Background
In interviews for the Writers Guild of America, West's magazine Written By and thesop.org, Olson stated that as a child he saw the eccentric comedian Brother Theodore ranting and raving on The Merv Griffin Show, and from that moment on he knew he would be a comedy writer. Before his death in 2001, Brother Theodore became a fan of Olson's first book, Encyclopaedia of Hell (Feral House, 2011), and wrote one of the quotes on the book's dust cover.
Raised in Boston, Massachusetts (USA), Olson began writing for comedians before there were any comedy clubs in Boston. He sent pages of jokes to Rodney Dangerfield, which were returned with the same polite note scrawled at the bottom, "Sorry, Marty!" (According to his agent's press kit, years later when writing for Penn & Teller in Las Vegas, Olson produced comedy bits with Dangerfield and the two became friends.)
Olson first sold comedy material to the hosts of local "Gong Shows" which began his career as a comedy writer.
Read more about this topic: Martin Olson
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