M.D. Sweeney

M.D. Sweeney is best-known as the erstwhile owner and director of Acme Comedy Theater in Los Angeles, California.

Sweeney (whose first name is unknown, even to his friends) hails from Ohio, and cut his acting teeth at the L.A. Connection in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, where he got to know people such as Paul Rugg, John P. McCann, and Ken Segall.

Sweeney, having more of an entrepreneurial bent than many of his fellows, began the Acme Comedy Theatre as a "Groundling-like" comedy improv and sketch comedy venue. The theater ended up launching the careers of many actors and writers in Los Angeles, including Adam Carolla, Alex Borstein, Joel McHale, Fred Goss, Jamie Kaler, Cecily Adams, Jackson Douglas, Alan Heitz, Maz Jobrani, Lisa Kushell, Ralph Garman, John P. McCann, Paul Rugg, Marc Drotman, and Scott Kreamer.

When Sweeney was active in the writing/acting world of Los Angeles, his connections to studios such as Disney and Warner Brothers were through a network of animation and comedy writers--former students and actors from Acme--who worked at the various "studio lots" around town, as well as through his wife, Sherri Stoner, herself best-known for her work on such Warner Brothers classics as "Tiny Toon Adventures" and "Animaniacs". Stoner is also known for being the model for both the title character in "The Little Mermaid" and Belle of "Beauty and the Beast". (Stoner is also known to cult-flim fans as the girl who gets "branded" by Wendy O. Williams in "Reform School Girls".)

Sweeney eventually started an Italian/Continental restaurant with Adam Carolla that was (and is) next door to the Acme Theater. Eventually he sold the theater itself, and settled down to live the almost-quiet life of a restaurateur, husband, and father of two.