Early Life and Education
Born in Pennsylvania, United States in 1956, Meyer grew up in Tucson, Arizona. He is the eldest of eight children in a Roman Catholic family of German ancestry. His parents both worked in the real estate business. Meyer has made jokes about his somewhat unhappy childhood, stating that one common argument in his household was "which family member ruined a holiday", while his sister noted Meyer was frequently blamed for the family's problems. Due to its size, family activities were limited so Meyer watched lots of television and read Mad magazine. He was an Eagle Scout and an altar boy and wrote for the student newspaper.
Meyer attended Harvard University where he served as president of the Harvard Lampoon. The fact that people took humor "very seriously" at the Lampoon "changed life". In 1977, he and several other Lampoon staffers wrote The Harvard Lampoon Big Book of College Life (ISBN 0385134460), a volume commissioned by Doubleday. Aside from the Lampoon, his grades at Harvard were average and he suffered several bouts of depression. He graduated in 1978 with a degree in biochemistry and was accepted into medical school, but decided not to enroll.
Meyer commented on his Roman Catholic upbringing in a 2000 New Yorker profile:
- "People talk about how horrible it is to be brought up Catholic, and it's all true. The main thing was that there was no sense of proportion. I would chew a piece of gum at school, and the nun would say, 'Jesus is very angry with you about that,' and on the wall behind her would be a dying, bleeding guy on a cross. That's a horrifying image to throw at a little kid. You really could almost think that your talking in line, say, was on a par with killing Jesus."
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