Daniel Knauf, sometimes credited under the pseudonyms Wilfred Schmidt and Chris Neal, is an American television screenwriter and producer, as well as comic book writer, best known for his creation of the 2003 HBO series Carnivàle.

Carnivàle is an American television series set in the United States Dust Bowl during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The series, created by Daniel Knauf, ran for two seasons between 2003 and 2005. In tracing the lives of disparate groups of people in a traveling carnival, Knauf's story combined a bleak atmosphere with elements of the surreal in portraying struggles between good and evil and between free will and destiny. The show's mythology draws upon themes and motifs from traditional Christianity and gnosticism together with Masonic lore, particularly that of the Knights Templar order.