Kirk R. Thatcher

Kirk R. Thatcher is an Emmy Award-winning writer/producer, an award-winning television, commercial, and viral video director, and a creature maker and designer for both film and television.

Kirk grew up in Los Angeles and was making films by the age of 10, all involving creatures, spaceships, or broad comedy. Self-taught in the field of Creature Effects, he began working at Industrial Light and Magic at age 19, designing, creating, and puppeteering creatures for blockbuster films such as Return of the Jedi, Star Trek II, Star Trek III, E.T., Poltergeist, and Gremlins. He was also an associate producer on Star Trek IV, in which he had a memorable cameo as the Punk on the Bus, rocking out to the punk anthem he both wrote and sang, called "I Hate You!"

Kirk has co-written several Muppet films, including Muppet Treasure Island, and directed four television movies: The Muppets Wizard of Oz, which premiered at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival; It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie; The Muppets Letters to Santa; as well as the Lifetime Network Thanksgiving movie, Jim Henson's Turkey Hollow, starring Mary Steenburgen. He was Supervising Producer on the Emmy Award-winning ABC series, Muppets Tonight, and co-producer on the ABC series Dinosaurs, on which he designed most of the characters, working closely with one of his mentors, the Muppet's creator Jim Henson. As well as his long-form work, Kirk has directed over 30 Muppet commercials and web shorts, including "Muppet's Bohemian Rhapsody", which has been viewed over 72 million times, and all of Neil Patrick Harris' web comedy series, "Neil's Puppet Dreams".

More recently, Kirk was one of the three regular judges on the Syfy channel series, Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge. In 2018, he created and executive-produced a series for Netflix entitled The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell with Christine McConnell and the Jim Henson Company. Incredibly well-received, the series has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes! He also co-wrote and co-directed the hit Muppet Live Shows, which played at the Hollywood Bowl and in London's O2 stadium.