Mark Little

Little's introduction to comedy came through the Canadian Improv Games, the national high school improv competition that has served as a gateway to professional careers for Canadian comedians since its founding in 1977. His participation in the Games during high school in British Columbia provided his first formal improvisational training, and the experience directed him toward comedy performance as a vocation.

After high school, Little performed improv in Vancouver for approximately five years, developing his skills in the city's comedy community. At twenty-one, he worked as a counselor at an improv camp, where he met Kyle Dooley. The two would become creative partners and co-founders of Picnicface.

In 2005, Little moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to pursue a Master's degree in English at Dalhousie University while simultaneously building his comedy career. He and Dooley began performing improv together at Halifax venues including King's and The Speakeasy. They co-founded Picnicface, which expanded into an eight-member sketch comedy troupe with Andrew Bush, Cheryl Hann, Brian MacQuarrie, Evany Rosen, Scott Vrooman, and Bill Wood. During this period Little also served as Humour Editor for The Peak, Simon Fraser University's student newspaper.

Picnicface achieved viral success through comedy sketches posted on Funny or Die and YouTube. Their video "Powerthirst," a parody energy drink commercial, accumulated over twenty-six million views, and Will Ferrell's promotion of their content through Funny or Die significantly amplified the troupe's visibility. Their combined online sketch catalog surpassed one hundred million views. The troupe's self-titled television series aired on The Comedy Network in 2011, and they produced the cult feature film Roller Town the same year. Picnicface won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Sketch Troupe in 2011.

Little's solo stand-up career accelerated in parallel with Picnicface's success. He was voted Best Comedian by Halifax's The Coast for four consecutive years beginning in 2006. In 2009, he won the Yuk Yuk's Great Canadian Laugh Off, defeating sixty-three competitors nationwide for a twenty-five thousand dollar prize, and the Just for Laughs Homegrown Contest in Montreal the same year. These dual victories established him as one of the most promising stand-up performers in Canadian comedy.

In 2012, Little joined the cast of the CBC sitcom Mr. D, playing Simon Hunt, the hapless science teacher at Xavier Academy alongside Gerry Dee. The series ran for eight seasons through 2018, spanning more than seventy episodes and making Little a recognizable face in Canadian television comedy. Variety named him one of 10 Comics to Watch in 2013, bringing international attention to his work.

Little created, wrote, and voiced the adult animated series Gary and His Demons, which ran from 2018 to 2023. He received a Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2019 for the series, which followed a burned-out demon slayer. Additional voice acting credits include Dino in Netflix's Cupcake and Dino: General Services and Dave in Transformers: BotBots. His other screen work includes the feature film Room for Rent, for which he won the 2019 Canadian Comedy Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film.

Throughout his career, Little has been a regular performer at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, the Halifax Comedy Festival, and San Francisco Sketchfest. He has performed at UCB and the Gotham Comedy Club in New York, and appeared on CBC Radio's The Debaters. His cumulative recognition includes fifteen Canadian Comedy Awards across categories including stand-up, sketch, and film performance.