All right, guys. You know we are all huge nerds here at four
Finger Discounts, so we are very excited that the show is number one pop
culture convention. Super Over is returning once again on June seventeen through eighteen in
Sydney and twenty fourth through twenty fifth in Perth, with some amazing guests already
announced, including Elissa Milano, Superman himself, Tyler Hecklan, and the one
I'm very excited for is the co creator of the Ninja Turtles. Yes,
it's mister Kevin Eastman. Now. For more information, you can go to
Supernover dot com dot ayu, or just follow the link in the description of
this podcast, But for now, sit back and enjoy the show. D
it was a beautiful dead The sudden was shaming. He was driving to the
orphanage to best out toys. Suddenly that encourageable Simpson boy darted in front of
me. Oh my goodness, look what happened. Oh it's not important,
sir, Let's drive on. Were you despicable cool blooded monster? Regardless of
what you think, we watched someone help and comfort the dear boy until an
own good it arrives. M NA take me, I'm all, that's what
happened. What are you looking at me like that? For? You believed
his cack and bull story. Four Finger Discount, dude, Welcome to four
Finger Discount, the podcast that also comes with a faux pel necklace. Today,
we're heading all the way back to season two of The Simpsons to review
episode seven. A one zero Bark gets hit by a car. I am
Dando, I am guy, and we are not alone. No, we
are not. We are very likely to be joined by a man who continues
to pave his way into the top in Hollywood, whether it be writing for
Kim or writing Rick and Morty episodes, or you know, just casually writing
the scripts for blockbuster Marvel films like ant Men, The Wall, Quantamnia,
and the upcoming Avengers, that Kang Dynasty. He's of course, Jeff loved
this. Jeff, thanks for your time. How you doing, Hey,
guys doing all right? I am very excited to talk about this episode.
I don't think I realized that when I chose it. This is the first
Simpsons episode I ever saw, like, this is the for real this is
the episode that like broke it open for me. Yeah, I love this
one. Well, we're a similar age because you're you've just will happy birthday.
By the way, any couple of weeks agothday, Like, oh no,
no, that's wrong. For some reason, the internet has my birthday
March. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, because you didn't.
You didn't, you didn't mention anything on social media but your birthday. I
was like, Kale doesn't celebrate his birthday very much. June sixth man,
I'm a June sixth man. Wow, that's that's my mother's and my sister's
birthday. Dear Lord, all this d day annivers not the same person.
Let us clarify, not the same person. I don't know how it works
in Austria. Yeah, but no, yeah, I'm about thirty three,
gonna be thirty four. So like I sort of aged up with the Simpsons.
Yeah, it was like the dangerous show when you were a kid,
like my I was not allowed watch it. I was like forbidden from watching
It's same. So I was all right. But I've told the story plenty
of times in our podcast, how I watched Trios of Horror one that's where
they have the bad Dreamhouse where they're having the nightmares and it's whatever, and
they go Maggie goes into the kitchen and gets a knife. Well, I
proceeded to do the exact same thing. So my mom went, no more
Simpsons for you. Oh yeah, maybe your mom was right. That is
pretty one to one. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it is.
It is corrupt in the youth. So you're similar ash to me.
Did you experience the BARTMANI always had already sort of gone by the time you
sort of found The Simpsons. Well, I'm a I'm from like a really
really small town in like rural California, So like I didn't really get a
lot of like Simpsons pop culture exposure. Like I didn't get to see all
the mania and the T shirts and things like that. So I certainly knew
who Bart Simpson was, but I didn't really get to see like the popular
American like takeover of pop culture. But certainly like he was a popular guy.
He was like a Ninja turtle, you know, he's everywhere. Can
you remember when you first saw the Simpsons, Like, what was it just
like this mind blowing experience? Yeah, because you said this episode was the
first one you saw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did not have
the Fox network and we only had three channels, and so like Fox was
off the table where The Simpsons came on, but I think CBS, which
is another channel, was playing like a rerun or something, and so the
first glimpse of it I got, I think was like call of the Simpsons
or whatever one where he's like the Bigfoot guy. I only saw like a
couple seconds of like a joke like the newspaper that says like, you know,
Bigfoot likes uh whatever his dinner was, and like, and then it
turned off because like someone said a bad word, like my mom ended and
very religious mother, and so like something something on a front to Christ happened
somewhere in those thirty seconds, and I was not allowed to watch it.
But then my neighbor invited me up to his place one day and we were
like playing video games or whatever, and then he's like, as if we
were about to do like rowin or something. He's like, hey, do
you want to watch the Simpsons? And I was shocked, and I was
like scared, But then he's like, no, no, no, I
think I think you'll like it, and so he pulls out a VHS tape
and this episode was the one we watched. I still remember it, like,
and it was like a bomb went off in my head. Like that
was the first kind of comedy that I saw that really like resonated on a
deep level with me, Like I loved it so much, And this episode
has so many great little tricks and jokes and characters, like this is almost
like a perfect Simpsons episode. I love it, Jeff. I'm wondering if
seeing something like that at such a formative age really sort of lit a bit
of a create or ignited a bit of creative spok in you as well.
I mean watching shows like this growing up, I mean, did they give
you some innate sense of half stories are told, how they work, how
they structured, how jokes work, which one's land, which one's doing.
Yeah, no, you're right on the money, like the Simpsons, I
mean starting from this episode, but I mean so many of them. I
really do think it is this is price in too controversial an opinion, Like
it is probably the best American form of comedy to be made. I think
it really is. And of course it's an international show and everything, but
like it really summarizes what is beautiful and chaotic and insane about American life,
and uh yeah to me, Like I mean obviously, like seasons, you
know, like two through whatever wherever you want to cut it off on the
on the purest list, but like it really is just the sharpest form of
comedy, right and if anyone from Conan, John Schwartzwelder to John Viddy like
so yeah, as a young person, like I just soaked it in and
I see even ant Man, I I kind of borrowed. I took inspiration
from a Simpsons episode for a big chunk of ant Man and a character.
So I mean it's still it pays off. Well, that's rock. It
was Frank Grimes. Have you guys, Yeah, have you guys seen at
Man? Or am I spoiling it? Yeah? Because spoiler Modoc who is
like Corey Stoll from the very first movie, like he's been gone for a
long time. I basically I wanted to do a riff on the Frank Grimes
dynamic. He's like, oh, I mean that's such a beautiful episode of
like this guy cannot win and this like loser slob has like the perfect life
that he wants and nothing goes right for Grimes. And I thought of playing
that with like a super villain would be quite funny of like to get into
the Marvel Weeds. I guess, like if your Corey Stole, he's been
gone since like ant Man one, which was basically like ten years ago,
and so in that time, Paul Rudd has you know, become an Avenger.
He's dating Hope Van Dyne, Hank Pim respects him, he's a superhero
beloved by the world. He's time travel with Captain America twice. Like to
me, that almost felt the equivalent of like Homer showing Grimes his wall and
like you've been made, You've been to space, you've never been, never
been, like to see my Grammy, all of that stuff. It felt
like a fun kind of jealous, arrogant dynamic to play with those two guys.
It's also a really great I guess evolution for Darren Cross as well,
because I mean I remember in the first ant Man, I mean I really
like Corey Stole as an actor, and you know he sort of plays alpha
ish guys. Yeah, but in the ant Man he's like, you know,
he's got the power suit on and he's got the power of stance.
He's he's someone who's clearly listened to a lot of Tony Robbins, but he
just can't quite pull it off. It's like Sam Roqueville and Iron Man too.
He's like, you really want to be Tony Stark, and under different
circumstances you'd be the alpha in the room, but you just can't, can't
quite pull it off when you're up against you know, DJ or Paul rud
or something like that. So yeah, that was that's I'm glad you picked
up on that. That was very much the other inspiration point. It was
like, look, man, I know you're trying, but uh, yeah,
it's kind of a big head. I'm sorry. Like if like Darth
Vader in episode three, you know, falls into that volcano and comes out
not wearing the coolest, most badass sci fi suit of all time, but
just with a deform head and little baby legs, like to have him be
to have that like insecurity, just at the core of Darren Cross the whole
movie until it blows up. That was. Yeah, that was a big
part of it. I'm really glad you did it with the mode went that
way with the Modoc character as well, because I mean, he's somewhere He's
something that you could make really gross or greatisque and the characters inherently is like
he's been a If there's any character you can use comedically in Marvel comics,
it's always been Modoc and so like, I almost felt it was a disservice
to the character to do like a serious, gritty adaptation of him. Like
I'm like, no, no, like that, that's against the spirit of
Modoc. He should be ridiculous and he should be like as comic accurate as
we can get, which we did pretty well. But yeah, there were
some talks about making him. You know, how do we make it real?
How do we make like Nope, shut those down, Like no,
no, no, no, He's just gotta be a big head, bid
baby legs. Let's sh Yeah, that's it. Don't make him like oh
is nanotech used with the wore to no no, no, no, no,
no, big head, big head. We're constantly pointing out in this
podcast that I want superhero movies to be fun again. It feels like and
DC did this slop and it's like the Dark Knight. Everything's dark and gritty
and real. It's like I grew up in the nineties with Batman Forever Man,
go back to that. I jumped back into Batman and Robin the other
day and like you know, maybe not the best film, but I kind
of had that same feeling of like, man, I kind of missed fun
Batman. Yeah, miss Batman. That was like pop culture, like the
art not art deco, what's the word, Like seventies technicolor, like sixties
and seventies. Like, yeah, that Batman stuff is fun. I kind
of like a more playful Batman than just like a perpetually foggy Batman. I
love that you chose Frank Grimes as well, because you go back to the
nineties. When that episode came out, he was the reviews were scathing.
Fans hated that card. And it's funny how it's now evolved tree people who
grew up in the nineties like at the time, the older audience at the
time hated it. Those who grew up with that episode look back now and
go, that's one of the greatest episodes of all time. It's funny how
the opinions just shift over time. I'm praying that happens with quantum Mania.
