Josh Rachlis is uses a variety of creative skills and interests to entertain and help the world. For his day job, Josh is a Senior Copywriter at Leo Burnett, Canada’s most award-winning ad agency. On the side, he’s a comedian, voice actor, TV and radio personality, screenwriter, director, cartoonist, singer/songwriter, environmentalist, politician, and was a one-time cupcake judge.
You can read a longer, paragraph-style bio at Josh’s about.me page.
And below are more details about some of his professions, with links to samples of his work.
ADVERTISING COPYWRITER:
A Senior Copywriter at Leo Burnett, Canada’s most award-winning agency, Josh Rachlis works on the biggest brands in the world (such as Kellogg’s, Gain Detergent, IKEA, Folger’s Coffee) and is the creator of memorable work like the “If life were like that, you wouldn’t need a Visa card” campaign. His ads have won at the top award shows in the world, like One Show, Clios and Cannes.
• Résumé and List Of Awards
• TV Commercials
• Radio Commercials
VOICE ACTOR:
Josh has voiced countless radio ads and TV commercials. He was the voice of Dan The Chameleon in a commercial for Hubba Bubba Max that ran in the U.S. and Europe. He also played Scotsman Birdie Bowers on the animated children’s show Time Warp Trio. Josh is a member of ACTRA, and is represented in Canada by AMI (Artist Management Inc.) in Toronto, and in the United States by In Both Ears in Portland.
ACTOR:
Josh has acted in plays, short films and commercials. By client request, Josh played the angry Scottish Mini Man in a commercial he wrote for Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Minis. This got a lot of media coverage, as Josh was perhaps the first Copywriter to also act in a commercial. The commercial was so popular that he was asked to write and star in a sequel, which became Mini Lawyer.
• Theatre Résumé
TV PERSONALITY:
Josh produced and hosted four Rogers Community Cable TV shows (Garage Sale, I’m Game, Conflicting Interests, The Loft) from 1994-1997. Josh was flown to L.A. to appear on the U.S. TV show Judge Karen’s Court. Josh starred in the premiere episode of Come Date With Me Canada, a reality dating and cooking show that launched in Canada and was such a hit it was picked up by Cooking Channel in the US.
ILLUSTRATOR/CARTOONIST:
Josh’s cartoon illustrations appeared for years in The Ottawa Citizen newspaper. He drew the Frosh Week T-shirts for his school, Glendon College. He had an ad up on Craigslist through which he was hired to draw greeting cards for people and was hired to do a number of cartoons for the displays of Soapworks.
NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST:
Josh has written comedic columns about his life for The Ottawa Citizen, and humourous takes on the ad industry for Strategy Magazine.
COMEDIAN:
Josh has taken all levels of Second City improv classes, including the year-long Second City Conservatory. He’s had an improv team at TheatreSports, has done stand-up comedy at Yuk Yuk’s amateur nights and years ago founded the comedy troupe 3-Speed Walking Stick with Steve Patterson (who is now winner of the Canada Comedy Award for Best Stand-Up Comedian and host of CBC’s The Debaters).
Josh has MC’ed the Ottawa Advertising Awards twice, the Montreal Dialogue Group’s Jewish/Arab Peace Concert, and weddings for his sister Diana and for his friend Philip.
ECO-COMEDIAN:
Josh wrote and starred in An Inconvenient Proposal: A love song for Laurie David, his eco hip hop marriage proposal to environmentalist Laurie David that’s earned kudos from everyone from Ed Begley Jr. to David Suzuki and was featured on The Comedy Network. He wrote and sang Love song for Elizabeth May that went viral during the 2011 federal election, landing Josh in newspapers and on radio and TV news across Canada, such as on CTV Newschannel, and helping elect Canada’s first Green MP. Josh has reprised his Enviroman character from the Laurie David video in videos for the City Of Toronto, promoting their Live Green Toronto Awards.
SCREENWRITER:
The first draft of the feature film screenplay that Josh wrote, “Focus Group”, won the LA-based, international 2009 Script Showcase contest. He was interviewed about the win on MovieBytes.com. A short film he wrote, “3 Dates“, was selected for the 2010 HollyShorts Film Festival in Hollywood.
SINGER/SONGWRITER:
Josh has written love songs that have wooed girls and then wooed them back after a breakup. He’s written songs for his short films, like No Longer Blue for the movie Terry Cloth. This movie was shown on CBC TV and right afterward Josh got emails from teen girls around the world asking for a copy of the song. Josh has written songs for Cheer Detergent commercials, one of which won a public vote that he had the idea to put on the Cheer website. At Leo Burnett, the ad agency where Josh is a write, another creative team asked Josh to write one of his funny love songs for Bick’s Pickles. Josh was filmed playing the song to the client, and then the team gave that video to a sound house, who had a girl perform it in the final video. The sound house told Josh the song was great and asked if he has other songs.
RADIO PERSONALITY:
Josh has been a talk radio host on Canada’s largest talk radio station, Newstalk 1010 CFRB, where he filled for popular host Jim Richards. Josh has also appeared on the CBC Radio show “GO!”, has told his engaging personal stories on CBC Radio’s Definitely Not The Opera, been a movie reviewer on Toronto’s CINA Radio 1650 AM, and was a political panelist on #TOPoli with Sarah Thomson on CIUT 89.5 FM. He’s currently a recurring personality on SiriusXM radio shows Humble & Fred Radio, where he tells funny stories about his life, and What She Said Radio, where he is the expert on men and relationships.
Listen to samples of Josh on:
• CFRB Newstalk 1010
• CBC Radio DNTO and GO!
• #TOPoli with Sarah Thomson
• Humble & Fred Radio
• What She Said Radio
POLITICIAN:
Josh ran for MPP with the Green Party in 2011 and 2014, and was asked to be on the Green Party Shadow Cabinet as Consumer Affairs critic. During the 2011 campaign, he was asked to be on a panel on TVO’s The Agenda. He ran for Mayor of Toronto in 2014, and was one of only two fringe candidates out of dozens who was asked onto Breakfast Television to talk about his campaign.
• Political debates
Josh Rachlis 
Do you support BDS?
Why should I vote for you in the Thornhill riding for MP?
I don’t support BDS. I hope you were at the debate last night at BAYT synagogue. If not, you can add me at http://facebook.com/joshrachlis. I’ll be posting all my answers from the debate!