Howard Michael Mandel (born November 29, 1955)[1] is a Canadian comedian, television personality, actor, and producer. Mandel is known for voicing Gizmo in the 1984 film Gremlins and the 1990 sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch, playing rowdy ER resident Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere, and creating and starring in the Fox children’s cartoon Bobby’s World. He has also been a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent since 2010, and Citytv’s Canada’s Got Talent since 2022. He hosted the American NBC and later CNBC game show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show’s daytime and Canadian-English counterparts.
Mandel was born in Toronto and raised in the Bathurst Manor, Toronto neighborhood.[2] He is Jewish, and his ancestors emigrated from Romania and Poland. Mandel is a distant cousin of Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman.[3] His father was a lighting manufacturer and a real estate magnate. Mandel attended William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute,[4] where he was expelled for impersonating a school official and hiring a construction company to build an addition to the school.
[5] Afterwards, Mandel worked as a carpet salesman.[6] He was a stand-up comedian at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto, and by September 1978 he had a week-long booking as a featured act, which was billed as «a wild and crazy borderline psychotic.»[7] On a trip to Los Angeles, Mandel performed a set at The Comedy Store, which resulted in his being hired as a regular performer. A producer for the syndicated comedy game show Make Me Laugh saw him there, and booked Mandel for several appearances during the show’s run in 1979 and 1980. He was booked to open for David Letterman at shows in the summer of 1979.[8] CBC-TV’s head of variety programming saw his performance in October 1979 and immediately signed him for a TV special. In 1980, he won the lead role in the Canadian movie Gas, co-starring Susan Anspach and Donald
