Edward Harry Deezen (originally "Dezen"; born March 6, 1957 in Cumberland, Maryland) is an American actor, voice-over artist, writer, and comedian. He was a class clown in school, and as an adult originally had aspirations of becoming a stand-up comic, moving across the country to Hollywood within days of graduating from high school. He performed several times at The Comedy Store before abandoning stand-up to concentrate on acting. His last appearance as a stand-up comedian was on The Gong Show, where he was gonged by singer-songwriter Paul Williams.
Since then, Deezen has made a living out of playing the quintessential Stereotypical Nerd, starting with his first major role as Eugene in Grease. From that beginning, he went on to play nerds, geeks, and spazzes in such films as Laserblast, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, 1941, Midnight Madness, Grease 2, Zapped!, and WarGames. He also had larger roles (and occasionally starring roles) in a number of independent cult films, including Surf II: The End of the Trilogy, Mob Boss, Beverly Hills Vamp, Teenage Exorcist, and, of course, I Love You, Eddie Deezen, in which he not only got to play himself – he got to play himself as a romantic lead.
Deezen's high-pitched, nasally voice is easily recognized (he claims that his inability to memorize scripts fast enough has made performing with one in front of him more convenient). He has voiced Mandark (and his sister) from Dexter's Laboratory, Snipes the Magpie in Rock-A-Doodle, Ned in Kim Possible, Lenny the Know-It-All in The Polar Express, Gibby Norton in What's New, Scooby-Doo?, and The Guy Boarded Up In The Wall on The Weird Al Show.
Eddie Deezen is also One of Us. In addition to being the world's biggest fan of The Beatles (a claim he has successfully defended several times – hell, he even played an obsessed fanboy in I Wanna Hold Your Hand) he is a pop-culture expert of monumental proportions. Since 2011, he has been a contributing writer for mental floss
, TodayIFoundOut.com and Neatorama.com, focusing on The Beatles as well as American history, baseball, and classic comedy acts such as Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, and Martin and Lewis.
Eddie Deezen has a surprisingly open and casual relationship with his fans over social media networks like Facebook and Cameo.
