Who is Jake Hurwitz? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Jacob Penn Cooper Jake Hurwitz

Age: 39 Years, 39 Year Old Males

Family:

father: Samuel Hurwitz

mother: Laura Hurwitz

siblings: Eliza Hurwitz, Hannah Hurwitz, Micah Hurwitz, Rachael Hurwitz, Sarah Hurwitz

Actors Comedians

Height: 6'0" (183 cm), 6'0" Males

Notable Alumni: Hunter College, The New School

U.S. State: Connecticut

More Facts

education: Hunter College, The New School

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Childhood & Early Life

Jake Hurwitz was born Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz on August 5, 1985 to Samuel and Laura Hurwitz in Spring Glen, Connecticut, USA. He has a Jewish father and Christian mother. As per his father’s wish, he attended Hebrew school and went through the Jewish custom of Bar Mitzvah. However, as a family they also celebrated Christmas and Easter and follow Christianity.

He grew up in a large family with one brother and four sisters. Jake went on to attend Hunter College and pursue research studies at New School University in New York City. While in college, he wrote a column for the comedy website CollegeHumor and became an intern with the company.

His column was very popular in college and as a youngster he wanted to become a comedy sitcom writer. However, destiny had other plans for him.

His first stage performance was in the annual function of his sixth grade. He suffered from stage fright in the beginning, but gradually got over it and started enjoying the response he got from fans.

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Career

From being an intern, Jake became a full-time employee of CollegeHumor. In 2009, he was cast for the sitcom, ‘The CollegeHumor Show’ which featured videos from its website. However, the show got negative reviews as it lacked originality. This did not deter him from pursuing a career in comedy.

Things changed for the better when Jake met Amir Blumenfeld at CollegeHumor in 2006 and they became good friends. Both had an extraordinary sense of humour and teamed up to form a comedy duo. Jake received a digital camera for his birthday and Jake and Amir started making videos and posting them on the net. Their very first video, ‘Quick Characters’ was a great success and kick-started their career in a positive direction.

Soon after their initial success, the two friends started their own series ‘Jake and Amir’ and posted on the website, jakeandamir.com. The series had Jake as a normal guy and Amir as his obsessive co-worker who kept getting into trouble. The duo made over 500 episodes in which their humour complements each other perfectly. So much so that it was adopted by CollegeHumor and released on the net as one of their prime shows.

As the serial gained popularity it featured guest artists like Ben Schwartz, Allison Williams, Hoodie Allen and Rick Fox. In 2008, PC Magazine listed ‘Jake and Amir’ among the ‘Top 100 Undiscovered Websites’ and by 2011 they were listed as the ‘15th Best Web-Only Show’ by the magazine.

The first time Jake was hired to do a non CollegeHumor show was when he was selected to host the second season of BFF, ‘A Game Show’ produced for Myspace. The show was a deviation from his usual humour as it followed the format of a dating game. Hurwitz still managed to pack in a lot of his wit into his script to leave an impression. He also wrote the script for and acted in the serial ‘Hardly working’ which ran from 2007 to 2015.

‘Jake and Amir: Fired’ was a 30 minute episode released by CollegeHumor in October 2012. The episode was the company’s first non internet content, sold on DVD that made handsome profits. The duo were well-known by now and started putting up live performances in New York, Toronto and London in order to reach out to fans. They even gave a lecture at the International Student Film Festival in Tel Aviv in June 2012 where they had the audience in splits.

By 2013, ‘Jake and Amir’ was adapted into a television comedy series on the TBS network. Besides acting in the series, Jake was the script writer and executive producer of the show. The duo also appeared together on the MTV show, ‘Money from Strangers’ which ran for two seasons.

After the success of ‘Jake and Amir’, the duo expanded their domain and started a comedy audio podcast titled ‘If I Were You’ in which the two friends take on questions on varied subjects from listeners and give advice on the show. As the show gained momentum, they invited several guest artists to add value to the show along with their humour.

As an individual, Jake Hurwitz is active on social media and has a large following of fans.

As of June 2017, his net worth is estimated to be over $500,000.

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Awards & Achievements

The website ‘JakeandAmir.com’ was awarded the ‘People’s Voice Award’ for ‘Comedy: Long Form or Series’ at the 14th Webby Awards ceremony in 2010.

His most popular online video show is ‘Jake and Amir’ which ran from 2007 to 2015. His other online videos are ‘Hardly Working’ (2007 – 2015), ‘CollegeHumor Originals’ (2010 – 2015) and ‘Lonely and Horny’ (2016).

Personal Life

Jake Hurwitz was in a relationship with film producer, Bee Shaffer from 2010 to 2012. He met her when her mother, the famous fashion journalist Anna Wintour, became CollegeHumor co-founder, Ricky Van Veen’s assistant. They appeared together at the Webby Awards ceremony in 2010 and moved together to Los Angeles in 2011 but broke up a year later.

Trivia

The television series ‘Arrested Development’ and comedian Mitch Hedberg had a major influence on the comedy style of Jake Hurwitz.

Jake loves wearing t-shirts and his favourite food is Macaroni and Cheese. He also loves medium size dogs.

Jake Hurwitz Biography