Brittany Van horne is a comedy writer based in los angeles.
Originally from Cleveland, Brittany didn’t grow up with rich parents, attend a fancy school, or have any connections to the industry. But she did have midwestern grit.
Working at a local Cleveland production company after graduating college, Brittany got the opportunity of her dreams when Full Frontal with Samantha Bee came to town for the RNC. They were looking to hire local crew, and contacted the production company Brittany worked for at the time. She begged her boss to be involved in any way possible, which resulted in a set PA gig with Full Frontal for the week. As a Clevelander with no idea of how to make her comedy goals come true, it was an absolute dream to work for a real comedy show. Brittany worked her ass off, and got an invite to come along with the show to the DNC the following week. That next week turned into something a lot more: it was where Brittany was convinced to continue on in pursuit of her dreams and move to NYC.
The next month, Brittany moved into an illegal, roach-infested basement apartment. She didn’t have guaranteed income to show for, or anyone in her life who could qualify as a guarantor, so she used the money she’d saved working at her production company job to pay 4 months of rent up-front on the apartment. Bad idea, but it didn’t matter. She was in New York, living the dream. Brittany worked part-time in the digital department at Full Frontal, and babysat and PA’d in her spare time to make extra money. That part-time digital position eventually turned into a full-time job, where she got to help write tweets and blog posts for the show.
Eventually, Brittany knew that to give her dream of writing TV a real chance, she had to move to Los Angeles, so she did just that. To make ends meet, she got a job as a social media producer at a tech start-up. It was a wild experience that ended with her quitting on the spot, in tears, 6 months later. But it did inspire her to write a pilot.
From there, Brittany took lots of odd day jobs to get by. From copywriting to working as a digital producer for Entertainment Tonight, she cherished an opportunity to drop in and experience different worlds, even if they weren’t where she ultimately wanted to be. It eventually culminated in the ultimate opportunity: the chance to work as a writers’ assistant in a real comedy writers’ room on The Goldbergs.
As a writers’ assistant, Brittany learned a ton about how a real room worked and even got to hone her skills pitching jokes, some of which actually made it to air.
While working at The Goldbergs, Brittany submitted a packet for Adult Swim’s Soft Focus with Jena Friedman, and was shocked to hear that she got the gig. For one week, she worked in a real writers’ room, pitching ideas and writing scripts. It was truly the dream come true. That one week gig only further convinced Brittany how badly she wanted it all.
A few months later, Brittany submitted a packet to Stephen Colbert’s daily animated cartoon, Tooning Out the News, knowing they would be reading blind submissions. Shock set in all over again when she found out that she got the job. Ironically, it was in New York — the very city she’d moved away from to pursue her comedy writing dream. But it didn’t matter. She flew back to New York and sublet an apartment for a month and a half before COVID hit full-swing, and the job went remote. For 10 months total, Brittany worked in that room making daily animated comedy — the ultimate joke boot camp where she would sometimes write as much as 30 topical jokes in an hour. She reveled in getting to make a satirical statement through an impossibly goofy vehicle and loved speaking truth to power.
Now, Brittany has turned her satirical lens to narrative comedy, writing pilots that make a statement about the world we live in. Her sample POUNDR is a satirical look at what it means to be a millennial woman in the start-up world, struggling with your confidence and trying to make ends meet while trying to navigate working for a company that is at odds with your morals. Her sample MOMAGER is a satirical look at the industry of child actors and influencers, following a predatory LA momager so desperate for her twin daughters to achieve fame that she accidentally turns them into right-wing provocateurs and ultimately decides to embrace it.