He wrote several episodes of The Simpsons after 2000, many of these with John Frink, whom he met while studying at the University of California, Los Angeles.

'"[9] In 2006, Payne told the Los Angeles Times that "I hooked up with a writing partner, John Frink, out of college.

They eventually ended up writing for television sitcoms such as Hope and Gloria (1995–1996), Men Behaving Badly (1997) and The Brian Benben Show (1998).

[8] Payne and Frink joined the writing staff of the animated sitcom The Simpsons in 1998; their first script was the season twelve episode "Insane Clown Poppy", which aired in 2000.

On the day a show is officially cancelled, it's kind of a tradition for the writing staff to go out to a restaurant, eat a nice meal, and drown their sorrows.

So he contacted the show-runner, a guy named Mike Scully, who read our spec script and met with us, then hired us on.

[1][10] Payne later moved into writing feature films, as he had earlier desired, though continued to work on The Simpsons twice a week as a consulting producer.

[2] Payne died from heart failure caused by his long multi-year battle with bone cancer at his home in Los Angeles on March 26, 2013, aged 48.

"[5] The film Thor: The Dark World, which he co-wrote, is dedicated to his memory, as is his final episode of The Simpsons, "White Christmas Blues".