Barry Marder

Barry Marder (May 23, 1949 to September 21, 2026) was an American stand-up comedian, comedy writer, actor and author, best known as the real man behind Ted L. Nancy, the deadpan letter writer of the bestselling Letters From a Nut books, and as one of Jerry Seinfeld's longest-serving writing partners. He co-wrote the DreamWorks animated film Bee Movie (2007) and the Netflix comedy Unfrosted (2024), and he was part of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee from its very first episode.

Marder spent roughly two decades as a working stand-up before turning mainly to writing. He started out around 1981 at Mitzi Shore's Comedy Store in Los Angeles, at a time when he remembered seeing Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Andrew Dice Clay, Yakov Smirnoff and a young Jerry Seinfeld working out in the same rooms. He played the Improv and the Comedy Store in their busiest years and went on the road with headliners including Seinfeld and George Carlin. In 1984 he appeared as Rappaport in the comedy film Where the Boys Are '84.

His creative partnership with Seinfeld began around 1990 or 1991, when Seinfeld told him about a new show called Seinfeld. Marder began writing jokes for the stand-up segments that opened and closed episodes of the sitcom, working at Seinfeld's condo on Kings Road in West Hollywood. He also opened for Seinfeld on tour and wrote material for Bill Maher, Jay Leno, David Letterman and the talk show parody Night Stand with Dick Dietrick. When Seinfeld ended in 1998, the two friends drove a 1967 Volkswagen across the country from Albuquerque, a trip Marder filmed and later described as the rough prototype of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Ted L. Nancy was born in 1995, when Marder noticed the line on a bag of Fritos inviting customers to write in with questions. He wondered who would ever unload their problems on a corn chip company, and then did exactly that. He sent absurd but perfectly polite letters to hotels, stores, manufacturers and officials, asking whether a hotel could accommodate his 300 hamsters, or whether he could buy a mannequin that resembled a dead neighbor, and the companies wrote back in earnest. He showed the first dozen letters to Seinfeld, who took them to his literary agent. Letters From a Nut became a bestseller, followed by More Letters From a Nut and Extra Nutty! Even More Letters From a Nut, co-authored with comedian Bruce Baum, and later Hello Junk Mail!, Ted L. Nancy's Afternoon Stories, All New Letters From a Nut and Letters From a Nut's Family Tree, published by Scholastic in 2013. Because Seinfeld wrote the forewords and promoted the books on television, many readers assumed he was the author. On September 24, 2010, Seinfeld unmasked his friend on NBC's Today show to stop impostors claiming credit, saying he wanted the public to know Marder was "the guy that has created the whole thing."

Marder had a second literary alter ego, Ed Broth, credited author of Stories From a Moron: Real Stories Rejected by Real Magazines (St. Martin's Press, 2005) and the cartoon book The Oddvious. Several television versions of his characters were developed, including an ABC pilot of Letters From a Nut in 2002, an FX pilot called The Ted L. Nancy Show in 2003, a 2005 Fox deal for an animated series based on Stories From a Moron, and Sincerely, Ted L. Nancy, a pilot written with Seinfeld and Chuck Martin and starring Kevin Sussman. In 2016 his SCAMMERS shorts, in which Ted L. Nancy answers fraudulent emails, appeared on Hulu.

With Seinfeld, Spike Feresten and Andy Robin, Marder co-wrote Bee Movie, released by DreamWorks Animation on November 2, 2007. He shot the original pilot of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which premiered on September 6, 2012, as "You Don't Want to Offend a Cannibal," and returned for the 2019 episode "Big Lots and BevMo!" In 2017 he brought his letters to the stage himself in Letters From a Nut at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, reading them with actress Beth Kennedy; the production became a filmed special released in 2019, and Patrick Warburton later toured a version of the show. Marder, Seinfeld and Feresten then wrote Unfrosted, Seinfeld's comedy about the invention of the Pop-Tart, which Netflix won in a bidding war in 2021 and released on May 3, 2024. The film received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Television Movie.

Friends and interviewers described Marder as polite, gentle and relentlessly funny, a comic who delivered absurd material with a perfectly straight face. He was long partnered with Phyllis Murphy, who was beside him the night the Fritos bag inspired Ted L. Nancy. The Writers Guild of America listed Barry P. Marder among its members who died, with the dates May 23, 1949 to September 21, 2026. He was 77. His place and cause of death were not made public.