Michael Pritchard

Michael Pritchard is an American stand-up comedian, youth counselor, and advocate of social emotional learning (SEL). He speaks to schools, parent groups, and corporations on the topics of communication skills, diversity, bullying, and conflict resolution. A presentation that he made at Benicia (California) Middle School was featured in the 2011 Roko Belic documentary film Happy.

Pritchard was a U.S. Army medic during the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, he worked as a youth counselor and was named the 1980 California Probation Officer of the Year by the California Probation, Parole, and Correctional Association. After winning first place at the 1980 San Francisco International Comedy Competition, he briefly worked in show business, appearing in an episode of Taxi and working as a voice actor in some Star Wars films, Disneyland's Captain EO, and Sesame Street. In 1983, he began making presentations in school assemblies. In April 2000, the first anniversary of the Columbine shootings, his television series Saving Our Schools from Hate and Violence (SOS) was aired on KQED-TV and distributed to other PBS stations. His television series LifeSteps, filmed in 1992, appeared on PBS stations in the early 1990s, which divided into several subseries, You Can Choose aimed at elementary-school students, Big Changes, Big Choices aimed at middle-school students, and The Power of Choice, aimed at high-school students.