You probably didn't notice Kal Penn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He appeared as a guest star - basically an unknown one, at the time - in the fourth season episode Beer Bad. That's the one where Buffy takes to drinking beer just a little too fondly, only to turn into a cave-woman version of herself - and her fellow bar patrons cavemen - when a warlock spikes their brew of choice. That wasn't Penn's only tour of duty in the Buffyverse. He also turned up on Angel, in the 2001 episode That Vision Thing, playing a mystic keeping a rather icky secret under his hat (his exposed brain). Since then, of course, Penn turned up in Van Wilder as Taj (which resulted in him taking a starring role in its sequel, subtitled The Rise of Taj), House, and, of course, was Kumar in the Harold and Kumar trilogy. That would be a pretty solid career to date even if you chose to overlook the fact that for a time, Penn quit acting to join the Obama administration as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. After leaving that role, he was later appointed (in 2013) to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Not bad for a guy who started out playing drunks and stoners.
Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.