Man. I want history to prove me right. I want history to prove
me right. Verymatus in the ground, man, I was about to say,
I mean, I was reading a few interviews with you and listening to
a few news within we've talked about how Quanta Mania is proving kind of divisive.
That's kind of what the best movies are. I mean, you don't
want one percent cinemas, you know, a plus cinema schoo or one hundred
percent on Rotten Tomatoes. I mean it is. There will be Blood Fargo,
Winds of Desire, A Man of the Wasp, Quantumnia. Yeah,
those are kind of British filments that dude needs to redo that list real quick.
No, I mean like that, yeah, I mean I oh,
this actually relates to this episode two. Yeah, some of those articles that
you were mentioning, like, oh, I felt so betrayed. I felt
so like you're doing all these press junk at like zoom interviews, you know,
twenty minutes at a time, and like someone asked about the reviews,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I was kind of depressing. Oh you
know, but you you get over it and you kind of move on.
I tossed it away the like the most casual, kind of friendly, you
know, up speak kind of you know, tossed away comment. The next
day, it's like a swirling newspaper headline writer depressed and I'm like, oh
my god. And it went out to like Variety tweeted it, People Magazine,
like all these majors, like literally it was everywhere, and I got
all these hundreds of texts, like people asking if I was okay, if
I needed to see someone. So there's this joke in this episode two that
like, yeah, I think like Burns is gonna fire fire Homer and Speathers
is like, well, do you think that's the best idea, sir?
Think of the headlines the smart move by Burns. Ye hooray for Burns.
Great decision by Burns. I really did think of like a Simpsons headline when
like I said this small thing and then suddenly like the headline is so egregious.
So yeah, I don't know, man, I actually like, man,
I kind of loved the movie. You know, things aren't for everybody
and all that, but like I wanted to write a yeah, like a
fun comic book movie. I wanted to write something that was like colorful and
had quirky, goofy gags, like broad jokes, almost like dumb and dumber,
and then you had an awesome villain and like you get to have a
serious film and a fun villain. Like, yeah, it's kind of been
strange to see how this all play out. But man, I don't know.
I had a good time. I liked it. I think a lot
of people they get angry and they don't get what they expect, right,
it happened, And I was guilty of that. When the second Star Wars
film came out, what was it, the last Jedi. She's a lifelong
Star Wars fan. I was so angry. The longer it's gone on,
I've just gone that wasn't that bad. It's not for me. It doesn't
mean it's not good. It's just people just have this sort of ownership of
the Marvel universe, like it has to be the way we want and it's
not the way we expect that, then it's not good. Yeah, it's
gotten to that place where it's like a professional sports team or something. You
know, it's been it's been in the family a bit. It's reaching that
Star Trek age where it's been around for like enough for another generation to come
into like other things that the previous one didn't. So like, yeah,
I mean I grew up reading comic books. I'm a hardcore X Men fan,
so like, I know, you know these are sports fans. Boone
at the Yankees, you know, like I think we'll be all burns out.
People don't like the Yankees. I did find interesting that you love Blade
because my man, he go out he loves Blade as well. Blade is
so great that first movie. He no character arc, he just shows up.
He's Blade. He kicks ass for about ninety five minutes and it's great.
It's not evenutes of Wesley stops sucking up vampires. Lady, miss you
don't miss. I love the two thirds mark of that movie spoiler alerts for
Blade. He gets like three triple whammies at once. It's like, hey,
man, your mom she's alive. Bad news, your mom's a vampire.
Bad news, she's fucking the vampire you hate, like three in a
row, and he barely He's like damn. He keeps going back to fights
like that would have crushed any other man, but Blade just kind of took
it in stride, not Wisley. How much there is there any other Simpsons
inspirations in your scripts particularly obviously can't talk about it. Kan Dynasty that's you
know, that's under yeah, But is there going to be some sort of
like Simpsons influences in that film as well. Kane Dynasty is heavily influenced by
the minorrel episode That's that's one for one. Put a jointed little hat on
Jonathan Majens. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's got He's already practicing the
song I m man. I don't know. I mean, the Simpsons is
pretty deep into most of my comedy. I can't think of a specific reference,
So I guess, I guess I'll say no, but I'm sure something.
I'll pop up camp crops. We'll be in there somewhere, Pepe fear,
I don't know. Jumping back to um. Sorry we mentioned mister Burns
a little while ago and ub Oh. Yeah. I had a nice bit
of synchronicity this morning watching rewatching Barkeets hit by a car. But before that,
I read this really long article in Vanity Fair about the Murdoch family and
about about Rupert Murdoch especially, and how you know, the guys what a
something? What is he not? Three hundred like? But they've kept very
very quiet the fact that you know, he's just had multiple health issues over
the last you know, maybe five or six years, including one where he's
like fractured his back because Wendy Dan pushed him into a piano and he's just
you know, I'm like, what the fuck. But then watching this episode
and it's like, at least at the very start when mister Burns is behind
the wheel, like, oh, this is the kind of mean, threatening,
you know, own big wig in Pottersville, mister Burns that we used
to know. And then but then later on you've got I'm gonna crush you
like this paper cups that I remember being the first Like, that's like the
major joke of the episode that made me laugh out loud when I was a
kid. I've always remembered that paper cup joke, and it's it's like the
pre mister Burns voice he's doing these earlier seasons. Mister Burns, he's not
quite the like excellent kind of guy. I do like that that this is
like my favorite of Burns though, where he's he's not quite a super villain.
It's just a rich guy, rich old guy just abusing his power.
Yeah, I do. I highly prefer like an evil billionaire to a cool
billionaire. I never buy the Iron Man Elon Musk. Then give me an
evil Turn of the century billionaire any day. Magnate, like a robber baron.
Yeah, and it's funny how they change the character because we're going sort
of in chronlogical lorders aft the season seventeen now, and by this point the
Burns character is just how would you describing guy? He's just nothing. There's
no scariness, there's no evilness to basically a ghost. Yeah, like his
body falls upon any basically, Lenny, there's nothing to it. But this
is a really really monumental episode because this was the first appearance for Phil Hartman,
so that the first little hunt. I assumed watching this again, I
assumed it was the first appearance, but I cut that too. I'm like,
oh, and he went on to be such a mainstay Lionel Huts is
you know, almost every four episodes or something, I'll pop in. Yeah,
yeah, well Phil Hartman is just incredible. But yeah, but it's
almost like a different Huts here, because Huts would going to become sort of
like the here's the sleazy lawyer here going to be sort of become the bad
lawyer as the show would evolve on like where he was it was, it
was still sleazy, but he was just sort of he was just a really
bad lawyer wasn't good at his job, you know. Yeah, well that's
interest. That's a nice that's a nice discerning take. You're right. And
then he would just slowly get worse and worse and more and more incompetent.
Yeah. Is this the first appearance of doctor Nick too. Yeah. And
they just go hand in hand as a pet, don't they really? When
you think about it, it's the way you see it with a lot of
Simpsons characters, though. I mean, they'll start them in a relatively grounded
fashion, and I was like, well, we can turn this style just
a little bit, you know, make him not so much a sleazy ambulance
shase or it's just a guy like the Willie Lowman of lawyers. It was
like, then you can have this one. It's half full. Well one,
I just drank out of a toilet. It'll be back, which my
favorite huts exchange of all time. I love the small modulations that happen to
characters. I'm right there with you, Like watching older episodes with like Skinner
and all of his Vietnam flashbacks, like all of his Vietnam like he's an
unstable man, like he's ready to snap at any seconds, and then buy
about season what seven, we forget about the Vietnam War and it never comes
up again. Well in season nine is where they have the fact that he
wasn't even the guy. He wasn't even Yeah, that's what's your thoughts on
episodes like that where they really changed the cannon of a character. You know,
it's tough, it's I kind of do look at it the same way
as comic books, like every once in a while there's gonna be some weird
left turns, Like in the nineties they pulled that with Spider Man. It's
like, oh no, no, no, the character you've known for about
fifty years. I he was a clone. There's another guy, like,
he's not real, there's another like you know, a good twist can be
good, but then eventually it all kind of ends up resetting and in your
mind, like do you even believe that episode or do you kind of I
don't know. I like the Skinner we got like I like, so,
I don't know. I think I mean the Simpsons. How many episodes are
there even like a couple of thousand, I think seven fifties one. I
just recently Pops, which is still a ship light of episodes it feels like
a thousand. I think it's okay to kind of play fast and loose because
it's almost like Star Trek. You know, these are not sequential episodes outside
of a couple of them that have like a two parter. They're kind of
like, you know, in one episode spos got like a brother, then
you never hear about them again, you know. Or it's like or they'll
they'll do an episode like there's always an old girl friend of Bones that shows
up. It's like, how many old girlfriends do this guy have? Like
I think with American TV especially and the older style of it before it became
like this bingeable, streamable thing. You know, this might be the only
episode someone sees or the first episode someone sees, so you can kind of
like play fast and loose to the continuity. Well you're a knicks Men man
as well, and continuity and that sort of in that saga is just nomany
idea. How many time displace kids cyclops as they're all over the place.
So the end you just got a sort of roll to sign and just like
looks it's the mutants there this week they're doing this. You know, just
enjoy it. You just kind of I think that's fun with that style.
I mean same with like Star Wars, like reading all those novels in the
nineties or two thousand, like at that expanded universe kind of thing. It's
probably not quote Cannon, but like who cares like it's it's like a take
it as like a one off. Yeah. Nothing infuriates me more than people
who would just hell bent on continuity to the to the point where they're like,
well, you know it's James Bond is you know, he's played by
different actors, but they're all the same James Bond. They're just switching up
the double saven designation to different people. Like not the fuck they are.
