Andrew Bachelor

Comedian and writer/director Andrew Bachelor enjoyed a devoted audience via the Vine platform with a string of high-energy short comedy videos, which in turn, led to acting roles in films and on television. Born in Toronto, Canada, Bachelor was raised in West Palm Beach, Florida by his parents, who hailed from Jamaica. He earned his degree in business management from Florida State University in 2010, where he also enjoyed consistent high ranking among the NCAA's high jump athletes. While there, he also participated in school comedy and acting troupes, and after a two-year stint in the masters program at the New York Film Academy, Bachelor decided to pursue comedy and production as a career in Los Angeles. There, he trained with the famed improvisational troupe the Groundlings and launched BachelorsPadTV, a revised version of a YouTube channel he had created in college to showcase his sketch comedy productions. The skits, which included parodies of films like "Django Unchained" (2012), attracted a sizable viewership, but production costs forced Bachelor to seek a more cost-effective platform for his comedy. He was introduced to Vine, a mobile app owned by Twitter that allows users to post brief clips for sharing on Facebook or Twitter. Bachelor posted his first video in 2013 and soon earned a following of more than 1.9 million viewers on the strength of such characters as his hyperactive, self-impressed Vine namesake, King Bach, and other broadly comic figures. The popularity of his videos led to acting opportunities on series like "House of Lies" (Showtime, 2012-2016) and Aaron ("The Boondocks," Adult Swim, 2005-2014) McGruder's "Black Jesus" (Adult Swim, 2014-15), as well as hosting duties on a reboot of "Punk'd" (BET, 2015-) and a recurring role on the Hulu comedy "Resident Advisors" (2015). That same year, Bachelor made his feature acting debut opposite Zac Efron in "We Are Your Friends" (2015) and soon added featured roles in comedies like "Fifty Shades of Black" (2016) and "Meet the Blacks" (2016). He was subsequently announced as the star of a Fox comedy series based on one of his popular Vine videos and produced by comedy team Key and Peele.