Speaker 1: Four finger Discount.
Speaker 2: Dude, Hey, eybody, welcome to four Finger Discount with this
Speaker 2: is what. We were joined by the Grand Pooba, the
Speaker 2: head honcho of the Simpsons. It is Matt Salmon. How
Speaker 2: are you doing so?
Speaker 3: What's up? How you guys doing how? I can't see
Speaker 3: guy's feet? Hold on? This is hold on.
Speaker 1: It's because I'm continually sidelined by Dan, though he is
Speaker 1: holding the spotlight from day one.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take the opinion that I've never seen
Speaker 3: one episode of seasons one through eight.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that the news website will take that as
Speaker 2: actual news. That's what they tend to get. Walk a
Speaker 2: little quote from you and just run while with it,
Speaker 2: because now, what's the latest one? It was? Simpsons showrunner
Speaker 2: says the season the show will never have a finale.
Speaker 2: That was the latest one.
Speaker 3: Well, I do agree that it will hopefully will never
Speaker 3: have a probably I'll never a lane finale. Yeah that's all.
Speaker 3: I may or may not have a last episode, but
Speaker 3: I just doesn't have a lame finale that tries to
Speaker 3: sum everything up. And you know I'm on the record
Speaker 3: about that. But also, all of a sudden will be
Speaker 3: someone else's decision. So that's also their problem. Maybe they
Speaker 3: could do every they could do all they could have
Speaker 3: it be Bart graduates fourth grade and Turns eleven and
Speaker 3: Milhouse all that stuff. Everyone gets to be better but themselves.
Speaker 2: What a good shipe.
Speaker 1: Finales. As far as the O consent, do you do
Speaker 1: you have any of that sort of leap out? It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they stuck the landing on that one.
Speaker 3: I can't remember any shows.
Speaker 2: What is television?
Speaker 3: I don't think the Cheers one was that good. I
Speaker 3: just don't think TV shows are supposed to end, so
Speaker 3: like idea that you're doing an unnatural The end is
Speaker 3: not natural because they're especially like classic TV shows are
Speaker 3: supposed to go on forever and make everyone print money forever,
Speaker 3: like the Simpsons, like a giant ATM. So then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, you're doing a different kind of storytelling
Speaker 3: for this last episode about the premise of the SHO
Speaker 3: show has shifted to a new and that everyone is
Speaker 3: the reason they see each other no longer exists. It's unnatural.
Speaker 1: I think in the two thousands and maybe in the
Speaker 1: twenty tens, you know, you got this whole presstage TV
Speaker 1: thing going on, and you had a lot of critics
Speaker 1: and pundits going. You know, TV shows are the new novels,
Speaker 1: and you had a lot of people thinking, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm creating a work of art here, and I need
Speaker 1: to put a full stop on it if I may,
Speaker 1: if I am doing a final episode, and I reckon.
Speaker 1: There are some shows that actually did that pretty well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right in that. Yeah, television is generally
Speaker 1: a thing that just keep going, keeps going and keeps going.
Speaker 3: Like dramas. I mean, dramas are their own thing, But
Speaker 3: for like half hour comedies, I don't think there are
Speaker 3: any good last episodes. And I say that not being
Speaker 3: able to think of any that ever happened. So with
Speaker 3: a sample size of zero in my memory, there are
Speaker 3: no good last episodes of any half hour comedy because
Speaker 3: they all do the thing the show wasn't supposed to do,
Speaker 3: which is end the show. Because they always to say
Speaker 3: we're gonna end the show rather than just a good episode,
Speaker 3: it is the last episode, and Nick, you never know
Speaker 3: what happens. Then this is a new theory I just
Speaker 3: thought of in the moment. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: I believe.
Speaker 2: It, but hell, the job of selling.
Speaker 3: It, I don't think any half hour finale has ever
Speaker 3: been good that tried to fundamentally shift the premise of
Speaker 3: the show, And I can't think of any examples to
Speaker 3: prove or disprove my theory.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I always fall back on is the
Speaker 2: Raymond finale. I really enjoyed because it was just essentially
Speaker 2: another episode and and with them just sitting around the
Speaker 2: dinner table having family dinner.
Speaker 3: That's a great finale. That there you go, that one.
Speaker 3: Any of the ones that, like, you close the bar,
Speaker 3: you left Korea, those are the two. That's the only two.
