Paul Dinello

In 2017, he co-created the craft-oriented comedy At Home with Amy Sedaris.

In 2015, alongside with the rest of The Colbert Report crew, he moved to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert working as a writer and supervising producer. He sometimes appears on camera helping Colbert with some of the show's segments or on the cold open sketches.

Dinello met his wife, photographer Danielle St. Laurent, while working on the artwork for the book Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. They got married in 2011. The ceremony was officiated by his long-time friend Stephen Colbert, for whom he had served as best man. The couple has two sons. Sedaris is their godmother.

With Sedaris, Dinello co-wrote Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People, published in 2010. He can be seen with Sedaris in the "Mummified Hand" episode of the Science Channel show Oddities.

Since 2005 until the show's end in 2014, Dinello worked as a writer and supervising producer for The Colbert Report. He made some appearances as Tad, the building manager. The character often is berated by Colbert, who forces him to do dangerous things.

In 2003, Dinello co-wrote the novel Wigfield with Sedaris and Colbert, which they promoted by creating a traveling play.

Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Dinello reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Dinello directed and produced the film as well as co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Colbert.

A few years later, Dinello worked again with Sedaris and Colbert to develop Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998.

When he and Sedaris were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left The Second City and moved to New York to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57. The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted for only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.

Dinello graduated from Oak Park River Forest High School and later attended DePaul University where he graduated from its College of Communications in 1985. He is also an alumnus of Chicago-based The Second City, Improv Institute, and Annoyance Theatre.

In the late 1980s, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company. It was there where he met Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first – Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug" – but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.

Paul E. Dinello (born November 28, 1962) is an American comedian. He portrayed Geoffrey Jellineck on Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy, and later became a writer and supervising producer for The Colbert Report and then The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.