MARSH McCALL, Executive Producer Marsh McCall first gained notice as a member of the first writing staff of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," where he soon became head writer. Just three years later, he was named producer of a potential new series, JUST SHOOT ME, and moved up the ranks to his current position as Executive Producer and showrunner.
Typical for a sitcom writer, McCall's father is an English professor at Stanford specializing in ancient Greek tragedy and his mother is a professional cellist in a string quartet. Born in Boston, McCall was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he graduated from Stanford with a degree in English in 1986. For the next four years, he was a newspaper reporter for the Peninsula Times Tribune, covering everything from government to rock concerts. During his final year at the paper, he also penned a humor column.
Following a year at a local advertising agency as a copywriter working on radio and print ads, McCall moved to Los Angeles. Just within the two-year deadline he had given himself to achieve success in television, he landed a writing job at NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." In fact, he was one of the series' first six staff members. Moving to New York, he was named its head writer in 1994.
The next year, McCall returned to Los Angeles and hooked up with Brillstein-Grey Entertainment to write the pilot "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush," based on a British game show. That experience led to being named producer of JUST SHOOT ME. While that show's first six episodes sat on the shelf, unsure if they would ever be aired, he was made co-producer of the company's "The Naked Truth" starring Téa Leoni. When the initial episodes of JUST SHOOT ME were finally broadcast and the ratings earned a series commitment, McCall returned to JUST SHOOT ME, and in 1999 shared a Golden Globe nomination for Best Television Series (Comedy/Musical) in 1999.
