Ken Estin

Ken Estin began his career as a freelance writer whose first professional script was a Taxi episode that earned him a Writers Guild Award. Ken became the showrunner (head writer-producer) of Taxi two years later and won his first Emmy when he was twenty-eight. After Taxi, Ken became the showrunner of Cheers, and ran the series until leaving to create and run The Tracey Ullman Show, which earned Ken two more Emmys. He developed short animation segments for the show with Matt Groening, whose vignettes evolved into a spinoff series, The Simpsons, which became television's longest running, most profitable comedy. Ken took a brief hiatus from TV to transform a troubled Sylvester Stallone dramedy project into Eddie Murphy's comedy blockbuster, the first Beverly Hills Cop movie. Ken created seven network pilots, five of which became prime time series. He ran several award-winning series, earning him eleven Emmy nominations, two Emmys, nine Writers Guild Award nominations, and a Writers Guild Award. He created and taught television writing courses for over a decade at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco until irresistible ventures prompted Ken to resume his career as a comedy series showrunner.