Greg Daniels

Gregory Martin Daniels (born June 13, 1963) is an American screenwriter, television producer, and director.

He has worked on several television series, including writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, adapting The Office for the United States, and co-creating Parks and Recreation and King of the Hill.

Daniels attended Harvard University, where he befriended and began collaborating with Conan O'Brien.

His first writing credit was for Not Necessarily the News, before he was laid off because of budget cuts.

He joined the writing staff of The Simpsons during its fifth season.

He wrote several classic episodes, including "Lisa's Wedding", "Bart Sells His Soul", and "22 Short Films About Springfield".

He left The Simpsons to co-create another long-running animated series, King of the Hill, with Mike Judge.

After graduating in 1985, the two accepted jobs at Not Necessarily the News, but they were soon fired due to budget cuts.

Daniels and O'Brien met Lorne Michaels in late 1987 and were given a three-week try-out in the Saturday Night Live writing staff.

While on the staff, Daniels won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program.

Daniels left the writing staff in 1990.

Seinfeld Season 3: "The Parking Space"

Co-written by Larry David and Greg Daniels.

Aired on April 22, 1992.

Daniels joined the writing staff of the Fox show The Simpsons in 1993.

He was hired in the fifth season following the departures of many of the original team of writers.

His first day also coincided with O'Brien's last day on the series.

When he initially joined the series, he believed the series had gone past the "glory years" and that he had "missed the boat".

In the fifth season, Daniels penned "Homer and Apu", "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", and "The Devil and Homer Simpson" segment of "Treehouse of Horror IV".

Daniels received an Emmy nomination in the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics" category for the song "Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart?"

from "Homer and Apu".

For season six, he wrote "Homer Badman", "Lisa's Wedding", and the "Time and Punishment" segment from "Treehouse of Horror V".

The latter episode became the third of the series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.

In the seventh season, Daniels wrote "Bart Sells His Soul", which was based on a childhood experience.

His final credit for the series was for "22 Short Films About Springfield", which he served as supervising writer alongside showrunner Josh Weinstein.

They were given the responsibility of linking all the stories together.

Daniels left The Simpsons to work on King of the Hill (another Fox show) alongside Mike Judge.

Daniels rewrote the pilot script and created several important characters that did not appear in Judge's first draft (including Luanne and Cotton), as well as some characterization ideas (e.g., making Dale Gribble a conspiracy theorist).

Daniels also took the writers to Texas to do some research with reporter notebooks, a process he would use for The Office and Parks and Recreation.

Judge was ultimately so pleased with Daniels' contributions that he chose to credit him as a co-creator, rather than give him the "developer" credit usually reserved for individuals brought on to a pilot written by someone else.

The show ran thirteen years before its cancellation in 2009.

During the run of King of the Hill, he worked on several other series, including the American version of The Office and Parks and Recreation.

In 2016, he was an executive producer on the TBS series People of Earth.

With The Office star Steve Carell, Daniels co-created the Netflix comedy series Space Force.

He also created the Amazon science fiction comedy series Upload.

Daniels was born in New York City, the son of Judy, who worked at the New York Public Library, and Aaron Daniels, who was president of ABC Radio Network.

Daniels' father is of Russian-Jewish descent.

He has stated that he became interested in comedy by watching Monty Python's Flying Circus as a child, as well as reading books by humorist S.J. Perelman at age 11.

His first joke was a Carnac the Magnificent joke for his father which was later used for The Office episode, "The Dundies".

Daniels attended Phillips Exeter Academy and then Harvard University where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon with Conan O'Brien.