It’s good work if you can get it. Brian Baumgartner, the man otherwise known as The Office’s Kevin Malone, raked in more than $1 million on celebrity booking app Cameo in 2020, according to Steven Galanis, its co-founder and CEO. That’s a hefty sum, even after Cameo takes its 25% cut.
Galanis shared this news on the latest episode of New York Times’ Sway podcast, noting that Baumgartner was the app’s top performer in terms of revenue in 2020. (We assume Mark McGrath, the king of Cameo breakups, came in at number two.)
“He really takes a lot of pride in his craftsmanship of the videos,” Galanis said, a statement that most assuredly does not apply to everyone on the platform. And, having watched some of his his sample videos for ourselves, we can confirm that Baumgartner’s personalized messages are spirited and delightful. One will cost you a paltry $195 as of this writing, though we can’t imagine that’s always been the case. He would’ve had to record roughly 5,128 messages at that price point to reach $1 million, and no amount of chili can prepare one for such a feat.
Besides, it’s not as if the actor spends all day doing Cameos. An Oral History Of The Office, a podcast Baumgartner hosted for Spotify, wrapped earlier this year after delivering in-depth interviews with Steve Carell, John Krasinski, and even Office superfans like pop star Billie Eilish.
We hope he buys himself many copies of American Pie 2.
[via EW]
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52 Comments
Happy him make money.
Also Happy
They see
I got my friend a Jose Canseco cameo for his birthday and he just ranted about losing a softball tournament. It was great.
Did he show the stub where he shot off his thumb? That should be mandatory for all his cameos.
Damn now I feel ripped off
So does his thumb.
Hi-yooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
There’s a podcast called You Don’t Even Like Sports from the Unpopular Opinion podcast network. A listener got him to say the title on Cameo. The first season was called (I think) Jose Consecast, and he turned the hosts down when they made the request for him to say that title on Cameo. Having his voice turn up in season 2 was a fun surprise.
Angela’s cats are so cute that you just want to eat ‘em. But you can’t eat cats. You can’t eat cats, Kevin.
Next up: Scrantonicity reunion!
That’s 137,268 pies.
He would’ve had to record roughly 5,128 messages at that price point to reach $1 millionSounds like a lot but, if it’s part of your daily scheduled job, it’s really not.
Just working weekdays, that’s about 20 ‘cameos’ a day.
If each video is 90-seconds and he spends 2 minutes reading/processing the request info, that’s less than an hour-and-a-half a day to make that cool mill.Then, of course, there’s vacation and sick days so I’m sure he’s not doing 20 a day EVERY weekday but that’s the quickest math I came up with. He could spend 3 hours. Who knows, but 5000 of them a work year isn’t a feat.
I never watched the office and have never seen Brian Baumgartner in anything else, so I had no idea what an amazing voice he has.
What’s funny is he sounds nothing like that on The Office.
I heard one of his cameos played on a podcast and thought it was Tom Scharpling at first.
His voice/how he talks on the Office even changes from earlier seasons
That means you’ve never seen Kevin from The Office coked up out of his mind.It’s supposed to start one minute in, where they discuss Kevin’s Rush fandom.
Matthew Lillard has aged into a guy who looks a little like Matthew Lillard.
How famous does a person have to be before it’s weird that they’re doing Cameos for their own profit? Like, I had Winnie Cooper do one and she donates all hers to charity. Seems like she’s less famous than Kevin from the Office.
“How famous does a person have to be before it’s weird that they’re doing Cameos for their own profit?”Do you think people are doing this for fame? It’s money. It’s an acting job. The fact that she’s donating her income is a total outlier. There’s plenty of people on there charging $500+.
No, I’m saying a lot of celebrities do the Cameos for charity, not fame or money. I get a lot of the D- and C-listers are doing it for money, but most of the more famous celebs seem to donate all their Cameo earnings. At least the ones that I’ve seen. I haven’t looked in a while.
