Michael Schur

Michael Schur
Schur at the 2012 Peabody Awards
Born	Michael Herbert Schur (1975-10-29) October 29, 1975 (age 49)[1] Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Other names	Ken Tremendous
Education	Harvard University (BA)
Occupations	Television producer director screenwriter
Years active	1997–present
Spouse	J. J. Philbin ​ (m. 2005)​
Children	2

Michael Herbert Schur (born October 29, 1975^[1][2][3]) is an American television producer, writer, director, and actor. He was a producer and writer for the American remake of the comedy series The Office, and co-created Parks and Recreation with Office producer Greg Daniels. He created The Good Place, co-created the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and was a producer on the series Master of None. He also played Mose Schrute on The Office. In 2021, he was one of three co-creators of the Peacock comedy series Rutherford Falls.

Schur's comedies typically include large, diverse casts; breakout stars have emerged from his shows. He features optimistic characters who often find strong friendships and lasting love^[4][5][6] through plots that showcase "good-hearted humanistic warmth".^[7] As of September 2021, Schur has been nominated for 19 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two for his work on Saturday Night Live (1997–2004) and The Office.^[8]

Schur was born in 1975, at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan,^[2][9]. His father, Warren Schur, was Jewish (though an atheist) and his mother, Anne Herbert, was Methodist. Schur was not raised with any religion.^[10] The family moved and he grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut.^[3][11]

Schur attended William H. Hall High School in West Hartford.^[12] He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in English from Harvard University in 1997, where he was a president of the Harvard Lampoon.^[13] Schur's father also attended Harvard.^[14]

Starting in 1998, Schur was a writer on NBC's Saturday Night Live.^[15][16] He became the producer of Weekend Update in 2001; his first show in the new role was Saturday Night Live's first episode after the September 11 attacks.^[17] In 2002, he won his first Primetime Emmy Award as part of SNL's writing team.^[8] Schur left Saturday Night Live in 2004.^[18]

Soon afterward, he became producer and writer for The Office on NBC, for which he wrote ten episodes and won the 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Schur appeared on The Office as Dwight's cousin Mose in several episodes, including "Initiation", in which Dwight takes Ryan to his beet farm; "Money", in which Jim and Pam spend a night at the farm; "The Deposition"; "Koi Pond"; "Counseling"; and "Finale". He also co-wrote The Office: The Accountants webisodes with Paul Lieberstein. In 2005, Schur served as a co-producer of HBO's The Comeback and wrote two of its 13 episodes.

In April 2008, Schur and Greg Daniels started working on a pilot for Parks and Recreation as a proposed spin-off of The Office.^[18] Over time, Schur realized Parks and Recreation would work better if they made it separate from The Office. While Parks and Recreation received negative reviews in its first season, it received critical acclaim in the second, much like The Office.^[19] Schur also wrote for Fire Joe Morgan, a sports journalism blog, under the pseudonym "Ken Tremendous".^[20] He resurrected the pen name on March 31, 2011, when he began writing for SB Nation's Baseball Nation site.^[21] @KenTremendous is also Schur's Twitter handle.^[22]

Schur collaborated with The Decemberists on their music video for "Calamity Song" from the album The King Is Dead.^[23] This video is based upon Eschaton, a mock-nuclear war game played on tennis courts that David Foster Wallace created in his 1996 novel Infinite Jest. Schur wrote his undergraduate senior thesis on the novel^[24] and once held the film rights to it.^[25] With Daniel J. Goor, Schur created the cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which premiered in fall 2013 on Fox. The show was moved to NBC in its sixth season. In 2013, Joe Posnanski and Schur created The PosCast, which is now hosted by Meadowlark Media. The podcast primarily discusses baseball but meanders into other sports, subjects, and drafts of random items, and prides itself in being meaningless. The podcast has featured notable guests and co-hosts such as Linda Holmes, Ken Rosenthal, Nick Offerman, Ellen Adair, Stefan Fatsis, Brandon McCarthy, Joey Votto, and Sean Doolittle.

On September 19, 2016, the Schur-created sitcom The Good Place began airing on NBC.^[26] The supernatural series concerning philosophy and being a good person, starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, became a surprise critical and commercial success,^[7] concluding its four-season run on January 30, 2020. In 2016, Schur and Rashida Jones co-wrote the teleplay of "Nosedive", an episode of the television anthology series Black Mirror, from a story by Charlie Brooker.^[27]

In 2019, Schur joined other Writers Guild of America writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA and the practice of packaging.^[28] In 2019, he began development of a scripted comedy, Rutherford Falls, starring Ed Helms.^[29] The series premiered on the streaming service Peacock on April 22, 2021.^[30] He worked on several projects for IMDb TV.^[31] In 2019, he re-upped his overall deal at Universal Television.^[32] In 2022, Schur released his first book, How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question, which provides a humorous take on the ethical philosophy questions he studied while writing and producing The Good Place.^[33] In 2023, Schur appeared in Sorry/Not Sorry, a documentary about sexual misconduct allegations against Louis C.K.^[34] He has developed a comedy series starring Ted Danson titled A Man on the Inside that debuted on Netflix in November 2024.^[35]

Schur is married to J. J. Philbin, who was formerly a writer on The O.C. and is the daughter of Regis Philbin. Their son was born in 2008 and their daughter in 2010.^[36][37]

He is a vegetarian.^[38]

He first became interested in comedy when he was 11 years old when he read Woody Allen's 1975 collection of humorous essays Without Feathers. Schur said he found the book on his father's bookshelf and stayed up reading it until 4 a.m.^[39] He has also cited other influences as Monty Python, David Foster Wallace, and The Simpsons.^[40]

Executive producer only

• Master of None (2015–2021)
• Abby's (2019)
• Sunnyside (2019)
• Hacks (2021–present)
• Q-Force (2021)
• Primo (2023)

Acting roles

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (September 2021)

• Schur, Michael (2022). How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781982159313.

• Michael Schur at IMDb
• Interview with Michael Schur at The Kansas City Star
• Where are they now? Interview About His Public Schooling