Bobby Lee
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- For the pedal steel guitar player see Bobby Lee (musician).
Bobby Lee (born September 17, 1972 in San Diego, California) is a Korean American comedian. Lee is most notable for his membership in the recurring cast of comedians on sketch comedy series MADtv, where he plays most of the Asian roles on the show as well as the show's parody of Kim Jong-il.
Biography
Lee was born in 1972 to immigrant parents from South Korea. As a young man, he was expected to have a career running his family's clothing store. However, after stints in a local rock band and at the local community college, he was spotted by Frank Burns, the legendary manager of La Jolla's Comedy Store.
In 1995, Pauly Shore spotted Lee on stage and asked the young comedian to open for him in Las Vegas. It was at that point that Lee met Shore's mother, the celebrated owner of the Comedy Store, Mitzi Shore. Lee became a regular at the club, and also went on the road with the Hispanic comic Carlos Mencia.
Lee has appeared in over 20 national commercials, and has performed stand-up on Late Friday, Premium Blend and The Tonight Show. In summer 2004, he appeared in the big screen comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
During the 2005 U.S. Open, Lee was in a commercial for IBM's Helpdesk.
He is well-received by university audiences and has become known for his extreme generosity, notably for inviting everyone in the university audience to a restaurant of the audience’s choosing and covering entire dinner tabs that run well into the thousands of dollars.
MADtv
Lee officially joined the cast of MADtv in 2001 as a feature performer for the seventh season. He was later promoted to a repertory performer status the following season. As of February 2006, Lee is still a member of the current cast. His most popular impersonations include North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il and former news anchor Connie Chung. Due to his status as the only Asian in the history of MADtv, he frequently plays Asian female characters, which have garnered him noteriety in the show as a cross-dresser.
Among Lee's recurring characters is Hideki, the Average Asian who grows increasingly aggravated at stereotypes of Asians, and Tank, a lesser-known character who is an otherwise clumsy and overconfident single man who tries his best to attract a woman as a rice boy with a green Daewoo. Tank's ways seem a bit obscure, and they put a possible family relative in places from the trunk of the Daewoo to a Whack-A-Mole game in an arcade. Unlike Bae Sung or Connie Chung, Tank's Asian behaviors are much more subtle.
His most famous character, however, is Bae Sung, the Korean-Japanese-Chinese-American, who claims to be multilingual, but in actuality speaks the "Dumb-ass language". Bae Sung's catch phrase is, "Uh oh, hotdog!" The character of Bae Sung does "know" a little of each language he claims to speak, but Bobby Lee only knows Korean. Bae Sung actually speaks only Korean, but the caption marks it as "speaking in Japanese/Chinese", despite the fact he speaks fluent Korean. Not all his characters are Chinese or Korean-based, however. In one skit he was called Kim Chee, a Filipino custodian who speaks little English and works minimum wage. Often he encourages the abuse of his pain by shouting "Help me! I'm a slave here!"
Aside from Bae Sung, Bobby Lee has done other unusual skits. He has also played the famous American Idol star William Hung, primarily mocking his voice, Chinese accent, and "Asian vampire" teeth. Finally he films his daily routine in a program called "24: with Bobby Lee".
Characters: Bae Sung, Blind Kung Fu Master, Donnie D., Kim Chee ("The B.S."), Hideki ("Average Asian"), Tank
Impersonations: Keiko Agena, Jackie Chan, Connie Chung, William Hung, Kim Jong-il, Yunjin Kim, A.J. McLean, Sandra Oh, Suchin Pak, Jai Rodriguez (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), Bobby Trendy, Soon Yi, and Ziyi Zhang.
Bobby Lee now has an official Myspace Page http://www.myspace.com/iambobbylee
Television appearances
- Curb Your Enthusiasm (2005) as Sung
- Mind of Mencia (2005) as Chinese CSI Agent
- Minding the Store (2005) as Comic
- IBM commercial
- MADtv (2001- present) as Various Characters
Filmography
- Accidentally on Purpose (2005) as Bobby
- Undoing (2005) as Kenny
- Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) as Kenneth Park
- Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003) as Delivery Boy
- American Misfits (2003) as Korean General
- The Underground Comedy Movie (1999) as Chinese Man
External links
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