LOS ANGELES: Eric Gilliland, the author known for his comedy projects, is no longer with us. As the US news portal Variety reports, Eric died on September 1st from the effects of his battle with cancer. Gilliland, who comes from Illinois and graduated from Northwestern University in 1984, wrote for the ABC comedy from 1992 to 1996.

In 2019, he worked as a consultant for “The Conners.” His first major writing job on television was on “Who’s the Boss?” He then wrote for “Living Dolls,” “The Wonder Years,” “Boogie Howser, M.D.,” “That ’70s Show” and “My Boys.”

His most recent project was the podcast The Cinnamon Bear: A Holiday Adventure. He received a WGA Award nomination for Roseanne in 1994. In 2019, he received a Daytime Emmy nomination for writing the children’s show The Was Was? Show.

After learning of his death, several members of the entertainment industry expressed their heartfelt condolences on their respective social media channels.

Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan wrote on Facebook: “I know this is weird, but this morning I found myself thinking that Eric Gilliland would have taken perverse pleasure in knowing that Dick Van Dyke, of all people, had outlived him.

That’s one of the ways Eric and I bonded in 8th grade, over our shared love of the Dick Van Dyke Show. And Monty Python, Jack Benny, the Carol Burnett Show, SNL, and bad puns. (Yes, folks, we started a pun club.)” Steve added, “Eric was just smart and funny.

In high school, we did plays, musicals, and comedy shows, even co-writing parts of them. Somehow he managed the impossible feat of being snarky and sweet at the same time.

When I did a comedy show called ‘Little Bucky’ with our friends Thalia Kalodimos and Betsy Brennan for our local radio station in Glenview, I was so bad at doing accents that Eric nicknamed me ‘The Man with a Thousand Voices.'” Gilliland’s fellow Roseanne writer Stan Zimmerman also mourned Eric’s death.