--- name: "Matt Tarses" canonical: "https://film.one/person/matt-tarses" fi1m_id: "matt-tarses" imdb_id: "nm0850696" tmdb_id: 58061 roles: ["Writer"] born: "12 May 1966" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 70 average_as: "writer" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-17T20:50:17.632884+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Matt Tarses ## Identity Matt Tarses - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/matt-tarses - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** matt-tarses - **IMDb ID:** nm0850696 - **TMDB ID:** 58061 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0850696/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/58061 Writer. Born 12 May 1966 in USA. ## Details - **Work:** Writer - **Born:** 12 May 1966, USA - **Active:** 1998–present - **Average Fi1m score:** 70, as writer, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1990s 82 (1), 2020s 57 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0850696/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/58061 ## Streaming the US now - **HBO Max:** [*Rooster*](https://film.one/tv/rooster.md) (57) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Matt Tarses > Matt Tarses has spent thirty years in the writers' rooms of fast-talking American ensemble comedies, *Sports Night* and *Scrubs* among them. The series he runs himself, *Rooster* most recently, have the pace and the warmth of those rooms and not yet the people. Somebody in a Matt Tarses comedy is always at work and always talking about something else. The newsroom in *Sports Night*, the hospital in *Scrubs*, the campus in *Rooster*: the setting supplies the deadlines and the characters supply the talk, fast, overlapping and usually funnier than whatever prompted it. It is a durable way to make television. When the talk is quick enough, nobody has to notice that the people doing it have not changed since the pilot. He came up in the mid-to-late 1990s on *Public Morals*, *Men Behaving Badly* and *Norm*, then landed on *Sports Night* (1998), where he wrote nine episodes and produced on it through 2000. From 2001 he wrote eight episodes of *Scrubs* and co-executive produced it until 2005. Those are the two writers' rooms that made him, and they are the two shows we rate. We scored *Sports Night* 82 and did not mention him, which is not a slight: on a show with a voice that strong, the staff writers succeed by disappearing into it. What a writer learns there is pace, and how to let a joke and a hurt land in the same breath. The question is what he does with those lessons when the show is his. *Mad Love* (2011) was the first series he created, *Alex, Inc.* (2018) the second, and most critics were lukewarm about the latter. Then came *Rooster* (2026), created with Bill Lawrence, his collaborator on two shows now, and starring Steve Carell. We gave it 57. Carell is appealingly awkward and the cast keep him good company, but the jokes are ones we had heard before, and the relationship the whole thing rests on, a father and his daughter, is barely written. We liked being in the company of these people, and then noticed we could not say what the daughter wanted from her father, or he from her, and that the programme had not noticed either. The stories wander before anyone has enough of a life for the wandering to matter. That is the honest shape of the career so far: a first-rate staff writer whose own series move like the shows he learned on and are not yet about anyone in particular. *Rooster* is easy company, and easy company is not nothing on a weeknight. But *Sports Night* was funny about people who were plainly in trouble, and the trouble was the point; *Rooster* is funny near people who might be in trouble if the script stopped to ask. Watch *Sports Night* for what he learned. Watch *Rooster* for Carell. The next one he runs should take a scene off from the jokes and find out what somebody wants. ## Biography Matt Tarses is an American writer and producer. He wrote episodes of *The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air* (1990) and served as co-producer and writer on *Sports Night* (1998–2000). He wrote eight episodes of *Scrubs* (2001–2005) and was co-executive producer for 80 episodes of the series. Tarses wrote the screenplay for the film *A Guy Thing* (2003). He has written for and produced series including *Teachers* (2006), *Worst Week* (2008), *Mad Love* (2011), *The Goldbergs* (2013), *Alex, Inc.* (2018), *Bad Monkey* (2024) and *Rooster* (2026), which he co-created with Bill Lawrence. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and has won two Humanitas Prizes. *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, tvinsider.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Rooster* (2026), Fi1m 57, Writer, Creator, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/rooster.md) - *Sports Night* (1998), Fi1m 82, Writer — [page](https://film.one/tv/sports-night.md) ## Complete filmography (13) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Rooster* (2026), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 57, [page](https://film.one/tv/rooster.md) - *Bad Monkey* (2024), series, Executive Producer, Writer - *Alex, Inc.* (2018), series, Executive Producer, Writer - *The Goldbergs* (2013), series, Writer - *Mad Love* (2011), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator - *Worst Week* (2008), series, Creator - *Teachers* (2006), series, Writer, Producer, Creator - *A Guy Thing* (2003), Screenplay - *Scrubs* (2001), series, Writer, Co-Executive Producer, Teleplay, Consulting Producer - *Sports Night* (1998), series, Writer — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/tv/sports-night.md) - *Public Morals* (1996), series, Writer - *The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air* (1990), series, Writer - *Assisted Living*, series, Creator --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/matt-tarses