Mike Reiss

Michael L. Reiss ( ; born September 15, 1959 ) is an American television comedy writer.

He served as a showrunner, writer, and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic.

He created and wrote the webtoon Queer Duck; he has also written screenplays including: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Simpsons Movie and My Life in Ruins.

Reiss, the middle child of five, was born to a Jewish family in Bristol, Connecticut.

His mother was a local journalist and his father was a doctor.

He attended Memorial Boulevard Public School, Thomas Patterson School and Bristol Eastern High School and has said that he felt like an "outsider" in those places.

Reiss studied at Harvard University.

He says that he hates Harvard as an institution, explaining that "I had an epiphany on my third day there: This place would be just as good as a summer camp where you met other people, networked, and learned from them. I feel the education I got there was distant and useless and uncaring. I feel they sort of squandered my youth and my father's savings."

Reiss studied English, but disliked the course and was rejected from a creative writing class.

He focused his attention on comedy, performing in talent shows and writing.

In Holworthy Hall at Harvard, Reiss met fellow freshman Al Jean; they befriended one another and collaborated in their writing efforts for the humor publication Harvard Lampoon.

Reiss became co-president of the Harvard Lampoon, alongside Jon Vitti.

Jeff Martin, another writer for the Lampoon, said Reiss and Jean "definitely loomed large around the magazine. They were very funny guys and unusually polished comedy writers for that age. We were never surprised that they went on to success."

Jean has also said that the duo spent most of their time at the Lampoon, adding that "it was practically my second dorm room."

In the 1980s, the duo began collaborating on various television projects.

The humor magazine National Lampoon hired Jean and Reiss after they graduated in 1981.

During that time Reiss and Jean worked as writers and producers on television shows such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1984–1986), ALF, Sledge Hammer!, and It's Garry Shandling's Show.

In 1989, Reiss was hired along with Jean as the first members of the original writing staff of the Fox network animated series The Simpsons.

He worked on the thirteen episodes of the show's first season (1989).

They became executive producers and show runners of The Simpsons at the start of the third season (1991).

A show runner has the ultimate responsibility of all the processes that an episode goes through before completion, including the writing, the animation, the voice acting, and the music.

The first episode Jean and Reiss produced was "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" (aired September 19, 1991), and they felt a lot of pressure on them to make it good.

They felt so pressured that they did six to seven rewrites of the script to make it funnier.

Jean said "one reason for doing all these rewrites is because I kept thinking 'It's not good enough. It's not good enough."

Reiss added, "... we were definitely scared. We had never run anything before, and they dumped us on this."

Jean and Reiss were show runners until the end of the fourth season (1993).

Since the show had already established itself in the first two seasons, they were able to give it more depth during their tenure.

Jean believes this is one of the reasons that many fans regard season three and four as the best seasons of The Simpsons.

Sam Simon has stated "The Simpsons wouldn't have been The Simpsons without [Reiss]."

Reiss has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on the show.

They left after season four to create The Critic, an animated show about film critic Jay Sherman (voiced by Jon Lovitz); the show was executive produced by The Simpsons co-developer James L. Brooks.

It was first broadcast on ABC in January 1994 and was well received by critics, but did not catch on with viewers and was put on hiatus after six weeks.

It returned in June 1994 and completed airing its initial production run.

For the second season of The Critic, Brooks cut a deal with the Fox network to have the series switch over.

Brooks wanted to have Sherman crossover on to The Simpsons, as a way to promote The Critic's move to Fox.

Sherman appeared in the episode "A Star Is Burns", which Reiss and Jean returned to produce.

The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening was not fond of the crossover and complained publicly that it was just a thirty-minute advertisement for The Critic.

Brooks said, "for years, Al and Mike were two guys who worked their hearts out on this show, staying up until 4 in the morning to get it right. The point is, Matt's name has been on Mike's and Al's scripts and he has taken plenty of credit for a lot of their great work. In fact, he is the direct beneficiary of their work. The Critic is their shot and he should be giving them his support."

Reiss said that he was a "little upset" by Groening's actions and that "this taints everything at the last minute.[...] This episode doesn't say 'Watch The Critic' all over it."

Jean added "What bothers me about all of this is that now people may get the impression that this Simpsons episode is less than good. It stands on its own even if The Critic never existed."