Mike Reiss is a mul­ti-Emmy Award-win­ning writer of tele­vi­sion, film, chil­dren’s books and the­ater. He has writ­ten for The Simp­sons since its incep­tion as full series and was show run­ner dur­ing two of its ear­ly sea­son with long-time writ­ing part­ner Al Jean. Jean and he co-cre­at­ed the ani­mat­ed series The Crit­ic, which has gar­nered a large cult fol­low­ing. His many chil­dren’s books include the best­seller How Mur­ray Saved Christ­mas. Films he’s worked on range from Air­plane II to the Ice Age and Despi­ca­ble Me films, in total earn­ing prof­its of more than $1‑billion in world­wide release. He began his pro­fes­sion­al career on staff at the Nation­al Lam­poon dur­ing that esteemed pub­li­ca­tion’s hey­day and cur­rent­ly trav­els the world speak­ing to col­lege stu­dents and any­one else who will lis­ten about his unique, expe­ri­enced take on comedy.