Sandeep Parikh is an American writer, director, actor and producer of comedy currently residing in Silverlake in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his co-starring role as Zaboo on the award-winning web seriesThe Guild. He is the founder of Effinfunny.com, a comedy video site focusing on alternative stand up comedy and the creation of original web series like The Legend of Neil, which are currently available online.
Background
Parikh was born to Indian immigrants in Goffstown, New Hampshire, and raised there by his parents, and with two older brothers, Rajiv and Sanjiv. He was a gymnast since the age of 4 and competed nationally in all six male events until 18. Parikh went to Goffstown High School in New Hampshire and then went to Brown University where he received an A.B. in Computer Science with Honors in Creative Writing.
Career
Parikh began improvising and writing sketches for the short-lived comedy troupe The Village Idiots at Brown University. In 2001 he wrote and produced his first film, The Courier Dodge, which was a finalist at the Ivy Film Festival for Best Comedy. He was awarded the Capstone at Brown for writing the feature screenplay Chess Wesley. After graduating, he lived in Brooklyn, New York, and wrote plays, one of which was produced at the Lower Tenement Theatre in Manhattan. Unable to ignore the calls of Hollywood, he moved to Los Angeles in 2004 and wrote, directed, and produced an independent television pilot called The Good Guys. This landed him his agent at the William Morris Agency. In July 2006 he founded Effinfunny.com where he produced stand-up comedy shows in Los Angeles and edited the best bits into digestible clips for the Internet and created profiles for the comedians for promotional purposes. While in Los Angeles, he was roommates with Milana Vayntrub. Parikh plays the role of "Zaboo" in The Guild, an Internet sitcom about a group of online role-playing game members whose guild meets in real lifefor the first time after Zaboo turns up on the doorstep of fellow gamer "Codex," played by show's star and creator Felicia Day, whom he has tracked down to give her the blue roses he crafted for her. Parikh created, co-wrote, and directed The Legend of Neil about a real-world slacker who gets sucked into The Legend of Zelda and has to fight his way out with a wooden sword and no discernible skills. He wrote the 4-minute short as a web pilot for VH1's Acceptable.tv. The show was cancelled before the Legend of Neil was eligible to air but it won best Sci Fi Fantasy Web Pilot for the Acceptable.tv podcast. The show was then a YouTube sensation amassing over a quarter million hits. It was soon picked up by Comedy Central for 5 more webisodes that were released in July 2008 on Atom.com. A second season, commissioned by Comedy Central, was released by Atom.com in 2009. A third season followed, premiering in July 2010. He also co-wrote, directed, and acted in Raptor, which had a two-episode run on Channel101.com, in which he portrays a man who plays foosball against his co-worker Raymond, a velociraptor. Parikh co-wrote, directed, and starred as Tom Selleck in The Blood Oath of Three Men and a Baby which likewise had a two-episode run on Channel101. In 2009, Parikh appeared in an episode of Community. In the end credits scene of the season one episode "Debate 109," he appears as "Abed's Abed," playing Abed in one of his films and performing the Spanish rap from the end of "Spanish 101" with "Abed's Troy." In 2016, Parikh starred as a co-host in AWE me's web series Super Fan Builds. In 2020, he wrote an episode of Glitch Techs and voices Haneesh.
