TV writer Dan McGrath, 61, died of a stroke on Nov. 14. McGrath wrote 50 episodes of The Simpsons (including “Mr. Plow,” “Marge vs. the Monorail,” “Lady Bouvier’s Lover,” and “Itchy & Scratchy Land”), 24 Saturday Night Lives, and 11 King of the Hills. He was also a Harvard Lampoon writer who graduated to Saturday Night Live (two Emmy nominations), and wrote for The PJs, Sammy, and Mission Hill. McGrath won an Emmy for the Simpsons episode “Homer’s Phobia,” which was great for gay acceptance (which that show often falls down on), but which also spread the “Lupe Velez drowned in her toilet” nonsense (read my Lupe bio, dammit!). McGrath taught at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective, where his bio notes that “He speaks Latin and Japanese. He can be appeased and safely approached with the offer of raw steaks and Popeye's spicy chicken.”
