Stephen M. O’Donnell is quite possibly the only member of the Class of 1976 to have nearly died while being lowered into a tub of water wearing a suit made of Alka-Seltzer.

This rather bizarre brush with death occurred when O’Donnell, then a writer for the “Late Show with David Letterman,” was testing out a sketch that would be performed on that evening’s show.

Unfortunately for O’Donnell, the writers of the sketch didn’t know their chemistry. When Alka-Seltzer and water combine, they release carbon dioxide. So, as O’Donnell hung suspended in the tub of water, he was engulfed by the massive amount of carbon dioxide given off by his effervescent suit.

His lungs filled with the carbon dioxide and he passed out. Eventually, someone noticed, pulled him from the tub and slapped him back to his senses.

This would indeed count as an unusual experience—and O’Donnell has led a very unusual life.

As a writer, O’Donnell has worked on such shows as “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Seinfeld,” “The Simpsons,” “Lateline,” “Space Ghost,” the “Chris Rock Show” and his current project, a Steve Martin-produced comedy show called the “Downer Channel,” which will air on NBC. He has received 19 Emmy awards nominations, four of which have allowed him to bring home the statue.

Just The Twelve of Us

Even as a child, O’Donnell had an appreciation for humor, but he never imagined that he would someday make a career out of it. He says he greatly enjoyed the comedy of Johnny Carson and Jonathan Winters, and that he always remembered the jokes he heard on TV.

O’Donnell attributes much of his sense of humor to the way he was raised—as a member of a “big, boisterous family” in Cleveland, Ohio.

He also believes that his relationship with his twin brother, Mark P. O’Donnell—also a member of the Class of 1976—played a significant role in building his creativity.

Mark O’Donnell says that because they were the youngest children, they had the advantage of being raised by parents who, after raising eight other children, had reached the “exhausted and permissive” stage of parenting.

“My brother Mark and I were the silliest,” O’Donnell says. “We could doodle and dream more than the older ones.”

The two used to play a game where one brother would draw a surreal picture and the other would have to write a poem justifying the picture. He says the process was “somewhere between play and creative writing.”

School Daze

O’Donnell took this creativity with him to Harvard, where he acted in productions both in the Loeb Ex and on the Mainstage. He (and his brother) also wrote for the Harvard Lampoon.