Born in Manhattan, New York, Steven R. Kutcher as a young child collected fireflies in the Catskill Mountains.
In 1970, Kutcher began his work in the entertainment industry as "Larry J. Felix" in The Stein and Illes Radio Show, a comedic "underground" radio show on KUSC, in Southern California; James R. Stein and Robert Illes would both become Emmy Award-winning TV writers and producers.