Scully won three Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on the series, with many publications praising his episodes, but others criticizing his tenure as a period of decline in the show's quality.

More recently, Scully co-created The Pitts, The Boy Who Lost His Schoolbag and Complete Savages as well as working on Everybody Loves Raymond and Parks and Recreation.

He co-developed the short-lived animated television version of Napoleon Dynamite, as well as co-creating Duncanville with his wife, Julie Thacker, and comedian Amy Poehler.

[2][3] His father, Richard, was a salesman and owned a dry cleaning business, his mother Geraldine (d. 1985) worked for the Baystate Medical Center once Scully and his brothers were old enough to be left at home alone.

[2][3] He graduated from West Springfield High School in 1974, having been voted "Most Likely Not to Live Up to Potential" by his classmates,[1] and dropped out of Holyoke Community College after one day, undecided about what he wanted to do with his life.

"[5] He realized "there probably wasn't going to be a career in riding around with my friends listening to Foghat,"[3] so Scully decided he "definitely wanted to break into comedy" even though he "really had no reason to believe [he] could succeed."

"[5] He served on the writing staff of The Royal Family, Out of This World,[8] Top of the Heap and What a Country!, where he did audience warm-up, a role he also performed on Grand.

In 1993, David Mirkin hired Scully to write for The Simpsons, as a replacement for the departing Conan O'Brien,[1] after reading some of his sample scripts.

Writer Tom Martin said he was "quite possibly the best boss I've ever worked for" and "a great manager of people," while Don Payne commented that for Scully "it was really important that we kept decent hours".

[20] He returned in season 14 to write and executive produce the episode "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation",[22] and co-wrote and co-produced The Simpsons Movie in 2007.

[24][21] John Ortved wrote "Scully's episodes excel when compared to what The Simpsons airs nowadays, but he was the man at the helm when the ship turned towards the iceberg.

Scully won five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on The Simpsons,[31] while Entertainment Weekly cited "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" as the show's 22nd best episode.

[32] Robert Canning of IGN also gave the episode a positive review,[33] something he also did for "Behind the Laughter" and "Trilogy of Error", which aired during season 12.

[31] Scully co-created (with wife Julie Thacker) The Pitts for Fox and Complete Savages for ABC, which was produced by Mel Gibson.

It was canceled after six episodes; Scully and Thacker laid the blame for this on the show's timeslot, 9:30 P.M., which was too late for the target audience.

[39] Complete Savages, which Thacker and Scully wrote with the "Simpsons sensibility" of layered jokes,[39] was canceled in January 2005 due to low ratings and network anger at Scully and Thacker's decision to write to TV critics in what the Hartford Courant labelled "unsanctioned promoting".

[42] Scully served as a consulting producer on the NBC series Parks and Recreation,[3] and wrote the episodes "Ron and Tammy" in 2009,[43] and "The Possum" in 2010.

[3][49] He served as co-executive producer on the single-season NBC sitcom The New Normal (2012–2013), alongside Allison Adler and Ryan Murphy.