Gregory Everett Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor and stand-up comedian, who works largely in Europe as a comic and improviser.
Proops was born in Phoenix, Arizona and raised in San Carlos, California, a quiet suburb south of San Francisco. At elementary school he was often teased because his name sounds an awful lot like "Greg Poops". He studied improvisation and acting at San Francisco State University.
After graduation, he joined an improv group with Mike McShane, which proved to be his ticket to stardom. Both Proops and McShane impressed producers Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, who put them on their show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He frequently instigated jokes and running gags concerning various idiosyncrasies and differences between British English and American English (eg. "lift" vs. "elevator"), and would frequently banter with the host, Clive Anderson, on these matters (among others). He lived in London for four years when he was doing the show and lists McShane and Colin Mochrie as among his best friends.
One of his trademarks is his tendency to issue witty comments when something in or about the scene strikes him as ridiculous, usually breaking the fourth wall in the process and bringing the scene to a temporary halt. He is also known (and infamous) for his ability in improv games such as "Weird Newscasters", via a play on words, to drop sexual innuendos that can also bring a scene to a halt and cause others to occasionally break character and laugh.
In his performances and writings, Proops frequently makes non sequitur references to ocelots.
Proops has performed his stand-up act across Britain, Europe and in New Zealand. However, he remains best-known for appearances on Whose Line is it Anyway?, including both the US and UK versions. His other credits include hosting Space Cadets, a mid-1990s science-fiction comedy game show on Channel 4 in the UK, which also featured Craig Charles (Dave Lister from Red Dwarf) and Bill Bailey, and appearances on BBC2’s Mock the Week. He appeared as a panelist on the 2000 revival of To Tell the Truth. Proops also hosted two game shows: VS. in 1999 and Rendez-View in 2001. In 2004 he appeared on Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, a show similar to Whose Line. Currently he helps Joan and Melissa Rivers critique people's fashion on the red carpet for the Oscars on the TV Guide channel. He is also a panelist on Chelsea Handler's Show.
In addition to his stand-up and improv acts, Proops has done voice work in various films and TV shows, including the miniseries Stripperella with Pamela Anderson and Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, as well as providing the voice for the Beed side of the two-headed announcer Fode and Beed in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, with Scott Capurro providing the voice for Fode. He provided the voice of Bob in the TV series Bob the Builder for the four seasons of "Project Build-It".
In 2007 he started his own web show, The Greg Proops Experiment, on online humour site Super Deluxe, which consists of Proops ranting humorously about current events.
Proops is also a frequent guest on the late-night talk show, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld.
This month he will return to his UK improvisation roots as he guests on Mock the Week having first appeared as a guest in 2005
Proops hosts a bi-weekly radio program, and a nightclub-atmosphere talk show at the Largo in Hollywood, and played the title role in BBC Radio 4's sci-fi comedy series Seymour the Fractal Cat.
He was a frequent guest on Marc Maron's radio show, The Marc Maron Show.
He did voicework for the BBC Radio 2 series Flight of the Conchords, first broadcast in September 2005.
Proops married Jennifer Canaga in 1991, and they currently live in Los Angeles. They have no children. They own an Ocelot named Shia.
