He created and wrote the webtoon Queer Duck; he has also written screenplays including: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Simpsons Movie and My Life in Ruins.

He says that he hates Harvard as an institution,[3] explaining that "I had an epiphany on my third day there: This place would be just as good as a summer camp where you met other people, networked, and learned from them.

[6][7] In 1989, Reiss was hired along with Jean as the first members of the original writing staff of the Fox network animated series The Simpsons.

[8] A show runner has the ultimate responsibility of all the processes that an episode goes through before completion, including the writing, the animation, the voice acting, and the music.

[6] The first episode Jean and Reiss produced was "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" (aired September 19, 1991), and they felt a lot of pressure on them to make it good.

[12][13] It was first broadcast on ABC in January 1994 and was well received by critics,[14][15] but did not catch on with viewers and was put on hiatus after six weeks.

The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening was not fond of the crossover and complained publicly that it was just a thirty-minute advertisement for The Critic.

[18] Brooks said, "for years, Al and Mike were two guys who worked their hearts out on this show, staying up until 4 in the morning to get it right.

The point is, Matt's name has been on Mike's and Al's scripts and he has taken plenty of credit for a lot of their great work.

A total of 23 episodes were produced, and it returned briefly in 2000 with a series of ten internet broadcast webisodes.

[19] In 1994, Reiss and Jean signed a three-year deal with The Walt Disney Company to produce other TV shows for ABC.

In addition to "A Star Is Burns", they produced "'Round Springfield" for season six; both episodes were written with the aid of their fellow writers from The Critic.

[24] Along with director Xeth Feinberg, in 2000 Reiss independently produced Hard Drinkin' Lincoln, a series of 16 flash animation cartoons for Icebox.com.

[25] Reiss collaborated with Feinberg again to independently produce a short internet cartoon series entitled Queer Duck for Icebox.com.

[26] He later wrote a number of screenplays including Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Horton Hears a Who!.

Reiss initially wrote the film, which was based on his experience on holiday bus tours of Mexico and Greece, as a short story.

[28] Co-authored by Mathew Klickstein, his memoir, Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons, was published by Dey Street which is an imprint of HarperCollins, in June 2018.

The Hartford Courant called the romantic comedy "hysterically funny" and named it one of the top ten productions of the year.

He noted that before embarking on the expedition he had to sign a waiver that mentioned the likelihood of death multiple times.