Golden-voiced for comedy, Jon Benjamin all over TV

NEW YORK – Jon Benjamin has played an alcoholic gym teacher; a lazy, housebound son; a crime-fighting conjoined twin; a hyper-hedonistic secret agent; Charles Darwin; a sugar-addicted 7-year-old; the devil; Yoda and a talking can of vegetables.

Benjamin's ubiquity is partly due to his frequent medium of choice: animation. He's been in comedy for over 15 years, starting with the largely improvised Squigglevision-animated "Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist" in the late 1990s.

Known for his mock grandiose style, Benjamin rarely alters his delivery. Instead, he's a kind of comic Everyman, with an infinitely adaptable and reliably natural voice. Still, it isn't that sonic gift that defines him. It's his comic timing and talent for improvising, and his strict avoidance of anything disingenuous.

Such a stance hasn't meant a fast path to show biz success, but the 44-year-old Benjamin is nevertheless experiencing a high point. He's currently starring in two shows, Fox's "Bob's Burgers" and FX's "Archer," the bawdy James Bond parody that begins its second season Thursday (10 p.m. EST). Last year, he was nominated for an Emmy for his voice work on "Archer," and he's currently shooting "Jon Benjamin Has a Van," a live-action, 10-episode Comedy Central sketch show that will, for many, reveal the man behind the voice.

"It will be a huge disappointment," Benjamin, who is professionally credited as H. Jon Benjamin, says of the impending introduction.

It's typical self-deprecation for Benjamin, who grew up in Worcester, Mass., and briefly explored graduate school in Holocaust studies.

But he wanted a lighter pursuit and moved to Boston, where he lived with an old school friend, Sam Seder, now a comedian and political radio host. In school, the two watched David Letterman and had a radio show, only Benjamin wouldn't talk. In Boston, Benjamin made his entry into comedy by appearing with Seder as a standup duo. Benjamin, still silent, would sit behind him reading magazines.

Seder recalls the time as "a lot of drinking and not doing the dishes." The two were in David Cross' Boston comedy troupe, Cross Comedy, and have since remained close friends.

"He has probably walked away from and sabotaged as many opportunities as anyone without a drug problem," Seder says of Benjamin. "He's very specific about what he wants to do."

"Dr. Katz" was one of the few Boston-based shows at the time, and Benjamin auditioned for the role of Jonathan Katz's father — going up against Katz's actual father. Instead, a son character was created for him, and his improvised interplay with the more polished Katz (animation was added after the audio was recorded) became the show's most beloved aspect.

The two interacted more like a married couple, with Ben (Benjamin), in one episode cajoling Katz for a nonexistent drinking problem by calling him "Drinky the Drunk Guy." The six seasons of the show — which often left the laughing between the performers in the final cut — have risen to cult status.

Katz says Benjamin makes him laugh harder than just about anyone, and recalls one night when "a dangerous combination of miso soup and laughter" actually drove Katz to unconsciousness.

"Whatever direction you're headed in a scene, he will take it in a completely different direction," says Katz, who mixes his compliments of Benjamin with a joking insistence that Benjamin gave him his multiple sclerosis.