Universal Media Studios Signs Greg Daniels To 2-Year Agreement with Focus on Primetime Animation
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – August 1, 2011 – Universal Media Studios has entered into a new overall agreement for live-action, animated and reality shows with Emmy Award-winning producer-writer Greg Daniels (NBC’s The Office, NBC’s Parks and Recreation and King of the Hill) over two years. The announcement was made today by Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Entertainment.
“We are very fortunate to continue our productive creative relationship with Greg Daniels, a gifted and extremely versatile producer-writer who has had great success in live-action, animated and sketch comedy,” said Greenblatt. “This new deal allows him great artistic freedom in a wide variety of television genres, and we know that the best is yet to come. One of our focuses will be to return Greg to primetime animation, for which he had particular success with King of the Hill when he and I worked together at FBC.”
“I couldn’t be more thrilled about this deal to work with Bob Greenblatt and his great new team,” said Daniels. “My producing partner, Howard Klein, who successfully hid my recent devastating stroke during negotiations, is helping me learn to read and feed myself again, and I should be able to get dressed and sit in the sun before the two years are up. I have already produced a big piece of construction paper with blue scribbles on it, which might be a treatment for a reality show. I think Bob’s going to like it a lot.”
Daniels developed The Office for American audiences in 2005, writing and directing many episodes of the critically acclaimed hit series, which he still produces. Daniels, along with Michael Schur, also serves as creator and executive producer on the comedy series Parks and Recreation. In 2006, NBC’s “The Office won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and in 2007, the Writers Guild and Producers Guild Awards for Best Comedy Series and the SAG Award for Comedy Ensemble. Daniels also won the 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for the episode “Gay Witch Hunt,” was nominated in 2010 (with Mindy Kaling) for the episode “Niagara,” and again this year for the episode “Goodbye Michael.” Parks and Recreation and The Office have both been nominated this year for Outstanding Comedy Series, which marks the first time since 1975 that a TV comedy producer has had two shows competing against each other in that category, when James L. Brooks and Allan Burns were nominated for Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda. Daniels has also won Emmys for his work on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons and King of the Hill, and was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for the Seinfeld episode “The Parking Space.”