32 Facts About Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton was the house musician for NPR weekly puzzle quiz show Ask Me Another from 2012 until its end in 2021.

Jonathan Coulton graduated in 1993 from Yale, where he was a member of The Spizzwinks and the Yale Whiffenpoofs.

Jonathan Coulton was the Contributing Troubadour at Popular Science magazine, whose September 2005 issue was accompanied by a five-song set by Coulton called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms.

Jonathan Coulton was the musical director for The Little Gray Book Lectures.

From September 16,2005, to September 30,2006, Jonathan Coulton ran "Thing a Week", during which he recorded 52 musical pieces, one per week, in an effort to push his creative envelope via a "forced-march approach to writing and recording"; to prove to himself that he could produce creative output to a deadline; and to see whether a professional artist could use the Internet and distribution via Creative Commons to support himself.

In 2006, Jonathan Coulton began touring with comedy duo Paul and Storm.

Jonathan Coulton initially opened the concerts, but as his popularity grew, he began headlining.

Jonathan Coulton wrote and performed a song titled "Still Alive" for the ending credits of Valve's 2007 video game Portal, with vocals by Ellen McLain.

In 2011, Jonathan Coulton followed up the success of "Still Alive" with a new song at the end of Portal 2, "Want You Gone".

Jonathan Coulton wrote the Portal-themed song "You Wouldn't Know" for Lego Dimensions.

Jonathan Coulton is known for original pieces such as "Code Monkey", which was featured on Slashdot on April 23,2006, and linked from the webcomic Penny Arcade.

Jonathan Coulton's work has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered.

Jonathan Coulton can be heard throughout the audiobook version of the same book, playing the theme song to the book, playing incidental music, and bantering with Hodgman, who reads the audio version of his work.

Jonathan Coulton wrote and performed "the winning entry", a song about dropping snakes from airplanes.

Jonathan Coulton appeared on the tour for Hodgman's second book, More Information Than You Require.

Jonathan Coulton composed the title music for the show Mystery Diagnosis, and has contributed other songs under "The Little Gray Book Lectures", a series of audio releases from John Hodgman.

Jonathan Coulton had been working on his follow-up to the Thing a Week albums, tentatively titled The Aftermath.

Jonathan Coulton said the title was an umbrella term for unreleased tracks recorded after Thing a Week.

Jonathan Coulton opened for They Might Be Giants for a few shows of their March 2010 tour.

On May 25,2010, Jonathan Coulton said on his official site that he would work on a new album, to be produced by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, and for the first time ever with a full band, including Marty Beller of They Might Be Giants, in a professional recording studio.

In May 2012, Jonathan Coulton became the house musician for the NPR game show Ask Me Another.

Since 2011, Jonathan Coulton has hosted his own annual week-long affinity cruise, the JoCo Cruise.

Jonathan Coulton composed the opening number "Bikini Bottom Day", which is reprised multiple times throughout the show as SpongeBob's main theme.

Jonathan Coulton contributed to additional lyrics for other musical numbers featured in the show.

In June 2016, Jonathan Coulton started doing a one-minute "Previously On" song at the beginning of the CBS TV series BrainDead, a summer series with a planned run of 13 episodes.

Jonathan Coulton joined Mann as opening support act on the European and North American tour of "Mental Illness", contributing additional guitar and vocals to her main set.

On March 29,2019, Jonathan Coulton released Some Guys, a cover album of songs from the 1970s.

In May 2011, Jonathan Coulton was interviewed on NPR's popular economics-related program Planet Money.

Jonathan Coulton disclosed that he makes about $500,000 a year from his music despite lacking a record label contract.

Jonathan Coulton expressed gratitude towards his fans for his surprise success, the degree of which he called "absurd".

Jonathan Coulton wrote a new melody for his cover version of the song.

Jonathan Coulton's altered cover version was itself covered, but without permission, by the American TV series Glee in 2013.