Self-professed nerd and heavy metal addict, comedian, writer, and actor Brian Posehn became a cult favorite courtesy of the HBO series Mr. Show. Posehn had been a longtime friend of David Cross and the two had worked together in the stage show Three Goofballs, which eventually morphed into Mr. Show. Posehn wrote and made appearances on the series, which led to a regular gig on NBC's Just Shoot Me, where he played mailroom clerk Kevin Liotta, Ray Liotta's fictional cousin. After doing voice work on the animated series Mission Hill and 3 South, he became a frequent contributor to The Cartoon Network's various Adult Swim projects, including voicing the grumpy midget Gibbons on Tom Goes to the Mayor. In 2005 he appeared in Rob Zombie's film The Devil's Rejects and toured with Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, and Maria Bamford for the Comedians of Comedy tour, which the Comedy Central network documented in a series of the same name.

Although most would have expected his first standup album to land on Comedy Central's record label, his debut, Live In: Nerd Rage, appeared on the edgy heavy metal label Relapse. The 2006 release featured Posehn's standup act and tracks from his metal bands Posehn and Titannica, which featured friends from Anthrax, the Cult, Armored Saint, and Shadows Fall. Playing Brian Spukowski on The Sarah Silverman Show kept him busy and delayed the coming of his second effort, Fart and Wiener Jokes, until 2010. With tracks like "Quitting Weed" and "Do Not Punch My Baby," his 2013 effort, The Fartist, focused on his new role as a father. In September 2016, Posehn released his fourth comedy album, Criminally Posehn; the same year, Posehn expanded his profile with a recurring role on the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory, playing an amiably bummed-out geologist, Bert Kibbler. In March 2017, Posehn was already back with his next album on the Comedy Dynamics label, 25 x 2. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi