Johanna Stein is a Canadian screenwriter, director, animation showrunner, and actress.

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Stein was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where she attended St. John's High School and the University of Winnipeg. She then relocated to the United States to attend the American Film Institute.

As an actress Stein has appeared on TV series including The Late Late Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Madagascar: A Little Wild, and in feature films including Shoot or Be Shot and Mulholland Drive. As a writer, she has written for TV series, including Odd Squad, Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny, Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh, Spirit Riding Free, The Emperor's New School, WordGirl, American Dragon: Jake Long, O'Grady, G-Spot, and Breaker High.^[1]

In 2006, Stein was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Writing in an Animated Television Production for Nickelodeon's O'Grady. In 2015, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short-Form Animated Program for Disney XD's Wander Over Yonder.

Stein directed and co-produced We're with the Band (2003), a 30-minute mockumentary that followed Alanis Morissette and her band around the country, and which was subsequently optioned and ordered to pilot by Comedy Central.^[2][3]

Stein was Executive Producer and Showrunner on Madagascar: A Little Wild (2018), a 52-episode prequel to DreamWorks’ animated film franchise, Madagascar. The series was noted for its representation of Deaf characters and Deaf culture.^[4][5] The series was nominated the 2022 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Children's Programming.^[6] It was also nominated for and won Kidscreen Awards in 2020, 2021, and 2022.^[7][8][9]

In 2021 it was announced that Stein would develop an animated TV series for DreamWorks Animation based on Jimmy Fallon’s children's books, Your Baby's First Word Will Be Dada and Everything is Mama.^[10][11]

In 2014 Stein's book, How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane: And Other Lessons in Parenting from a Highly Questionable Source was published by Da Capo Press.^[12][13][14] How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane was optioned by Will Arnett's production company, Electric Avenue, as the basis of a sitcom for the CBS television network.^[15][16]

Stein's comedic essays have been published in the New York Times,^[17][18] Parents, Jezebel,^[19] and have appeared in anthologies including, Mortified: Love is a Battlefield^[20] and Afterbirth: Stories You Won't Read in a Parenting Magazine.^[21]

Stein wrote, produced, and starred in Momhead, a comedy video which was filmed from a bird's eye view using a GoPro camera mounted on top of Stein's head.^[22][23] The video chronicled all of the ways that Stein's 4-year-old daughter insulted her in a typical day. It received a Silver Pencil award from The One Club.^[24]

Momhead was adapted into a short-form series, Jojohead (2016). Stein wrote, produced, and starred in the 18-episode series which was a co-production of Unperfect Productions and Blue Ribbon Content (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Television Studios).^[25][26] Jojohead was released on The CW's streaming platform, CW Seed, and was the first scripted series to be promoted through Instagram’s Weekly Stories.^[27]

Stein wrote and directed It's Illogical (2017), a series of short films about sexual assault victim blaming. The PSA's, which were released by then-VP Joe Biden's initiative, It's On Us, received over 15 million views globally, and received a Communication Arts Award of Excellence.^{[28][29][30][31][32]}