Doug Benson

Doug Benson
Benson at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con
Birth name	Douglas Steven Benson
Born	(1962-07-02) July 2, 1962 (age 54) San Diego, California, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, Television, Podcast
Nationality	American
Years active	1986-present
Genres	Satire, Observational comedy, Alternative comedy, Sarcasm
Subject(s)	American culture, pop culture, everyday life, self-deprecation, Recreational drug use
Notable works and roles	Best Week Ever Last Comic Standing Super High Me The Benson Interruption Doug Loves Movies The High Court with Doug Benson

Douglas Steven "Doug" Benson (born July 2, 1962) is an American comedian, marijuana advocate, television host, and actor who has appeared on Comedy Central Presents, Best Week Ever, Trailer Park Boys, and was a contestant on Last Comic Standing in the show's fifth season. He is currently serves as a judge for the Comedy Central series The High Court with Doug Benson.

In 2007, he starred in the film Super High Me, a documentary about marijuana usage. Benson also currently hosts the popular Doug Loves Movies podcast along with his weekly marijuana video podcast show Getting Doug with High. His Comedy Central series The Benson Interruption ended its first season in December 2010 and was turned into a monthly podcast in January 2011.

Benson was born and raised in San Diego, California, to parents Wendy (Young), a pharmacy clerk, and Robert Matthew Benson, a former English teacher turned salesman. After attending Grossmont College, a community college in El Cajon, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Benson was raised Methodist.

While in Los Angeles, Benson began doing stand-up after he and two other friends dared each other to. One of them didn't show, and the other one signed up too late. Benson claimed that "I went in anyway and did my three minutes of whatever I could come with and people actually laughed." At the age of 22, Benson began performing regularly as a stand-up comedian; however, it wasn't until 28 that he became a stoner, after a week's worth of gigs smoking pot afterwards alongside Brian Posehn and Greg Proops. He made his earliest television appearances as a stand-up in the late 1980s and early 1990s on programs such as Comedy Central's The A-List and Two Drink Minimum and was one of the featured comedians in the cast of Joel Hodgson's sketch-comedy pilot The TV Wheel which aired on Comedy Central in 1995. One of Benson's earliest jobs in television was writing for the MTV game-show Trashed in 1994.