Man's just understand what that means. It's all literally the same being. Or
I think, yeah, James Bond is just a code name that they give
to give to all these different guys. So you know, I mean,
so wait, they all have to be very very horny British men. Is
that the only pretty much the casting to type. I just assume he was
just the same guy, and you know, it's like playing basketwise out of
face. That's what it is. Describe the struggle trying to write, for
example, quantumentia. Right, you want to write a film that can be
appreciated and enjoyed as just the film in itself, but you got to also
incorporate all this other stuff that's come before and what's going to be coming after.
Describe how hard it is this sort of incorporate all that that doesn't mess
with a film being able to be enjoyed as a standalone. Yeah, yeah,
I know, it is tough, Like especially this movie. It's like
the third movie. It also tailbacks tailbacks that's not a word, tailgates off
of a like Avengers End Game, which Aunt ma'am is a big part of.
And yeah, it's got to kind of introduce a character, a villain
that will be paying off, you know, however he pays off down the
road. It was definitely tricky and then like there's small things you might forget.
It's like, oh, yeah, Darren Cross, like Corey Stall in
our test audiences, people didn't even recognize him obviously, he's a big fat
head. So like we had to really remind people a few ways in the
movie, like a flashback and have Cassie mentioned it to kind of you know,
perk people up again. Same with like Michelle Peiffer. There's a lot
of backstory there, so we got a pipe that like, oh, yeah,
she was in the quantum realm for a while, you got to do
a flashback there. But then you also just have to let the movie,
you know, USh through itself in I don't know, like I kind of
use my parents as the as the as the rubric. They're not really like
Marvel fans or you know, they didn't see the other ant Man movies,
and they seem to more or less get what was going on. So I
don't know, you just try to you try to shoehorn in the exposition you
can get away with, and then kind of trust the audience for the rest
of it. Well, if someone's discussed racing in their podcast, how it
feels like Star Wars as a Lawsons, it's starting to feel like homework.
Yeah, that's I was trying in that way of like there was a blessing
in this movie. How like so much it just took place in the quantum
realm, so you don't really have to worry about like, you know,
oh it is Falcon gonna show up as she Hulk? Why don't they call
she Hulk? Like you got to have a little bit more of an isolated
experience and then bring in original character. There's like side side characters or the
Jello man with holes and all that. Like, yeah, I kind of
I did want. I tried to intentionally write this almost like a nineties adventure
movie, Like I want it to feel like something you could have seen like
Robin Williams in in like nineteen ninety four or something. Yeah, Hook,
Jumanji, that kind of stuff or um. So, I don't know.
Yeah, I think there is a danger of this stuff becoming too homeworky or
too interconnected. So I don't know. I just tried to make it a
fun Paul Rudd adventure kind of road trip comedy. What's Superhero would you love
to write a film for? Where they said, it's just a standalone nothing
else has to be involved. It's just a movie about this this character.
Who would you love to write a film about? You know? My favorite
Marvel character his Cyclops. I think I love Cyclops. He's such a loser.
I love he's just such like he's got the world on his shoulders.
His power's broken. Uh, nobody likes him. He's like that. He's
like the shift manager at a restaurant. And you know, like it's really
up to him to keep things moving. But big whole monitor energy. Yeah
yeah, yeah, teaching and teach you didn't give us any homework. Well,
but at the same time, like he's got to be that way because
if he slips up, he's gonna kill everybody he looks at. Like,
so it's I like the allegory of his powers too. I think there's a
really the broken sun quality he has with Xavier and Magneto, and then like
that translates to his powers and that lack of security. And then honestly like
the way he built himself up to become a hall monitor. Like you're saying,
like if you track his growth, it's like you're kind of proud of
him for doing the Like, oh wow, good for you man, Like
you were like a monster and you're like an eighty pound monster who who only
knew how to kill people and then you work your way up to be the
leader. I'm like that's pretty good man, Good for you. I'd do
one of him, And hey, man, I love Superman. It's like,
hey, if you know Superman of her rolls around, why not?
But uh, I'd go Cyclops for now. Patty get through the uh,
the self doubt. Luck from example, you knew what you wanted right with
Modoc, and they're coming with you an oldest nash More at this, I
really want to like this. How do you get to the point where you
go the compromise, where you go all right, I know what this needs
to be. How do you sort of convince an executive this is what it
needs to be? Oh um, oh man, there's I'm I'm not the
guy to ask on this. There's always a lot of that going on.
Marvel's pretty collaborative. And then like you know, certainly I'm not the final
word like Peyton read the director would have kind of the you know, the
final stamp, but I don't know. You try to acknowledge also, like
what's the note behind the note or what are they trying to say? So
like with Modoc, like I mentioned earlier, some test screenings didn't quite know
what was going on because they just didn't either they hadn't seen the first ant
Man movie or they had forgotten about him. And the CGI was pretty rough.
You know, we were showing test screenings six months ago, so like,
you know, yeah, clearly there's a disconnect there, and what's going
on, and so that note came through and I'm like, okay, that
is actually quite fair. I don't think it means we should cut him.
I think it means we need to clarify him. And so like you kind
of just try to like keep your energy and your point of view as solid
as you can, while also opening up the collaboration of like, yeah,
clearly something here's not working, Like here's my solution, let me drive it
through. But I do feel unless it's a do or die situation where you
got to make enemies and burn bridges, you're all kind of the same team,
so you got to kind of choose your battles and sometimes you're wrong,
yeah, and sometimes like you also got to see that you're wrong. So
like, I don't know, I don't know if I have a good answer,
because I got to work on my confidence as well. But usually when
you feel it and you've got that rhythm of how the joke should play out,
there's something to what you're feeling, and so try to find what they're
feeling too, and kind of get the harmonious chord between you if you can.
Speaking of confidence, and maybe this is just my sort of right as
neurosis spring to the full. But I mean I'm speaking as a cowdcarrying member
of Generation Exit, knowing you're going to be rotting the same Michelle Fife,
knowing she's going to be reading a script with your name on it. Yeah,
are you ever thinking while you're running it? God, I hope she
likes this though. God, I hope she thinks I'm cool something old.
You know, if Michael Douglas is rating it, Oh yeah, of course,
Bull Rodo, Evangeline Lily or who ever. But now all of them,
like Michelle Phifer especially, And that was a big part of me probably
getting the job for this movie or talking about it in the early days,
because I almost forgot Michelle Phifer was in these I'm like, oh yeah,
like she's yeah, they savor in the second one, and you know,
then at the end of the movie, you don't really get to explore her
too much, which makes sense for the second movie. But that was a
big part of what Peyton and I talked about, is like, we've got
one of the biggest movie stars of all time, Like, let's let's give
her the complicated father backstory that is usually in most of these sci fi things
like there's all. I mean, every other superhero movie is a father son
kind of story that's like a broken past at the father. It's a pretty
easy inversion to make it a mother daughter's story and that makes it slightly fresh.
Sure, And you get to have Mischelle Peiffer kind of be the Obi
One or the Gandolf kind of leading you through the quantum realm. So yeah,
that was a big And then you get to explore like her kind of
traumatic history and you get to you get to give her the Xavier Magneto relationship
with Kane, like she's you know, at the end of the day,
these guys saved each other and they lived together for years and years, and
like there is a bond between them. So I don't know, Like I
mean, I just wanted to lay her up as much as possible, and
she's a She nailed it. I love her scenes with Jonathan as well,
just really great performances. Do you want your comedy with the actor in mind
or do you want it with the charactor in mind? A little bit of
both, you know. It depends. Like with Bill Murray, like we
got him in the movie kind of later in the process that character had been
written and you know, you have other people in mind. Maybe, But
then once Bill Murray kind of got circled, Yeah, you certainly you certainly
go back, and I was like, yeah, I'll take another spin at
that. Now that I know it's Bill Murray, you can kind of write
it closer to the bone of what you know, what his vibe is.
But I think, um, you know, with comedy it can be very
helpful, like if you it depends on what you're making and your relationships are.
But like I love to write for like actor friends of mine or comedy
friends of mine because you know, they're rhythms, they can hit. Certainly
that's a you know that that's a pro. At the same time, I
don't know, I think the world can just benefit from just fresh out of
the gate characters. And like you know, sometimes when you write to type,
it just all sounds like the same thing, Like everyone's just writing the
same kind of quippy TV sitcom dialogue. So I don't know. I try
to write original, but if I've got like a north Star in my head,
I'll use that voice. It kind of feels like that's where The Simpsons
evolved to, where it was like we write joke and then assign it to
a character where back in the Glory is these earlier episodes that we're talking about
now, it's like swat Spotter, he wrote this episode. He's one of
the most iconic Simpsons writers of all time. You can tell when you're watching
an episode like this is a Swat Spotter episode. You can just tell from
the comedy. Who are some of your inspire when it comes to comedy rodding.
Did you have any growing up? Yeah? Yeah, I mean sports
Fielder is one of them. And it was funny how like I didn't you
know, I didn't know his name when I was a kid, But then
you start to see that name in the credits of like your favorite episodes,
and then I know what you're saying about. Like you can tell a sports
Felder episode almost right out the gate if it's got some like old timey Americana
and it's got like nineteen baseball or like factory workers or like the docs and
some sort of like he's he's always got like old timey things in their pioneers
and like cowboys. Um he I And then so like as I grew up,
then I noticed all his stamps on the episodes, and I just I
love the guy and I think he's like the sharpest writer to do it.
Conan O'Brien more so for his late night show like but that was a huge
deal to me growing up, especially his sketch comedy instincts that they had on
the show. Um, there's writers named Brian Stack and Brian McCann who were
like his kind of too go to comedy guys there. I'd say they were
huge influences on me and just they're kind of a very funny but also very
dumb and smart comedy at the same time in that American variety show format.
