Photo: Dan McGrath
Dan McGrath, an accomplished TV comedy writer who got his start on Saturday Night Live in the early nineties, died Friday. He was 61 years old.
An alum of The Harvard Lampoon (where he was twice elected vice president), McGrath first contributed to SNL as a guest writer during the show’s 16th season before joining the staff full-time the following year.
Though he later made more of a name for himself with stints on The Simpsons and King of the Hill, he’s remembered for several offbeat sketch ideas during his tenure at SNL, including “Frank Gannon, P.I. P.I.” (Politically Incorrect Private Investigator) and “Leevi’s Three-Legged Jeans.”
At The Simpsons, McGrath received writing credit on 50 episodes between 1992 and 1994. He returned to the show in 1996, when he accumulated another 24 credits as a producer. In interviews, he said he twice fired from the show.
On King of the Hill, McGrath was credited with writing 11 episodes and producing 28 episodes from 2002 to 2010.
His other TV credits included stints at Gravity Falls, Mission Hill, Muppets Tonight, and The PJ’s.
McGrath was Emmy-nominated for his work on Saturday Night Live in 1992, and later won an Emmy for the 1997 Simpsons episode “Homer’s Phobia.”
“We lost my incredible brother Danny yesterday. He was a special man, one of a kind. An incredible son, brother, uncle and friend. Our hearts are broken,” his sister, Gail McGrath Garabedian, wrote on Facebook. Garabedian told The Hollywood Reporter that her brother’s cause of death was a stroke.
