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When Dan McGrath was at Harvard, he co-founded a radical theatre group called The Kronauer Group (which would later become the Cornerstone Theater Company). He didn’t direct conventional plays in one production of Richard III, he used only tables and chairs as the set. But that’s not all: for another show, he literally covered the entire stage floor in dirt, calling it Richard’s Cork Leg. The clean-up after that production reportedly dragged on for days.
At the same time, Dan was deeply academic... he was studying East Asian history and politics at Harvard, and somehow managed to graduate with honors, even though he admitted he “failed all his Japanese-language courses.”
Beyond theatre, he also had a geeky, tech‑nerd streak: he designed computer games at MIT while still a student.
This mix part avant‑garde theatre director, part programmer, part Harvard Lampoon jokester later shaped his comedy writing. His Simpsons episodes often carried this sense of wild imagination: “Time and Punishment,” for example, sends Homer on bizarre time‑travel loops.
He once joked that he was co‑founder and co‑chairman of something called the “Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern” a totally fake business name, but the kind of absurdist humor that felt very him.
All this creative chaos and experimentation helped him stand out when he moved into television, writing for SNL, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and more.