2010–2013: Breakthrough
In 2010, he performed on John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show as well as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. On February 26, 2010, he performed his first television special on the series Comedy Central Presents. On March 21, 2011, and on November 17, 2011, he appeared on the TBS talk show Conan.
Holmes released his first album, Impregnated With Wonder, on iTunes on November 15, 2011. In 2013, he released his second album, Nice Try, The Devil.
In 2011, Holmes launched his long-form comedy podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. It has featured guests such as Garry Shandling, Judd Apatow, Aziz Ansari, John Mulaney, Ben Schwartz, and Dana Carvey. Topics typically discussed in each episode are the guests' views on comedy, sexuality, and religion.
Holmes has provided the voices for several of the characters on Comedy Central's cartoon Ugly Americans. He was the voice of the E-Trade baby on several television commercials and was credited as a writer for those commercials.
He wrote for the NBC primetime sitcom Outsourced and for the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter.
Holmes has created a comedic portrayal of Batman in CollegeHumor's internet series Badman. He ran a YouTube channel which was focused around skits alongside Matthew McCarthy called frontpagefilms.
On August 21 and 23 in 2012, Holmes recorded three episodes of a talk show pilot for TBS, produced by Conan O'Brien, entitled The Midnight Show with Pete Holmes. Holmes's guests on the unaired pilots included Nick Offerman, Joel McHale, T.J. Miller, and Bill Burr. On February 26, 2013, TBS picked up the show and began airing in late 2013. By July 10, 2013, the name of the show was The Pete Holmes Show. The series premiered on October 28, after Conan.
The show was picked up for a second season by TBS. On December 9, 2013, Gabe Liedman performed the show's first stand-up routine. On May 23, 2014, TBS canceled the talk show after two seasons following poor audience ratings. The show ended its run on June 19, 2014.
