As a producer, Shapiro's credits include Mondo New York and Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen, which helped launch the careers of Tim Allen, Chris Rock, and Otto & George. The New Yorker noted the importance of Chris Rock's appearance in Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen, saying it "helped earn him a place in the cast of 'Saturday Night Live', two years later, and that attitude helped make him the defining comic of the hip-hop generation."[1] Other credits include Only The Strong, from which he produced the famous Mazda song "Zoom Zoom", and USA networks TV series Night Flight, a youth–targeted variety show he created which ran from 1981 to 1996.[2] Recently, VH1 named Night Flight one of the 10 greatest Hard Rock and Heavy Metal TV shows of all time, saying it was "the single greatest rock omnibus program ever aired."[3] Shapiro also produced the 72-hour live webcast of Woodstock '99, notable for being one of the largest of its kind at the time.[4]
In 2002 and 2003 respectively, Shapiro edited Flash Frames, a book highlighting Flash art from the Internet, with his wife, Laurie Dolphin.[5] He also produced the CD accompaniment to the book This is Today, a history of NBC's Today Show.[6] In December 2018, Shapiro published his book, IDENTIFI YOURSELF, A Journey F*ck You Creative Courage, Waterside Press Publisher, ISBN978-1-947637-88-7.
Entrepreneurship
Shapiro is the founder and president of iConstituent, which provides online communications to the United States Congress.[7] He has founded several Internet communication ventures, including Woodstock.com, Firstlook.com, ArtistEnt, and Patronet with Todd Rundgren and Danny Goldberg, one of the first Internet artist music subscription services.[8]