I get what you’re saying, but to address this specific example Danica McKellar seems to have her Lifetime mysteries and bestsellers demonstrating her crazy-impressive math skills to fall back on, whereas to be entirely fair to him Mr Baumgartner doesn’t exactly seem to otherwise be over-burdened with high-profile big-payday acting work. Fame all on its lonesome doesn’t necessarily pay the bills, so if a whole bunch of Office fans want to pay him generously for a few nice greetings, I can’t find it in myself to object to him making a living off his fifteen minutes. I agree that it’d be really weird if a high profile and wealthy celebrity was pocketing the cash for doing this, though.
Yeah, I mean, I just looked at it and there are way fewer celebs doing it for charity than there used to be, I think. Like, why does Floyd Mayweather need to be doing this at all, and why does he need the $999 per message? That’d be like me working an hour for one cent. Dude made like $280 for ONE fight. Maybe for some it IS an ego/fame thing.
I’m not begrudging Baumgartner anything at all for cashing in on this. I guess i was just looking for a celebrity who’s basically the Mendoza line for tastelessness for doing Cameo for your own personal financial gain. Just sticking with the Office, like obviously Carell and Krasinksi would be doing it for charity. But… maybe Craig Robinson is the line?
Even then, is it fair for us to discern? It’s still work. This past year, a friend of mine got Michael Rapaport to do a birthday Cameo for her spouse. He was hilarious, and attentive to the point that it was pass-around-the-office funny to anyone who was friends with either of them. It was a small gig, but he took it seriously, and seemed to really enjoy the fun of it. That said, who knows how many of those he gets a week, or in a day? He took the time to hit it out of the park with them, and I don’t see why it’s my business if he profits in any way from doing that.
I get that too, but to be fair I was thinking more along the lines of “super-successful megastars” than “solidly employable Hey-It’s-That-Guy character actors”. I’ve no objection to anyone earning a living, but I’d still reserve the right to personally consider it a bit odd if someone like, say, George Clooney apparently felt the need to pocket the cash from doing a Cameo instead of donating it to charity.
No, I think they had a fair question. What IS the line? Tom Cruise, a multimillionaire, would seem off-putting and petty to be charging people money for this. Whereas someone like Brian Baumgartner makes more sense as we know he’s a C-list (at best- no offense meant though) working actor.
Cameo is essentially famous people asking money for their autograph and that has always, historically, had unspoken rules related to it regarding taste level and what’s classy versus . . . declasse.
Yeah. My wife is heads over heels for Roman Reigns, so I thought for her birthday I would get him to record something for her. 600 DOLLARS!! I love my wife, but I also know her well enough to know there’s no way she would’ve been ok with me spending that kind of money on her. Something, she confirmed when I told her about it later.
Its not a terribly tough equation either though, Danica McKellar likely just needs the money less that Brian Baumgartner. I’m sure he’s getting a healthy amount of of Office residuals. BUT, the demand for a 50 year old, overweight, bald white guy in Hollywood is going to be thin, and getting thinner the older he gets, and the novelty of an appearance of Kevin from the Office will lose its charm the farther away we get from the show, so the money he CAN make these days is money that is going to have to last him the rest of his life. Danica McKellar on the other hand has been working since she was 10, has written several best selling book, and has found a weird career resurgence on Hallmark (and is married to a rich lawyer). She likely has a pretty healthy nest egg and has a lot of other revenue streams that cameo is just a fun little side project, while for other celebrities cameo is HOW they are paying bills while they struggle through auditions and call backs.
Right, between those two examples, seems pretty straightforward. I just like to play the game of scrolling through the Cameo page and guessing who’s doing it for charity and who isn’t. There do appear to be fewer people doing it for charity these days. Maybe in the beginning they thought it was a little gauche to be doing it for money, but now that so many are doing it, I guess everyone wants to cash in. I still don’t get how it’s worth Snoop or Floyd Mayweather’s time, even for $1000 a pop.