Speaker 3: I've only seen two shows in my life, Cheers and
Speaker 3: Mash Murphy Brown Dies by murder suicide. Like all those
Speaker 3: finalees are, they're not good. I mean, I guess the
Speaker 3: Mash one makes sense historically, but I don't know was Mash.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: One listening to this knows what mashes.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know it mashes. It's one of my
Speaker 2: favorite shows, but I'm sure there are a lot of
Speaker 2: people that don't really talk about Mash anymore.
Speaker 3: You're right, yeah, yeah, anyway, I'm starting off with a bang.
Speaker 1: No, but sure you count and spicy and hot. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2: I wanted to recently have the eight hundred episode. That's
Speaker 2: that's another thing not many shows do is eight hundred episodes.
Speaker 2: So you get the launch party? Is it the Fonder theater?
Speaker 2: Fonder the theater named after?
Speaker 3: Refinder? It was as a Bridget funder Actually don't know
Speaker 3: that his granddaughter.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a take that's going to resonate
Speaker 1: with the younger warning? Is they going to go, who
Speaker 1: the hell's Bridget funds.
Speaker 2: For us singles?
Speaker 1: And Jackie Brown fans? That really hurts. But at the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 3: Any all the finders, it's hard to grow up and
Speaker 3: show biz, right, guys? You know you can do that?
Speaker 2: Do you guys? Get to lay your like just relax
Speaker 2: and just sort of hang out outside of work. Very
Speaker 2: often the entire crew like that or is that just
Speaker 2: is that something only comes on a rare occasion not.
Speaker 3: That often because the animators are live far away and
Speaker 3: are only semi Sometimes they come to work. Sometimes they
Speaker 3: work at home, but they they don't come in all
Speaker 3: the time, and when they do, they're in office that's
Speaker 3: an hour from my office. I think those parties are great.
Speaker 3: I mean, for me, the main goal of those parties
Speaker 3: is to talk to as many of the crew as possible,
Speaker 3: like tell them they're doing an awesome job, which they are.
Speaker 3: So like people who I've never met, or the people
Speaker 3: who I rarely meet or I see on zooms to like,
Speaker 3: you know, say you know, I know this is a
Speaker 3: hard job and you're really doing excellent work, which they are.
Speaker 1: Is there kind of a secret handshake among people who
Speaker 1: work on the sensors or have worked on the sensors
Speaker 1: or is it kind of a hierarchical thing where it's
Speaker 1: you know, you're coming in like mister Burns and saying
Speaker 1: well done everyone, as opposed to just like, hey, whirlling
Speaker 1: this together. Well, I don't mean that as a gotcha question, Matt.
Speaker 3: They probably think I'm like mister Burns. I think we wait,
Speaker 3: we're all in this together. But hey, you laugh at
Speaker 3: all my jokes. I must be so funny. Oh wait,
Speaker 3: mister Burns.
Speaker 2: What's it like now being that you have the Soul showruner?
Speaker 2: They're correct, you've finally taken that mantle. How has your
Speaker 2: job changed, if at all, in the last season.
Speaker 3: But more delegation, more trusting the people under me to
Speaker 3: be great, which they are, more like letting them, you know,
Speaker 3: come to me with ideas or make big decisions, and
Speaker 3: me saying, hey, if you feel strongly about that, you're
Speaker 3: just as talented or smart as I am, if not
Speaker 3: more so. So I don't have to be the arbiter
Speaker 3: of every decision like why am I smarter or better?
Speaker 3: I'm not, So it's just either to me. Again, this
Speaker 3: is my distorted perspective. It's more delegation, more trust, more
Speaker 3: empowerment of the great writing staff and producing staff and
Speaker 3: animating staff. But maybe they think it is No, he's
Speaker 3: an obnoxious, multi obnoxious, micromanaging nutcase. We have to tender
Speaker 3: to think all these ideas are good. So one of
Speaker 3: those two things.
Speaker 1: Did that transition into the delegator the micromanager?
Speaker 2: Your words up mine? Did that come? Do you?
Speaker 1: Did you feel like a noticeable shift in the oh
Speaker 1: this is what I do now or this is part
Speaker 1: of my job now? Or did this sort of happen
Speaker 1: so gradually, you know, did you become a hardcore networks
Speaker 1: gradually that you didn't even notice?
Speaker 3: Ah, good reference, It happened over time, but there definitely
Speaker 3: when there was probably one point at which I was
Speaker 3: doing I went from going like to doing like half
Speaker 3: the shows to a bigger chunk of the shows where
Speaker 3: I really had to institute a system of hierarchical delegation
Speaker 3: that was different than what had come before. And that
Speaker 3: was where we kind of promoted Rob Leazebnik, Tim Long,
Speaker 3: Mike Price, Caroinomine, Brian Kelly. Tim Long I already said
Speaker 3: and says our mesaiegos in different capacities to really, you know,
Speaker 3: be in charge of episodes under the umbrella of me.
