Dan Pasternack

For more than twenty-five years, Dan Pasternack has been in the business of making television and digital entertainment. During his career, he has worked as a producer, a programmer, a studio and production company executive and a writer. He is currently an independent producer via his Little Bear Bear Productions. LBB’s first production, a special for Adult Swim entitled Wet Shapes, premiered in November 2017. Via LBB, Pasternack is actively producing and hosting the Obsessive Comedy Disorder audio documentaries for SiriusXM and also just produced the first Obsessive Comedy Disorder vinyl LP set Jonathan Winters: Unearthed in 2021. Outside of LBB, Pasternack recently produced a pilot for Amazon alternative and another for Adult Swim (the latter, entitled Lusty Crest, premiered at the 2020 SXSW Festival). This follows Pasternack’s stint as the founding head of Big Beach TV where he established a television arm of the indie film company and produced multiple projects including New Timers for Comedy Central digital, the documentary Fatherless for Fusion, the comedy series Debate Wars for Seeso as well as developing, packaging and selling the acclaimed Starz series Vida.

Pasternack came to Big Beach after his tenure as VP of development and production for the IFC cable network during the channel’s rebrand as a destination for original comedy series. While at IFC, Pasternack worked with Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and executive producer Lorne Michaels shepherding the breakout Portlandia from web-series to Emmy®, Peabody and Writer’s Guild Award winning television sensation. He also developed Comedy Bang! Bang! starring Scott Aukerman and Reggie Watts; the comedic docu-series Whisker Wars about the international sport of competitive “bearding”; the animated comedy Out There from writer/creator Ryan Quincy; The Birthday Boys from Executive Producers Bob Odenkirk and Ben Stiller and The Spoils of Babylon starring Tobey Maguire, Kristen Wiig, Tim Robbins and Will Ferrell.

Prior to IFC, Pasternack held senior creative executive positions at Carsey-Werner, Studios USA (now NBC/Universal), Granada Entertainment USA and the Fred Silverman Company. He also oversaw content creation for the launch of Turner Broadcasting’s digital comedy platform Super Deluxe, working with established and emerging talent alike including Bob Odenkirk, Brad Neely, Maria Bamford, Tim and Eric, Aaron McGruder, Nick Kroll and Norm Macdonald. In addition, Pasternack also served as co-producer on the Showtime series Beggars and Choosers and executive producer on the Showtime sketch comedy pilot The Offensive Show, the FX series Starved, the Fox network pilot Frances and Angela, and the Starz series Gravity on which he served as a writer and executive producer.

Since 1996, Pasternack has donated his time to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on their expansive oral history project The Interviews, which he helped to initiate and for which he has conducted dozens of on-camera interviews with industry giants including: Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal. He has also written articles for Vulture, Emmy Magazine, Paste, Splitsider, The Huffington Post as well as the recurring column for McSweeney’s entitled “My Signed Comedy LPs: One Comedy Nerd’s Obsessive Journey.” In 2021 Pasternack appeared in the acclaimed documentary Live at Mister Kelly’s, providing his insights on the rich comedy history of the legendary Chicago nightclub. He has also spoken on and moderated many panels at the New York Television Festival, the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, Atlanta’s Laughing Skull Festival, the New Jersey WebFest and at the grand opening of the National Comedy Center. Most recently he embarked on a multi-city tour with the film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation moderating conversations with its star, Chevy Chase. As of the fall of 2016, Pasternack joined the faculty of NYU as an adjunct professor, teaching several courses in television and digital development to third year graduate students in the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.