[1] He has released several successful comedy specials, including Mr. Universe, Obsessed, Cinco, and Quality Time, all of which have received Grammy nominations.

[5] Gaffigan was raised in Chesterton in Northwest Indiana, a region that he has stated influenced his comedy because of its authenticity,[6] and often jokes about growing up in a large family.

[7] His mother was accomplished at needlework and received a national award for original design and craftsmanship from the American Needlepoint Guild in 1985.

[10] Gaffigan's father was the first in his family to attend college,[11] and encouraged his children to seek careers that promised job security.

[19] His career began in earnest when a friend from his acting class dared him to take a stand-up seminar that required a live set at the end.

[7][13] He fell in love with stand-up,[7] and began playing comedy clubs nightly—after his evening acting classes—until the early hours of the morning.

[13] In an interview with the Duluth News-Tribune, he explained that he began developing the voice as a teenager, when he disarmed people by talking for them in their presence.

[25] He has now largely removed profanity from his routine, as he feels his subject matter doesn't lend itself to cursing and that it reduced the effort he put into crafting his jokes.

In a March 2009 interview on Anytime with Bob Kushell, Gaffigan defended his naming of the tour, stating that he thought it would be funny that parents would be unsure about whether to bring their teenage children to the show.

's Live at the Beacon Theater, the stand-up would be available online through his website for $5, with 20% of the total proceeds going to the Bob Woodruff Foundation,[31] an organization that provides support to military veterans.

[36] Gaffigan performed at the 2013 Stand Up for Heroes charity event benefitting the Bob Woodruff Foundation alongside fellow stand-up comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and Jon Stewart.

Gaffigan credits David Letterman and Bill Murray as influences, and asserted that Richard Pryor was the greatest stand-up comedian ever.

[41] On the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee featuring Gaffigan, he admitted that the show's host Jerry Seinfeld was a big influence for him.

Gaffigan is widely noted as an everyman and a clean comic;[12][42] some of his signature routines regard Hot Pockets,[42][43] cake, and bacon.

[25] Hampton Stevens in The Atlantic wrote that Gaffigan "champions a vital element to standup that [Lenny] Bruce had taken away—the indispensable, but apparently forgotten idea that comedians have no obligation to be provocative, topical, socially conscious, or anything else but funny.

[47] After his first appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1999, Gaffigan was tapped by the host to develop a sitcom called Welcome to New York in which he also co-starred alongside Christine Baranski.

He appeared on That '70s Show, and was a regular cast member of the TBS original sitcom My Boys, which he left at the end of its third season.

[citation needed] Gaffigan appeared on Broadway in That Championship Season, which opened in March 2011, opposite Brian Cox, Chris Noth, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jason Patric.

[13] Gaffigan starred in Shia LaBeouf's 2013 short film Howard Cantour.com, the content of which was later revealed to be mostly plagiarized from Daniel Clowes's 2007 graphic novella Justin M.

CBS agreed to shoot a pilot of their show in March 2013, with casting by Marc Hirschfeld,[54] and Mira Sorvino playing his wife;[12] but ultimately passed on the project.

[55] When the cable network TV Land began efforts to broadcast original material and attract younger audiences, it offered the Gaffigans complete creative control.

The result was The Jim Gaffigan Show, a sitcom about a couple raising their five kids in a two-bedroom New York City apartment.

In 2018, he portrayed Paul Markham in the biographical drama Chappaquiddick, starring Jason Clarke and Kate Mara, to positive reviews.

[68] In 2024, Gaffigan began appearing on Saturday Night Live to portray Democratic nominee for vice president Tim Walz.

[76] In 2013, Gaffigan released Dad Is Fat, a title derived from the first complete sentence his eldest son wrote on a dry-erase board at the age of four or five.

[77] In support of the volume, he appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition, ABC's The View, and MSNBC's Morning Joe, spoke at BEA in New York, embarked on a nine-stop bus tour that ended on Father's Day.

[81] Lou Harry of the Indianapolis Business Journal said that while "no new ground is broken in Jim Gaffigan's book...'Dad is Fat' should be a fun intermezzo in your summer reading pile.

"[82] Regarding the audiobook, which Gaffigan read, Audiofile said his "performance strikes the right balance between his near-deadpan comedy delivery and the energy needed to keep a beleaguered parent engaged".

[88] Of the accompanying audiobook, the Library Journal said, "The witty commentary is peppered with jokes and funny stories that will have listeners smiling throughout and occasionally laughing out loud.

Once they married, she left behind her work with her youth theater project (Shakespeare on the Playground) to devote herself to raising their expanding brood, and after a joke she wrote drew big laughs at a show, she and Jim began to collaborate more.