John Frink - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Frink was born in 1964 in Whitesboro, New York. A graduate of Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, he holds a degree in creative writing. Frink began his career as a writer for several sitcoms together with his writing partner at the time, Don Payne. The two met at UCLA, where Frink was the boss of the Media Laboratory in which Payne worked. Payne has said to the website TheFutonCritic.com that "one day we were both trying to write individually so I said, 'why don't we pool our resources and write together and see what happens?'" In 2006, Payne told the Los Angeles Times that "I hooked up with a writing partner, John Frink, out of college. I wanted to do films. He wanted to do television." The pair reached the agreement that they would pursue a career in the medium that they first got a job offer in—whether it be film or television. They eventually ended up writing for television sitcoms such as Hope and Gloria (1995–1996) and The Brian Benben Show (1998). These sitcoms were short-lived and Payne has deemed them as failures.