Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment

Peter Mehlman, after whom a hypochondriacal giraffe was named in the Madagascar movies, lives in Los Angeles where he writes essays, screenplays, NPR commentaries and hosts the Webby-nominated YouTube series Narrow World of Sports. He grew up in Queens, New York, and graduated from the University of Maryland before writing for the Washington Post and ABC’s SportsBeat with Howard Cosell. He has also written for Esquire, GQ, the New York Times Magazine and virtually every Conde Nast women’s magazine because of his powerful grasp on what women want. He was a writer and co-executive producer of Seinfeld. Associated with the show through nearly all of its nine-year-run, he is remembered for coining such terms as ＂spongeworthy＂ and ＂yada, yada＂, the latter of which has been included as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.