America’s Got Talent

“Doogie Horner: America’s heart-warmer-in-chief?” —Time magazine

I was a semi-finalist on season five of America’s Got Talent. Within the first thirty seconds of my audition, half the audience—1500 of the 3000 people in the Hammerstein Ballroom—started booing me. It was obvious I wasn’t going to advance, so I stopped my act and told the crowd, “You’re terrible people.” That really made them angry, and suddenly the entire crowd was on their feet, booing and making X signs with their arms, encouraging the judges to vote me off. I had been waiting to perform for over six hours, so I was in no mood for it. I yelled back at them, threatening to “squash them like bugs” (I still don’t know why I said that, I was free associating on a wave of adrenaline at that point) and demanding a “list of all their names.” And then, surprisingly, a few people stopped booing and started cheering! I realized I still had a chance, so I started yelling my jokes—the only way to be heard over the wild audience—and by the end of my set the crowd was laughing and cheering (aside from a few scattered die hards still chanting for my blood).

I ended up advancing much further than I would have expected, performing four rounds on the show and making it into the semi-finals, where I was defeated by an old Dutch man playing a harmonica.

Click photos to enlarge.

a delicate man

My first comedy album, recorded at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia in 2016, was an AV Club Staff Pick.

“Dry and a little deadpan, with just enough salt and weirdness sprinkled in.” —the AV Club

"Horner's delivery has a formal yet sing-song cadence to it that fits nicely into the way he delivers crafty one-liners with nerd-like precision." —Jason Heidemann, Chicago Tribune

Comedy bio:

Doogie Horner was a semi-finalist on America's Got Talent, where he won over a raucous NYC crowd. He’s performed on Dave Chapelle's Oddball Comedy Tour and is a frequent guest on Doug Loves Movies. He is the author of the holiday classic A Die Hard Christmas and has written for Wired, McSweeney’s, and Fast Company. His comedy album A Delicate Man was an AV Club Staff Pick.

"Horner's delivery has a formal yet sing-song cadence to it that fits nicely into the way he delivers crafty one-liners with nerd-like precision." —Jason Heidemann, Chicago Tribune

Photo credits: Mindy Tucker, Jonathan Pushnik, Marissa Both, and Michael Reali