Martin Olson

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Martin Olson (born April 2, 1956) is an American comedy writer, television producer, author, and composer from Boston. He’s known for his offbeat humor and was an early, influential member of the Boston comedy scene. He is the father of writer-singer Olivia Olson and also has an adopted daughter, Olivia Olson, who is a performer and author.

Olson has earned six Emmy nominations—five for TV writing and one for songwriting—and two Ace Awards for television writing. His career began before Boston had many comedy clubs: he sent jokes to Rodney Dangerfield, which were often returned with a polite “Sorry, Marty!” He started writing for local Gong Shows and helped build Boston’s first comedy club in 1977, where he performed as a quirky, deadpan comic and played guitar.

He worked with many well-known comedians, including Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwait, Denis Leary, Steven Wright, Jimmy Tingle, and Kevin Nealon. Olson and Clarke helped create Lenny Clarke’s Late Show, a two-hour monster-movie comedy on TV-38, which drew a cult following. After a controversial run, Olson moved to San Francisco, where he met his future wife, Kay Furtado, and they eventually settled in Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, Olson served as head writer for HBO specials, wrote for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and helped create a Comedy Central series in London. He wrote for many animated shows, most notably Rocko’s Modern Life for Nickelodeon and the first season of Phineas and Ferb. He was neighbors with Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, and encouraged him to create an underwater cartoon, which became SpongeBob. Olson has contributed to numerous stage plays and worked on projects for Fox, Disney, and other studios. He also produced Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.

Olson has written many screenplays and published books. His satirical Encyclopaedia of Hell (2011) was optioned for film by Warner Bros. He published a child-friendly reference book, The Adventure Time Encyclopaedia (2013), which reached the New York Times Best-Seller List. He co-wrote The Enchiridion/Marcy’s Super-Secret Scrapbook with his daughter in 2015. He has published other works, including a mystical history book, The Conquest of Heaven, and two poetry collections.

Musically, Olson has written hundreds of songs for television and film. His music has been performed by a wide range of artists, and he has appeared as a singer on shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and Phineas and Ferb. He and Olivia Olson released The Father-Daughter Album of Unspeakable Beauty in 2013, and a new album, Hey I’m Not Dead Yet, was planned for 2021.

Olson’s career spans writing, producing, and composing across television, film, and books, with a distinctive, playful voice that helped shape modern American animation and comedy.