Henriette Mantel is an Emmy award-winning writer. She is also a director, actress, and former stand-up comic and has extensive experience in documentary and reality television as a writer, director, and producer. In 2007, An Unreasonable Man, a critically acclaimed documentary about Ralph Nader that she co-wrote and directed with fellow-comedy writer Steve Skrovan, was released in theaters across the country and later shown on PBS. She has had four of her comedy plays professionally produced. All four are directed by Michael Patrick King. Her favorite project, Midge and Buck, an expose on the life of her longtime feline companions, was originally produced on stage and is now a series on www.icebox.com. Her critically acclaimed Girl Talk, a play about one woman's journey in New York City after September 11, was featured at the 2002 Aspen Comedy Festival. She won her first Emmy for writing on Win Ben Stein's Money. As an actress, Henriette has appeared in many television comedies and feature films, including The Brady Bunch movies, in which she portrayed Alice, the maid. She currently lives in New York City.

When did you first realize that you were uniquely funny?

Kindergarten, growing up in Vermont. I made everyone laugh by being an insane Baby Bear in our play about Goldilocks and the three bears. Things would have been so different if I had been cast as Goldilocks.

Who do you think were your influences?

My dad, my brother, my best grade school friend Tommy Dahlin, and later, Phyllis Diller, Abbott and Costello, Pat Paulson, Paula Poundstone, and anyone else whose name begins with “p.”

Do you remember your first original joke?

I used to imitate my eighth-grade teacher. I would draw a crowd with jokes on the playground when I imitated her doing our daily reading.

When did you realize that comedy was something that you had to do for a living?

When my closest brother died in an accident, I knew if I was going to stay on earth I had to make people laugh because I personally was never going to laugh again. Prior to that I had been working for Ralph Nader and it never entered my mind to get into comedy as a career. I was twenty-four years old.

What was your first job in comedy writing or performance?

[I made] $5 at the Holy City Zoo in San Francisco as a stand-up.

For you was stand-up an end in itself or a platform to move on to other projects?

At the time it was an end in itself but after about ten years I got tired so I guess it led me to other things.

What is the biggest difficulty you've encountered being a comedy writer?

Misogynist male writers who hate women but make you laugh so hard that you think it's not affecting you but it is. Also, male comics, due to their strong personalities and ability to convince a crowd that they are funny, also make you try to believe that the penis is funnier than the vagina, but I beg to differ. And by the way, some of my best friends are male comics.

What are the differences between writing for yourself and writing for others?

I love writing for people who can truly, truly deliver a joke, i.e. Teri Garr, but it's rewarding in a different way. I like writing for myself because I feel guilty if I write for someone else and it's not funny. I guess I like specific character writing that is from a specific point of view that I can lock into and work with like actresses Jennifer Cox, Jennifer Coolidge, and once again, Oscar-nominated actress Sister Mary Teresa Garr.

What do you find exciting about comedy right now?

I guess Tina Fey and 30 Rock. She is the frickin' Lucy of our time.

Where do you think the future of comedy is headed?

Now that Obama has won, everything is going to be fine, so there might not be any comedy ever again. Comedy depends on pain and misery and conflict and idiots leading the country.

What is the best thing about being a comedy writer?

The paychecks, and once in awhile you actually get to laugh uncontrollably. I still live for that shit.

Do you have any advice for up-and-coming comedy writers?

Write and write with unbridled abandon. Get the core of your humor and don't let anybody tell you how to do it till you find your sense of humor on paper. Then just work your butt off and by then you'll have a good pension to live off of.