Godfrey (comedian)

Godfrey C. Danchimah Jr. (born July 21, 1969), known mononymously as Godfrey, is an American comedian and actor who has appeared on BET, VH1, Comedy Central, and feature films, such as Soul Plane, Original Gangstas, Zoolander, and Johnson Family Vacation. He was also a spokesperson for 7 Up during their "7up yours" advertising campaign, and a cast member on the first season of The It Factor, a reality television series.

He is also known for performing the voices of Mr. Stubborn and Mr. Tall (season 2) in The Mr. Men Show, and hosting the FOX game show Bullseye. Danchimah also hosted his own radio show on SiriusXM until he parted ways with the show in July 2019. He has hosted the podcast In Godfrey We Trust on the Gas Digital Network since 2018.

Biography

Godfrey was born to Nigerian parents of Igbo descent. They immigrated to the US to escape the Nigerian Civil War. Godfrey is a nephew of Nigerian musician Sonny Okosun.

Godfrey was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on July 21, 1969. Soon after, the family settled in Chicago where Godfrey grew up. He attended Lane Technical College Preparatory High School and received an academic scholarship to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he majored in psychology.[citation needed]

At the University of Illinois, he made the varsity football team and performed at a traditional talent show for new team members.[citation needed]

Career

Godfrey honed his stand-up skills at the All Jokes Aside comedy club in Chicago in the early 1990s. In 1995, Godfrey made his New York debut at Carolines on Broadway and the Comic Strip Live and was soon signed by the William Morris Talent Agency. He began working regularly in television, first behind the cameras as a warm-up comedian for Cosby and Soul Man. His first on-camera appearance featured him performing stand-up comedy for NBC's Friday Night Videos, followed by more small television and film roles. In 2000, Godfrey appeared in the Aspen Comedy Festival and on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. He also played a comical role in the movie Soul Plane, acting as an African pilot. He has also been in numerous episodes of BET's Comic View.

A self-styled karate master, he continues to do film and television work alongside his stand-up career in New York. His first one-hour special, "Godfrey: Black by Accident" was shot for Comedy Central on January 22, 2011, at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City to a standing room only audience.

As a guest of Mike Ward's show called "F*ck les variétés", part of the Just for Laughs 2012 festival of Montreal, his performance was highly acclaimed. In the following year, he had his own solo show called "The Godfrey Complex" in the same festival for a whole week.

His second one-hour special, "Godfrey: Regular Black" was filmed for Showtime in Chicago, his home town, on August 12, 2016.

Filmography and discography

Stand-up comedy releases

Film

Television

Documentaries

See also

• List of Igbo people

External links

• on Instagram
• at IMDb
• September 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine