"Funniest Comedian MAULIK PANCHOLY vs JOHN PANKOW"

Maulik Navin Pancholy (/moʊliːk nɑːvɪn pænˈtʃoʊli/, born January 18, 1974) is an American actor and author who is best known for his roles as Jonathan on 30 Rock, Baljeet Tjinder in Phineas and Ferb, Neal in the first season of Whitney, and as Sanjay Patel in both Weeds and Sanjay and Craig. His debut novel, The Best at It (from Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins), is about a gay, Indian American boy coming into his own. Pancholy was born in Dayton, Ohio. He moved around while growing up, living in Ohio, Indiana, and Texas before his family settled in Tampa, Florida, where he attended junior high and high school at Berkeley Preparatory School. His family comes from Gujarat, and his grandparents lived in Ahmedabad. He is a 1991 graduate of the Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, and went on to major in Theatre at Northwestern University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1995. He then attended the Yale School of Drama, where he received his Master of Fine Arts in 2003. Pancholy played the character of Jonathan on the award-winning NBC series 30 Rock, Sanjay Patel on Showtime's Weeds and Nickelodeon's Sanjay & Craig, Neal on the first season of NBC's Whitney, and voiced the characters of Baljeet Tjinder on Disney's Phineas & Ferb. Additional television work includes guest roles on The Good Fight, The Good Wife, Elementary, Dynasty, Friends from College, Tracey Takes On..., The Sopranos, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and The Comeback. On February 13, 2017, StarTrek.com stated that Pancholy will play Nambue, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Shenzhou in the upcoming TV series Star Trek: Discovery. His character appeared in the pilot episode, "The Vulcan Hello", which aired on 24 September 2017, and streamed on CBS's online service in America and Netflix abroad.

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John Pankow (born April 28, 1954) is an American actor. He began his career on-stage in New York, in numerous Off-Broadway and Broadway plays including Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, John Patrick Shanley's Italian American Reconciliation, and Brian Friel's Aristocrats. After a starring role in William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A., he began appearing regularly in film and on television, playing Ira Buchman for all eight seasons of Mad About You and later Merc Lapidus on Episodes. Pankow was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Catholic family of German and Irish descent, the sixth of nine siblings. His elder brother is trombonist/composer James Pankow, a founding member of the rock group Chicago. Pankow grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, and attended Maine South High School and Northeastern Illinois University. He left the university in his junior year after he attended a performance of David Mamet's The American Buffalo at the St. Nicholas Theater. Inspired by the play, he enrolled in the theater's two-year theatrical training program in order to concentrate solely on acting. While visiting a friend in New York City, Pankow auditioned for, and won, a role in an episode of PBS' Great Performances entitled "Life on the Mississippi". He went on to perform in several Off-Broadway productions including Aristocrats, Italian American Reconciliation, and the New York Shakespeare Festival's The Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry VIII. He subsequently made it to Broadway with Serious Money, The Iceman Cometh, and as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus, replacing Tim Curry in the role and subsequently replacing him for a touring production.

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