When Greg Daniels wants to be friends with you, he won’t invite you to grab a drink at a local bar. He’ll ask you if you want to write comedy.
“It’s kind of like my invitation to play tennis or hang out,” he says. “I’ve worked with some really amazing collaborators, and I’ve sought them out. It’s been the highlight of my social life.”
Early in his career, that meant approaching Larry David and pitching a ton of ideas for “Seinfeld,” one of which became the Season 3 episode “The Parking Space.”
“My goal was to just get into that room, and find out how he’s doing ‘Seinfeld,’” Daniels says. “And I was given a 20-minute window to pitch him over the phone, so I pitched him, like, 11 episode ideas.
He bought a story that happened to my dad in the streets of New York when I was a kid. So I got a chance to go in there and write three drafts of that with him, and hear all of his thoughts.”
Daniels, who is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Sept. 10, also was a huge fan of James L. Brooks’ work growing up, so when he moved to L.A., a priority became landing a job at “The Simpsons.” The success of that “Seinfeld” episode helped secure him the job — and then get that chance to sit in a room and pitch jokes to the legendary Brooks.
“I just wanted to do something that I felt was sophisticated and funny and human,” he says.
After “The Simpsons,” Daniels partnered with Mike Judge — then riding high on the success of “Beavis and Butt-head” — to create “King of the Hill,” and the two set out to do something different in tone from “The Simpsons.”
“I respect Mike’s genius,” he says. “I just love the way he looks at the world and his writing style.”
Then, as a fan of the U.K. “ The Office ,” Daniels met with creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, mostly because, “I just wanted to know how they did the original British show,” he says.
“I really wanted to meet them and find out their process more than actually adapt the show. But we kind of hit it off, and I thought well, maybe for HBO, this would work, and I agreed to adapt it.”
The series ended up going to NBC, of course, and in the process, Daniels created an American “Office” that has become a multi-generational hit, as Gen Z fans rediscover the series and binge it on streaming. (It also spawned the spinoff “ The Paper ”).
It’s that career trajectory and impact on TV storytelling over the course of multiple decades that made Daniels an easy candidate for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . It’s an honor, he says, since the attraction still reminds him of his early days as an aspiring writer in Los Angeles.
“It’s very meaningful for me because when I came out here in 1985, I used to walk up and down the boulevard and find all my heroes,” he says. “It’s crazy to be on the street too! I think I’m on the same block as Bob Newhart and John Belushi, which is kind of cool.”
Daniels also takes pride in the recognition because, as he notes, “I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of shows that have shot in L.A.” That’s notable since most of his shows haven’t actually taken place in the City of Angels, but through Hollywood magic, Van Nuys has doubled for Scranton, Pa., in “The Office,” while Pasadena and environs often doubled for Pawnee, Ind., in “Parks and Recreation.” And now, the Valley, downtown and even the L.A. Times offices fill in for Toledo, Ohio, in “The Paper.”
“To be shooting now, again, on the Universal lot, and be able to work with the same crew that I’ve had before on other shows, it’s really great to have that long history,” Daniels says.
His impact on Hollywood also extends to the successful writers and producers that have gone on to big things after learning at the School of Greg Daniels. That is especially true with the list of writers who spent time on “The Office” — including Mike Schur, who co-created “Parks and Rec” with Daniels before moving on to shows like “The Good Place” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
Other prolific “Office” alums include Mindy Kaling, who not only starred on the show but also wrote more scripts than anyone else on that series, and then went on to create “The Mindy Project,” “Never Have I Ever” and more.
“Greg is an incredibly funny writer and a great producer, but what makes him so special is how much he loves teaching younger writers,” Kaling says. “He’s impossibly patient and has this professorial quality that makes you want to learn from him. He empowered me to find my voice and taught me how to be a showrunner.”
Then there’s Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (“Jury Duty”), Justin Spitzer (“Superstore”), Paul Lieberstein (“The Newsroom”), Jennifer Celotta (“Barry”), B.J. Novak (“Vengeance”), Randall Einhorn (“Abbott Elementary”) and others.
“He’s taught a generation of writers a new way to think about character, dialogue, scene and story structure — writers who have then spread that knowledge to dozens of shows,” Lieberstein says. “Nobody is better at casting actors and finding writers than Greg.
He sees past all the standard markers of talent, to what’s great inside a person, what an actor can truly offer — and that has lead him to cast people and give them the roles that have made them some of the biggest untraditional stars of today.”
