Robert Ben Garant: Reno 911! Star, Night at the Museum Writer, and Comedy Career

Robert Ben Garant is one of those names you might not recognize right away, but you’ve almost certainly laughed at his work. Whether it’s Deputy Travis Junior stumbling through another arrest on Reno 911! or Ben Stiller running from a T-Rex skeleton in Night at the Museum, Garant’s fingerprints are all over some of the funniest comedy of the last three decades. He’s a triple threat — writing, acting, and directing — and he’s been doing it since the early ’90s without slowing down.

Early Life in Cookeville, Tennessee

Robert Ben Garant was born on September 14, 1970, in Cookeville, Tennessee — a small city about 80 miles east of Nashville. Growing up in the rural South didn’t exactly scream “future Hollywood comedy writer,” but Garant had a restless creative streak from a young age. He was drawn to performing and making people laugh well before he had any idea it could be a career.

After high school, Garant headed to New York University, where he studied film. It was at NYU that everything clicked. He fell in with a group of like-minded comedy obsessives who’d go on to reshape sketch comedy on cable television. Among them was Thomas Lennon, who’d become his lifelong writing partner and closest creative collaborator.

The State and the Birth of a Comedy Career

In 1993, Garant and his NYU crew launched The State on MTV. The sketch comedy show featured an ensemble of eleven performers — including Garant, Lennon, Michael Ian Black, Ken Marino, and Joe Lo Truglio — and it became a cult favorite almost immediately. The humor was absurd, fast-paced, and completely unpredictable, landing somewhere between Monty Python and a fever dream.

The State ran for four seasons through 1995 and built a devoted fanbase that still quotes it today. For Garant, the show was a masterclass in collaborative comedy writing and taught him how to generate material at a relentless pace — a skill that’d serve him well for the rest of his career.

After The State ended, Garant and Lennon co-created Viva Variety (1997–99), a Comedy Central talk show parody that spoofed the old-school variety format. It was weird, it was funny, and it kept the duo’s names circulating in the comedy world while they figured out their next big move.

Reno 911! — Deputy Travis Junior

That next big move turned out to be Reno 911!, which premiered on Comedy Central in 2003. Garant co-created the show with Lennon and Kerri Kenney-Silver, and it became one of the most beloved comedy series of the 2000s.

The premise was simple but brilliant: a COPS-style mockumentary following the hopelessly incompetent deputies of the Reno Sheriff’s Department. Most of the dialogue was improvised, giving the cast room to go wherever a scene took them. The result was chaotic, hilarious, and endlessly quotable.

Garant starred as Deputy Travis Junior, the department’s eager but deeply clueless bike cop who patrolled the streets in absurdly short shorts. Travis Junior was a fan favorite — well-meaning but perpetually in over his head, whether he was botching a traffic stop or getting into a standoff with a vending machine. Garant played him with a physical comedy style that felt effortless, even though the character required serious commitment to looking ridiculous.

Reno 911! ran for six seasons through 2009, spawned a feature film (Reno 911!: Miami in 2007), and was later revived on Quibi in 2020 and Paramount+ in 2022. The show’s longevity is a testament to just how well Garant, Lennon, and Kenney-Silver built its world.

Screenwriting Career — Night at the Museum and Beyond

While Reno 911! was still on the air, Garant and Lennon had quietly become two of the most in-demand screenwriters in Hollywood. Their partnership produced a string of studio comedies that dominated the box office in the mid-2000s.

The biggest hit was Night at the Museum (2006), starring Ben Stiller as a night security guard at the American Museum of Natural History who discovers the exhibits come alive after dark. The film grossed over $574 million worldwide and spawned two sequels — Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and Secret of the Tomb (2014) — both of which Garant and Lennon also wrote.

Their other screenwriting credits include Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) with Lindsay Lohan, Taxi (2004) starring Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon, The Pacifier (2005) with Vin Diesel, and Balls of Fury (2007), which Garant also directed. Not every film was a critical darling, but the commercial track record was hard to argue with — Garant and Lennon’s scripts earned well over a billion dollars at the global box office combined.

In 2011, the writing duo published Writing Movies for Fun and Profit, a refreshingly honest guide to the business of studio screenwriting. The book pulled no punches about how Hollywood actually works and became a go-to resource for aspiring writers trying to break into the industry.

Directing and Later Projects

Garant hasn’t limited himself to writing and acting. He’s directed several features, including Reno 911!: Miami, Balls of Fury, and Hell Baby (2013), a horror-comedy he also co-wrote with Lennon. Behind the camera, his style leans into the same improvisational energy that made Reno 911! work so well.

In more recent years, he’s continued writing for both film and television, often working with Lennon on projects that range from family-friendly blockbusters to R-rated comedies. The pair’s ability to shift between tones and genres has kept them relevant in an industry that’s constantly changing.

Personal Life

Garant tends to keep his personal life fairly private, especially by Hollywood standards. He’s based in Los Angeles, where he’s lived and worked for most of his professional career. His closest public relationship is his creative partnership with Thomas Lennon — the two have been writing together for over 30 years, which in Hollywood terms is basically a lifelong marriage.

Outside of work, Garant has spoken in interviews about his love of genre films, particularly horror and action, which shows up in a lot of his writing choices. He’s also known among colleagues for his tireless work ethic — the guy simply doesn’t stop writing.

Robert Ben Garant Net Worth

With a screenwriting career that includes a billion-dollar franchise and decades of steady television work, Garant has done very well financially. Most estimates place Robert Ben Garant’s net worth at around $10 million. That figure reflects his combined earnings from acting, screenwriting, directing, producing, and book sales.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Robert Ben Garant best known for?

He’s best known for co-creating and starring in Reno 911! as Deputy Travis Junior and for co-writing the Night at the Museum franchise with Thomas Lennon.

Who is Robert Ben Garant’s writing partner?

Thomas Lennon. The two have been writing together since meeting at NYU in the late 1980s and have collaborated on dozens of film and television projects.

Where was Robert Ben Garant born?

He was born in Cookeville, Tennessee, on September 14, 1970.

Is Reno 911! scripted or improvised?

Mostly improvised. The cast worked from loose outlines and scenarios, but the dialogue was largely made up on the spot, which gave the show its distinctive loose, documentary feel.

How much did Night at the Museum make at the box office?

The first Night at the Museum grossed over $574 million worldwide. The entire trilogy earned well over $1.3 billion combined.

Related Celebrities

If you enjoyed reading about Robert Ben Garant, you might also want to check out these related figures from the comedy world:

• Thomas Lennon — Garant’s longtime writing partner and co-star on Reno 911!
• Kerri Kenney-Silver — Co-creator and star of Reno 911!
• Michael Ian Black — Fellow cast member of The State
• Ken Marino — Another The State alumnus with a prolific comedy career
• Joe Lo Truglio — The State cast member known for Brooklyn Nine-Nine