Speaker 3: So when that happened, you know, that was like a
Speaker 3: big shift for sure, where like I, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: heavily involved with every show, but I can't be as
Speaker 3: heavily involved as I was before I had to. And
Speaker 3: those people we call the co runners, which I think
Speaker 3: is a great term. You guys aren't like from Hollywood
Speaker 3: that much. So in Hollywood people are loath to share credit.
Speaker 3: I personally don't need any credit. Credit is credit isn't
Speaker 3: really worth anything. So I like to give it away
Speaker 3: to people who deserve it, because they do deserve it.
Speaker 3: So people say to me, don't use the term co runner.
Speaker 3: People will think you don't do everything. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't do everything, ridiculous. I go home at night, see
Speaker 3: my wife, my kids like my father. Here's a little backstory,
Speaker 3: guys at emotional backstore that's unpacked this. My father was
Speaker 3: a professor of early childhood and human development for fifty
Speaker 3: years at a little school called Harvard University Community College,
Speaker 3: right community college. And growing up in the academic world
Speaker 3: where there's very little money for anything, there's massive fights
Speaker 3: and arguments and political stuff over who gets credit, who
Speaker 3: gets credit for the papers, whose name is on the grants,
Speaker 3: whose name is on the book, you know who? You know,
Speaker 3: which associates and which grad students, And huge fights and
Speaker 3: schisms and political ego wars over who gets the credit
Speaker 3: for the for the academic work, right, And my dad
Speaker 3: was always like, who cares? Everyone put everyone whose name
Speaker 3: on there, who worked on it, We all worked on
Speaker 3: it together, Like doesn't hurt me. I'm I'm in a
Speaker 3: retirement home now, No one one way or the other.
Speaker 3: No one cared if my name had other names with
Speaker 3: it for these books and papers and grants and proposals
Speaker 3: and you know, academic research that I did. Like, just
Speaker 3: we all worked on it together. Let's let the world though,
Speaker 3: there's no downside. And so I took that to heart
Speaker 3: at this Simpsons, so I try to be ultra transparent
Speaker 3: about the degree to which this is a super collaboration.
Speaker 2: Before you were the show runner, did you feel that
Speaker 2: that was the mantra always at the Simpsons, that whoever's
Speaker 2: in charge is always willing to sort of share the credit.
Speaker 3: I don't know who's to say that, love is saying volumes, man,
Speaker 3: I just I don't. I think Al was great with you. No,
Speaker 3: I think Al was terrific about that. It's just I
Speaker 3: really I'm like ultra crazy about being ultra transparent. I mean,
Speaker 3: Al did an amazing job for so many years, making
Speaker 3: so many great episodes, and he always would give us credit,
Speaker 3: like if you know, he'll also I would think role
Speaker 3: modeled positive credit sharing a one hundred percent that to.
Speaker 2: The best of your experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, even just having the Simpsons on your resume,
Speaker 1: on your save a, even if it didn't have like
Speaker 1: an official title next to it, would that's still give
Speaker 1: you a bit of clout if you were sort of
Speaker 1: like going for other jobs, or if you were just
Speaker 1: saying to people, hey, I work on the Simpsons or yeah,
Speaker 1: even even if it's not I'm a showrunner or I'm
Speaker 1: a producer, or whatever. I mean, just having having the
Speaker 1: title on your as part of your body of work.
Speaker 1: I mean, does that like holy shit? That Matt Selman?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it looks okay. I mean
Speaker 3: TV is so in a shrunken, desiccated state in that
Speaker 3: there's more qualified applicants for every writing job than there
Speaker 3: are writing jobs that I don't think there's any credit
Speaker 3: that gets you hired just the credit. It really has
Speaker 3: to be outstanding material, outstanding recommendations, extending personal experience with
Speaker 3: that writer, and probably five other things that are to
Speaker 3: get you that writing job. So am I holding my
Speaker 3: breath for future writing jobs after the Simpsons end? I
Speaker 3: am not. And you know what, I've had a great run,
Speaker 3: so I'm not super stressed about it at the moment,
Speaker 3: but I mean a little bit. It's also such an
Speaker 3: old show. Simpsons writers are somewhat of an an unknown
Speaker 3: quantity in the rest of regular television. But we're a
Speaker 3: little bit like off on our own crazy Galapagos island,
Speaker 3: and we have operated with our own evolutionary system, and
Speaker 3: we have our own strange animals and different plants and
Speaker 3: floras and faunas that you know, we're not part of
Speaker 3: kind of traditional TV where you jump from job to
Speaker 3: job and you write pilots, and you know a lot
Speaker 3: of executives, and you pitch a lot of shows and
Speaker 3: some of them you write a script, and some of
Speaker 3: them are a pilot, and some of them are a show,
Speaker 3: and so then maybe you're successful and you have a
Speaker 3: kind of an overall deal. Like words, we really just
Speaker 3: do this one thing on the Homer's Galopagas Island. So
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what the rest of showbiz thinks of
Speaker 3: us the show as a credit in terms of future jobs.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think it might be like they think we
Speaker 3: worked on Sesame Street because it was something from their childhoods.
Speaker 3: So like the executives are now, let's say the executives
Speaker 3: are thirty. So if I say I worked on the Simpsons,
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, you worked on Powerpuff Girls right from
Speaker 3: when they were kids.
Speaker 1: Didn't that show starting black and White? Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 3: Never count on anything. That would be my advice to
Speaker 3: all your listeners. Always assume this is your last job.
Speaker 3: I always assume every job is the last time anyone
Speaker 3: will ever pay.
Speaker 2: What's the turnover? Like with the writer's room these days,
Speaker 2: zero turnover. Yes, do mayb people leave the Simpsons once
Speaker 2: they joined the Simpsons.
Speaker 3: Nobody leaves. Everyone who left regrets it, every single one
Speaker 3: of them except for Greg Daniels and Cod and O'Brien.
Speaker 2: Well, we had Josh once once staying on the show racially,
Speaker 2: and he said he regrets leaving the show because he
Speaker 2: just expected. I mean, that was twenty plus years ago now,
Speaker 2: but he thought, well, I've been I've run the Simpsons
Speaker 2: onto bigger and better things. Now I can take on
Speaker 2: the world. And he said, once he left the Simpsons,
Speaker 2: he realized, Oh, the Simpsons, as you said, it is
Speaker 2: on its own island, in its own bubble. Once you're there,
Speaker 2: never get off it. You should just stay there forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that was a that was a mistake.
Speaker 3: Like it worked out for me.
Speaker 2: It did.
Speaker 3: Indeed everyone else made worked out for me.
Speaker 2: The next milestone is that because you guys obviously see
Speaker 2: milestones yet, but the four to fiftieth episode, the seven
Speaker 2: hundred to eight hundred is the next one. The movie
Speaker 2: is that the next milestone we're taking off? Yes, eventually.
Speaker 3: Milestone or perhaps forgive this wordplay milestone or perhaps millstone
Speaker 3: will see Yes, how.
Speaker 2: Have you guys learned to balance the workload from the
Speaker 2: first one, if you've learned anything at all.
Speaker 3: It's just like, well, I can only work when I'm awake,
Speaker 3: so I don't feel bad for not working more hours
Speaker 3: than i'm a week.
Speaker 2: Is it stressful? Do you find it? You're more just
Speaker 2: the team in general, just sort of can you feel
Speaker 2: that there's a movie being made at the same time
Speaker 2: At the moment.
Speaker 3: I think it feels good. I think it feels really fun.
Speaker 3: Everyone knows the movie is going to be terrific and
Speaker 3: that it's going to kind of give the show a boost.
Speaker 3: I think we have a good balance right now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and assuming the Millstone effect does not drowned me in
Speaker 3: a sea of craziness?
Speaker 2: Was a pushback due to scheduling conflicts? Was a pushback
Speaker 2: to give you guys all time?
Speaker 3: What pushback? Where's the pushback?
Speaker 2: Is there a pushback?
Speaker 3: What do you know? What have you heard?
Speaker 2: I've heard many things now, so originally July in now September,
Speaker 2: so it's only three months delay.
Speaker 3: But well, you know, I just corporations have their chess
Speaker 3: games that I don't second guess those moves all this.
Speaker 3: They have their ways, They they know what's best. Corporations
Speaker 3: knows what's best. I just I just work on the
Speaker 3: stories and the Fortnite collaborations. You go on that you
Speaker 3: I gently supervised it, But Jeff Westbrook and Ryan Coe
Speaker 3: did all the did all of the creative on our side,
Speaker 3: and but also the Fortnite people did a ton of
Speaker 3: great creative on their side. It was a really they
Speaker 3: really went above and beyond the call of duty. Hopefully
Speaker 3: there will not be a Simpson's call of duty level that.
