Tim Carvell is an American writer and television producer known for his work on the TV satirical news series '' Last Week Tonight with John Oliver'' and ''

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'', as well as for his print work in publications including '' Mad'', ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'', and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

Career

For the first nine years after he graduated from college, Carvell wrote for a number of New York-based publications, including '' Fortune'', '' Sports Illustrated for Women'' and ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cult ...

''. He also contributed humor pieces to ''McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'' and the op-ed page of ''

''. Carvell stumbled into a comedy career "by accident". He heard about an opening on the TV comedy series ''

'' from Steve Bodow, one of the writers on that show. He submitted a writing sample that consisted of the headlines that

Jon Stewart Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host. He hosted '' The Daily Show'', a satirical news program on Comedy Central, from 1999 to 2015 and now hosts '' ...

reads at the desk and dialogue between Stewart and correspondents. Carvell was then interviewed by the show's head writer and the executive producer. He joined the show in March 2004, just as the

2004 U.S. presidential campaign The 2004 United States presidential election was the 55th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. The Republican ticket of incumbent President George W. Bush and his running mate incumbent Vice President Dick Chen ...

was becoming a common news topic. Describing the subsequent meeting with Stewart as "surreal", Carvell says, "it felt uncannily like I was suddenly a guest on the show, only without a book or movie to promote." In 2011, Carvell became the series' head writer. As a staff writer for the show, he won six

Emmy Awards The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

between 2004–2012. Since 2005, he has written the "Planet Tad" column for '' Mad'' magazine. In 2012, he wrote a book based on the column, also called '' Planet Tad''. In 2014, Carvell followed

John Oliver John William Oliver (born 23 April 1977) is a British-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. Oliver started his career as a stand-up comedian in the United Kingdom. He came to wider attention ...

to his new HBO series '' Last Week Tonight with John Oliver'', where he serves as showrunner for the series.

Personal life

Tim Carvell is a native of

Bloomfield Hills Bloomfield Hills is a small city (5.04 sq. miles) in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is approximately northwest of Downtown Detroit. Except a small southern border with the city of Birm ...

, a suburb of

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

. He entered

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in 1991, majoring in history. While there, he wrote news and features for ''Spectator'' which he described as "as good a journalism education as you could get. It allowed you to learn by making mistakes, without suffering real consequences." He graduated in 1995. Carvell married his partner, Thomas Keeton, on June 28, 2014.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Carvell, Tim Columbia College (New York) alumni Living people Primetime Emmy Award winners American LGBT writers LGBT people from Michigan American writers 1974 births