Martin Olson

Martin Olson is an American comedy writer, television producer, bestselling author and composer. He is known for his unusual subject matter, and is an original member of the Boston Comedy Scene. He is the adoptive father of actress Olivia Olson.

Olson has received five Emmy nominations, three for television writing and two for song writing. Olson also received an Ace Award for television writing.

Martin Olson is from Boston, Massachusetts. His brother, Thomas Olson, is a well-known film and stage actor. His daughter Olivia Olson is a singer-songwriter and author. Olson decided to be a comedy writer as a boy when he saw comedian Brother Theodore ranting and raving on The Merv Griffin Show. Before his death in 2001, Theodore became a fan of Olson's first book, Encyclopaedia of Hell (Feral House, 2011), and wrote a quote for the book cover.

Olson began writing for comedians before there were any comedy clubs in Boston. As a young man, he sent batches of jokes to Rodney Dangerfield, which were always returned with the same polite note scrawled at the bottom, "Sorry, Marty!" (According to his agent's press kit, years later when writing for Penn & Teller in Las Vegas, Olson produced comedy bits with Dangerfield and the two became friends.) Olson first sold comedy material to the hosts of local "Gong Shows", which began his career as a comedy writer.

Olson's friends Paul Barclay and Bil Downes started the first comedy club in Boston in 1977. There Olson became house piano player and performed as a comedian with an absurdist deadpan act, playing the guitar and hosting other comedians as his eccentric guests. Olson worked for and wrote with the comedians who became his friends - Sean Morey, Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwait, Joe Alaskey, Don Gavin, Barry Crimmins, Steven Wright, Jimmy Tingle, Denis Leary, Steve Sweeney and many others.

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