If you’ve ever laughed at a grown man in tiny tan shorts or wondered why a night watchman is talking to a wax Theodore Roosevelt, you’ve experienced the brain of Robert Ben Garant. Most people know him as Deputy Travis Junior. You know, the guy with the mustache and the aviators on Reno 911! who always seems one step away from a total disaster. But that's just the tip of a very strange, very lucrative iceberg.
Robert Ben Garant movies and TV shows represent a bizarre duality in Hollywood. On one hand, he’s a founding member of The State, the 90s MTV sketch troupe that basically invented modern "weird" comedy. On the other, he and his long-time writing partner Thomas Lennon are the masters of the big-budget family blockbuster. It is a wild career trajectory. They literally wrote the book on it—Writing Movies for Fun and Profit—where they candidly admit to making a billion dollars at the box office while staying true to their inner comedy nerds.
The Cult Roots: From The State to Reno 911!
The story doesn't start with $100 million CGI museum exhibits. It starts on MTV in 1993. The State was a lightning bolt of absurdist sketch comedy that gave us people like Michael Showalter, David Wain, and Michael Ian Black. Garant was right in the middle of it. If you haven't seen the "I'm gonna dip my balls in it" sketch, you're missing out on a foundational piece of Gen X irony.
But the real seismic shift happened in 2003.
Reno 911! was never supposed to be a massive hit. It started as a parody of COPS, filmed on a shoestring budget with a lot of improvisation. As Deputy Travis Junior, Garant brought a specific kind of dim-witted, earnest energy that grounded the chaos. He didn't just act in it; he co-created it, directed dozens of episodes, and executive produced the whole thing. The show has survived through multiple "deaths," jumping from Comedy Central to Quibi, and finally to Roku and Paramount+ with specials like The Hunt for QAnon (2021) and It’s a Wonderful Heist (2022). It’s the show that refuses to quit because the chemistry between Garant, Lennon, and Kerri Kenney-Silver is basically a comedy renewable resource.
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The Billion-Dollar Screenwriter: Night at the Museum and Beyond
Here is the part that usually blows people’s minds. The guys who made the "monkey-torturing" sketches on MTV are the same guys who wrote The Pacifier starring Vin Diesel. Seriously.
Garant and Lennon carved out a niche as the "script doctors" of the mid-2000s. They became the go-to writers for high-concept studio comedies. We’re talking:
- Night at the Museum (2006) and its sequels
- Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)
- The Pacifier (2005)
- Taxi (2004)
- Balls of Fury (2007)
Honestly, it’s a masterclass in professional versatility. They understood what the studios wanted—broad, family-friendly stakes—but they managed to inject enough weirdness to keep it from being totally stale. Night at the Museum alone became a global juggernaut. It’s a weird feeling to see your "indie comedy hero" becoming the architect of a Disney-fied franchise, but as Garant has often said in interviews, it’s about the craft. Writing a "perfect" studio movie is a different kind of puzzle than writing a sketch about a blueberry.
Horror, Hobbies, and Recent Projects
Garant isn't just a comedy guy. He’s got a massive soft spot for horror, which shows up in movies like Jessabelle (2014) and The Veil (2016). He even directed Hell Baby (2013), which is a fantastic blend of his two worlds. It’s a horror-comedy that stars his usual rotating cast of funny friends (Rob Corddry, Keegan-Michael Key) but actually plays with demonic possession tropes in a way that feels authentic to the genre.
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Lately, he’s been keeping the Reno 911! flame alive while branching into animation and streaming. He’s a frequent voice guest on Bob’s Burgers and helped write the screenplay for Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022).
One of the coolest things about Garant’s recent work is how he embraces new formats. When Reno 911! returned on Quibi (RIP), he didn't complain about the "short-form" constraint. He leaned into it. He even cast his real wife and kid in the newer seasons because, at this point, the show is just an extension of his life.
Why He Matters to You
If you're a creator, Garant is basically the patron saint of "doing both." You don't have to choose between being a starving artist and a corporate sell-out. You can write The State and Night at the Museum. You just have to be really, really good at understanding structure.
His book, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit, is probably the most honest thing ever written about Hollywood. It doesn't talk about "the hero's journey." It talks about where to park your car at the Sony lot and how to survive a meeting with a producer who hasn't read your script. It's practical. It's cynical. It's hilarious.
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How to Dive Deeper into his Work
If you’re looking to catch up on the best of Robert Ben Garant, don't just stick to the hits.
- Watch the "Viva Variety" clips. It was a spin-off from The State that parodied European variety shows. It’s some of his most underrated work.
- Binge the Reno 911! movie, "Miami." It’s bigger, dumber, and somehow even more charming than the show.
- Read the book. Even if you never want to write a movie, it’s a brilliant look at how the entertainment industry actually functions behind the scenes.
- Check out Bajillion Dollar Propertie$. He executive produced this semi-improvised reality TV spoof, and it’s a hidden gem of the late 2010s.
Robert Ben Garant is a reminder that you can be the smartest person in the room while playing the dumbest character on screen. Whether he’s directing a horror flick or getting hit in the face with a skillet in a sketch, he’s doing it with a level of intentionality that most people miss. Next time you see his name in the credits of a giant CGI movie, just remember: that guy probably has a very weird mustache hidden in his trailer.
To truly appreciate his range, start by watching The State's "Skitz" episodes on streaming, then jump immediately to Hell Baby to see how he translates that sketch energy into a feature-length film.