departure. Phil's surname is never mentioned in the run of the series. He is the only character outside the main three to appear in every episode. The character Phil begins his career as a writer for The Larry Sanders Show under the then-head writer Jerry, played by Jeremy Piven. After Jerry was written off of the show, it went several episodes without having the head writer character. Phil then persuaded Artie to promote him to head writer and then wanted to demote himself because he felt that the work was not as enjoyable as it was before. Although Phil is quite young, he displays levels of bitterness, cynicism, and jadedness rarely seen in young professionals. He doesn't take Larry's and Artie's occasional criticism of his writing well and often feels unappreciated. People on the show feel Phil is a better writer when he is emotionally unfulfilled as seen when his girlfriend dumps him and Larry describes the monologue as never having been that good before. He is a Buddhist. At one point he leaves the show to develop a pilot for the network about a band from Seattle only to have his writing criticized by the network executives and by the future star of the show, Dave Chappelle, who says that Phil shouldn't be writing a "black show" even though it was never Phil's intention to write one. Phil frequently makes sexist and homophobic comments, and generally does not seem to like racial diversity on the show - mentioning that his Asian characters are often female because it is "killing two birds with one stone." In the season five episode "The New Writer," Phil uses his role as the head writer to intentionally suppress Wendy's jokes in order to make her seem untalented, claiming that "women aren't funny." Wendy Traston Wendy Traston, played by Sarah Silverman, (seasons 5–6) is brought on as a staff writer in the episode "The New Writer". However, her jokes are not used because of the chauvinism and bias of the head writer, Phil, who favors the jokes of his male co-writers. She appeared in several episodes during the last two seasons. Mike Patterson Michael "Mike" Patterson is a writer played by John Riggi (seasons 1–3) who is brought on as a staff writer on The Larry Sanders Show before Jerry is fired. Patterson is first seen in the episode "Larry's Birthday", and last seen in