Ken Keeler

Ken Keeler is a writer and executive producer for Futurama. He helped create the show, and was for the first three seasons listed as a co-executive producer. By the fourth season, he was listed as executive producer. Together with Lewis Morton, Keeler is the most prolific writer of Futurama, with eleven aired episodes each. Keeler's eleventh episode, "Overclockwise", is the finale of season 6.

Ken was previously a writer for The Simpsons, and he has written many songs for both shows. One of his most notorious Simpsons episodes was 's "", which is heavily despised by fans for rewriting as a phony who assumed another man's identity. He has won for The Simpsons, and a Writers Guild of America Award for the Futurama episode "The Prisoner of Benda".

A character in the series, Ben Beeler, is loosely based on Ken.



Finales
Keeler has a history of writing the assumed series finales: he wrote the finale of the original run, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", when the writing team knew that the show was to be cancelled. After the show was picked up for four additional movies, Keeler also wrote the fourth and final of them, Into the Wild Green Yonder, which was also assumed to be the final TV media of the series. Before season 7 was announced in 2011, Keeler also wrote "Overclockwise", the finale of the sixth season, which was yet again possibly the final episode.

All of these episodes were designed to suit as possible final episodes of the series.

As the nerdy writer
Keeler has a Ph D in Applied Mathematics, which has helped him write several of the nerdier jokes on the show, for example the several jokes concerning 1729. For the episode "The Prisoner of Benda", Keeler wrote a complete mathematical theorem in the area of which was used in the episode by the Globetrotters and the Professor to save the day.

Episodes Written

 * (nominated Annie Award)
 * (nominated Nebula Award)
 * (nominated Emmy Award)
 * (won Writers Guild of America Award)
 * (nominated Nebula Award)
 * (nominated Emmy Award)
 * (won Writers Guild of America Award)
 * (nominated Emmy Award)
 * (won Writers Guild of America Award)
 * (won Writers Guild of America Award)
 * (won Writers Guild of America Award)

Trivia

 * Three episodes of Keeler's make reference to supervillains.