I don't know. I mean there's plenty, like when I was Garth Marenghi's
Dark Place. Yeah, that show that was like again, that was like
another bomb going off in my head. I think I saw it freshman year
of college and like he, I mean, that's a big one. Obviously
arrested development. I remember that one being kind of a big water shed came
out a few years ago now, but that was a big one. It's
just you start to notice or even like my dad watching Mash and Frasier,
like I ought to see some older kind of classic American comedies through my dad
and like I love the way. I mean, you know, everyone seen
Mash I suppose, but like it is a pretty ingenious mix of comedy and
drama and tragedy, like it really and when it works, it works really
well in a way that doesn't pull its punches. And then Frasier, h
Frasier is like perfectly. It's like a finely tuned watch, Like you can
set your watch to a Frasier episode, And I mean that with like a
compliment, like it's so well structured, it's so well done. It's elegant.
David Hyde Pierson here, you know, he nails every line, every
joke. It's like so well done. And in my Rick and Morty days,
one of my final episodes was like mister Nimbus, like this ocean man
thing. I basically just stole the structure from a Frasier like dinner party episode
and un that on Rick and Morty, which is you know, I don't
think people would compare Rick and Morty to Frasier as far as like sensibilities,
but it really was like the bones of comedy writing you can really find in
those classic good sitcoms. I'm glad you brought up Rick and Morty. Jack
I didn't want to ask about it. I mean, it seems almost lazy
at this point to make the draw the comparisons between Rick and Morty and the
MCU. But I mean three credits make a trend as far as I'm concerning
Bouldron, Jessica Gao and yourself. I mean, I wonder if could tell
us a bit about of course it's a it's a Justin Royland show, but
it's also got Dan Harmon's fingerprints on it as well. I wonder if you
could tell us a bit about the Harmon school of storytelling so to speak.
Harmon's a master at it. Yeah, he I mean, I don't think
I've met a guy who knows structure better than he does. He has that
story circle, and uh, you know, there's a variety. I mean,
at the end of the day, it is just like a trick or
it's a diagram to kind of help you get your beats down. But I
mean, damned if there'sn't a better one. You know, like he's got
a pretty good one and it really works. That guy has like a like
a super computer brain at hacking things. And I don't think there was a
script that he didn't touch. That wasn't made better by it. You know,
he's Harmon's the real deal as far as comedy writers go. He's really
good and so um sorry, like and we could break when he was on
fire, well he would like I think we broke the vat of acid episode
in like a day, like an afternoon we went to rock right that.
But like, there's a joy and a comedy way, or there's misery,
but like, I love the joy of a comedy writer's room because once you
get that electricity and everyone's kind of pitching around at the same time, it's
just like it's the most fun place to be. And I would listen to
interviews with cohnan talking about the Simpsons writer's room, and I remember it was
like a source of almost like pride for me. I've been working for a
long time and things weren't you know, there's always projects that go and die
and whatever. But then I got Rick and Morty and then I started to
really be friends with like all those great writers in the room. And I
heard Conan give that interview and I was like, oh, I know what
he's talking about. Oh I know what he's talking about, And like I
felt like a writer in that moment is that the thing you missed the most
going from writing you a script for a film with your credit to being in
the writer's room where you're just bantering and bouncing off of each other. Do
I miss being in a small airless with twelve very depressed men in the mid
to late now? I that is a thing like I miss having, especially
when it's going well, like just yeah, being able to to vibe with
a lot of funny people and then yeah yeah, and the trust fall quality
of knowing, like, you know what, I'm gonna write this script.
I think it's pretty good. If it's not good, they'll tell me.
And if it's not good, they will, you know, make it better
with a joke. And that's the way I believe the old Simpsons writing room
worked, like just machine gun jokes at this thing, no ego, let's
make this thing as good as we can. That's it can be hard to
achieve if your room is not all on the same page, or if there
is ego, or if there is like you know, territorial stuff or whatever.
But that room was pretty great, and so we got to that level
of like, hey, this is really fun. Here's my shot at it.
Let's all make it better together. That is a great thing. However,
I think I do if I had to choose, I don't know.
I think I like writing something on my own because like, at the same
time, there's gonna be so many cooks in this kitchen anyways, Like you
might as well just be the guy to kind of drive the boat through it,
because yeah, at the end of the day, there are If there
are thirteen other people trying to pitch a joke, it takes a lot longer
to get that joke, and it might end up being the first joke he
wrote. To begin with. You mentioned the word trust just before. It
must just be incredible from your perspective. Way you took a chance in yourself
when you left Kimmel, right, and that was a big deal, you
know, and it must be some self doubt moments threat there. But it's
paid off now to the point where you know, Disney, Marvel, they've
trusted you to write the upcoming a vengeance film. That's a that's huge man.
Thank you. Oh no, that's that's really nice for you to say.
I've been thinking about that. It's like been us Kimmel was definitely I
was like, so nervous, and that was my first job. I should
not be a writer, you know, it made like comedy videos on YouTube,
and then like I got a job on a TV show from like a
YouTube video I made. Like it all was like a fluke, you know.
It was like a you know, like a I don't know what to
even call it luck. And so I always had that kind of fear and
that small town kid fear in me of like, I don't know is gonna
work. I got to stay here, and Kimmel was a great job.
I was there for many years. But yeah, there was this feeling.
I think I've said this before somewhere else. I had a feeling, you
know, we were doing Thanksgiving jokes. It was Thanksgiving, You're writing jokes
for the monologue, and I wrote some and something just felt weird about it.
And I went back through my emails and I had written like the exact
same joke like three years earlier, and it was this feeling of like,
ah, okay, it might be time to go, like it might be
time to do something new. But I was really nervous. I was like
terrified of it. And then at Rick and Morty I did the kind of
the same thing. I'd written six episodes five at the time, I guess,
and I had that same feeling of like, and it's hard to explain
because it is like one of the most popular shows. You know, it's
kind of that it's Apex or whatever. But I just had that same feeling
of like, I think I've done all I can do here, Like I
think it's good to go out on mister Nimbus, like that's a good one.
And then I came back to help kind of write the an Alley but
like it, um, I don't know. I'm trying to trust that feeling
a little bit more. I'm sure it's gonna blow up in my face one
of these days. But like that has been if you're a writer or whatever,
like hold on to that itch, like that itch man, I Sometimes
you don't want it to be there, but sometimes it is there and you
got to just kind of go with it. But I don't know, it
could be a big mistake. We'll see, we'll see yet. How many
billions of dollars an endgame? Makoy? Sorry, how much? Oh?
Oh? Oh, well, that's it's like they're handing you the cays to
the Lamborghinian's, Like, oh, my god, I get to drive a
Lamb Ginnie. It's like, holy shit, what if I crashed this Lamb
beginning? Yea, yeah, I'm on my learner's permit. I've got to
have five get far with me? Well, I mean I'm looking at it
of like, man, this is nuts, Like it feels like it's like
a crazy thing, and so I'm cheating it of like I'm trying to take
ego out of it. I'm trying to take like even yeah, like fan
reactions or internet stuff. It's like, yeah, that's you know, Yeah,
you're playing the major leagues. People are gonna boo you from the audience,
you know, Like that's that's literally how it's supposed to go. And
so I think I've it took a bit, like it took a bit of
acclimatization because I grew up on the internet, you know, But now I
am pretty excited and like we're kind of in the process. I can't really
say anything, you know, but like I get to write like the biggest
movie possible that I can swing at, with as many characters as I want,
with like really great actors, and like it's ah, hey, I
mean like it quite literally is a dream job and so hey, we'll see.
It's like it's that when I put that in perspective, it's like,
oh yeah, I can take a couple mean tweets at me like and like
it doesn't go my way. I got out of Montgomery Creek, California,
and it does go my way. Hey we got another Avengers movie. Great?
Did did I tell you to not worry about the response online? The
SHD? No, they got enough stuff going on. You know, they
got they got Disney Black Site Prisons to clean up. I don't know,
no, I mean they they I think they're also big enough to where like,
you know what, this is how it goes. We just got to
be above it. It's almost like I almost had the Catholic Church. It's
not right, but like it's almost like hey, like what are you gonna
do? Like, yeah, we're here, like you know, try to
kind of get to the sea level we're at and then you can you can
go with it, which I think is actually kind of healthier. It's very
Buddhist. It's like engaging in that stuff is beneath you, like that you
are wasting your time if you engage in that all day, So like you
gotta kind of rise above. I suppose believe do what you think is best
and just just paw through. Yeah, yeah, yeah, kind at the
end of the day. I mean, you're the guy with his name on
the credits of a Marvel movie as opposed to some guy who's got ten k
views on YouTube. Well he'll get there, yeah, I mean, I
Hey, I'm more paut of that little scrap ten years ago. I was
exactly that, so I I sympathize, Jeff. I'd like to ask about
multiverses for a moment, and why they're so big right now. I mean,
I have a theory that you know, we're fucking up this reality pretty
bad. Like it's good to know they might be some other ones out they
end up doing okay. But um yeah, between the mcube everything everywhere at
once, Morty, I mean, we seem to be really big on other
dimensions and other other realities. I think you're right on the money with your
theory. I think you're right on the money. I'd also say there's maybe
a more callous theory about like there's a lot of IP to exploit and like,
hey, Michael Keaton was a good batman, right, Let's use him,
Like, hey, like, Hey, Tobey Maguire is great, let's
bring him in. It's nostalgia as well. Yeah, I think I think
we're reaching kind of then idea of nostalgia IP mining, and seems like we
got to do something else there. We're running out of you know, we
were running out of Ninja turtles to However, there the good side of that
is, like it really does I mean anything from like the Robert Frost poem,
you know, like the Road Not Taken or the Garden of Forking Paths,
like Borhe's short story Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow, Like the good parts
of a multiverse are based on choice and regret and things you could have been
or didn't do. It's a wonderful life, you know. And any of
these movies Christmas Carol, you know, like any of these movies are almost
multi verses in themselves, and it just presents you know, choice and humanity
and it's certainly everywhere, everything, everywhere, all at once. Did that
beautifully with you know, um, both of those characters kind of meeting in
different realities Cloud Atlas. No, No, that's not that's not a multiverse.
That's more of a time thing. But Uh, I don't know.
Yeah, there's like a there's a there's a there's a callous way of looking
at it, and then there's almost like a beautiful way that it really opens
up a lot of potentials with storylines. So I don't know, I'm trying
to look at the good side. I think I think there's plenty of good
stuff in it. Let's get to bakets hit by a car. Getting back
to it. So it was on the first episodes you saw. It's definitely
an episode you can appreciate as a kid, but once you get now I'm
for so long, I'm talking about ten years watching as an adult. I
think it's a credit to John swatswatter right because he manages to evoke such emotion
in that final scene with Marge and Homer from a story that started about one
minute prior to that. Yeah, that was dark. I actually was like,
oh my god, Homer, what are you say? But it just
came out, It just comes out of nowhere, that that little thread.
It felt that to me felt like oh man. In TV writer lingo,
it's like, oh man, I think we're about two minutes short on this
episode. We got to add something we did have the same thing on a
Rick and Morty episode. The vat of acid came in like four minutes short,
and so our director just made a little beautiful short film in the middle
of it and put it in there, and that's the best part of the
episode. So I feel like maybe they added that in or something. It
was like a little they need an extra little you know, sea salt to
kind of land the plane. That's not a phrase, but no, like
it's got super child friendly jokes, and then it's got clever like newspaper jokes,
and it's got ambulance chase your jokes, you know it's and it's got
this like, yeah, broken marital story at the very end, and the
price of telling the truth. It's a I guess my favorite joke is probably
the paper cup and then the mister Burns newspaper headline. But I remember as
a kid I loved and I thought it was like revolutionary. I've never seen
the two kind of like the Raschaman, the two different versions of the story.
Yeah, that was I'm old. Yes, that that line. I
think that was the line that like drove the nail into my brain of like
take me, I'm old. That is like a perfect thing. The perfect
thing about that too, is that that Burns is this story together clearly hasn't
runned by Smiths. Because he runs you just throw Smiths under the bush.
The Orphanage donate toys. Yeah, but it's just a great sort of a
little insight into just the exploitation of the court system where they're both doing the
wrong thing. It's just which one is the jew we're going to believe.
Oh No, I've actually been impressed with The Simpsons going back to those older
episodes, like they were kind of ahead of the game and seeing that like
the American legal and police systems are really bad, and like from day one,
like Wigham is just completely incompetent. Everything's going wrong with the cops.
Never help anybody in that show. They're completely off the ball. The billionaires
evil doesn't care about safety regulations. The whole town lives next to like an
open reactor and a trash fire, you know, like corporate environmentalism is yeah,
is ravaging the place. It's it's like a surprisingly politically progressive show,
even for like nineteen eighty nine. Yeah, and it's a kind of thing
where we've discussed this with a previous guest but I feel like it introduced politics
to a whole generation of viewers. All these kids were just like, what's
politics? And you watch the Simpsons like, Oh, I think they sort
of instilled the idea of politics in your mind from a young age. It's
actually kind of depressing when you watch Simpsons episodes now and like there's so much
more invested in their community than we are now. It's like, would you,
at the drop of a hat, would you go down to the like
the city hall or the church to have like a town meeting that you get
riled about. Like every other Simpsons episode they're showing up for like PTA meetings,
they're out of you know, they're out of they're at the mayor's talk
back, they're at at the church, like it's uh, they're pretty cypically
minded in that show in a way that I'm envious of. Well, it
came along at a really interesting time in the American society though, because I
mean, we tend to think of the nineteen seventies is really sort of cynical
and grimy era. Then of course Reagan comes along at the start of the
eighties. It's a new don't you day in America? And I think by
the tail end of the eighties, people are starting to think, wait a
minute, I think we might have got sold a bill of goods here.
I think they're richer getting richer, and we're getting fucked. So in the
Simpsons sort of walks the line of both of those. It's like, hey,
things are prosperos, things are pretty good, but I think all our
institutions might be kind of corrupted out for themselves. Yeah, yeah, that's
a great take. It's that post Soviet Union in nineties America of like,
Okay, the war is over, what are we now without an enemy?
And turns it out not much, turns out like unless we got another you
know one, thank God for nine to eleven. Dear God, thank you.
We need it. We need it. Yeah, Like, but I
think that time period, I'm kind of working on something about that. I
think that Clinton era, you know, when I was a kid too,
Like when the Monica Lewinsky scandal, at least in America, you know,
we're so puritanical, like that shut down the country, Like that was such
a like big deal and uh, you know, clearly not a good thing,
but also it's like it was that enough to shut down the world but
like that seems to be like the innocence lost of the nineties is like when
uh, when the Bill Clinton thing. At least for me, I remember
being like seven or eight and being like, wait, I think America's got
problems. We got a well that It's My favorite line in this episode is
Maud to the in saying I'd like you to forgive me for the right thing.
Yeah, that's great. Oh yeah, and the public schools. I
love that about the Simpsons. They've they've been at head of the curve and
like, our schools are terrible. They are not funded. They have to
beg for scraps. Like oh that was another thing. I'm like from day
one, they've had America on a social level pretty well, pretty well tracked
any more. Brain Busters. Now, we have a little game we'd have
to play here at four Finger Discount, Jeff, where it's called the Blockbuster
Brainbuster, where we go back to the visual air date of this episode and
I pitched I tell a guy the date, and you've got to try and
guess what were the top three films at the US box office for that day
for that week. I give you a clue for each I'll give you guys,
the clues and let's see if you can come up with it. Right.
So the number one movie, the clue is Wet, the clue for
number two is Party Pooper, and the clue for number three is Quantumnia.
Yeah, okay, Wet. I'm going to say, like Free Willie.
No. Well, if we're talking ninety one, yeah, so we're talking
a bit of bleed over from nineteen ninety. So what was big at the
end of nineteen ninety January ten ninety one is when it ends flash. Now
that's eighties, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna say it's Home Alone with the
Wet Bandits. It's Home Alone with the Wet Bandits. Yes, oh,
oh, okay, I went too far into the water. They're pretty loose
to Clusia, I must have been when he went. I'm like I was
thinking base againstinct. Number Number two is a Schwartznaker film. What's it called?
Or what was the hint? Oh? The hint was party Pooper.
Don't be a party pooper, Kindergarten cup well done? Yes, Number two
with Kindergarten cop and number three think of what was Quantumnia in a series brilogy?
Yeah? Third one? Oh, it's a beauty. Oh, it's
an epic of the heart. It's a you know, to treat us on
modern day America, what do we say? Uh, a classica have its
to It's god Father three, right, it's the god Father three? Correct,
guy? Yes? Oh god Oh I didn't get that god Father three.
Oh yeah. Yeah, so that is like some mania. Yeah,
the guy he initially misunderstood but now lovingly embraced third installation of a classic saga.
Yes, I will also missed a couple of hit. It also stars
a young teenage daughter. Yeah, it's got all of it. Yeah,
you do you honestly, I feel like, and we've discussed this as well,
where you know, a film that was poorly received in the nineties,
it's almost like we're always looking back down and going you know, at the
time I didn't like it, but on palm reflection, it was actually pretty
great. It's happening more and more often now. Oh yeah, yeah,
I uh, it's actually kind of interesting. Like any I'm not saying that,
I'm not saying that Kuantamania is like Dylan going electric or anything, but
like, um yeah, like also, people are idiots and people are just
like no one knows what's going on. We just need some sense of certainty
and he needs someone to feel like they know what they're talking about. But
yeah, half these movie reviews don't mean anything and they don't believe it and
they don't buy it. So like, I don't know, But I also
love movie critics, Like I grew up with Roger Ebert, the American film
critic, and like I would race home to watch his show, and like
good film critics. I mean, yeah, they really open up the world
of movies to you. But at the same time, hey, who cares,
Like just watch it, see if you like it or not, watch
it with your cousins, see if you laughs, or like the likes the
holes guy, Like I think, especially these types of movies, Like I
wrote it, I wrote it for like again from that super small town.
We didn't even have a movie theater. Like we would drive to church on
the weekends, and if it was like a good weekend, we could go
see a movie after church. And it was always just a dumb movie that
no one really wanted to see. It's like we all compromised on it,
you know, or like whenever is that action comedy whatever? But there was
a joy to that and I love that feeling of like watching a movie with
your cousins or your brother and like kind of a movie you all agreed on.
And I kind of wanted to write Quantumania like that. I'm like,
I want to write one of those like fun movies you can go see with
like your high school friends or your middle school friends, and like it doesn't
have to be you know, it doesn't have to be Andre rube Lev or
something or Solaris, but like you can make like a fun cheeseburger. I
think that's the that's the route. That's the best type of comic book movie.
I think, persolutely. Look some of my fondest movie owing memories,
you know, from in my twenties or my lighteens or whatever. I mean,
tang in Cash. It's a piece of shit. But I saw it
with a group of friends at the cinema, you know, one night,
and I don't know, we maybe had a burea or two beforehand, but
yeah, we just had an absolute blast with it. I went to revisit
a little while ago. I was like, du was all that good?
But you know, my memories of it and that of that particular screen,
you're like, oh man, that's such a blast with it. History will
redeem Quantumania, Yes, I will stick. No, But I remember I
was once again my second nine to eleven Records of the Night. I was
like right after the nine to eleven and like the you know, the whole
world is, you know, confused and full of tragedy. And we went
to go see the movie rat Race, and I've never laughed. Loved that
movie when I was growing up, loved It's so good. It's so stupid,
it's so fun. Yeah. Each character is goofy and big and broad.
I yeah, no, I still. I mean that is probably punch
for punch, the most emotion I've had in a movie theater, just uproariously
laughing at Race, like that's the way to do it. Rights is one
of those movies where I didn't expect. I don't really know what I was
going into, and then it just it's just so fun. There's so many
stars in that movie just catches you off. God, that's my favorite type
of Yeah. I mean, they just stacked that. It's so good.
Yeah. Do you think the response to quantum Mania has it did an impact
in any way your work with the upcoming Avengers film, Like when it comes
to writing. Did it change your mindset of a few things but you sort
of second guest certain elements. Yeah, I mean yes and no, like
without getting into too many details, Like we got basically the idea and it's
not going to affect all too much. But I mean, of course,
if you're a writer, you want to see how your work is received.
You want to see what people like, what they didn't get, what you
could do better. That's all you know. Writing is eternal homework and research,
and especially if you're neurotic, like you said, I'm the same way,
like you want to read everything and learn everything. You want everyone to
love view. But no, I think we had a pretty good idea going
in and I don't think it's going to deviate too much. I don't know,
these things can change all the time. But I was talking with Peyton
about this the other day, Like if quantum Mania had been like a nightmare
and we all hated each other and you know, it was some you know,
disaster from the beginning, then maybe I would feel bad about it.
But no, I actually had a great time work with good people and like
we still like the movie, and so like, I don't know, I
think other people got to catch up. I kind of dig it. I
love that Modoca death scene. That's like my favorite thing I've ever written.
Like, I love that he's such a loser and he's so he's so needy
and he needs to be appreciated by these people and they just have to lie
to him and let him on the Avengers and I don't know, like I
think there's stuff in that movie to love. So it didn't Effectivengers too much,
but you know, you try to just be a better writer as you
go forward. Well, Disney now owned the Simpsons, Would you have a
one to Penna Simpsons episode? Oh? Man, I would love to.
I actually did write at Jimmy Kimmel. We had a little Simpsons crossover and
so I did. I got I mean, it's just a small, little
like sketch, but I got to write Homer and I cried in my car
like he um. I did not it like hit me on a religious level,
like in my in my heart like it. I did not expect it,
Like you know, you you go and you hear the recording and it's
you know, it's damn castle Amita sane lines that you wrote that maybe more
so than anyone I've ever written for, Like that got me and like I
didn't expect it. I cried in my car, like I was like shaking.
So man, I would love to write a full Simpsons episode that Uh
who would I love? I love Skinner and Moe, I love a Pooh.
I don't know what I would do, um man off to think about
it, I mean Burns. I would would be like a story that incorporates
the town, like a monorail kind of episode, or do you think it
more more more? Sort of a tone down. I love a town episode.
I also love a good Lisa episode when they get those in there,
those can be so emotional, like which I didn't appreciate as a kid.
I didn't love the lasers get older. I'm a father of a daughter.
I'm just like, oh my god, they said, you said it's so
emotional. When you're a kid, it's all about Homer and Bart, and
then when you grow up it's about Lisa and Marge. And you're like,
oh, man, did you realize Lisa? Yeah, yeah yeah. If
I or you turn into Marge too, your life is left you you Marge.
I would man if I could crack a Marge Lisa episode those are rare,
that'd be fun. Um, I don't know. I mean that's the
beauty of the show. It's almost like Marvel comics, like there are so
many good characters. All you have to do is like hit it and show
each one. Like I love Lenny, like my favorite. I love just
the running narrative of Lenny. If like you can't quite pin down is he
a war hero? He lives in a in a house where nothing else is
there. But then I'm going these eyes, Yeah, I love Lenny.
Like that's a perfect character. He's only spoke, you know, he speaks
maybe ten lines, maybe in an episode in a season. He's just perfect.
Yeah. Lenny's just one of those characters where you think, who which,
who would want to who would you want to be your friend? From
Springfield? So many people just say Lenny, Oh yeah, of course he's
Oh and there's that one episode I forget where it was from. It it
was like mid mid you know, the teens or something. But like Homer
uses a dumb lie to get out and go bowling. He's like, oh,
yeah, something's wrong with Lenny. We gotta go not Lenny, like
not Lenny. To my knowledge, they've never even met each other. It's
so good. I mean, it's a beautiful show. I would love to
write for it. I'm thinking if you could do like a Margin Lisa road
trip story in the vein of like Lady Bird, you know that movie Lady
Visiting Colleges or something. I think that would be fantastic. Oh yeah,
that is really good. Yeah, a good Margin Lisa episode that that would
tug at the heart strings. And yet I also came back around on Bart
because obviously you can love Bart as a kid, but like the sportsfielder,
Bart Simpson is like just a little rascal, like scamp. He's got like
very like turn of the century American nannerisms, Art Brothers stuff. Yeah,
I really like him. Yeah yeah. The original air day of Barkeets Hit
by a Car was January tenth, nineteen ninety one. It was written by
John Swatswelder and directed by Mark Kirkland. The chopball gag I will not sell
school property, and the cash gag sees Homer bump everybody off the couch.
Basically the episode kicks off of BArch just skateboarding down the street, and I
thought it was interesting. It had the caption the title of the episode,
and he ever does that with this episode and the Telltale Head where he steals
the head of Jebedi Stach Jebedi Springfield in the in the first season, they
never do this. I don't know. Would you do you think? Do
you think it adds to the episode? Do you think they did as just
like a visual gag of like here's the title and then immediately bargets but that
could actually we can have actually seen it that way. Yeah, I was
wondering about that. Did they Did they not do that for like season one
episodes at all? Just the Telltale Head that's the only one. Yeah,
I am. I think the boy's hurt. Oh for crying out loud.
Just give him a nicola. Let's get going. I think we should call
an ambulance, sir dude. I just love the attitude mister Burns, just
like move on in the way that switches with the story later on. But
then we get the Escalator to Heaven. This is the phil Hoptman's actually doing
the voice of the escalator man here. And then we get a first little
insight here in Snowball Snowball one with it with the tire marks over and things
like that. What do you think of the devil and the Devil's great.
Oh what I noticed it was like the hieronymous Bosh painting. Yes, well,
and that actually impressed me because I'm like, wait, this is like
nineteen ninety one, this is kind of pre internet. No one has any
idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you had to actually know what that
was to reference it. And then like I love the thing about the Simpsons
and also like X Men especially or comic books, they will reference thing that
if you're you're they will reference things that as a child you don't know what
they are, but you know it's something. It's like it's a bigger mystery
out there. Like someone will quote I was such an idiot. There's a
line that Magnetos said in this X Men cartoon. I thought it was just
a Magneto quote. It turns out of Shakespeare like in the year later.
I'm like, oh, okay, it's like hyperlinks before the Internet was invented,
and mean, you know, and if you're lucky, you sort of
you read an article, you get clued in by someone who's a bit more
savy than it was, like, you know, the referencing Citizen Kane with
that angle there, like which it is in kine, but then you discover
a citizen gain and you will expand it just a little bit. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, it's fantastic when I throw in Easter eggs before even the
tone of Easter eggs, I think, and I think it's almost like a
almost like a like a duty or a responsibility. Like I felt that way
of like because I was that kid. So it's like in whatever you would
call these quote unquote like lower forms of art or pop art or whatever you
want to call it, Like, it is really cool when they can kind
of crack the window a little bit and give you, if you're a kid,
kind of a window into maybe a deeper literature, you know whatever,
Like it shows you a world beyond just the comic book that you got.
I think that's one of the best uses of them. It's thought that took
it upon themselves. It's our job to educate the youth of America on pop
culture references that they're not gonna understand anywhere else. Yeah, and then even
not Yeah, it's like but also it's like also it can just work as
a cool, groovy image, you know, Like it doesn't it's making a
point of it. It just has it there in the Tapestry of America.
It's cool. It's funny because the visual actually looks like it's almost the design
of trou McClure the way they drew it. So we'll not it's about to
be true mccluaugh. He wasn't even a part Simpson, who the hell are
you? Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm not that all, and
you've earned eternal damn nation for your lifetime of evil deeds. Bart spitting off
the escalator just clenched it. Hey, I'm innocent, man, innocent.
Everybody's innocent. Okay, let's just pull up your file here because okay,
it seems to be a mistake. According to this, you're not due to
arrive here until the next time the Yankees win the pennant. That's nearly a
century from now. Boys, my face, Red Bart bart Um say,
is there anything I can do to avoid coming back here? Oh? Sure,
yeah, but now you wouldn't like it. Okay, see you later
then goodbye, Bart. Remember why jee steel and listen to heavy Man on
me. It was that Yester. So we got the hommer at the power
plant here, and he's saying, you know, if I wasn't spineless.
I'd marchinton burns his office. Did you have a moment like that, Jeff,
where You're like, damn it, this joke is good. I'm not
gonna let him take it out. I'm gonna march in there. But you
just you just didn't quite have the guss to do it, Like did you
have have a joke? Oh, yeah, every day. Yeah, I'm
very I'm very good at being a spineless worm goes along with it. No,
I think that was actually good training at like the I was at the
Onion for a bit and then Jimmy Kimmel to where like are you know,
you want to fight for the stuff that you like and you want to make
it good and you want to get it all the way there. But even
if you lose, it's like, all right, we'll do another show tomorrow,
like you gotta it. Almost There is that thing with a writer,
like you can get a little precious about your work, like I found,
especially with like comedy writer friends and myself, if you have like one pilot
that you've written and that's the one you're putting all your chips on, you
get really defensive about it. Or if like someone gives you notes and is
well, like yeah, but you know, man, it's a show about
roommates. Maybe you can add a little bit, well, but are you're
talking about like you get a little defensive if you've just got your one little
baby, whereas it's good to kind of diversify. And that that was good
at Kimmel, Like it allowed me to realize that, like, maybe the
right form of this joke isn't there yet, Maybe there's another permutation of the
joke, Maybe there's another version of it, like modocs. Certainly that was
yeah, that's a good example of it of like stand up for the idea,
but then also realize that, like, hey, something isn't quite translating
here and like okay, how do we how do we bridge that gap?
So that was maybe like the third or fourth narrative attempt at getting that character
right. Um So, I don't know. I've certainly buried my pride a
lot and taking the lumps, but I don't know. You gotta choose your
battles. I think that's just the maturity that comes with experience, really,
isn't it. I don't know, or just dead in the soul? Are
you losing? What's the point yeah, now we'll get a real doctor's opinion.
But no, your son is a very sick boy. Just look at
the X rays. You see that duck spot there we blush Welsh. Oh
no, and this smige here that looks like my fingerprint. No, that's
trauma. Am I gonna die? Homer? No, of course you're not
going to tie. Everything's fine. Well, I ever played baseball again,
but I played baseball this morning. That's right. He did. Excuse me,
but doctor Hibbert has been our family physician for years and he thought bar
was fine. No, doctor Hibbert Jenkins medical too. Without due respect,
Missus Simpson, you're not a doctor. The boy's not a doctor. I'm
not a doctor. The only person in this room who even comes close is
this man. Stop you're embassing me. Doctor. Are you sure there isn't
a little soft tissue trauma in the facial area? Oh yeah, tons of
it. Just so well, doctor Nick making his first appearance here. As
I said, like doctor Nick, I never really put him with one on
hospital. They're just other perfect pair, aren't they working in Unison? Yeah?
Yeah, I always associated with him like he had a TV show,
right, like hi, doctor Nick, Like he's usually on the able access
on Feels Unlock one of those true McClure shows once you know, Hi,
I'm Trum McClure. One of those kind of shows facial if he's an infamocial
guy inmcial. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. But what are
your thoughts on the Doctor Nick character? Oh? Uh, you know that's
when I don't have too many thoughts about it. I don't know, like
he's he was never never really my favorite. There's a few side characters that
I, oh, I know, I don't really care for doctor Nick,
and I don't really care for Professor Frank. He never really does it,
Okay, yeah, yeah, for some reason, I know they're doing like
a nutty professor like old like Jerry Lewis thing, but like, yeah,
Frank never does it for me, and neither does Nick. Really like.
I guess I like Nick a little bit better because he can have more medical
jokes or things like that. But I will say I think Frank is my
least favorite character. The God's last favorite character is Grandskapa. Willie just does
not like him. Oh interesting and fair enough, fair enough. I think
he's got he's got some good stuff in there, but I can see what
you're saying. Yeah, right in here, mister Simpson, and he calls.
Della calls, Oh, calls, Yes, the Supreme Court called again.
They need your help on some freedom thing. Tell them to sit tight.
I'll get back to them this way. Mister Simpson, you sure have
cut some education. Mister Hutch, Yes, Harvard, Yale, MT.
Oxford, the saber on the lubra. Oh oh well, mister Simpson.
The state bar forbids me from promising you a big cash settlement. But just
between you and me, I promise you a big cash settlement. My fee
is fifty percent. You'll be getting more than just a lawyer, mister Simpson.
You'll also be getting this exquisite faux pearl necklace, a ninety nine dollars
value, as our gift to you. Well, I don't know, you
and I might have different ideas about just how big a big cash gentleman is
a million dollars? Who I can't correct it a million bucks? Hey,
Okay, I just loved the Della the secretary and the way huts is just
sort of he convinces these people to walk through the door that he's a legitimate
lawyer, when really he's not good at all. I mean that's a lovely
little shout out as well. If we're talking little easter eggs, I mean
the fact that she's named Della. I mean Perry Mason, the famous TV
lawyer. His secretary slash girl Friday was was dellast really so it's um,
Oh didn't know that. I've never seen Perry Mason. I gotta get on
that. And the voice of her was, um, lunch lady Doris,
Doris Graw. I can see that. Yeah, I'm ying in those huts.
Who are your favorite voices on The Simpsons, Jeff Oh, I mean
I think mister Burns is fantastic mo of course, like so Azaria Shearer,
Um Herbapple, I always liked Herbapple. I think she's got a great voice
and always Bart the lover before choosing this episode, I mean Mark, I
mean again, yeah, I guess he can I say, Homer like the
the like the sophistication, the delivery. I mean, how yea seven hundred
and fifty episodes each one he knocks it out of the park like it is.
Oh. And also Lisa, I mean like she's Lisa's got a lot
of emotion in her voice and a lot a lot of range, and like
the way Yard Lisa does that, I'm choosing pretty pretty obvious ones. Oh
yeah, you know, I don't. I guess Frank comic book guy doesn't
quite do it for him. He's fine, but like, I don't really
care. H I love the smaller side characters, like the sarcastic business guy
who's always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's my guys. My
man's character must be the ladies. I don't know. I mean, there's
just so many. It really is like a beautiful show. I liked um.
John Lovitts is like the ater director of the Streetcar named Desire episode well
and clip plus Professor Lombardo Yeah yeah, Jacques like the French Ball apparently he
came back and a yeah. And there's a lot of outrage because speaking of
Cannon earlier that there's there's a clip show where Marge tells Homer about that story
because it's like a love story clip show, right, I go back to
that story and Homer's annoyed by it. But in this one, Homer didn't
know about and everyone's like, oh, but she's already revealed it, No,
twenty seven years ago, how does he not know it now? And
everyone's like, it's like, just relax, It's just she had. Also,
Homer has been to space and then the Barbershope in the eighties. Apparently
he also went to high school in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen nineties.
Yeah, the show has a lot of ret kinning. So take off that
genius at work T shirt, sir, and just you know, enjoy the
show. Springfield Municiable Court is now in session. Judge Malton Presiety Urana.
My client has instructed me to remind the court how rich an important he is,
that he is not like other men. I should be able to run
over as many kids as I want. Mister Burns, I must warn you
that if you continue to disrupt the court in this way, I will have
to site you for contempt. You well, no, I guess I wouldn't
calling Barthami J. Simpson to the stand. Oh please, hello, Bart,
Now you know the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie,
don't your son? Maybe? Well, you wouldn't lie to the United States,
would you? Bart? Oh? No, good, proceed, mister
Huts. I should be able to run over as many kids as I want.
Thought about that joke that got me It's like, that's how he starts
the that's how Court starts. Yeah, it just lives in this bubble away
and rules to stand applot to me. Also, like Burns mentions Ogre a
lot. He always mentions you don't want to be an He did in this
episode, and I think there's another one where he doesn't, like, I'm
not an Ogre. I just want to bash your bones from to make my
super or something like that. I really enjoyed the animation of both the stories
really, in particular bats one were talking about the luxury car of death that's
coming to getting But you can just tell that the director and the animals just
had an absolute ball making those stories. Yeah, that's always fun even Yeah,
like the Rick and Morty side of it, like you have kind of
like your your house style of like, hey, you know how the episode
looks, but then every once in a while you kind of get you get
to go into like a magical realism or a fantasy or something like that,
and you get to kind of play around Simpson's probably, I mean Probace started
that. I don't know, maybe maybe Looney Tunes did back in the day,
but like anytime they do a little like Homer dream sequence or You're inside
of a brain or something like. That's where some of the best jokes come
from. I didn't enjoy as well when Burns was yelling at lays or.
By the way, this is the first appearance also of the blue Head Lawyer.
Oh, I do like that guy. He's always fun. Yea.
Yeah. Now he's based on Roy Kone or something roy kone. Yeah,
it's um an evil, evil person. He was lawyer for Senator Joe McCarthy
back during the Blacklist era. Oh wow, I think he might have been
the mentor of this guy Roger Stone, who's like an advisor to Nixon through
Trump. Yeah, basically just yeah, he's Satan essentially, But yeah,
the blue Head lawyers are much nicer those. I'm a big fan of Blue
Heir lawyer guy. Yeah, he's always good. Now, I know you're
shot on time and Jeff, so we'll just we'll just get towards the end
here. So basically, yeah, so the Marge, she speaks the truth.
I did love when they're in mister Burns's mansion, this little little peep
holes through through the painting things like that. But I'm just the way to
sort of shuns about. But this released the hounds, like he knows he's
one. Great. That was a great shot that that. I don't know
why it reminded me of a hitchcock, but just that really sort of high
angle shot of them running across the lawn, you know, with the with
the with the hound chasing, felt like something out of north By Northwest or
whatever. Something I really dog just pride of that though. It was burns
Max's offer of half a mill. He's crossed out a mill, rots half
a mill, and then puts a little smiley face. He's been your wife
for ten years, You've had three children together. It's time to be honest
with her. I'm not sure I love you anymore, but don't worry.
I'll never let on. I'll still do all the bed stuff. Maybe you
won't be so bad. Oh my lord, Well, I don't want to
wait another minute to find out whether you love me anymore. I think that
you should look me in the eyes and find out. No, Homer,
look at me, all right, all right, look at her if it'll
shut her up, start with the feet still angry. Good, good,
Homer, good, This is a tough neat refreshment. Good old trustworthy beer.
My love for you will never die. All right, all right,
gotta look at the wife straight in the eyes and tell her, oh my
kidding, I love you more than ever. I love you, Choder to
scare you like that, baby, Okay, everybody for the age fifteen minutes,
one dirt off on every picture, one podcast in my domestic beer only
I ain't no sharing more. Yeah. So the ending here, it was
just like we said, it just seemed to just come out of nowhere,
this little element. Didn't it of just that? Like you said, it
felt like they sort of run out of time. Maybe, but I find
it I find it hard to believe that Schwartzwater would have found it hard to
fill out twenty two minutes. It feels like I feel like he wanted this
in there. But maybe do you think it maybe need a little bit more
time to have more effect. I still think it had enough emotion. But
oh, I think it certainly had emotion. You know, I don't know
any far be it from me to credit John schwartz Felds like the best Simpsons
writer there ever was. You know, It's like, I'm not the episode
of I wrote the Slut Dragons, episode of Rick and Morty. I don't
know, Penny, but like it. I guess if I'm looking at as
like a TV writer perspective, it's like, yeah, Homer's is the main
character. It's like he hasn't had much of an arc yet, So maybe
you need to have a bit of a consequence and then you need to like
you need him in Marche to have like a reconciliation over their differing views in
the episode of like she wants to tell the truth, he'd going down the
sleazy wrote route. You need to have almost like the outcome of that.
