Andy Borowitz

Andy Borowitz (born January 4, 1958) is an American writer, comedian, satirist, and actor.

Borowitz is a New York Times-bestselling author who won the first National Press Club award for humor.

He is known for creating the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the satirical column The Borowitz Report.

Borowitz was born to a marginally observant Reform Jewish family in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated from Shaker Heights High School.

In 1980, Borowitz graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he lived in Adams House and was president of the Harvard Lampoon.

He also wrote for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

Borowitz studied with playwright William Alfred and wrote his undergraduate thesis on Restoration comedy.

After graduating from Harvard, Borowitz moved to Los Angeles to work for producer Bud Yorkin at Tandem Productions, the company Yorkin co-founded with producer Norman Lear.

He wrote for various television series through the 1980s.

From 1982 through 1983, he wrote for the television series Square Pegs, starring Sarah Jessica Parker.

During his marriage to writer and producer Susan Borowitz (1982–2005), the two co-created The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran for six seasons on NBC and launched the acting career of Will Smith.

From 1983 through 1984, he wrote for the television series The Facts of Life.

In the late 1990s, Borowitz began e-mailing humorous news parodies to friends.

The series won NAACP's Image Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1993.

In 1998, Borowitz co-produced the film Pleasantville, starring Reese Witherspoon, Tobey Maguire, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, and Jeff Daniels.

It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.

In 2001, he founded The Borowitz Report, a site that posts one 250-word news satire every weekday.

The site led to greater fame and widespread attention for Borowitz as a political satirist.

In 2002, Borowitz joined the staff of CNN's American Morning and soon appeared on the program three mornings a week.

The Wall Street Journal devoted a page-one story to him and his site in 2003 and readership ultimately grew to the millions.

In 2004 Borowitz appeared in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda, starring Will Ferrell, and in Marie and Bruce, starring Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick.

Marie and Bruce was co-written by Wallace Shawn and director Tom Cairns.

In 2004, he covered the Democratic National Convention for the channel, paired with comedian Lewis Black of The Daily Show.

He has made numerous appearances on other television programs including Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Best Week Ever on VH1 and Live at Gotham on Comedy Central.

In 2005, the newspaper syndicator Creators Syndicate began syndicating The Borowitz Report to dozens of major newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

It is also one of the longest-running features at the Newsweek website.

He has served as a commentator on the National Public Radio programs Weekend Edition Sunday and Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me!, the latter on November 12, 2006.

Borowitz is also a regular contributor to humor newspaper Funny Times.

In 2007 he appeared in the film Fired!

In 2007, he started blogging for the Huffington Post.

His posts were featured on the home page of the blog and quickly became one of its most popular features.

His popularity surged during the 2008 campaign, leading The Daily Beast to call him "America's satire king".

In 2009, The Borowitz Report began a Twitter feed, which was voted the number-one Twitter account in the world in a Time magazine poll in 2011.

Eventually, he abandoned the feed.

In 2010, Borowitz appeared on the PBS show Need to Know.

Tom Shales, television critic for The Washington Post, singled out Borowitz for praise, calling him "one of the wittiest Web wags".

Borowitz's success as a television performer led to his becoming a strong draw as a stand-up comedian, and he started headlining at major comedy clubs across the country, including Carolines on Broadway, where he hosts a monthly show called Next Week's News.

Other major comedians who have appeared with him in that show include Amy Sedaris and Susie Essman.

On July 18, 2012, Borowitz announced that The New Yorker had acquired the Borowitz Report website, the first time that the magazine had ever made such an acquisition.

In its first 24 hours as a New Yorker feature, The Borowitz Report garnered the most page views on the entire New Yorker website.