Jake Plunkett, the director behind some of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s most iconic sketches, has landed his first commercialmaking home, joining the roster of bicoastal Good Company. The New Jersey native has spent the past six years at The Late Show, mostly losing Emmys to John Oliver, except for the one fluke year where he actually won.
Plunkett’s backstory makes no sense and makes perfect sense. He was working as a dancing waiter at a Jimmy Buffet-themed restaurant in Wayne, NJ when he had an epiphany that his true calling was not shimmying his way towards customers with the burger-of-the-day, but rather on a TV set. Plunkett cold-called MTV and asked if they were hiring. Fatefully, they offered him a position as an executive assistant. There he got the opportunity to hone his craft and learn the ropes, eventually working his way up to development executive where he stayed for five years.
After MTV, came a very short gig at a sports comedy show with Regis Philbin. It was among the lowest rated shows of the year. After allowing himself a 10-minute pity party, Plunkett decided to manifest himself a job at 30 Rock, where he worked around-the-clock at Saturday Night Live for two years. Both his burning ambition to be a director and his wife’s aggressive divorce threats redirected him to direct for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and for Robert Smigel’s Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Hulu special.
After his long-term relationship with a rubber rottweiler puppet was over, Plunkett landed at The Late Show where he’s directed and produced all of their major pre-taped sketches for the past six years. “Watching Colbert examine Paul Rudd’s hind legs to determine if he was best in show was the moment I knew Jake could tell a story in thirty seconds,” said Good Co EP Raquel Balsam referring to his “Sexiest Man Alive” sketch. “I immediately connected with Jake and we started to strategize about him jumping into our side of storytelling.”
Shortly thereafter, Plunkett found himself on set with a bunch of raccoons attempting to get them to recycle for Mentos new paperboard gum bottles via agency Highdive. “I’m thrilled to be starting my journey in this advertising space with Good Company,” commented Plunkett. “The massive range of work that Good Co produces at such a high level, as well as the range of services their in-house studio offers really appeals to me as a budding filmmaker. I look forward to the day I get to work with real life human actors, although for now the raccoons are taking my direction quite nicely. Well, except for Daisy.”
