Mel Tolkin

Mel Tolkin (né Shmuel Tolchinsky; August 3, 1913 – November 26, 2007) was an American television comedy writer best known as head writer of the live sketch comedy series Your Show of Shows (NBC, 1950–1954) during the Golden Age of Television. There he presided over a staff that at times included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Danny Simon. The writers' room inspired the film My Favorite Year (1982), produced by Brooks, and the Broadway play Laughter on the 23rd Floor (1993), written by Neil Simon. Tolkin, who won an Emmy Award and every other major prize for television writing, was the father of screenwriter-novelist Michael Tolkin and TV writer-director Stephen Tolkin.