Michael Herbert Schur is an American television producer, writer, and actor. He was a producer and writer for the comedy series The Office, and co-created Parks and Recreation with Office producer Greg Daniels. He created The Good Place, co-created the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine and was a producer on the series Master of None. He also played Mose Schrute in The Office. Schur's comedies typically include large, diverse casts and have created break-out stars. His shows feature optimistic characters who often find lasting love and strong friendships, through plots that showcase "good-hearted humanistic warmth." Schur has been nominated for 14 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two for his work on Saturday Night Live and The Office.
Early life
Schur was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to a family of Jewish background. His parents are Warren M. Schur and Anne Herbert, and he was raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. He first became interested in comedy when he was 11 years old, when he read Without Feathers, a 1975 collection of humorous essays by Woody Allen. Schur said he found the book on his father's bookshelf and stayed up reading it until 4 a.m. Schur attended William H. Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. Schur graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. majored in English from Harvard University in 1997, where he was a president of the Harvard Lampoon.
Career
Starting in 1998, Schur was a writer on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Schur became the producer of Weekend Update in 2001; his first show in the new role was Saturday Night Live's first episode after the September 11 attacks. In 2002, he won his first Primetime Emmy Award as part of SNLs writing team. Schur left Saturday Night Live in 2004. Soon afterward, he became producer and writer for The Office on NBC, for which he wrote ten episodes and won the 2006Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Schur appeared on The Office as Dwight's cousin Mose in several episodes, including "Initiation", in which Dwight takes Ryan to his beet farm, "Money", in which Jim and Pam spend a night at the farm, "The Deposition", "Koi Pond", "Counseling" and "Finale". He also co-wrote The Office: The Accountants webisodes with Paul Lieberstein. In 2005, Schur served as a co-producer of HBO's The Comeback and wrote two of its 13 episodes. Schur also wrote for Fire Joe Morgan, a sports journalism blog, under the pseudonym "Ken Tremendous". Schur resurrected the pen name on March 31, 2011, when he began writing for SB Nation's Baseball Nation site. Ken Tremendous is also Schur's Twitter username. In April 2008, Schur and Greg Daniels started working on a pilot for Parks and Recreation as a proposed spin-off of The Office. Over time, Schur realized Parks and Recreation would work better if they made it separate from The Office. While Parks and Recreation received negative reviews in its first season, it received critical acclaim in the second, much like The Office. Schur collaborated with The Decemberists on their music video for "Calamity Song" from the album The King Is Dead. This video is based upon Eschaton, a mock-nuclear war game played on tennis courts that David Foster Wallace created in his 1996 novel Infinite Jest. Schur wrote his undergraduate senior thesis on the novel, and he also owns the film rights to it. With Daniel J. Goor, Schur created the cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which premiered in fall 2013 on Fox. The show was moved to NBC in its sixth season. The show boasts six awards. In 2013, Joe Posnanski and Schur created the The PosCast which is now hosted by The Athletic. The podcast primarily discusses baseball but meanders into other sports, subjects, drafts of random items, and prides itself in being nonsensical. The podcast has featured notable guests and co-hosts such as Linda Holmes, Ken Rosenthal, Nick Offerman, Ellen Adair, Stefan Fatsis, Brandon McCarthy, Joey Votto, and Sean Doolittle. On September 19, 2016, the Schur-created sitcom The Good Place began airing on NBC. The supernatural series concerning philosophy and being a good person, starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, became a surprise critical and commercial success, concluding its four-season run on January 30, 2020. In 2016, Schur and Rashida Jones co-wrote the teleplay of "Nosedive", an episode of the television anthology seriesBlack Mirror, from a story by Charlie Brooker. In 2019, Schur joined other WGA writers in firing their agents as part of the WGA's stand against the ATA and the unfair practice of packaging. In 2019, Schur began development of a scripted comedy show called "Rutherford Falls" starring Ed Helms.
Personal life
Schur is married to J. J. Philbin, who was formerly a writer on The O.C. and is the daughter of the late television star Regis Philbin. Their son was born in February 2008 and daughter born in July 2010.
