Greg Daniels inks deal with Universal

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Universal Media Studios says it has entered into a new agreement for live-action, animated and reality shows with U.S. producer-writer Greg Daniels.

Daniels is known for his work on the TV comedies "The Office," "Parks and Recreation" and "King of the Hill."

The announcement regarding his new deal was made this week by Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment.

"We are very fortunate to continue our productive creative relationship with Greg Daniels, a gifted and extremely versatile producer-writer who has had great success in live-action, animated and sketch comedy," Greenblatt said in a statement Monday. "This new deal allows him great artistic freedom in a wide variety of television genres, and we know that the best is yet to come. One of our focuses will be to return Greg to prime-time animation, for which he had particular success with 'King of the Hill.'"

"I couldn't be more thrilled about this deal to work with Bob Greenblatt and his great new team," added Daniels, who then joked: "My producing partner, Howard Klein, who successfully hid my recent devastating stroke during negotiations, is helping me learn to read and feed myself again, and I should be able to get dressed and sit in the sun before the two years are up. I have already produced a big piece of construction paper with blue scribbles on it, which might be a treatment for a reality show. I think Bob's going to like it a lot."