Accidentally embarking on a career in stand-up comedy in Baltimore in 1985, Blaine Capatch beat his head against the rock of show bidness by slugging it out in dank one-nighters, Howard Johnsons lounges, and airport snack bars for nearly a decade, filling in the empty spots with weeks at comedy clubs up and down the eastern seaboard. Since modern stand-up comedy virtually died in his arms, he eventually threw up his hands and relocated to San Francisco, the acknowledged hub of real comedy.

San Francisco was more of the same, but the scene embraced the offbeat and oddballs, so he could relax and evolve. Performing exclusively in the Bay Area for three years, occasionally venturing to Los Angeles for various projects (Food for Thought, Mission to Mars, written with cohort Patton Oswalt for Comedy Central, among others) and to sell his soul for rent money by appearing on virtually every stand-up comedy show that would have him. Apparently, he did something right (or wrong), because Blaine soon moved permanently to Los Angeles, where he and Patton wrote the pilot and first season of Fox's Mad TV, a late-night comedy sketch show based on the magazine that taught Blaine how to be sarcastic.