Deborah Lacusta (born March 15, 1958) is an American television writer and actress.

Personal life

Lacusta is married to ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...

'' star

Dan Castellaneta Daniel Louis Castellaneta ( ; born October 29, 1957) is an American actor. He is best known for voicing Homer Simpson on the animated series ''The Simpsons'' (as well as other characters on the show such as Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, ...

(who voices Homer Simpson among many other characters). They met at an improvisational comedy class in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Career

Lacusta and Castellaneta performed together regularly and had a sketch show on Chicago local radio. In 1992 they starred in the show ''Deb & Dan's Show'' at Club Lux at

Santa Monica Airport Santa Monica Airport (Santa Monica Municipal Airport) is a general aviation airport largely in Santa Monica, California, United States, in the Greater Los Angeles area. It opened on April 15, 1923, making it one of the United States' oldest a ...

. Some of their comedy pieces were released on the 2002 CD '' I Am Not Homer''. In the early 1990s, Lacusta and Castellaneta pitched a script for an episode of ''The Simpsons'' to

showrunner A showrunner is the top-level executive producer of a television series. The position outranks other creative and management personnel, including episode directors, in contrast to feature films, in which the director has creative control over th ...

Al Jean Alfred Ernest Jean III (born January 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter and producer. Jean is well known for his work on ''The Simpsons''. He was raised near Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his wri ...

. Jean liked the story, but turned it down because he felt it was too similar to " Duffless", an episode that the writers were already working on. They updated their script then, several years later, offered it to showrunner Mike Scully, who liked it, requested a few changes, and entered the result, the eleventh season's episode " Days of Wine and D'oh'ses" into production. It aired April 9, 2000.Affleck, Neil; Castellaneta, Dan; Lacusta, Deb; Maxtone-Graham, Ian; Meyer, George; Scully, Mike (2008). Commentary for " Days of Wine and D'oh'ses", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Eleventh Season'' VD 20th Century Fox. The two also wrote the episodes " Gump Roast", " The Ziff Who Came to Dinner", " Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", and " The Fight Before Christmas". In

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

, they were nominated for a

Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility Th ...

for the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore".

Filmography

As writer

Lacusta and Castellaneta wrote the following episodes of ''The Simpsons'': *" Days of Wine and D'oh'ses" (2000) *" Gump Roast" (2002) *" The Ziff Who Came to Dinner" (2004) *" Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" (2006) *" The Fight Before Christmas" (2010) *" A Midsummer's Nice Dream" (2011) *" The Ten-Per-Cent Solution" (2011) *" Havana Wild Weekend" (2016) *" My Way or the Highway to Heaven" (2018)

As actress

*'' The Tracey Ullman Show'' (1987) - Various characters *'' Forget Paris'' (1995) - Nurse *''

'' (2016) - Isabella (voice) (" Havana Wild Weekend")

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lacusta, Deb American television writers American women television writers Writers from Detroit 1958 births Living people Screenwriters from Michigan 21st-century American women