Mike Reiss, who claims to have written over 50,000 jokes, has enjoyed an outstanding 36-year career writing for comedy and chat show giants including Joan Rivers, Johnny Carson and Garry Shandling.

His producing and writing work also includes movie scripts, landmark TV shows and dozens of writing and producing many episodes of the cult animated series The Simpsons, widely regarded as one of the most influential animated series of all time.

Winning four Emmy Awards for his work on The Simpsons, Reiss was soon elevated to the vaulted position of The Simpsons’ Show Runner - the person with ultimate responsibility for all the processes that an episode goes through before completion, including the writing, the animation, the voice acting, and the music. Entertainment Weekly called Season 4 - his baby - “the greatest season of the greatest show in history”.

Reiss later co-created the animated series The Critic and created and wrote the animated series Queer Duck, screenplays including Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Simpsons Movie and My Life in Ruins.

Now he is to make his UK theatre debut with Secrets of The Simpsons - Stories and Scandals from Springfield. This two hour presentation, which includes a Q&A with the audience, will take place at London’s Upstairs at the Gatehouse (Sunday 26 July at 7pm, Sunday 2 August at  7pm and Monday 3 August at 7pm); Plaza Theatre, Stockport (Wednesday 29 July); The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham (Thursday 30 July); Komedia Comedy Club, Brighton (Thursday 6 August).

Mike Reiss went to Harvard University, where he quickly fell into performing in talent shows and writing comedy with fellow freshman,  Al Jean, for the college humour publication, Harvard Lampoon. National Lampoon magazine hired them both after they graduated in 1981. In the 1980s, the duo began collaborating on TV projects including working as writers and producers onThe 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 Simpsons. He worked on the 13 episodes of the show’s first season. They became executive producers and show runners of The Simpsons at the start of the third season in 1991. The first episode Reiss and Jean produced was “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington”, and they felt a lot of pressure on them to make it good. They did six to seven rewrites of the script to make it funnier. Reiss said: “we were definitely scared. We had never run anything before, and they dumped us on this.”

 

In 2000, together with director Xeth Feinberg, Reiss independently produced a short internet cartoon series, Queer Duck that has gone on to achieve cult status. In 2002, the series was aired as a supporting feature to the US version of the C4 hit Queer as Folk. Queer Duck: the Movie was released on DVD in 2006. Reiss said Queer Duck is “the thing I’m most excited about in my entire life. I don’t like how gay people are treated in comedy. Gay people are nothing besides their gayness. So I created a cartoon that was pro-gay and featured gay animals.”

He wrote jokes for two dozen animated films including all five Ice Age movies, Despicable Me, the Minions Movie, Rio and Kung Fu Panda 3.

He has published 21 children’s books, including How Murray Saved Christmas and The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln. He also won an Edgar Award for his mystery story Cro-Magnon PI.

Reiss has just released a travel book entitled “Bad Trips”. In 2022 Reiss visited the wreck of the Titanic in OceanGate’s Titan submersible, a year prior to the submersible’s implosion that killed five passengers.

 

LISTINGS 

An Evening with Mike Reiss

LONDON
Upstairs at the Gatehouse
Highgate
London N6 4BD

Sunday 26 July at 7pm

Sunday 2 August at  7pm
Monday 3 August at 7pm

Plaza Theatre, Stockport
(Wednesday 29 July)

The Crescent Theatre
Birmingham
Thursday 30 July

Komedia Comedy Club
Brighton
Thursday 6 August

Tickets:
www.ovationuk.com