He currently voices Walter the bear on an animated netflix kid’s show. It’s honestly the perfect role for him, basically Kevin Malone in bear form.
Winnie Cooper’s currently in regular rotation on the Hallmark channel. So she’s likely not hurting nearly as much as Kevin.
i think once word gets out that kevin from the office is clearly 750k a year for sitting around in his house saying ‘happy birthday!’ to his phone there will be no star too big.easy way for movie promo/advertising too. sure tom cruise may not be on it all the time but, if they take a page out of videogame timed promotions he could do it for 4 hours as a special mission: impossible 7 incentive.
Huh, now that you mention it, the promotion aspect makes a lot more sense for the ultra-rich celebs. Like maybe Floyd Mayweather doesn’t need the $999 per cameo (he doesn’t), but he could just see it as a way to sell his next fight. Especially since he’s fighting….sigh… a YouTuber next.
See, my guess would have been Gilbert Gottfried.
Narc. Narc, Kevin!
So yeah. You might say he’s pretty good at Cameo.
I suddenly want him to do a Cameo for me in the style of a Scrantonicity music video.
Scrantonicity II. Not Scranconicity, who he is no longer affiliated with.
It’s not Ashton Kutcher?
He came to Scranton & guest bartended at The Bog a few years ago. He poured my wife & I car bombs. Super cool guy.
Do yourselves a favor and YouTube Rainn Wilson doing Office trivia with Billie Eilish. She’s really good!
That’s an average of 14 everyday for the year. DUDE. The man is a Cameo MACHINE!
His Cameo demand is as hot as his Kevin’s Famous Chili.Also, I was listening to the NPR Politics podcast and one of the can’t let it go’s at the end was everything about Cameo, including the fact that someone with the Biden campaign used it to prank the likes of Roger Stone and Seb Gorka into wishing “Joe” good luck with his “big night” as he prepped for the debate.
My wife and I watched a lot of The Office, but the only two scenes that have stuck with me are Dwight talking about his bed and breakfast in hell and Kevin spilling all that chili. It’s not a subtle joke or even a surprising one, but there’s real satisfaction in watching something unfold exactly the way it should.
That man’s voice is pure liquid sex.
Who’s the top earner of 2020 Cameo appearances? That’s right, Mom. Your boy, Kevin Malone.
One will cost you a paltry $195 as of this writing, though we can’t
imagine that’s always been the case. He would’ve had to record roughly
5,128 messages at that price point to reach $1 million, and no amount of
chili can prepare one for such a feat.
So let’s round up to 5200 cameos in a year – that’s 100 a week. If he takes weekends off (and there’s no reason why he would other than to make my math easier), that’s 20 cameos a weekday. Considering each one can’t possibly take all that long to make, it’s totally doable. Less work than I do for a lot more money (which I don’t begrudge him for, more power to him).
I just ordered one from High Register Sean from Howard Stern and it was glorious. Such a good dude.
I got one from Paul Michael Glaser for my wife’s birthday. She was a HUGE Starsky and Hutch fan as a kid. She even wrote a script when she was young and I had Paul reference that. She says it was the best gift ever!!
I went to college with Brian. Didn’t know him too well, aside for pick-up basketball games.
My friends and I, all of whom were sports reporters for the school paper or worked in the school’s sports PR office doing stats, always kept stats for our intramural games (stop, I know… we were nerds).
We still have some of the box scores, like the one we have for our game against SMUT (SMU Theater). We won 47-44. (I hit a half court three at the buzzer in overtime to win, but not the point).
While I was the leading scorer for my team with 28. A more balanced SMUT attack was led by nine points each from Brian Baumgartner (The Office) and Khary Payton (The Walking Dead, Teen Titans Go!, and lots of voice acting work). And usually a part of our team, but he didn’t play this game because he had class or was sleeping or something, was current Philles radio play by play announcer Scott Franzke.