Dana Gould

A bearer of the backhanded tag “comic’s comic,” Dana Gould started working as a stand-up right at the height of the ’80s comedy boom, and just before everything imploded, he inadvertently had a hand in starting the more narrative, free-form alternative-comedy movement. Gould later went on to write and perform on The Ben Stiller Show, scored a bit part on an episode of Seinfeld, and spent the better part of the ’00s writing for The Simpsons. On his 2009 DVD, Let Me Put My Thoughts In You, Gould concedes that, like his father before him, he essentially has two emotions, “rage and suppressed rage,” to speak of: He’s an agitated everyman railing impotently against an insane world and the million little indignities and humiliations that constitute everyday life. 

Updated 09/14/2011