Michael Colton (born 1975) is a an American screenwriter, producer, comedian, and former journalist. Colton was a staff writer for the Washington Post Style section and has also written for the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe. While a senior at Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts, he co-wrote the SAT guide "Up Your Score." He graduated in 1997 from Harvard University, where he was an editor at both the Harvard Lampoon and the Harvard Crimson. Before moving to Los Angeles, Colton and Aboud founded and ran Modern Humorist (2000-2003), an award-winning online magazine and comedy collective based in Brooklyn. In addition to a daily magazine, Modern Humorist published three books with Crown Publishing, including the best-selling My First Presidentiary: A Scrapbook by George W. Bush. Modern Humorist also helped develop ad campaigns for Microsoft, Time Warner Cable and Amazon. For most of the ’00s, Colton and Aboud appeared regularly as panelists on Best Week Ever and other VH1 shows. They also appeared on I Love the 70s/80s/90s/00s etc. They have been panelists, separately and together, on CNN, Fox News, ABC News, CMT, NPR, The Today Show, and the DVD releases of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place. During the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-8, Colton and Aboud created AMPTP.com, a parody of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers' official website, AMPTP.org. He is half of the writing and production team Colton & Aboud; their production cards are designed like record album covers and can also be seen on their website. They were executive producers on the HBO Max show Close Enough for seasons two and three. We wrote for Comedy Central’s The Fake News with Ted Nelms, which won a 2019 Writers Guild Award for Best Variety Special. Other credits include the DreamWorks Animation film Penguins of Madagascar; TNT’s Leverage; Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital and Newsreaders; and Fox’s animated shows Allen Gregory and Sit Down Shut Up. Colton and Aboud wrote and produced A Futile and Stupid Gesture, a biopic about Doug Kenney and the origins of the National Lampoon. They wrote and produced an animated Zoolander series that’s streaming on Paramount+; co-wrote the film The Comebacks; and have written pilots and specials for ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Comedy Central, TBS, VH1 and Adult Swim. Their writing has also appeared in Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Fortune, New York and Time. They are the creators and showrunners of ABC’s Home Economics which debuted in April 2021.
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Biography from TMDB.
- Writer, actor and producer
- 9 on MovieCove · 15 credits in all
What are Michael Colton's films like?
Across their 6 MovieCove titles with a thematic analysis, their films lean Self and Bonds.
Themes
What they feel like to watch
A split, not a type: Ironic 1 · Wry 0 · Earnest 3
Light 2 · Serious 2 · Dark 0
Grounded 1 · Stylized 2 · Heightened 1
Gentle 1 · Charged 3 · Intense 0
Steady 1 · Shifting 3 · Whiplash 0
Straight-faced 1 · Some laughs 1 · Funny 2
Slow burn 1 · Even-paced 2 · Relentless 1
Casual 4 · Engaged 0 · Full focus 0
Easy watch 3 · Affecting 1 · Heavy 0
Resolved 4 · Open-ended 0 · Ambiguous 0
Moods and endings
- Happy2
- Bittersweet2
- Ambiguous1
- Cyclical1
AI-generated from each title's plot synopsis and cast list, with extra plot summaries, reviews and Parents Guide notes for titles the model may not know, and the model's own knowledge of the ones it recognizes. Only analyzed titles count, so this covers part of the filmography; the feel axes count films only for now.
Where can I watch Michael Colton's films?
As of October 24, 2026, 6 of their 9 MovieCove titles stream on a subscription or free service.
Subscription and free streaming for Michael Colton's titles on MovieCove; rent and buy are not counted. Titles are listed by Midcredits score, highest first, at most 12 per service; a dashed chip is a producer credit or a minor one, such as a thanks. A service opens the browse page, which counts movies only, so its number can differ.
Filmography
15 credits, 9 with a MovieCove page; 4 appearances as themselves are hidden until asked for.
Acapulco(2021)
Midcredits score: 78th percentile of all shows
Home Economics(2021)
Midcredits score: 50th percentile of all shows
Close Enough (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2020)
Midcredits score: 69th percentile of all films
Midcredits score: 31st percentile of all shows
Zoolander: Super Model(2016)
Midcredits score: 17th percentile of all films
Penguins of Madagascar(2014)
Midcredits score: 67th percentile of all films
Allen Gregory (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2011)
The Great Debate (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2009)
Sit Down, Shut Up(2009)
Midcredits score: 14th percentile of all shows
Leverage(2008)
Midcredits score: 87th percentile of all shows
The Comebacks(2007)
Midcredits score: 9th percentile of all films
I Love the '90s: Part Deux (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2005)
Best Week Ever (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(2004)
Judging Amy (not in the MovieCove catalog yet)(1999)
Career shape
A full career of 13 titles from 1999 to 2021.
Biggest box office
Penguins of Madagascar (2014)
Highest rated
A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)
Most popular right now
Penguins of Madagascar (2014)
Counts from TMDB across their full career, self appearances out; a title counts in every role they held on it. The ring is the typical Midcredits score (the median percentile) of the role's titles that are on MovieCove, shown from 5 scored.
How do Michael Colton's films land?
Their typical MovieCove film has a Midcredits score in the 42nd percentile, the median of all 4; across a limited sample of 4 films with reception data, the typical film sits in the 64th percentile for acclaim.
- 75th and up2
- 50th to 74th3
- 25th to 49th1
- Below 25th3
Shape of the crowd
4 of their 9 titles are Crowd Pleasers.
- Universally Loved1
- Cult Classic1
- Crowd Pleaser4
- Mixed3
Percentiles are each film's standing among all films on MovieCove; the typical film is the median, so one outlier cannot drag it. Percentiles and reviewer scores count the films IMDb credits them on, for now; the Midcredits score bands, the shape of the crowd and the two cards count their MovieCove titles, shows included (a show ranked among shows), appearances as themselves left out. A descriptor is the shape of a title's IMDb rating distribution against the catalog; "most divisive" needs a spread wider than half of all titles, and a card names only a principal credit: a craft role, and on a show a crew role or a run of episodes, never a courtesy credit or a one-off guest spot.
Who does Michael Colton work with?
People who share at least 2 of Michael Colton's MovieCove titles, grouped by what they did on them; John Aboud shares the most, 5.
Writers
- John AboudShared titles: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018), The Fake News with Ted Nelms (2017), Zoolander: Super Model (2016), Penguins of Madagascar (2014), Sit Down, Shut Up (2009)See all 5 shared titles with John Aboud
Actors
- Jon DalyShared titles: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018), The Fake News with Ted Nelms (2017)See all 2 shared titles with Jon Daly
- Will ForteShared titles: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018), Sit Down, Shut Up (2009)See all 2 shared titles with Will Forte
- Nick KrollShared titles: Zoolander: Super Model (2016), Sit Down, Shut Up (2009)See all 2 shared titles with Nick Kroll
Producers
- Ed HelmsShared titles: A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018), The Fake News with Ted Nelms (2017)See all 2 shared titles with Ed Helms
