Steve Tompkins

Steve Tompkins is an American television writer. He attended Harvard University and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon; he graduated in 1988. He has worked on such television shows such as The Critic, In Living Color, Entourage, Bernie Mac and The Knights of Prosperity. He was also with The Simpsons, for its seventh and eighth seasons; after leaving he co-created The PJs, with Larry Wilmore and Eddie Murphy. He is currently the producer of the animated television series Fanboy and Chum Chum that premièred in November 2009 on Nickelodeon and also voiced Janitor Poopatine.

Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley said that, with the exception of George Meyer, Tompkins had contributed more to seasons seven and eight than anyone else on the Simpsons staff. Tompkins wrote the sequence in "Homer's Phobia" where Homer takes Bart to a steel mill that turns out to be a gay dance club. He first pitched that Homer and Bart would encounter longshoremen, but it was too much work to animate the lading of ships, so a steel mill was used instead. Tompkins also wrote a different third act for the episode which was replaced in the final cut. Instead of Homer, Bart, Barney and Moe going deer hunting and ending up at "Santa's Village" they would go back to the steel mill. There, Homer would attempt to prove his heterosexuality by having a human tractor pulling contest with some of the steel mill workers. It was decided that it "didn't really service the story" and was dropped.