Dave Thomas has done every type of television in every capacity, from sketch comedy and sitcoms to reality and game shows, animation, and one-hour dramas. He is an award-winning writer, a director, an actor, and a producer. Dave started his career in Advertising, working his way up to head writer on the Coca-Cola account for McCann Erikson. Then Dave moved over to comedy, as head writer of NBC late note's SCTV winning an Emmy Award for writing with the NBC sketch comedy show SCTV. Dave co-wrote the movie Spies Like Us with Dan Aykroyd. Dave directed and co-wrote the MGM cult classic Strange Brew with Rick Moranis. Dave also directed The Experts starring John Travolta for Paramount. Dave write, executive produced and starred in his own comedy series for CBS, the Dave Thomas Show as well as numerous specials for HBO, Showtime, ABC and CBS. Dave wrote for and co-starred in the ABC sitcom Grace Under Fire for more than 100 episodes. While working on that show, Dave created a game show called Family Challenge and produced 144 episodes for the Family Channel. After Grace Under Fire, Dave produced movies for HBO – most notably, Ambushed (Courtney Vance, Virginia Masden, William Forsythe and Robert Patrick). Dave was hired as executive producer of the Dennis Miller Show for Tribune Entertainment and that same year created an animation company with pal Dan Greaney called Animax Entertainment. Dave co-created and executive produced the hit reality series, America’s Funniest People (ABC) with Vin DiBona. Meanwhile, Dave write and produced several animation shows for his animation company, Animax - ABC (Slacker Cats), ESPN (Off Mikes), and MTV (Popzilla and Big Box) and Global television in Canada (Bob and Doug). Dave’s ESPN show “Off Mikes” won him another Emmy Award in 2006. Lured into drama writing by his pal, Hart Hanson, Dave wrote a spec script for Bones (Fox) and then Hart asked Dave to join the writing staff of Bones as a Consulting Producer. After three years with Bones, Dave was asked to join the writing staff of ABC’s the Blacklist also as a consulting producer. After two seasons on the Blacklist, Dave left to write his own dramas for television. Since 2017 Dave has sold pilot scripts to TBS, Warner Brothers, the CW and HBO. Dave and the cast of SCTV produced An Afternoon with SCTV for Netflix directed by Martin Scorcese. In 2020, Dave was appointed a member of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian award and that same year, a life-size statue of Dave and partner Rick Moranis was erected in downtown Edmonton Alberta.

The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton collaboration with Max Allan Collins is not Dave’s first book. Dave also wrote SCTV Behind the Scenes in 1996. For more info on Dave go to his website davethomas.com or the Internet Movie Data Base IMDB.com.

Max Allan Collins is a New York Times bestselling author of original mysteries, a Shamus award winner and an experienced author of movie adaptions and tie-in novels. His graphic novel ROAD TO PERDITION was made into a major motion picture by Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone.