Billy Kimball (born July 8, 1959) is an American writer and producer. He was a co-executive producer on the acclaimed HBO series Veep .
He was born in New York City, attended Trinity School, and graduated from Harvard College where he was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon . [1] He is currently married to the former Alexandra Manuela Vargas Hamilton [2] and has two daughters and a son.
Kimball began his career writing for the HBO series Not Necessarily the News . He was the host and executive producer of the satiric game show Clash! and the co-host (with Denis Leary) of the talk show Afterdrive both on the Ha! Network, a predecessor of Comedy Central.
As a writer, Kimball has worked on Saturday Night Live , Cedric the Entertainer Presents , and Lateline . He wrote the Independent Spirit Awards ten times since 2002 and served as a producer on the show six times since 2005. [3] He has written nine episodes of The Simpsons , and co-wrote eight with Ian Maxtone-Graham. He was the head writer for the 88th Academy Awards in 2016 and a writer for the 89th Academy Awards in 2017.
Kimball was the original executive producer of The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn from 1999 to 2001. [4]
He has won an Emmy Award for Veep twice [5] and the CableAce Award for Best Documentary. His Simpsons episode "24 Minutes" received an Annie Award in 2007 for Best Writing in an Animated Television Production. [6] He won the Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Script for Comedy/Variety Special for both the 2008 and 2009 Film Independent Spirit Awards. [7] He also won the WGA Award for "Best Comedy Writing" for Veep.
In 1994, he served as a senior manager for the United States Agency for International Development's Market Reform Project in Kyiv, Ukraine. [1] [8]
Kimball has a long association with former Senator Al Franken. He was the executive producer of InDecision '92, Comedy Central's coverage of the 1992 United States Presidential Election, which was anchored by Franken. [9] From 2005 to 2007, he was the executive producer of The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio and Sundance Channel. He has edited four of Franken's books, Why Not Me?, Oh, the Things I Know!, Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them, and The Truth (with Jokes), all of them New York Times bestsellers.
In 2009, Kimball began to appear as a commentator on TruTV Presents: World's Dumbest... He is currently the editor-in-chief of the on-line humor magazine The Old Yorker. [10]
Kimball co-wrote the 2010 documentary Waiting for Superman , about the failures of American public education, with filmmaker Davis Guggenheim. The film received the Audience Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
In May 2013, Kimball was appointed senior vice president and chief programming officer of Fusion. [11] He served as an executive producer for The Jim Henson Company's Good Morning Today and No, You Shut Up! (both shows are under The Jim Henson Company's Henson Alternative banner).
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(November 2016) |
David Adam Javerbaum is an American comedy writer and lyricist. Javerbaum has won 13 Emmy Awards in his career, 11 of them for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He runs the popular Twitter account @TheTweetOfGod, which at its peak had 6.2 million followers. The account was the basis for his play An Act of God, which opened on Broadway in the spring of 2015 starring Jim Parsons, and again in the spring of 2016 starring Sean Hayes. The play has gone on to receive over 100 productions in 20 countries and 11 languages.
The Late Late Show is an American late-night television talk and variety comedy show that originally aired from January 9, 1995, to April 27, 2023, on CBS. Tom Snyder was the show's first host, followed by Craig Kilborn, Craig Ferguson, and James Corden. The show originated from Television City in Los Angeles.
"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of the ninth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It was originally broadcast on Fox in the United States on September 21, 1997, as the 179th episode of the series. The episode features the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney Gumble and abandoned outside the World Trade Center, where it had been repeatedly posted with parking tickets, and disabled with a parking boot.
"Tennis the Menace" is the twelfth episode of the twelfth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 11, 2001. In the episode, the Simpsons build a tennis court in their backyard and are ridiculed by the entire town because of Homer's inferior tennis ability. Homer therefore tries to please Marge by entering the two into a tournament, but they quickly turn into rivals when Marge replaces Homer with Bart as her partner.
Jan Struther was the pen name of Joyce Anstruther, later Joyce Maxtone Graham and finally Joyce Placzek, an English writer remembered for her character Mrs. Miniver and a number of hymns, such as "Lord of All Hopefulness".
"Dude, Where's My Ranch?" is the eighteenth episode of the fourteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox Network in the United States on April 27, 2003. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and was the first episode directed by Chris Clements.
Frank Hart Rich Jr. is an American essayist and liberal op-ed columnist, who held various positions within The New York Times from 1980 to 2011. He has also produced television series and documentaries for HBO.
Ian Maxtone-Graham is an American television writer and producer. He has formerly written for Saturday Night Live (1992–1995) and The Simpsons (1995–2012), as well as serving as a co-executive producer and consulting producer for the latter.
Army Man was a comedy magazine published in the late 1980s by George Meyer, who went on to be an acclaimed writer for The Simpsons.
Thomas Edward Meehan was an American playwright. He wrote the books for the musicals Annie, The Producers, Hairspray, Young Frankenstein and Cry-Baby. He co-wrote the books for Elf: The Musical and Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin.
"The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" is the thirteenth episode of the seventeenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 12, 2006. The episode was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and directed by Raymond S. Persi.
"24 Minutes" is the twenty-first episode of the eighteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 20, 2007 as part of the one-hour season finale, alongside the episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want". It was originally promoted as being the 400th episode, but was broadcast as the 399th. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and Billy Kimball. It was Kimball's first writing credit.
Alan Zweibel is an American writer, producer, director, comedian and actor whom TheNew York Times says has “earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture." An original Saturday Night Live writer, Zweibel has won five Emmy Awards and two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work in television, which includes It's Garry Shandling's Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
William James Smith is an English stand-up comedian, screenwriter, novelist, actor and producer. He is known for being part of the writing team of the BBC sitcom The Thick of It and its American HBO counterpart Veep (2012–16). Additionally, he starred as Phil Smith in the former. He is also the creator and showrunner of the Apple TV+ drama thriller Slow Horses (2022–).
"Gone Maggie Gone" is the thirteenth episode of the twentieth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 15, 2009. The episode was written by both Billy Kimball and longtime Simpsons writer Ian Maxtone-Graham, and directed by Chris Clements. In the episode, Homer leaves Maggie on the doorstep of a convent, but when she disappears, Lisa goes undercover as a nun to solve the mystery and find her. Meanwhile, Homer tries to keep Maggie's disappearance a secret from Marge, who was temporarily blinded while watching a solar eclipse.
Sean Gray is a British comedy writer, producer and director. He is known for his work on the HBO series Veep, the BAFTA-winning BBC series The Thick of It and Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle and the feature film The Day Shall Come. He is a two-time Emmy-winner and Golden Globe-nominee.
Theodore Carrington Jessup is an American television writer, producer, actor, and performer. He is a writer for the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy, and has written the episodes "12 and a Half Angry Men," "Mom's the Word," "The 2000-Year-Old Virgin," "Brokeback Swanson," and "High School English."
The Land of Gorch was a recurring adult puppetry skit that appeared in the first season of the American comedy television program Saturday Night Live, featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. His characters appeared regularly on the late-night comedy television program. After Sesame Street, Henson feared he would become typecast into working on children's television series. His talent agent Bernie Brillstein, who represented Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Lorne Michaels helped him transition to Saturday Night Live.
Timothy Simons is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Jonah Ryan on the HBO television series Veep, for which he has received five nominations and one win for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. He has also had acting roles in the films The Interview, Christine, and The Boss. He also appears on the series Candy as Pat Montgomery and has appeared as part of the main cast in Nobody Wants This (2024).
Ian Martin is an English comedy writer. Martin was a writer for the BAFTA-winning BBC series The Thick of It. He was famously hired as "swearing consultant" in 2005 by the show's creator, Armando Iannucci, for Series 1 of the political satire and went on to become a full member of the writing team. He won an Emmy for his writing across five series of Veep and was BAFTA nominated for co-writing The Death of Stalin.