Background
Steve Higgins was born on August 13, 1963 in Des Moines, Iowa, to Marian (née Coppola) Higgins and Harold Higgins, who managed the custodial operations in West Des Moines schools.
Steve Higgins was born on August 13, 1963 in Des Moines, Iowa, to Marian (née Coppola) Higgins and Harold Higgins, who managed the custodial operations in West Des Moines schools.
He currently serves as the announcer of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and as a writer and producer of Saturday Night Live. Prior to The Tonight Show, Higgins was also the announcer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from 2009 to 2014. They eventually moved to California where they started performing in Los Angeles and soon got their big break on the Comedy Central sketch comedy series The Higgins Boys and Gruber.
With Nick Bakay, Higgins performed at the Girly Magazine Party show at Theatre/Theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles, in 1993, acting as "a sleazoid male chauvinist comedy duo who exchange off-color ethnic jokes and prance around in suits and ties like Steve Martin on acid".
Higgins was praised for his ability of knowing "when to go over the top and when to rein it in", and how he was able to be "acutely tuned in to the comings and goings around them and know how to play off each other". Soon after, Higgins went on to become a writer for the short-lived Music Television programs Trashed and The Jon Stewart Show.
From 1995 to 1997, Higgins was the co-head writer of Saturday Night Live. Since 1997, he has served on the writing staff of the show, and since 1996, he has served as a producer of the show.
He has been nominated for several Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program in 2008, for his work on Saturday Night Live and as a writer
In a 2012 interview with The Authorised Version Club, former Saturday Night Live writer Michael Schur revealed that Higgins was the inspiration for the Parks and Recreation character Andy Dwyer after Higgins would playfully fight with him when they worked together at SNL. From 2009 to 2014, Higgins served as announcer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. When Jimmy Fallon was selected by National Broadcasting Company to succeed Jay Leno, Higgins was brought on as announcer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Since 2013, Higgins voiced Mr.
Awesome in the Hulu original series The Awesomes.
He voiced the character "the Edible Blargmonger" in the 2014 animated special Elf: Buddy"s Musical Christmas. In July 2015, while Jimmy Fallon was recovering from surgery after suffering a serious injury to his finger, Higgins was hospitalized for Lyme disease.
He returned to the Tonight Show fully recovered on the same night as Fallon"s return. In December 2015, Higgins appeared as the alien Bar-Falot, the ambassador from SAMBLA, the Space Alien Manitoba-Boy Love Association, in an episode of the SyFy Channel series The Expanse.