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Maria Bamford

Maria Bamford is an actress, voice actress, and stand-up comedian. She is best known for how she shows her dysfunctional family and jokes about her depression and anxiety. Her album, Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome, was released in April 2009 by Comedy Central Records. It came with a DVD with episodes of The Maria Bamford Show.

She had three nervous breakdowns in the hospital over 18 months while working in voice-over shows and ads in Los Angeles. She said of the hospital visits, "It was the responsible thing to do" because she had been feeling "suicidal" and "disheartened."

Early Life & Career

Maria Bamford was born at the Port Hueneme Naval Base in Port Hueneme, California, on September 3, 1970. Her dad, Joel Bamford, was a doctor in the Navy. She went to Chester Park Elementary School and Duluth Marshall School when she was young. She disclosed that at a young age, she often struggled with anxiety, depression, and something she calls "Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome," an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

She enrolled herself at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, after completing high school. At the start of her junior year in 1992, she changed schools and attended the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She was the first woman to join The Improverts, the improvised comedy group at her college. After a year in Scotland, she returned to her home state of Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota to get a Bachelor of Arts in English. At 19, she started doing stand-up comedy at Stevie Ray's Comedy Cabaret in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Bamford has been in many movies and TV shows, even doing the voices of cartoon characters. She did the voices of Shriek DuBois on Nickelodeon's CatDog, many minor characters on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time, and Mrs. Botsford, Violet, and Leslie on the long-running educational show WordGirl. Her stand-up comedy is often made up of short stories instead of the usual setup and punchline.

In 2012, she put The Special Special Special on Chill.com for people to download. The special was taped in her Los Angeles home, where only her parents were there to watch.

In 2013, she made a web show called Ask My Mom and starred in it. She plays herself as well as her mother, who answers fan questions. She also did an episode of the web series All Growz Up with Melinda Hill as herself. She did the voice of Pema in The Legend of Korra, a Nickelodeon cartoon.

In the fourth season of Arrested Development, which aired in 2013, she played Tobias Fünke's love interest, Debrie Bardeaux.