Mitch Rouse
Mitch Rouse is an actor, born 1964.
The Second City turned out a lot of famous people in the early 1990s. Rouse is the one who helped build the shows they became famous on. Born in Knoxville in 1964, he co-created two of the strangest things basic cable ran in that decade, Exit 57 and Strangers with Candy, both made with Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris before any of the three were widely known. In 2008 he created and starred in Factory for Spike TV.
What appears in his credits is the acting, and the acting is deliberately small. He is Officer Savillion on Strangers with Candy, a series he co-created and then cast himself into the margins of. Elsewhere: a bee man in The Truth About Cats & Dogs, a bicycle mugger in The Heartbreak Kid, a fireman in Reno 911! and again in Reno 911! Defunded, Jimmy Riggs in Employee of the Month, Raymond in Friends with Money, Jim in Rudy, additional voices in Olive, the Other Reindeer.
That is a writer's acting career: turn up, land the beat, leave before anyone builds a subplot around you. It is worth knowing which half of the work a page like this is showing before drawing conclusions from the filmography, because the credits here record the smaller half.
Movies (11)
- The Heartbreak Kid (2007)
- Rudy (1993)
- The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996)
- Friends with Money (2006)
- Employee of the Month (2004)
- Employee of the Month (2004)
- Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
- Spy School (2008)
- Nobody Knows Anything! (2004)
- Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999)
- Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control (2008)
TV (5)
Where to start with Mitch Rouse
Whichever half of the career brought you here, Strangers with Candy answers it. He co-created the show and then turns up in it as Officer Savillion, so the writing and the performing arrive in the same sitting.
For the acting alone, Friends with Money is the best film on the list and gives him an actual character rather than a function. Rudy is the widest-seen, though the part is tiny.
The comedy bit parts are where the craft shows: The Truth About Cats & Dogs and Employee of the Month both hand him a single joke to construct and land. Reno 911! is the natural home for that skill, an improvised series where a fireman with two lines can still get a laugh, and it says something that the show called him back for the revival.