Speaker 2: It got made to actually find out what Fortnite actually was.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what Fortnite was, and I downloaded
Speaker 2: and played it and I enjoyed it. So did you
Speaker 2: play it at all?
Speaker 3: I dipped my toe? Yeah, But as a fifty four
Speaker 3: year old man being sniped by a thirteen year old
Speaker 3: and not knowing what the hell just happened, it gets
Speaker 3: old pretty fast. So the frustration factor is maybe the
Speaker 3: Simpsons next collab should be with the New New York
Speaker 3: Times crossword puzzle excuse me, scrabble ripoff called cross play
Speaker 3: that maybe I could hold my own at. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, the New York Times is main revenue source
Speaker 3: these days is games so they have this game called
Speaker 3: cross play that's like a it's like a scrabble ripoff.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, So do you in Price have a game
Speaker 2: going at the moment?
Speaker 3: Or Price and I have played, Although then I feel
Speaker 3: like bad that I'm distracting him from work and he's
Speaker 3: distracting me from work. So I just if Rando's challenge me,
Speaker 3: I will, I will fight them.
Speaker 2: Is there time for the you say distractions? But is
Speaker 2: there time for just general knucking around? At the Simpsons?
Speaker 3: You can't make a show without mucking around. If you
Speaker 3: don't muck, it's like a It's like a machine with
Speaker 3: no oil. The gears grind and everything sparks and the
Speaker 3: whole engine collapses. Everyone involved in a creative enterprise knows
Speaker 3: that mucking is a muck is a crucial lubricant for
Speaker 3: creativity and collaboration.
Speaker 1: Having said that, I mean, is there a time when
Speaker 1: you're like, that's too much muck?
Speaker 2: Guys?
Speaker 1: We need to uh, you know, the machine's running smoothly.
Speaker 1: Now let's let's make some widgets.
Speaker 3: I don't want to overmuck the machine, but like it's animation,
Speaker 3: we're not building sets tomorrow another and then shooting it
Speaker 3: and then that's it. You get a lot of bites
Speaker 3: at the apple or swings at the cricket bat. And
Speaker 3: do you guys play cricket?
Speaker 2: We do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, talk you call them swings? What do
Speaker 3: you call them? Pitches?
Speaker 2: Swing? Swing the bat on the cricket pitch, Yes, but.
Speaker 3: The pitches like the grass is the field?
Speaker 2: Yes, what do you call that?
Speaker 3: What do you call when they throw the underhound ball?
Speaker 2: That's a ball? So you bowl the ball down the
Speaker 2: pitch which is the rectangle bit in the middle of
Speaker 2: the field.
Speaker 3: Yeah, should we had a lot of balls at the back.
Speaker 2: Did you learn about cricket because of the Bluey episode?
Speaker 3: No, but we do have a we have a cricket
Speaker 3: thing in an upcoming Simpsons episode.
Speaker 2: We were gonna just because we discussed this on a
Speaker 2: podcast about six months ago. We said the Simpsons need
Speaker 2: to do a cricket episode. So finally cricket episode. But
Speaker 2: there's a cricket gag.
Speaker 3: Oh, for sure, there's a cricket scene.
Speaker 2: Because we're talking about obviously this is not going to happen,
Speaker 2: but we were talking about I think it was with
Speaker 2: with We'll maybe Bill Oakley or one of the guests
Speaker 2: and he was talking about how we can bring back
Speaker 2: a poop if a poop was ever going to be
Speaker 2: brought back, And cricket is essentially the sport of India,
Speaker 2: so we thought a cricket tie in with India could
Speaker 2: be a waye fun way to bring a poop back
Speaker 2: for a guest appearance or whatnot.
Speaker 3: It could be interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we'll see it happen. But with the Simpsons,
Speaker 2: obviously we're not going to get any datails. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to ask for daytiles that that's just silliness. But
Speaker 2: unless you want to give this data. But my question
Speaker 2: is that surely, well, how will it differ at all
Speaker 2: from the first one? Will it be structure? Tone? What
Speaker 2: are you able to discuss that at all? Or is
Speaker 2: it just no?
Speaker 3: I don't know. It just has to be funny and
Speaker 3: emotional and exciting, and it has to deliver something that
Speaker 3: you can't get watching at home, right, because that's the challenge.
