Age: 64
male
Gary Valentine, originally Gary Joseph Knipfing from Mineola, New York, is the brother of actor Kevin James and has German roots. Beginning his career in stand-up comedy, Valentine soon gained traction in Los Angeles, making appearances on renowned talk shows like The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He's notable for his nine-season role as "Cousin Danny" on CBS's The King of Queens and has also contributed as a writer. On TV, he's been featured in Men of a Certain Age, a Ray Romano creation, and had a special on Comedy Central, among other roles. His film credits include roles alongside Hollywood stars like Matt Damon in Stuck on You and Adam Sandler in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. He's also been seen in Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Zookeeper, Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury, and the upcoming film Grumpy Old Santa where he plays the role of Spike. Valentine made a cameo in Jerry Seinfeld's documentary, Comedian, and is a frequent contributor to E!'s Chelsea Lately and the Dusty Peacock web series on Crackle.
In the middle of New York City, characters from the old stories and fairy tales live among us in exile. Bill Willingham has taken characters we've grown up with, including Snow White, Bigby (a.k.a the Big Bad) Wolf, Jack Horner, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Boy Blue, the Frog Prince and many more, and spins them into a realistic, modern day setting. The characters we, the people of the Mundane World, thought were fictional have come to the real world to escape The Emperor/The Adversary, a despotic conqueror of tremendous power who rules over The Empire. Eventually, a number of these characters, heroes and villains alike, decide to put aside their differences and stick together in their own community. Old crimes are forgiven by signing a compact which makes them a citizen of this community, and also forbids them from revealing their true nature to the "mundies". Non-human characters who can't afford a spell to make them look human are consigned to a secluded "farm" in Upstate New York. However, those old crimes are rarely, if ever, forgotten; a major early plot point is that Bigby Wolf is banned from said "farm" for all the atrocities he committed before he reformed.
