Career
He appeared in several motion pictures, including Buckaroo Banzai, Brewster's Millions and The Money Pit. Among his numerous appearances on television, he was featured many times on the sitcom Night Court as "Yakov Korolenko". He also had a starring role in a 1986–87 television sitcom titled What a Country! In that show, he played a Russian cab driver studying for the U.S. citizenship test. In the late 1980s, Smirnoff was commissioned by ABC to provide educational bumper segments for Saturday morning cartoons, punctuated with a joke and Smirnoff's signature laugh. Since 1993, he has been a fixture in Branson, Missouri.
He has continued to amass accomplishments including books, CDs, movies, T.V. appearances, a successful Broadway show, As Long As We Both Shall Laugh, and is currently working on a humorous self-help book. He is a featured writer for AARP magazine and gives readers advice in his column, “Happily Ever Laughter”. He guests at the Skinny Improv in Springfield, Missouri on occasion.
In May 2006, Smirnoff received a master's degree in positive psychology from the Penn College of Liberal and Professional Studies (Penn LPS). He has taught classes at Drury University along with Missouri State University on this topic. He is reportedly developing a new talk show that is based on the important role that laughter plays in healthy relationships, a concept which he had envisioned years earlier and has been developing the pilot.
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