He got his start in stand-up comedy and joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1995; after Norm MacDonald was fired, Quinn took over "Weekend Update", hosting the segment from 1998 to his departure in 2000. He had a sketch comedy show The Colin Quinn Show on NBC in 2002 that lasted for only three episodes. He has found better success with Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central, which is fairly popular and is (as of February 2004) still in production.