Speaker 3: One of the advantages you have in a movie like
Speaker 3: this is that most of your audience will know and
Speaker 3: care about the character, the main characters at least, which
Speaker 3: is for a new movie, to make people know who
Speaker 3: the characters are and care about what the characters want
Speaker 3: and suffer when the characters are suffering. That's hard to
Speaker 3: do because you're starting from nothing. We are not starting
Speaker 3: from nothing, so that's an advantage we have. A disadvantage
Speaker 3: we have is what are we delivering that is supremely
Speaker 3: above and beyond the twenty one minute movie that we
Speaker 3: put on TV every week. So I guess it's the
Speaker 3: same challenge as the first and we'll see you guys
Speaker 3: can decide when you see it. If do you guys
Speaker 3: celebrate Labor Day, Well.
Speaker 2: We have our in version of labor day. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think every country has a labor day just to day
Speaker 2: don't have to go to work. But what what do
Speaker 2: you think audiences, cinema movie audiences want now compared to
Speaker 2: what they wanted back in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's interesting. It's a good question because,
Speaker 3: you know, the comedy as a cinematic in theater form
Speaker 3: is not exactly thriving. Although movies like jed Pool and
Speaker 3: Wolverine and Barbie and a lot of the you know
Speaker 3: and say you know, Zootopia and those types of big
Speaker 3: franchise movies are comedies with great jokes and producers thinking
Speaker 3: about it as comedies throughout the whole movie, Like, is
Speaker 3: this funny? Is the audience laughing? Right? But the number
Speaker 3: of comedies that are just comedies like Jeth Green and
Speaker 3: Jack open a mushroom shop together and get in Trouble
Speaker 3: with the Mob or whatever like they used to make,
Speaker 3: they don't make a lot of those. They're just so
Speaker 3: it's kind of and it's a concern that the younger
Speaker 3: audience that doesn't even value communal laughter as an experience, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, they tried to reboot Naked Gun and I
Speaker 3: thought it was pretty good, and I saw it with
Speaker 3: an audience and we were all laughing pretty good, and
Speaker 3: there was a good experience, But you know, it's not
Speaker 3: part of the sociological experiment known as cinema anymore, right,
Speaker 3: or the large part. I mean, it's a bummer, A
Speaker 3: lot of bummers these days anyway. So hopefully, you know,
Speaker 3: our challenge is to like break through that and be like,
Speaker 3: this is a big animated comedy that is full of
Speaker 3: funny characters and who you care about, with visual and emotional, satirical, slapstick,
Speaker 3: absurdist comedy throughout, and that you the audience, are enjoying
Speaker 3: laughing with other Simpsons fans or Simpson's non fans who
Speaker 3: accidentally went to this movie thinking it was Bluey and whatever.
Speaker 3: So like, that's the challenge.
Speaker 1: Challenge accepted, man, I push back against the communal comedy
Speaker 1: aspect that you're just talking about.
Speaker 2: Although I think it's shifted. I think I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: Please let me be wrong.
Speaker 1: Not wrong so much as you just need to adjust
Speaker 1: your way of thinking. Now, comedy still exists in the
Speaker 1: form of like say, tiktoks or reels or something like that.
Speaker 1: And when it's and it's shared, you know, via meme
Speaker 1: culture or whatever, and that's kind of like the communal
Speaker 1: thing as opposed to we're all sitting in the same
Speaker 1: dark room and laughing at the same jokes. The jokes
Speaker 1: just move at the speed of a clique. Essentially.
Speaker 3: Yes, what I'm really lamenting is a change in the
Speaker 3: way people consume comedy, not that comedy doesn't exist. I mean,
Speaker 3: now everyone in the world is a semi professional comedian
Speaker 3: with their funny instagrams and their funny social stuff and
Speaker 3: their funny tiktoks, And where young people consume it is
Speaker 3: through sharing and forwarding and liking. And but that's still
Speaker 3: we're still losing the feeling of laughing, Like when I
Speaker 3: want to see bor At with an audience in two thousand,
Speaker 3: I don't know whatever, nineteen oh five when I went
Speaker 3: to go see bor At and like there was that
Speaker 3: big crazy nude wrestling scene with his ass in the
Speaker 3: other guy's face, like, and the audience is losing their mind.
