Andy Breckman

Andrew Ross Breckman (born March 3, 1955) is an American television and film writer and a radio personality on WFMU. He is the creator and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning television series Monk on the USA Network, and is co-host of WFMU radio's long-running conceptual comedy program Seven Second Delay. He has written screenplays for a number of comedy films including Sgt. Bilko (starring Steve Martin) and Rat Race (directed by Jerry Zucker), and is frequently hired as a "script doctor" to inject humorous content into scripts written by other screenwriters. Early life Breckman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, to a middle-class Jewish family. He grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey and attended Moorestown Friends School and Haddonfield Memorial High School. Breckman dropped out of Boston University in his freshman year, and despite an admitted lack of musical ability, he launched a brief career as a satirical folk singer. He released two albums of original songs, Don't Get Killed and Proud Dad. Television work Breckman wrote for Late Night with David Letterman from 1982 to 1984 and contributed sketches to Saturday Night Live from 1983 to 1996. One of his most well-known vignettes was a Saturday Night Live sketch called "White Like Me" (which he also directed), in which Eddie Murphy disguises himself as a Caucasian for a day. In 2003 he served as a jokewriter for comedian Steve Martin's stint as host of the Academy Awards.