Biography
J. Michael Mendel was an American television producer. Born Joel Michael Mendel on 24 September 1964 in Radford, Virginia, he died on 22 September 2019 in Los Angeles, California. He studied television and film production at Syracuse University and began his career as a production assistant on daytime soaps and James L. Brooks projects including Broadcast News (1987) and Big (1988).
Mendel joined The Simpsons in 1989 when it spun off from The Tracey Ullman Show, serving as producer, co-producer and associate producer through the tenth season and earning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program. He later produced series including The PJs (1999), The Oblongs (2001), Drawn Together (2004–2007) and Napoleon Dynamite (2012).
From 2013 he worked as producer on Rick and Morty, winning a further Emmy for the episode "Pickle Rick" in 2018 and a posthumous Emmy in 2020. He was also associate producer on the film Jerry Maguire (1996).
