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10 Things to Know About St. Denis Medical Co-Creator Justin Spitzer
Get to know the master of TV mockumentaries before his latest comedy, St. Denis Medical, premieres in November.
We hope Justin Spitzer never retires from the workplace. The co-creator of St. Denis Medical alongside Eric Ledgin, has made a career out of poking fun at workplace dynamics, first as a writer for The Office and then as a showrunner and creator of Superstore and American Auto.
After tackling Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, a big box store, and a Detroit automobile manufacturer, he’s now training his satirical eye on a hospital in Oregon, bringing a fresh comedic take to the daily interactions between the doctors, nurses, and patients. If the St. Denis Medical trailer is any indication, the hospital-set comedy is filled with the funny, heartwarming, and totally absurd moments that have defined Spitzer’s previous successes.
RELATED: NBC's St. Denis Medical Mines the Highs and Lows of Hospital Life
But who is the mastermind behind the mockumentaries? Let’s take a closer look at the person who has brought so much joy and uncontrollable laughter into our lives.
Justin Spitzer got his break on Scrubs
With St. Denis Medical, it seems Spitzer’s career is coming full circle. The 47-year-old got his very first writing credit on NBC’s medical comedy series, Scrubs. Spitzer’s episode called “My Butterfly” aired in March 2004. The very creative and heartwarming episode showed what could have happened if a simple thing was different during one day at the hospital. He continued to hone his comic writing style with short stints on romantic sitcoms Committed and Courting Alex.
Justin Spitzer wrote some of the funniest episodes of The Office
Spitzer soon landed a position on NBC’s mockumentary workplace comedy The Office as an executive story editor at the start of Season 3. He stayed with the iconic series for seven years through its final season, rising to the position of co-executive producer.
Spitzer was responsible for some memorable episodes, including classics like “Garden Party,” featuring a party gone awry at Dwight’s family farm, “Back from Vacation,” and “Did I Stutter?” — which turned Stanley’s character into an instant meme sensation.
The idea for American Auto was originally shelved
After eight epic years on air, we all mourned the ending of The Office (thank goodness we can stream it on Peacock). But Spitzer already had another idea up his sleeve: American Auto, a comedy about corporate culture at a major Detroit auto company. He was all set to launch from the famous comedy, but there was a wrench in the works — the American Auto script did not get turned into a pilot.
“I pitched this show back in 2013. I’d been on ‘The Office’ for a long time, and I thought I’d love to do a workplace show about the corporate world,” he said. “In The Office, they refer to decisions made by corporate, occasionally, and I’d think, oh, what’s that show about, and how do those decisions get made?” he told Deadline about the beginnings of American Auto.
Instead, another concept captured the zeitgeist at the time: a comedy about working at a megastore.
Justin Spitzer brought us Superstore
Enter Superstore, which starred America Ferrera and followed a group of low-wage employees toiling away at a fictional big box store in St. Louis, Missouri called Cloud 9. Handling heavy topics like racism, unionization, and immigration with a comedic touch made the show super-relatable, attracting a rabid following during its run from 2015 to 2021.
He only uses social media to thank fans
Spitzer hardly ever posts, but he makes an exception when it comes to thanking his fans. As Superstore was coming to a close, Spitzer enthused over the show’s devotees on social media.
“I’m floored by the amount of love for the show. Thank you for your investment in these characters, thank you for the fan art and GIFs, thank you for the positive comments and even the critical ones - for caring enough about this show to debate the choices we’ve made along the way,” he wrote at the time.
In a total boss move that delighted viewers, he made a cameo appearance in the Superstore finale as the very last customer at Cloud 9.
Who is Justin Spitzer’s wife?
Jenna Bans is Justin Spitzer’s wife. The two attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, both graduating in the late 90s. They tied the knot in 2007, and since then, they have welcomed two daughters into their family, Lucy and Phoebe.
Jenna Bans is an influential writer and producer
Like her husband, Bans loves to mine the dark secrets lurking behind everyday life. Her drama pilot, Grosse Pointe Garden Society, got the green light earlier this year and will follow four members of a suburban garden club as they get up to serious (and possibly murderous) hijinks. She also made the excellently subversive Good Girls, a dramedy that ran from 2018 to 2021 about three Michigan moms who turn to a life of crime to support themselves.
Justin Spitzer and Jenna Bans’ worlds sometimes collide on-screen
Eagle-eyed viewers love to point out the subtle overlap between Good Girls and Superstore, knowing that the two showrunners — Bans and Spitzer — are married. Though none of the characters interacted between the shows, Cloud 9 connected them all, with Good Girls’ characters shopping at the mega-store as part of their money laundering scheme and toting bags with the Cloud 9 logo.
He never gave up on American Auto
After Superstore came to an end in 2019, Spitzer revisited American Auto and struck comedic gold again. The comedy series was set at the headquarters of an American car company in Detroit, where befuddled executives tried to adapt to a rapidly changing industry.
The series ran from 2021 to 2023 and starred an exceptionally talented cast of familiar faces, including Saturday Night Live alum Ana Gasteyer, Jon Barinholtz (Superstore), Harriet Dyer (Colin from Accounts), and Tye White (The People vs. O.J. Simpson), and Michael Benjamin Washington (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 30 Rock).
Justin Spitzer joined forces with an old colleague on St. Denis Medical
Spitzer and acclaimed comedy writer Eric Ledgin are the co-creators and executive producers of St. Denis Medical, a comedic dream team if there ever was one. Ledgin was a writer on Superstore and Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the longest-running live-action sitcom ever. So, buckle in for some wicked humor and lots of laughs this fall as we get to know the seen-it-all doctors, nurses, and staff at an underfunded hospital in Oregon.
St. Denis Medical” premieres on Tuesday, Nov. 12, with back-to-back episodes on NBC, and streaming the following day on Peacock.
Catch much of his past work on Peacock now.
