Zac Oyama

Oyama was born in Birmingham, Alabama. His father, Yasuhiko Oyama, is Japanese and co-founded the World Oyama Karate Organization. Oyama attended the University of Alabama, where he studied theatre, before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue entertainment.

His professional break came through an internship on the 2012 film Wanderlust starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, on which he met Jordan Peele. When Key and Peele was greenlit, Oyama was hired as a production assistant and progressed through the production ranks over several seasons, reaching associate producer.

Oyama joined CollegeHumor as a full cast member and sketch writer, appearing in and writing numerous sketches and shorts including the long-running Hardly Working series. He voiced the character Brad in WTF 101. In 2018 he departed CollegeHumor to pursue outside writing work, including a position on Adam Ruins Everything, before returning to the Dropout ecosystem.

At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles, Oyama performed on the Harold team Yeti and with the group Three Princes, described as eighteen-time Cagematch champions. He also performs at Asian AF shows with the team Voltron.

Oyama is one of the core Intrepid Heroes on the Dropout actual-play series Dimension 20, with Brennan Lee Mulligan as Dungeon Master. He has participated in at least ten seasons, creating characters including Gorgug Thistlespring in Fantasy High, Ricky Matsui in The Unsleeping City, and Lapin Cadbury in A Crown of Candy. He is one of three original Noise Boys alongside Mulligan and Josh Ruben on Make Some Noise, and appears regularly on Game Changer, Um Actually, and The Rank Room. He has also appeared frequently on the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast. Oyama trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles, completing the training program and performing on UCB teams including Harold night, developing the long-form ensemble skills that he subsequently applied to his comedy writing and performance career. His training at UCB Los Angeles during the mid-2000s gave him grounding in the Harold structure and ensemble improv practice during the period when UCB Los Angeles was establishing itself as a major training center alongside the New York flagship.

At CollegeHumor, following his production work on Key and Peele, he became a performer and writer whose on-screen work helped establish the broader aesthetic of the site's sketch video output. CollegeHumor's digital-first sketch model, in which writers and performers developed characters and recurring bits for online audiences rather than for network broadcast, suited performers with improv backgrounds whose facility with character development and comedic timing translated effectively to the short-form video format.

His work on Dropout, the subscription streaming platform that CollegeHumor launched as its primary content distribution channel, has been extensive and multi-format. Beyond his regular appearances on Dimension 20, Dropout's flagship long-form actual-play series, he has been a recurring presence across the platform's game show formats, in which the improvised comedy skills of the performers are the primary entertainment content. These formats, which include Game Changer (where contestants compete in games they discover as they play), Um Actually (a nerd-culture trivia show), and The Rank Room, have given Oyama a consistent on-screen presence across the Dropout catalog.

His appearance on the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast with Scott Aukerman extended his improv community presence into the long-running podcast that has served as a meeting point for performers from the UCB tradition and broader independent comedy world.