Mitchell Kriegman

Kriegman attended Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, earning a BA in literature in 1974.

He began his career as a writer, video artist and performance artist, under the pseudonym Marshall Klugman. An Evening of Stories and Tricks You Won’t See Anywhere was performed at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City and surrounding venues. His video work of this period included The Marshall Klugman Show (1975), which aired on WNET. As a short story writer, his work has been published in The New Yorker, Between C & D, the National Lampoon, Glamour, George Meyer's Army Man magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

The Telephone Stories (1979) is Kriegman's series of audio-plays for the telephone, one of the first installations of dial-in art. In addition to being available on a special phone-line, The Telephone Stories toured museums and galleries around the country, including the High Museum and The Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, after premiering at the Whitney Museum, as the department's first audio-only offering. Kriegman wrote and acted in Operation X segments for the PBS Series Alive from Off Center, which have been featured in the Walker Art Center and The Paley Center exhibits. During this period, Kriegman collaborated with Bart Friedman and Nancy Cain of Videofreex on several pieces including "Turkey Dinner" (1982), a precursor to his full length My Neighborhood, funded by the American Film Institute, which aired on WNET/13, and featured a sad sack Kriegman gleefully greeting everyone in his neighborhood, who all ignore him.

Kriegman joined Saturday Night Live in 1980 (season 6) as a performer, writer and filmmaker. During his time there, he made three films:The Dancing Man, Heart to Heart, and Someone is Hiding in My Apartment. He appeared in the sketches "Blame The Kids" and "Virgin Search". He was also a contributor to Michael O'Donoghue's Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979), which included the shorts "Cleavage" and "This is a Man in a Dog Suit". A third piece, "The Dancing Belly Button," though not televised, was included in the Anthology Film Archives collection. After leaving Saturday Night Live his work turned markedly toward children's and young adult television programming.

Mouseterpiece Theater (1983), hosted by George Plimpton, was directed by Kriegman and co-written with Robert Cunniff for The Disney Channel; the show was a spoof on Masterpiece Theatre, but instead of presenting serious works in film, Plimpton would introduce Disney cartoons. Further immersion into writing for children's television programming came from HBO's Encyclopedia (1988), and ALF Tales in 1988.

Kriegman produced The Sweet Life (1989), and a sketch-comedy program called Higgins Boys and Gruber (1989) for The Comedy Channel.

Moving to Nickelodeon in 1990, Kriegman became involved in the writing and development of Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show, the first three animated series to be created for Nickelodeon as part of their newest programming block, Nicktoons, which all premiered in 1991. Kriegman was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for The Ren & Stimpy Show in 1992.The fourth Nicktoon, Rocko's Modern Life, premiered a year later.

Kriegman was the creator and executive producer of Clarissa Explains It All, which starred Melissa Joan Hart. The series ran for four seasons and Kriegman was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 1994 for Outstanding Children's Program. CBS commissioned a pilot for a Clarissa sequel, continuing her story as a young working adult, but the pilot was not picked up.

Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree (1995), narrated by Kermit the Frog, and Twisted Puppet Theater (1996) had Kriegman writing for puppet characters. Kriegman created the Emmy Award-winning television series Bear in the Big Blue House (1997) and The Book of Pooh (2001), the latter based on the Milne books. Cast with bunraku puppets, both series employed Kriegman's shadowmation technique. Kriegman also wrote for Sesame Street characters in the feature film, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999), co-written with Joey Mazzarino.

Kriegman was the creator, executive producer and co-director of It's a Big Big World which aired on PBS Kids from 2006 to 2010.

As of 2015, Kriegman is a novelist, instructor, and guest-lecturer, living in the Southern California area, and an adjunct professor at the University College Dublin. Kriegman has taught webseries development and production and sitcom writing at Stony Brook Southampton, lectures at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Kriegman's second novel, Things I Can't Explain, based on the central character in Clarissa Explains it All, was published in 2015.

Kriegman, formerly a member of Writers Guild of America, East, left and maintained financial core status.