Matt Braunger
Matt Braunger is an actor, born 1974.
Stand-up is the actual career here, and most of what is on this page is the day job that funds the touring. Braunger is from Portland, Oregon, and his most recent special, Finally Live In Portland, came out through Comedy Dynamics in 2019.
The television break was joining MADtv for its final season across 2008 and 2009, which is a particular kind of luck: a national sketch showcase arriving exactly as it was being cancelled. What followed is one of the most familiar career shapes in American comedy, the recurring supporting part on network sitcoms that do not last. Gene in Up All Night, Dennis in The Michael J. Fox Show, Guy in Carol's Second Act. All of them decent, none of them around for long.
The credit people actually remember is Dr. Samberly in Marvel's Agent Carter, a small recurring part in a period spy series, played with exactly the flustered, over-explaining energy his stand-up runs on. Fans of that show are unreasonably fond of him in it, and it is the clearest evidence that the persona works better inside someone else's world than the sitcom roles suggest. He also does a lot of voice work and is a fixture of the American comedy podcast and panel-show circuit, which Harmontown and the late-night quiz format both document.
Movies (1)
TV (6)
Where to start with Matt Braunger
Start with Marvel's Agent Carter, the best show here by some distance and the one that gives him the most to do: a period spy series with a lightness the rest of that studio's television never found, and Braunger's Dr. Samberly as reliable comic relief inside it.
Harmontown is the real recommendation if you want him rather than a character. It is a documentary about a comedy podcast and a fairly unflattering portrait of the scene he works in, and it shows what these people are like offstage.
After that the sitcoms, in descending order of usefulness: Up All Night has the strongest cast, The Michael J. Fox Show the strongest premise, Carol's Second Act the least of either. @midnight with Chris Hardwick is worth an episode as a time capsule of 2010s comedy panel television, and Carpoolers is the early bit part.