David Lloyd (1934-2009)
Scriptwriter David Lloyd, who won an Emmy in 1976 for writing “Chuckles Bites the Dust” for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died at the age of 75. According to his IMDb page he started writing for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the early 1960s and also wrote for The Dick Cavett Show and Jack Paar Tonite before moving entirely to sitcoms. In addition to The Mary Tyler Moore (he won another Emmy award for co-writing the final episode and a third in 1998 for Frasier), he wrote episodes of Rhoda, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Taxi, The Associates, Amen, Cheers, Wings and Frasier. He also created Brothers and served as executive script consultant on Cheers, Wings and Frasier.
An obituary is available at The Los Angeles Times; here’s the post at Deadline Hollywood Daily where I first learned about Lloyd’s passing.
Update:
Ken Levine has posted a wonderful tribute to David Lloyd at his blog.
Related:
November 12th, 2009 at 11:51PM
David Lloyd was a GREAT comedy writer. That’s the best compliment anyone could ever say about him. To list his many accomplishments here would be a bit too much, even for me….
November 13th, 2009 at 10:52AM
I’ll second that, Barry. David Lloyd was an MVP for television comedy writing. Even if he had only written “Chuckles Bites The Dust,” his legacy would have been secure. “GREAT” sums it up very well.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:22PM
“…This word just in: Chuckles the Clown is still dead.”