Yannis Pappas

Yannis Pappas (full name Yannis Frederikos Christos Pappas) is an American comedian from Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. He was born in Brooklyn to Greek parents: Chris Pappas, an Army officer, and Anna Pappas, a lawyer originally from Rethymno, Crete. Pappas attended college at American University in Washington, D.C., where he studied American Studies and History. He began his comedy career in 2000, stopped performing for a period due in large part to the effects of being shot during a robbery attempt, and returned to stand-up at the end of 2004 before pursuing comedy full-time in 2008.

Pappas has been featured doing stand-up on AXS TV, TruTV's How To Be a Grown Up, VH1's Best Week Ever, Fox Business and Good Morning America. With lifelong friend and director Jesse Scaturro he created the production company Ditch Films, through which he developed his popular internet characters Maurica and Mr. Panos. Beginning in 2013 he co-hosted the MSG Network show The Bracket with Chris Distefano and co-anchored the live primetime news show Fusion Live, and in 2015 he hosted the AOL Original Series 2 Point Lead.

His first special, part of Comedy Central's The Half Hour series, aired in June 2014. In 2016 he released the comedy album Let Me Be Yannis, recorded live in Madison, Wisconsin, which was awarded Album of the Year for 2016 by SiriusXM Comedy. In 2019 he released his first hour-long special Blowing the Light on YouTube, produced by comedian Andrew Schulz, followed by Mom Love (2022) and Property Owner (2025). Starting in February 2018 he co-hosted the podcast History Hyenas with Chris Distefano.