Mencia is a frequent guest on the Opie and Anthony radio show on XM Satellite Radio and CBS Radio. He took part in in first Opie and Anthony's Traveling Virus Comedy Tour in 2006.
- Mencia starred in a Super Bowl XLI commerical for Bud Light which was the #1 most replayed commercial according to Tivo.
Filmography
- In Living Color (TV), playing a Valet in episode six of season two, October 28 1990
- Moesha (TV), playing Carlos in the episode “Life Imitating Art,” February 9 1999
- The Proud Family (TV), starring as Felix (voice) (2001-2005)
- The Shield (TV) playing Gabo in the episode “Two Days of Blood,” May 28 2002
- Outta Time (2002), playing “Juancho”
- 29 Palms (2002), playing “The Comedian”
- Drawn Together (TV) playing the King of Mexico (voice) in the episode “Mexican't Buy Me Love”, November 8 2006
- Farce of the Penguins
Not including his comedy specials for HBO and Comedy Central, Mencia has also appeared on Comic Relief, and hosted Loco Slam in 1994, Latino Laugh Festival in 1997, Funny is Funny! in 1998, and Uncensored Comedy: That's Not Funny in 2003.
Discography
- Take a Joke America (2001)
- America Rules (2002)
- Unmerciful (2003)
- Not for the Easily Offended (2003)
- Down to the Nitty Gritty (2004)
- Mind of Mencia (2005)
- No Strings Attached (2006)
References
- ^ "October 3rd: the Doghouse Comedy Jam". CarlosMencia.com. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - "COMEDY CENTRAL DELVES DEEPER INTO THE "MIND OF MENCIA" AND ORDERS THIRD SEASON". Comedy Central. Retrieved 2006-10-21.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - "The Worst Comedian of all time". Maxim Magazine. Retrieved 2006-09-05.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - "Mencia". Comedy Central. Retrieved 2006-09-05.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - "Mencia". JoeRogan.com. Retrieved 2006-09-05.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia face off at comedy club Times-Herald Record
- http://www.tivo.com/0.9.0.sb.asp
External links
- Official Website
- Carlos Mencia at IMDb
- Mind Of Mencia website at ComedyCentral.com
- Carlos Mencia on My Space