Speaker 3: Like as any young person under the age of twenty
Speaker 3: ever had that experience, do they care? I mean, they
Speaker 3: still have it for horror movies, right, they all like
Speaker 3: to be scared together. That still exists, and they like
Speaker 3: to be scared in the theater in addition to being
Speaker 3: scared at home. But the laughing and the laughter building
Speaker 3: and like feeling that other people laughing with this is
Speaker 3: is what's lost. But yeah, no, comedy still exists. Oh
Speaker 3: it's it's everywhere. Everyone, I mean everyone's everyone is. Everyone
Speaker 3: does it and he usually makes it for free.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering with that, do you not just you personally,
Speaker 1: but the people that you work with or the comedy
Speaker 1: community in general, the professional comedy community, do you sort
Speaker 1: of have to just your approach or your way of
Speaker 1: thinking as a result.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I guess we could release the movie
Speaker 3: as a micro drama vertical microdrama in like thirty second chunks.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't be surprised if somebody say, bus said, we're doing
Speaker 3: the next this is a micro drama now, so we're
Speaker 3: just doing it in a ninety five chapters if five
Speaker 3: one minute chapters vertical forgive me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not talking about the sensits so much when
Speaker 1: I say this, but I mean you will see that.
Speaker 1: You know, certain shows are made and even the way
Speaker 1: they shot, like, oh, you've shot this with everything in
Speaker 1: the center of the frame, so it can be easily
Speaker 1: clipped and turned into a TikTok with something like that.
Speaker 3: Also a very smart quay. I don't know the answer
Speaker 3: to that question. I'm sure people that are in the
Speaker 3: real world of trying to create new things as opposed
Speaker 3: to trying to sustain old things, which is what I do,
Speaker 3: deal with that question every day. And similar to Lily,
Speaker 3: the question is if you know the product you're making
Speaker 3: is most likely being consumed while someone is also looking
Speaker 3: at their phone in their house, how do you have
Speaker 3: to do? How is the storytelling adjusted, how is the
Speaker 3: comedy different? How is anything different? I mean, I tell
Speaker 3: my kids. Watching TV with your phone in a different
Speaker 3: room is like reading now, Like, oh, look, I'm so
Speaker 3: proud of my kids. They're watching TV with their phones
Speaker 3: in a different room. That's so good for their brains,
Speaker 3: as opposed to I'm so proud of them they're reading books.
Speaker 3: It's good for their brains.
Speaker 2: Because originally when the show went wide scream, when the
Speaker 2: movie started, when it went wid scream, it was a
Speaker 2: big deal, right, and it was it felt like for
Speaker 2: a good while then, and you're still doing it. You
Speaker 2: were trying to fill the screen with as many gags
Speaker 2: as possible. But now is it a mindset of like
Speaker 2: you said, you know, you're not really sure, but do
Speaker 2: you try and keep everything as cent a frame as possible?
Speaker 2: Because the United that's what's n.
Speaker 3: We don't think about that. I mean, we just put
Speaker 3: as many gags in as we think. Are we have
Speaker 3: energy to think of or are or are organic to
Speaker 3: the scene. To go back to your earlier question of
Speaker 3: like how the job is different now that I'm the showrunner.
Speaker 3: In those earlier days, when I was producing fewer episodes
Speaker 3: on my own, I had I could really have the
Speaker 3: energy just think about background jokes and details and oh,
Speaker 3: what are the twenty funny drinks on this menu? You
Speaker 3: see for one second that kind of stuff. Now I
Speaker 3: have to just hope other people bring that passion as well,
Speaker 3: because I don't have the bandwidth to think about, you know,
Speaker 3: making sure there's a menu with forty hilarious stupid cocktails
Speaker 3: you would never drink on it. But like there's a here, guys,
Speaker 3: let's talk about the Simpsons. There's an episode coming up
Speaker 3: that I think airs. Oh I'm wrong, I apologize. I
Speaker 3: think it airs April nineteenth, which.
Speaker 2: Is well Simpson's Day, guys, is it really?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 2: But obvious thing is to say we do it on
Speaker 2: the twentieth because we're day ahead. So yeah, so that's
Speaker 2: so that's going to be celebrating Wilson's Day in some
Speaker 2: way or is it just the case.
Speaker 3: Of if I'm wrong, I apologize to the Disney marketing
Speaker 3: team in advance. But I believe we are dropping a
Speaker 3: Disney Plus exclusive episode on that day that is a
Speaker 3: an other double episode. Is we did remember that Christmas
Speaker 3: one that Carowin produced and wrote I'll come, Oh, come
Speaker 3: on all faithful? That our first Disney Plus exclusive. So
Speaker 3: this is our fifth and sixth Disney Plus Exclusive. There's
Speaker 3: four on the Disney Plus app right now, so this
Speaker 3: will be number five and six. But it's a double.
