Joe Lo Truglio

Joe Lo Truglio grew up bouncing between Ozone Park in Queens and sunny Margate, Florida, with a fishing pole in one hand and a stack of Mad magazines in the other. His mom, Helen, and dad, Joseph, handed down some serious Italian-Irish energy, which probably explains his knack for weird humor and fast-talking banter. As a kid, he was the type who’d be running around with a Super 8 camera, roping friends into ridiculous homemade horror flicks, or doodling comics when he should’ve been doing homework. High school? He was a Coconut Creek grad, class of ’88, and a theater geek to the core—won “Critic’s Choice” for a screwball scene straight outta "Say Goodnight, Gracie" with his buddy Russell. Then it was off to NYU Film, where he fell in with the crew who’d become “The State”—seriously, that sketch group was legendary if you were around in the MTV days. College wasn’t just about film theory and indie cred; there were wild, midnight stencil missions powered by too much Jagger. The State had a good run before network TV reality hit hard and the group scattered. Joe stuck it out in Hell’s Kitchen, hustling gigs in commercials, video games, whatever paid the bills, nursing beers at the local bar, and swapping trash talk about LA (which, yeah, he ended up moving to anyway). Early 2000s, indie flicks like "Wet Hot American Summer" and "The Station Agent" started rolling in, and suddenly it felt like he was back to his roots—minus the Super 8, plus a few matinées and bike rides. These days he’s all about mixing it up: writing, producing, bouncing between big studio sets and indie projects. One thing hasn’t changed—Guinness and Jameson still his go-to comedy duo.