For Michael Koman, who co-created the “Office” spinoff “The Paper” with Daniels, he’s learned by example in a wide variety of ways. “Like pretty much everyone who works in, or watches, television, I admire Greg,” he says.
“I respect his talent and his capacity for hard work, and the good sense that he brings to the endless stream of decisions that he’s asked to make almost constantly. On top of that, you have all of the cool things he’s made, the people he’s worked with, the legacy he’s built, his massive effect on American comedy, his brilliant family, and the loyalty he’s earned through decades of high-quality work and decency.
“Every show Greg has made he has used as a ladder for people that he recognizes as talented and funny to move up in the world,” he adds. “Our whole culture is populated by people that Greg hired, trained, mentored and showcased.”
What is the hallmark of a Greg Daniels show? “I tend to think of it as I’m a link in a sort of character comedy chain that goes back to a lot of shows that I loved growing up, like ‘The Odd Couple,’” he says. “And maybe the storytelling that I heard growing up from my dad, who shaped my taste.”
And then it was “King of the Hill” that helped define Daniels’ series alchemy.
“What I really liked doing and kind of developed on ‘King of the Hill’ was having an emotional story that was kind of hidden for most of the episode, underneath the plot’s story,” he says.
What he wanted to break out of was how sitcoms traditionally treated emotional storylines as pro forma: “It was always like someone’s going to hug, and then they had something called a ‘treacle cutter,’ which was the joke that got you back to comedy, land after the hug. It never felt as earned.
If I have a style, it’s probably based on paying attention to the emotional story and trying to do it in an earned way that’s hidden behind the comedy until it comes in.”
Saladin Patterson, who serves as showrunner on the recent Hulu revival of “King of the Hill,” calls Daniels both the smartest and funniest person he knows. “His curiosity and excitement towards problem-solving become contagious and this encourages everyone around him to be the best versions of themselves,” Patterson says. “You couldn’t ask for better qualities in a leader.”
With “The Office,” Daniels wound up enjoying the mockumentary format and what the show’s character confessionals allowed him to do creatively.
“That adds a lot of complexity,” he says. “There’s this idea that they’re aware they’re being filmed in half the scenes, but in another portion of the scenes, they’re not aware they’re being filmed.
For the actors and the writers, that’s another layer to play with. So for something that’s so relatable and simple, set in this office, it’s super complex because it has all these abilities to talk to people’s perspectives and points of view, and then catch them unaware — to see how they present themselves to the world, how they actually are.
It’s got a stylishness that isn’t necessarily apparent on a single frame.”
And now he’s getting to revisit that format with “The Paper,” which is set in the same universe as “The Office” but follows the staff of a small Toledo newspaper as new editor Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) attempts to revive the troubled publication.
“I am very happy,” Daniels says. “It’s another assemblage of a cast that is all amazingly unique and talented. It’s just a joy to be going to the set and working with them.”
But unlike “The Office,” which aired as many as 28 half-hours in a single season, “The Paper” has produced just 10 episodes a season for Peacock. That’s the reality of this streaming age, but Daniels would love to produce more.
“It’s a great art form, the character comedy, and it takes a lot of episodes to really get to know everybody. Then you’re really locked in, and you’re excited for any new story involving these characters that you love so much,” he says.
“There’s a great cast on ‘The Paper,’ and we’re always leaving lots of wonderful ideas and scenes on the cutting-room floor. If we had more episodes, we’d be able to explore more with the ensemble, so I think that it would be great.”
But even as the business has changed, Daniels still loves what he gets to do. “I’ve had such a nice time in this business,” he says. “A lot of my best memories are things that were in the writers’ room, or times on set where the actors kept breaking. I hope that other young writers get a chance to have a whole career in it the way I have.”
And if they’re really lucky, perhaps Daniels will call them up to hang out and make some comedy. But leave the tennis racquet at home — and just bring a laptop.
Greg Daniels receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 11:30 a.m. PT on Sept. 10. Location is at 6357 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; go to walkoffame.com to watch a livestream of the ceremony.
Greg Daniels began his career out of Harvard working alongside writing partner Conan O’Brien on sketch comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live” — then reinvented himself as a comedy series scribe on “The Simpsons.” He co-created “King of the Hill” and adapted “The Office” into one of the most iconic TV series of the 21st century. Here are some of the key shows from his five-decade career so far.
“Not Necessarily the News” (HBO; Daniels’ tenure: 1985-87) Daniels’ and O’Brien’s first job out of college was this early HBO parody of both news programs and the political and public figures in the headlines. “We sat in a room and watched unedited news footage from ABC, hours and hours of it,” Daniels says.
