Lights, Camera, Daniels! Producing us Through Quarantine

Like almost everyone else, I am a massive fan of The Office (US). To a scary extent. Like, I have entire episodes memorized and can tell you what season and episode a scene is from based on only a few words or an image. After indoctrinating my brother and sister into the show, it has become one of the staples that plays on the TV in our shared room while we work or clean (I am actually watching it while writing this post). After hearing last year that NBC bought the rights to stream The Office from Netflix for $100 million, I nearly cried. However, as we've all been quarantined and running the gamut of emotions from sadness to fear, one thing has kept me sane: The Office. And the man I (and we all) have to (partially) thank for this show, as well as staple television programs like The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live, King of the Hill is none other than Greg Daniels.

(Daniels, left, with Steve Carrell, right)

Born in New York City and the son of Aaron Daniels (then the president of the ABC Radio Network), Daniels attended Harvard University with Conan O'Brien, another noted late-night comedian and fellow contributor to Saturday Night Live. Daniels acquired his taste for comedy through Monty Python and several classical humorists. Daniels used some little-c creativity, as well as his own intrinsic love of comedy and entertainment to help create some of the defining shows of the 2000s and influence how sit-coms will be presented for the foreseeable future. I believe that if it wasn't for our ability to rely on the small creature comforts we have while enduring all of the hardships and changes passed and to come, the world would be in a much worse state than it currently is. And we have Daniels to thank, in small part, for that.