It does feel a little heavy or a little like the same time, if
he's just disappointed, you only have about two episodes, two minutes to go.
So maybe he did go in strong because they have such a great episode.
They had the you know, Barton Hell and all that stuff. It's
like there's a lot of episode, a lot of dream sequences, there's a
lot of stuff. And so maybe that he made the choice to hit him
hard at the end and then you can have kind of a big emotion and
then a big reconciliation. Whereas maybe in another episode that would have happened around
you know, the midpoint, that would have been apt too that Homer is
disappointed in margin doesn't know if he loves it or not. But this had
to come in with like two minutes to spare. That's say I've been closing
on a line like well, not closing on it, but having a line
with two minutes ago and saying I'm not sure I love you anymore. It's
like you've got to pull some heavy gymnastics to pull that one back there.
Yeah, that's pretty heavy, man. I cut March from Slack. Great
directing though of just the way he's sort of looking up the body off from
feet, takes a drink and then goes to a face. But um,
and and it's beautiful when Homer says no, like he's very like he's a
sad puppy. It's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now one
final question here is what we ask everybody. So it's nineteen ninety eight,
you've been given the task. You're putting together a Friday night Simpsons marathon on
Fox, consisting of five episodes. What are you choosing? Oh, it's
nineteen ninety eight. I kind of forget which one. So that's season one
to nine? Okay, uh, Flaming Mose Monorail the Bobo episode Dolphins.
No, that's later, Dolphins, isn't nine is? I love the Dolphins
Treehouse of Horrors. That's one of the greatst sort of like post Golden Ero
ones, isn't it. Yeah, Yeah, I would do the Cane and
Kodos, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole Treehouse. Then that's a great one.
You gotta have a chance of horror in the marathon. I feel like,
yeah, oh wonderful. Yeah, of course. And then I would do
like, um, Hank Scorpio, like the you Only Move twice. Maybe
that that's pretty pretty safe choice another another episode, though at the time people
didn't like it, but now Hank Scorpion is one of the most beloved characters
of all time and EPs in one episode it was the ant man in the
waist corn of many of its time. Yes, oh, and Bart the
Lover. I would I would put that in there. That's a great well,
Jeff, Thank you so much for your time, mate. It's been
an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. And all the best with
Avengers, the Kane Dynasty. Oh yeah, no, guys, just so
much fun. Oh yeah, maybe I'll see you again down the road.
That would be fantastic, Let's make that happen. Jeers Man, what a
dude. Hey, I think it's like to say that he is an U
BFF and expect him on many more full think it just shows moving forward now,
top dude. Yeah, really funny, very very clearly, very smart
man. Yeah, absolutely no were We were stoked to have him on board
and big time, Jeff, you'd be more than well, hey, my
favorite. Now before we go, mister Davis, I feel like maybe just
sort of skim through the episodes a little key moments just to sort of give
the listeners what they want, because we didn't sort of cover everything of the
episode, like what were your favorites in particular? We sort of discussed that.
But yeah, well, look, of course it's great to hear Phil
Hartman. Yeah, in various form. Just yeah, that's such such it's
such a big moment for the show. The fact that Phil's now joined.
He changed the show, changed the show. Yeah. As I said during
the episode, during the fourth fingered Disco of episode that we've just recorded,
it's the early phase of the early incarnation of Lionel hearts. He's not bumbling
just yet. He's not quite he hasn't read guils a shyster. He's more
just yea, yeah, he's just he's just a shyster. He's just an
ambulance chaser. He's literally chasing an ambulance at some stay, which I think
is fantastic. I did also love it when he's like hears and goes,
oh, just missed. And of course, you know, Hartman just knew
exactly the right amount of must to put onlines like that. That's so great.
Um, I might be with Jeff and the doctor Nick is kind of
one note, and you know, sometimes you don't mind hearing that one particular
note, but if you hear it over and over and over again, yeah,
gets a bit. So. I did like though, when you see
his office and he's got his various qualifications on the world. At least one
of them says smooth operator. I think another one might say IBA like female
body inspector. He's just got really shit qualification. Yeah, but we talked
a bit about the ending, and yeah, it really is an emotional hairpin
turn that I don't know the show absolutely nowhere. Yeah, the show is
well crafted and you know, goodhearted enough to sort of pull out of.
But yeah, I mean, if that was much, don't He's something like
dwelling on for why Yeah. Yeah. What I thought was interesting was,
you know, we're in season seventeen now, and there's so many times lately
where it feels like we're gonna give an emotional ending and it's comes out of
nowhere, like even the one was it last week they see home a Run
where where Lisa says, you know what, Dad, you tried your best
to change this town and I respect you for it, and it's like he
didn't do anything like it just feels like they're sort of throwing these little emotional
beats in at the end at the end of the episode, like the last
minute or so. Here though I didn't realize that they've been doing it since
season two. It works here now it seems very heavy. But put yourself
in Homer's shoes, right, you're about to win five hundred grand, but
like a million dollar case, and your wife as much as your lover,
you know she's doing the right thing, but she's just cost you half a
million dollars. Like you can understand why he is, and he doesn't.
He's never angry at her. That's what I liked about. He never yells
at her. Never puts it down. Even at the dinner, he sort
of says things along the lines of, you know, he's having his inner
monologue. He's just depressed. Yeah, he's just depressed. He's just like,
oh no, I'm never gonna look at you the same way. Like
it's not like he's angry yet her, He's just he's just he's he doesn't
know how to feel anymore. Yeah, And I don't think he's even disappointed
in Marge. I think he's just kind of disappointed it like he had he's
had a little glimpse or little life that you know, he's always wanted,
and not just for him, for his family as well. It was just
then reach and and it's gone. And it's not gone for bad reasons or
a neptitude or anything like that. Like I said, I mean my favorite
liners that like you for to give me for doing the right thing. Yeah,
it's not exactly a million bucks, but you know that'll keep your warm
at not knowing that you know, lived honorably. I really enjoyed Marge swearing
under Earth. She sounded like she was teching out awfully. Seriously. I
think as the episode progressed, as Jeff was mentioning John Swatswater when he writes
Bart, he writes, like this little rascal. So at the start he
was just kind of like, oh, be fine, But the more it
went on, he was just like he was enjoying the playing the role of
the sick key year and at the start at tension in that way because at
the start he is more concerned. He's like, I was playing baseball this
morning or Whatever's like, I'm okay, And then as you know, the
Hut's influence gets sort of like takes over. It is just like can you
roll the eyes in the back of your head? Oh yeah, yeah,
like this the kids are pro like Bart was in Bart was enjoying it.
Yeah, well you see it later in like the Timo tool. Thankful.
Yes. Anyway, overall, this is just, yeah, one of those
episodes that I find out a lot with the season two episodes that I go
back and I don't revisit them anywhere near enough. But you said, if
you said to me, I do want to go watch Bart gets hit by
a car, be like, yeah, I guess. And I watched this
and I'm like, oh god, this is just great. Like there's just
so many classics in this year. Yeah, for mine, it hasn't quite
hit top speed or peak performance yet. I don't think it really does that
until season three. But it's really getting there and you can really tell.
It's just it's still working yourself out. But like compared to season seventeen episode,
Sorry Jeff, I'm doing a frank forever. But thank you guys for
listening to our chat with with Jeff Lovesness discussing the episode Bart gets hit by
a car. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I meant I'm just speaking
to Jeff. I just that was that. That was great. I'd love
to have him, Jeff, you're listening, Like guy said, we'd love
to have you back on the show whenever you would want to, because that
was absolute delighted. It's like I trying to say to him, you know,
you're just you know, from a small town. You're right for Kim.
Now you're writing an Avengers movie. That's like, does it get any
bigger than writing an Avengers movie? In twenty twenty three, not really knew
when it comes to writing blockbuster films, what is it? What would be
a bigger blockbuster franchise film than an Avengers movie? I can't think of anything
right now. I don't think I'd ever be able to sort of, I'd
be too scared. Like imagine that the nervousness that must come with having so
much at your fingertips, that that everything's writing on what you Obviously there's going
to be changes here and there, but it's writing on the idea and that
you're putting out there, you know. Like I said, I mean,
you're taking the Lamborghini a for a spin and you really want to let it
rip, but you're also terrified you might put a dint in it. Yeah,
but it's also having knowing that they've got the faith in you that must
be in the feeling you must feel knowing that Marvel Studios are putting there and
they're pushing the chips and on on Jeff lpness. It's like, yeah,
but you have a chat to the guy and you can understand why. I
think I think Jeff is good in a room, shall we? Yeah?
But I think you can also back it up. Yeah, one hundred percent,
of course you can. Yes, But yeah, I hope you guys
enjoyed our chat with Jeff. You're definitely be coming on another episode in the
near future. Don't forget guys too. Please continue to rate and review us
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, check us five stars if you're listening that way,
and don't forget. We are now part of the Spreaker network. We
want to thank our friends at Spreaker for getting us on board, and yes
I'm winding up. We'll hear at four Finger discap follow us on Twitter as
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Plenty more we call this guy on Springfields to Go the old classic revisiting
episodes, but plenty more of these with many more exciting guests in the near
future. But this has been barkets hit by a car, mister Davis.
Any final words for those incredible listeners out there. That's believable podcasting.