“We saw some stuff that you couldn’t see on network TV because it was too graphic, and tried to make it funny.”
“The Wilton North Report” (Fox, 1987-1988) After Fox canceled its “The Late Show” talker (hosted by Joan Rivers, then Arsenio Hall), it attempted to create a late night comedy news magazine hosted by two radio DJs and featuring segments from both comedy writers and filmmakers. Some of the segment producers came from the world of documentaries — a world that Daniels would later mine with mockumentaries like “The Office.” The show itself “blew up so spectacularly,” Daniels recalls.
He also appeared on-air briefly in a rare on-camera moment.
“Saturday Night Live” (NBC; Daniels’ tenure: 1987-1990) “The excitement of the music starting, and it’s live, and working with all those talented people,” Daniels recalls. “The caliber of the actors like Dana Carvey, and working with Robert Smigel — and it was such an eye opener to observe Lorne too.
Oh, and it’s where I met my wife!” (That’s longtime TV exec Susanne Daniels, who began her career as Lorne Michaels’ assistant and development executive before moving on to eventually run networks like The WB and Lifetime.)
“The Simpsons” (Fox; Daniels’ tenure: 1993-1998) Daniels wrote early memorable episodes like “Homer and Apu” (which landed him an Emmy nom for the song “Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart?”), “Bart Sells His Soul” and “Lisa’s Wedding,” which earned the series an animated program Emmy. “I was anxious and excited to see James L.
Brooks in the ‘Simpsons’ room, and he is so brilliant and generous with his laughter,” Daniels says. “It was always a treat to pitch stories to him.”
“King of the Hill” (Fox/Hulu, 1997-2010 and 2025-present) When Daniels co-created the family comedy with Mike Judge, he wanted to make sure it didn’t copy “The Simpsons” formula. And instead, it created its own lane as a more grounded, and emotionally rich, animated series about a quirky Texas family and their friends.
The show’s recent revival earned critical raves and recently returned for a second season. “It was fun to be back with the cast and the characters, to be writing scenes again for Hank and Peggy Hill, it was like seeing old friends,” he says.
“The Office” (NBC, 2005-2013) “I loved the show so much,” he says of getting the keys and adapting it for NBC. “I was always telling the cast, if all we get to do is the pilot, that’s enough.
It’ll be amazing, we’ll enjoy it so much. And then we got another five episodes, and I was like, ‘my God, guys, it’s going to air somewhere!’ It really was a long while before it looked like it was going to be a big deal, but it was so worth it creatively for everybody.”
“Parks and Recreation” (NBC, 2009-2015) Daniels and Mike Schur were originally tasked with writing a spinoff of “The Office,” but “Parks and Rec” quickly became its own thing — and a bit of a counterweight to the themes of “The Office.” “We decided that, OK, if ‘The Office’ is about private business, this is about government,” he says. “And we also were like, well, ‘The Office’ is kind of dreary.
Let’s try and make this one happier and less bittersweet. It was super fun as we built a whole world and shot in it.”
“Upload” (Prime Video, 2020-2025) A sci-fi fan, Daniels had been sitting on the idea for “Upload” for decades, going back to his days on “SNL.” Then he started writing it as a book during the 2008 writers’ strike. After “The Office” ended, he finally began crafting it as a series.
“For me to go out of the box of comedy and do something so cinematic, VFX-heavy and expensive was a stretch,” he says. “It was a long process to get it to the screen.
But it was really fun to almost do a live-action cartoon, because it was half in a digital world and a lot of cartoony things can happen in that world. I’m very proud of it.”
“Space Force” (Netflix, 2020-2022) Daniels reunited with his “The Office” star Steve Carell for this comedy, which wasn’t meant to be a statement on politics — but he realizes now was probably hampered by how divided this nation is. “I feel like we weren’t giving anybody the show that they wanted,” he says.
“The country was a little divided, obviously, and half of them were very wary of being made fun of, and the other half was like, ‘go after them much harder than you’re going after them.’ But we were making a character comedy.”
“The Paper” (Peacock, 2025-present) In finally finding a way to revisit the world of “The Office,” Daniels and co-creator Michael Koman thought that a documentary crew following the attempts to revive a local newspaper would be fruitful. “I felt it was important to reference the original format of the show and not just do another mockumentary,” Daniels says.
“I had taken to much wonderful inspiration from the original format that I thought it would be cool to keep it in the same world. And then there was the notion of paper being the connecting tissue.” Pun intended!
Greg Daniels Looks Back at Writing for Some of the Most Iconic Series on TV
Popular on Variety