About Brian Balthazar

Pop Culture Expert Brian Balthazar is a writer, tv commentator, host and comic in New York City, not to mention editor of POP GOES THE WEEK. He’s developed several television shows for cable, and launched the fourth hour of the Today Show with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. He began his tv career behind the scenes as an producer, then a comic, then a reporter, then an audience warmup comic, now he does all of those things at the same time. He drinks a lot of Coke Zero.

He has recently been seen as a comic and panelist on “The Wendy Williams Show,” “Showbiz Tonight” ”The Today Show” on NBC, ‘The Joy Behar Show” and “The Early Show” on CBS.  He is a source for Hollywood Scoop and analysis on “The Wendy Williams Show,” MSNBC (The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and others) and as a talking head on POP Culture programs, including “Oxygen’s 25iest,” and “Whatever! with Alexis and Jennifer” on Sirius Satellite Radio. He’s currently appearing on a series of specials for TV Guide Network.

His perspective on style and fashion in popular culture is soon to be featured in a series of short documentaries for Biography.

Balthazar has also been an emcee for many notable events and sponsors, and served as a judge for the Miss Teen Georgia USA pageant.

Above: Brian in various stages of hair length and color. Each of them completely natural.

Brian has provided analysis, interviews and helped co-host the Tony Awards backstage show. That’s him on the left. He also followed all the backstage madness at the launch of Fashion Week in New York City while co-hosting the Red Dress Event.

Balthazar served as a guest-in-residence during the Tony Awards live backstage coverage for CBS and TonyAwards.com, and also as a roving reporter for the Dr. Oz show. Earlier in his career he was a features reporter and contributor on NBC, MSNBC, United Airlines In-Flight Entertainment and more.

Below is a shot of him on the big screen during a taped spot announcing the judges at an American Idol Press conference.  If you promise not to tell anyone, he’ll admit he might have peed his pants just a little when he saw the shot come up.

Brian also appeared in an A&E Biography about Jim Carrey. He also provided play by play of some of film’s greatest car chases for a documentary about, well, car chases. He also talks all things celebrities and television in a series of specials on the TV Guide Network.

Brian occasionally contributes to NBC’s New York NonStop, where his commentary about the SkyMall catalog got the attention of the SkyMall people. They’re not mad.

As a standup comic, he has performed at all the iconic NYC comedy landmarks, such as Comix, Carolines, Gotham Comedy Club, The Laugh Factory and more. He’s also appeared as the studio host and warmup comic for several cable shows, such as “Fashionably Late with Stacy London” on TLC, “Man and Wife with Fatman Scoop” on MTV, and “Comedy Central Presents Russell Brand” on, well, Comedy Central.

Before ‘finding himself’ professionally, Brian was a singer on a ship, a publicist for a trance medium, an insurance customer service rep, waiter, bartender, activities director, substitute teacher, website programmer, pianist at a camp for spoiled children, and college mascot. None of them worked out. Let’s hope this does.

To contact Brian, email BrianBalthazar@aol.com.

To check out his video clips from NBC, HLN, and MSNBC, click HERE…

And – become his friend on facebook! www.facebook.com/brianbalthazar

For a more extensive listing of his TV appearances visit his IMDB page.

And he’s apparently getting better about Twitter. So he says. He’s @BrianBalthazar.

Thanks for reading POP GOES THE WEEK!

For his TV Appearances, Click on the TV APPEARANCES page.