From sit-coms to stake-outs

I started out as an actor, professionally. I worked mostly on the New York stage and that led me into doing comedy. I was a stand-up comedian, which led me into doing sketch comedy, which led me into doing sit-coms - American sit-coms.

Oddly enough, that�s what brought me to Buffy. Joss was actually open to comedy writers rather than people who�d been working on one hour dramas. He had read scripts I�d written with my wife Eleanor Hampton (who was my writing partner) and he had read only [the comedy] half hours.

He brought us in and asked us to pitch some ideas. The next we knew, we were writing a script for the second season which went very well. [Joss] was very pleased and we were offered a job on the third season.

At that time, my wife and I were splitting up our writing partnership - not our marriage, but our writing partnership. My wife went to work on Mad About You as a producer and I continued to write for Buffy in the third season and onward.