Anne Beatts, groundbreaking comedy writer, dead at 74

Anne Beatts was an extremely important comedy voice from my generation, having written for the National Lampoon and the original cast of SNL, and later having created the Square Pegs series.

She also pulled off the nearly impossible task of having had a romantic relationship with the master of dark humor, Michael “Mr. Mike” O’Donoghue, a man about as difficult as any who ever lived. Her humor was almost as dark as his. She infamously created this famous Volkswagen ad, based on VW’s assertion that the bug could float: