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Gregory Martin Daniels (born June 13, 1963) is an American screenwriter, television producer, and director. He has worked on several television series, including writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, adapting The Office for the United States, and co-creating Parks and Recreation and King of the Hill. Daniels attended Harvard University, where he befriended and began collaborating with Conan O'Brien. His first writing credit was for Not Necessarily the News, before he was laid off because of budget cuts.
He joined the writing staff of The Simpsons during its fifth season. He wrote several classic episodes, including "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", "Lisa's Wedding" and "Bart Sells His Soul" and supervised "22 Short Films About Springfield". He left The Simpsons to co-create another long-running animated series, King of the Hill, with Mike Judge. The show ran thirteen years before its cancellation in 2009. During the run of King of the Hill, he worked on several other series, including the American version of The Office and Parks and Recreation. In 2016, he was an executive producer on the TBS series People of Earth. With The Office star Steve Carell, Daniels co-created the Netflix comedy series Space Force. He also created the Amazon science fiction comedy series Upload. In 2025, Daniels' new series The Paper premiered.
Daniels stated that he became interested in comedy by watching Monty Python's Flying Circus as a child, as well as reading books by humorist S.J. Perelman at age 11. His first joke was a Carnac the Magnificent joke for his father which was later used for The Office episode, "The Dundies".
Daniels attended Phillips Exeter Academy and then Harvard University where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon with Conan O'Brien.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio by Conan O'Brien, 2009 After graduating in 1985, the two accepted jobs at Not Necessarily the News, but they were soon fired due to budget cuts.
When he initially joined the series, he believed the series had gone past the "glory years" and that he had "missed the boat". In the fifth season, Daniels penned "Homer and Apu", "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", and "The Devil and Homer Simpson" segment of "Treehouse of Horror IV".
Daniels received an Emmy nomination in the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics" category for the song "Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart?" from "Homer and Apu". For season six, he wrote "Homer Badman", "Lisa's Wedding" and the "Time and Punishment" segment from "Treehouse of Horror V". "Lisa's Wedding" became the third of the series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program. In the seventh season, Daniels wrote "Bart Sells His Soul", which was based on a childhood experience. His final credit for the series was for "22 Short Films About Springfield", which he served as supervising writer alongside showrunner Josh Weinstein. They were given the responsibility of linking all the stories together.
Daniels also took the writers to Texas to do some research with reporter notebooks, a process he would use for The Office and Parks and Recreation. Judge was ultimately so pleased with Daniels' contributions that he chose to credit him as a co-creator, rather than give him the "developer" credit usually reserved for individuals brought on to a pilot written by someone else. During the Itchy algae and sixth seasons, Judge and Daniels became less involved with the show. They eventually focused on the show again, although Daniels steadily became more involved with other projects.
Following the success of The Office, Ben Silverman asked Daniels to create a spin-off for the series. After considering several ideas, Daniels and co-creator Michael Schur eventually decided that the series would not get a spin-off because Daniels and Schur "couldn't find the right fit". After Amy Poehler agreed to play the lead, they decided their new series would revolve around an optimistic female bureaucrat in small-town government. The premise of Parks and Recreation was partly inspired by the portrayal of local politics on the HBO drama series The Wire, as well as the renewed interest in and optimism about politics stemming from the 2008 United States presidential election. The series initially received mixed reviews, much like The Office in the first season, but after a re-approach to its format and tone, the later seasons received critical acclaim. For four years, he split his time between The Office and Parks and Recreation, before eventually returning as full-time showrunner for The Office for its ninth and final season.
Other series in development from Daniels and Judge include Caitie Delaney and Caleb Hearon's Best Buds for Peacock and Chelm: The Smartest Place on Earth with Sacha Baron Cohen for Cartoon Network and Max. They were also producing Nicole Silverberg's Bad Crimes, starring Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus for Netflix, but it was canceled mid-production.
His other animated series and his first credit as a creator, King of the Hill, has received positive reviews as well. IGN named it the 27th best-animated television series and the site mainly complimented the series for its subtle character humor.
His next television series, The Office, ranked as NBC's highest rated show for a majority of its run, according to the Nielsen ratings. The series has also been put on several top series lists by many publications including Time,Poniewozik, James. "Top 10 Returning TV Series". Time. Retrieved April 12, 2008. BuddyTV, Metacritic, The Washington Post, and Paste. His writing credits for the series are often considered the best of the series. Despite its early acclaim, later seasons have received criticism for a dip in quality, notably after Daniels was less involved. Daniels' next series, Parks and Recreation, was called "the smartest comedy on TV" by Entertainment Weekly in 2011.
Daniels was also awarded Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award in 2008.
| 1985–1987 | Not Necessarily the News | Sketches Show | |||||
| 1987–1988 | The Wilton North Report | Live Show | |||||
| 1987–1990 | Saturday Night Live | ||||||
| 1992 | Seinfeld | ||||||
| 1993–1998 | The Simpsons | Also produced 25 episodes and co-produced 22 episodes | |||||
| 1997–2010, 2025–present | King of the Hill | Co-created with Mike Judge | |||||
| 2000 | Life's Too Short | ||||||
| Monsignor Martínez | TV pilot | ||||||
| 2003 | A.U.S.A | ||||||
| 2005–2013 | The Office | Also produced 29 episodes; Based on the show The Office by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant | |||||
| 2009–2015 | Parks and Recreation | Co-created with Michael Schur | |||||
| 2012 | Friday Night Dinner | TV pilot; Co-created with Robert Popper | |||||
| 2013 | The Mindy Project | ||||||
| Hello Ladies | |||||||
| 2016–2017 | People of Earth | ||||||
| 2020 | A Parks and Recreation Special | Co-created with Michael Schur | |||||
| 2020–2025 | Upload | ||||||
| 2020–2022 | Space Force | Co-created with Steve Carell | |||||
| 2023 | Praise Petey | Executive producer with Mike Judge | |||||
| 2024 | In the Know | ||||||
| Exploding Kittens | |||||||
| 2025–present | Common Side Effects | ||||||
| The Paper | Co-created with Michael Koman |
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