Martin Olson
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Martin Olson is a Hollywood television producer, director and composer. He is best known as a "founding father" of the amazing Boston Comedy scene, and as a collaborator with comedians, composers and artists, and as a writer-producer of off-beat television series and stage plays.
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[edit] Background
Olson began writing comedy and composing music at an early age. At age 7, he saw the eccentric comedian Brother Theodore perform on The Merv Griffin Show. Fascinated by Theodore's ranting and raving at Griffin's terrified audience, Olson has often said that at that moment his fate was sealed and he knew the type of comedy he wanted to write. Before his death Theodore became a fan of Olson's first book and wrote a dust cover blurb in appreciation of Olson's dark humor.
Olson began writing for comedians before there were comedy clubs in the Boston area. He sent pages of jokes to Rodney Dangerfield, which were returned with the same polite note scrawled at the bottom, "Sorry, Martin!" Years later Olson would produce comedy bits with Rodney and the two would become friends. Soon Olson was selling material to the hosts of local "Gong Shows", which were barroom variety shows hosted by comedians.
[edit] Olson and Boston comedy
Olson started the first comedy club in Boston in 1977 with local producers Paul Barclay and Bil Downes. There, he became "house piano player" between acts, and also performed as a comedian for the first two years with an absurdist deadpan act. His act consisted of playing guitar and hosting "a show within the show" featuring other comedians as his eccentric guests. At the club every night for four years, Olson worked for and wrote with the comedians who became his friends--Lenny Clarke, Steven Wright, Bobcat Goldthwait, Denis Leary, Barry Crimmins, Steve Sweeney, Jimmy Tingle, Sean Morey and many others.
[edit] "The Barracks"
Olson became roommates with comedian Lenny Clarke in "The Barracks", an apartment near Harvard Square where comedians from all over the country came to stay while performing in their comedy comedy club. Clarke became the most popular comedian in Boston, and "The Barracks" became such a legendary hub of comedy and depravity that it was the subject of a television special on Boston comedy in the 1980s, and also of the award-winning documentary on the Boston comedy scene When Standup Stood Out (2006) directed by filmmaker-comedian Fran Solomita.
[edit] Olson, Ding Ho and Lenny Clarke's Late Show
When Barry Crimmins started the second comedy club in the Boston area called the Ding Ho, Olson became piano player and began showing short films he would write and direct. This led to Olson writing Lenny Clarke's Late Show, a late-night comedy TV series on TV-38 hosted and co-written by Clarke. The TV show garnered a cult following, spawning college dorm parties dedicated to watching the show. However after two years, Olson and Clarke were thrown off the air for creating segments such as "News for Negroes" and "Mentally Retarded Faith Healers".
[edit] Olson and the West Coast Comedy Scene
Olson took his tapes from the show and drove cross-country to San Francisco with comedian Don Gavin. There by coincidence the 1980 SF Comedy Competition was starting up, with a First Prize of $10,000.00. Olson helped Gavin audition and make it into the finals. There Olson met his wife Kay Furtado, a comedy writer who had been flown to SF to write for another comedian in the competition. A year later they married in a ceremony in San Francisco attended by all of the local comedians. He and his wife moved to Los Angeles where they raised two children, Casey Olson and Olivia Olson.
[edit] Comedy Writing
Olson's Los Angeles home became a halfway house for comedians coming to L.A. to perform and audition for shows. Meanwhile Olson wrote HBO comedy performance specials, became staff writer for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, wrote an award-winning series for Comedy Central in London and became head writer for many animated series voiced by his comedian friends. He is presently head writer for the Disney comedy series Phineas and Ferb.
[edit] Impact and Affiliations in Contemporary Comedy
Specializing in writing comedy specials and staging one-man shows for comedians, Olson became producer-writer for Penn and Teller on their notorious FX variety series Penn and Teller's Sin City Spectacular. Selling comedy screenplays to Dreamworks, UA, Touchstone and Warner Bros, Olson was able to dedicate his time to writing and directing live stage performances in Hollywood at the HBO Theater, The Steve Allen Theater and Comedy Central Stage featuring well-known comedians and actors.
Olson's daughter Olivia Olson, a prodigy singer-songwriter, starred in the British comedy film Love Actually.
