David Adam Javerbaum is an American comedy writer. Javerbaum has won 13 Emmy Awards in his career, 11 of which he received for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He runs the popular Twitter account @TheTweetOfGod, an account known for its anti-established-religion tweets. which as of June 2020 has 6.1 million followers, and which served as the basis for his play An Act of God, which opened on Broadway in the spring of 2015 starring Jim Parsons, and again in the spring of 2016 starring Sean Hayes.
Work
Javerbaum was hired as a staff writer with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in 1999. He was promoted to head writer in 2002 and became an executive producer at the end of 2006. His work for the program won 11 Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, three Peabody Awards and Television Critics Association Awards for both Best Comedy and Best News Show. He was also one of the five principal authors of the show's textbook parody ', which sold 2.6 million copies and won the 2005 Thurber Prize for American Humor. He became a consulting producer at the start of 2009 and spearheaded the writing of the book's 2010 sequel, '; his co-production of the audiobook earned the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Spoken-Word Album. He left the show in 2010. In 2013 he was hired by Fusion to create and executive-produce two news-parody shows, No, You Shut Up! and Good Morning Today, in conjunction with The Henson Company. In 2015 he worked as a producer for The Late Late Show with James Corden on CBS. In 2016 Javerbaum co-created the Netflix sitcom Disjointed with Chuck Lorre. He was also a consulting producer and one of three writers on Lorre's 2018 Netflix show The Kominsky Method.
Awards
Javerbaum is also a musical-theater lyricist and librettist who is an alumnus of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He won the $100,000 Ed Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics in 2005. Along with his frequent collaborator Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, he wrote the opening to the 65th Tony Awards, "Broadway: It's Not Just for Gays Anymore!", which earned him his twelfth Emmy in 2012 for Outstanding Music and Lyrics. The pair also wrote the score of the Broadway adaptation of John Waters' Cry-Baby, which opened on April 24, 2008 and was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for Best Original Score; eight original Christmas songs for Stephen Colbert's 2008 television special, , which won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album; "TV Is a Vast Wonderland", the opening to the 2011 Emmy Awards; the opening "What If Life Were More Like Theater?" and closing ; "The Number in the Middle of the Show", for the 2013 Emmy Awards; "We're Fusion!", the 2013 'opening number' to the Fusion TV network; "Are You Ready for Christmas?" for the 2013 Disney Christmas Parade; and the single "Text Me Merry Christmas" for Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser. With composer Gary Barlow he wrote "That Could Be Me", the opening to the 70th Tony Awards, performed by James Corden, and with composer Tom Kitt he wrote "Live!", the opening to the 73rd Tony Awards, also performed by Corden. Along with composer/co-librettist Robert S. Cohen, he wrote Suburb, which was nominated for Outer Critics' Circle and Drama League awards for Best Off-Broadway Musical in 2001.
Books
He is the sole author of two books: 2011's The Last Testament: A Memoir by God in conjunction with which he created @TheTweetOfGod, and the 2009 pregnancy satire What to Expect When You're Expected: A Fetus's Guide to the First Three Trimesters. In addition he co-authored Neil Patrick Harris's 2014 memoirs, The Choose Your Own Autobiography of Neil Patrick Harris. Javerbaum decided to quit the TweetofGod Twitter account in February 2016. He restarted in August 2017. Javerbaum's other work includes serving as head writer and supervising producer for both Comedy Central's first-ever Comedy Awards and The Secret Policeman's Ball 2012, writing and producing the original musical-comedy pilot Browsers for Amazon in 2013, and writing three episodes for the 2011 relaunch of Beavis and Butthead. He wrote for the Late Show with David Letterman from 1998–99. "A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney," his humorous essay written for The New York Times, appeared in April 2012. Javerbaum graduated from Harvard University. While there, he wrote for the humor magazine The Harvard Lampoon, helped edit the 1992 edition of travel guide Let's Go: USA, and served as lyricist and co-bookwriter for two productions of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. Later he spent three years contributing headlines to The Onion, and is credited as one of the writers for Our Dumb Century.
Life
Javerbaum is the son of Tema and Kenneth S. Javerbaum of Watchung, New Jersey. His mother is a former deputy New Jersey attorney general. His father is a founding partner in Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins P.C., a law firm in Springfield, New Jersey. Javerbaum grew up in a Jewish household, attending the Beth-El Temple in Maplewood, New Jersey. He married Debra Bard, a content producer for Comedy Central's website, in 2002. Javerbaum grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey, where he attended Columbia High School, graduating in 1989. He was a finalist on the 1988 Jeopardy!Teen Tournament and its 1998 Teen Reunion Tournament. Jon Stewart also called him as his phone-a-friend when Jon was on Celebrity Millionaire.
