IN: Orville Willis Forte IV was born in Alameda County, California. His father, Orville Willis Forte III, is a financial broker, and his mother, Patricia C. (nee Stivers), is an artist and former schoolteacher. He was raised in Moraga, before moving to Lafayette. He went by Billy in his early years until he was teased at school for it also being a girl's name, at which point he decided he would from there on be known as Will.

After Will Ferrell left Saturday Night Live in the following spring, Forte joined the cast, premiering at the beginning of the show's twenty-eighth season in the fall. He was promoted to repertory player after his first year. His early years on the program were characterized by stage fright and an inability to properly interpret sketches that he did not write himself. He had to "re-learn" performing after years as a writer, and later felt his natural tendency to "overthink" things improved his performance. He was particularly uncomfortable portraying President George W. Bush, as he felt he was not the best impressionist and it paled in comparison to Ferrell's impersonation of Bush. His only role was often Bush, leaving him no chance for more "absurd" pieces he favored. He was nearly fired from the program following his third season (2004-05), but after two three-week extensions to decide his fate, he was brought back. Forte estimated it took five seasons for him to feel fully comfortable performing on the show. In 2004, he made his film debut in Around the World in 80 Days.  Forte's humor at SNL has been described as bizarre, and he became known for many "10-to-1" sketches: pieces deemed too odd that air at the bottom of the show, preceding its conclusion. Among these were a sketch titled "Potato Chip", in which Forte plays an NASA recruiter that warns a candidate (Jason Sudeikis) not to touch a bowl of potato chips on his desk, or his turn as Jeff Montgomery, a sex offender posing as one for Halloween. He was also well known for his character Tim Calhoun, a politician, and the Falconer. Forte's favorite sketch on the show was one in which he played a motivational coach alongside football star Peyton Manning. He also co-starred with Andy Samberg in the first SNL Digital Short, "Lettuce". He often spent long hours crafting his sketches for the program, passing deadlines, but his pieces were often greeted warmly at table reads. During his time at the show, he costarred in and wrote the 2007 film The Brothers Solomon. The film was originally a pilot for Carsey-Werner, and its creation was an extension of his agreement to terminate his contract to appear on SNL.  Forte's best-known character on SNL was MacGruber, a special operations agent who is tasked in each episode with deactivating a ticking bomb but becomes distracted by personal issues. The sketches were based on the television series MacGyver. It was created by writer Jorma Taccone, who pitched the idea relentlessly to Forte. He was initially reluctant to commit to the sketch, deeming it too dumb, but accepted after persuasion from Taccone. The first sketch aired in January 2007, and led to multiple more segments in the following years. In 2009, the sketches were spun off into a series of commercials sponsored by Pepsi premiering during Super Bowl XLIII that featured the actor behind MacGyver, Richard Dean Anderson, as MacGruber's father. The advertisements led the character and sketches to receive a wider level of popularity. Following the success of the advertisements, creator Lorne Michaels approached Forte, Taccone, and writer John Solomon with the idea to produce a MacGruber film.  Regarding his experiences on SNL, Forte has remarked:
QUESTION: Why was he nearly fired?
IN: Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known. Gilbert, who wrote the libretti for these operas, created fanciful "topsy-turvy" worlds where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion--fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates emerge as noblemen who have gone astray. Sullivan, six years Gilbert's junior, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies that could convey both humour and pathos.

Sullivan was born in London on 13 May 1842. His father was a military bandmaster, and by the time Arthur had reached the age of eight, he was proficient with all the instruments in the band. In school he began to compose anthems and songs. In 1856, he received the first Mendelssohn Scholarship and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and then at Leipzig, where he also took up conducting. His graduation piece, completed in 1861, was a suite of incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest. Revised and expanded, it was performed at the Crystal Palace in 1862 and was an immediate sensation. He began building a reputation as England's most promising young composer, composing a symphony, a concerto, and several overtures, among them the Overture di Ballo, in 1870.  His early major works for the voice included The Masque at Kenilworth (1864); an oratorio, The Prodigal Son (1869); and a dramatic cantata, On Shore and Sea (1871). He composed a ballet, L'Ile Enchantee (1864) and incidental music for a number of Shakespeare plays. Other early pieces that were praised were his Symphony in E, Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, and Overture in C (In Memoriam) (all three of which premiered in 1866). These commissions, however, were not sufficient to keep Sullivan afloat. He worked as a church organist and composed numerous hymns, popular songs, and parlour ballads.  Sullivan's first foray into comic opera was Cox and Box (1866), written with librettist F. C. Burnand for an informal gathering of friends. Public performance followed, with W. S. Gilbert (then writing dramatic criticism for the magazine Fun) saying that Sullivan's score "is, in many places, of too high a class for the grotesquely absurd plot to which it is wedded." Nonetheless, it proved highly successful, and is still regularly performed today. Sullivan and Burnand's second opera, The Contrabandista (1867) was not as successful.
QUESTION:
What was his first success in his career?