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32 years ago Paula Poundstone climbed on a Greyhound bus and traveled across the country -- stopping in at open mic nights at comedy clubs as she went. A high school drop-out, she went on to become one of the great humorists of our time. You can hear her through your laughter as a regular panelist on NPR’s popular rascal of a weekly news quiz show, Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. She tours regularly, performing standup comedy across the country, causing Bob Zany with the Boston Globe to write: “Poundstone can regale an audience for several hours with her distinctive brand of wry, intelligent and witty comedy.” Audience members may put it a little less elegantly: “I peed my pants.”
Beginning in 1997, Paula voiced the character of Judge Stone on the acclaimed ABC-TV Saturday morning animated series Science Court (a.k.a. Squigglevision) for three years. In 1999 (the premiere season) she added to her repertoire the voice of the Mom, ‘Paula’ in what is still considered a renowned cult show, Home Movies (UPN and The Cartoon Network). Paula guest starred on the CBS series Cybill, which led to a recurring role during the show’s final season, and also appeared on PBS favorites such as Sesame Street andStorytime. She won a local Emmy Award for her field pieces on the erudite “Life & Times” for PBS station KCET. She appeared on several network television specials including A Salute to The President from Fords Theatre on ABC when President Clinton was in office, and performed on every Comic Relief Special on HBO. These specials were heralded for the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for the homeless and the lineup of stars. Paula has also enjoyed success as a Host of many events, including the Art Directors Guild Awards, an unprecedented 4 times.
Logically Paula is almost always included in any compendium – be it film, television or print, noting comedic influences of the 20th/21st century. They include Why We Laugh Too: Women of Comedy (Lions Gate feature-length documentary, Showtime, 2013); We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy (Sarah Crichton Books, 2012.) One of Paula’s quotes is even included in a new beautifully illustrated coffee table book on cats alongside quotes by notable authors and artists including W. H. Auden, Mark Twain, and Henry David Thoreau (Chronicle Books, 2015).
Paula’s other writing credits include the back page column for Mother Jones from 1995-1998, the “Sunday Calendar” section for the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Glamour magazine. In 2006 Paula authored a series of three math books with her high school Math teacher, Faye Ruopp: The Sticky Problem of Parallelogram Pancakes: And Other Skill-Building Math Activities, Grades 4-5; Venn Can We Be Friends?: And Other Skill-Building Math Activities, Grades 6-7; You Can't Keep Slope Down: And Other Skill-Building Math Activities, Grades 8-9. These are all available thru Amazon.