Speaker 3: But what's really cool about it, and we've never done before,
Speaker 3: is that it's a trilogy, right like Halloween or we
Speaker 3: did other themed trilogies, Bible, Thanksgiving, Oracle Thanksgivings, Valentine's Day, Christmas,
Speaker 3: Christmas again. Revenge was one. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of themes trilogies, but usually those are so it's really
Speaker 3: hard to fit. We did one with then art related ones.
Speaker 3: They're all pretty fun, and this is a trillo, but
Speaker 3: it has room to breathe. So each of the three
Speaker 3: segments is like eight minutes long, and the wrap around
Speaker 3: is like a real story, like a real episode story
Speaker 3: in and of itself. So there's like eight minutes of show,
Speaker 3: then an eight minute segment, then more show, you know,
Speaker 3: eight longer seven minute segment, show segment, show, so that,
Speaker 3: you know, but I think the whole thing's probably like
Speaker 3: it's even longer than two episodes because it's on streaming,
Speaker 3: so we're not really locked into.
Speaker 2: That commercial constraint.
Speaker 3: Personal constraint of like thirty or twenty forty or twenty
Speaker 3: one thirty depending how you look at it.
Speaker 2: So sounds like a mini movie.
Speaker 3: Let me see it is. Honestly, there is stuff in
Speaker 3: this that I was watching and I was like, could
Speaker 3: we just make this the movie? Like the file I
Speaker 3: have right here is forty five fifty six and.
Speaker 2: That that's the full episode and nothing cut from that. All.
Speaker 3: It might be slightly different, but it's it's almost forty
Speaker 3: six minutes.
Speaker 2: Do you find less picky when it comes to the
Speaker 2: editing side of things for the Disney Plus exclusive because
Speaker 2: you don't.
Speaker 3: Have to, Oh my god, the editing is a breeze.
Speaker 3: What we do is we go in when we're editing
Speaker 3: for Fox, we're cutting, we're editing for Disney Plus, we're extending.
Speaker 3: Let's pause on this, Let's create a moment. Let's let's
Speaker 3: hold to create comi comedy or tension or emotion or
Speaker 3: drama or whatever the scene demands. So yeah, so this
Speaker 3: is like very long. So it's one of our it's
Speaker 3: a trilogy with big pop cultural Simpson mashups. Oh there's
Speaker 3: mash ups. But it also is a legit a story
Speaker 3: with a wrap around about the family and then you
Speaker 3: know each of the three chunks is pretty long. We
Speaker 3: didn't have to like chop them up like we do
Speaker 3: with Halloween where they're so abbreviated. But the reason I'm
Speaker 3: even got on this tangent is there's a big pan
Speaker 3: across a kind of retro arcade, like a kind of
Speaker 3: nostalg arcade of and there's lots of funny video games
Speaker 3: that are full of Easter eggs and the kind of
Speaker 3: visual gags you guys were asking about before I went
Speaker 3: on this long winded digression. It's not only digression if
Speaker 3: it's about the topic of the podcast, which is the
Speaker 3: same as but but like, yeah, so we that was fun.
Speaker 3: And there's like some of like the old classic video
Speaker 3: games you know from the show, and then some new jokes,
Speaker 3: and then there's one this one writer's unbelievably funny, silly
Speaker 3: guy named John Frank, who's been on the show for
Speaker 3: twenty five thirty years. You always pitched this episode that
Speaker 3: was a very wild, kind of an Indiana Jones kind
Speaker 3: of show about called Nephertidi's Ale, about Moe locating some
Speaker 3: kind of lost magic beer called Nefertiti's Ale. And I
Speaker 3: don't remember many of the details, although I think it
Speaker 3: involved tattoos coming alive on your skin. And so there's
Speaker 3: a video game in this in this arcade called Nefertiti's Ale,
Speaker 3: So like, you know, we're having fun with with Easter
Speaker 3: eggs and actually this thing airs almost I don't know
Speaker 3: what Easter is, it's always different, but probably Easter adjacent. Right,
Speaker 3: April April's the easterreeest month, right, guys it.
Speaker 2: Is, It's the chocolate field month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, March is just you know, long and bleak and depressing,
Speaker 1: and then you get to April.
Speaker 3: April is the eastest month. We can all agree. Then
Speaker 3: May in maybe March distant, third October not in the running.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so you got the Simpsons Day special, we
Speaker 2: got the Frank story with the video arcade. But I
Speaker 2: was gonna ask you, so, do you find yourself just
Speaker 2: getting more excited for these Disney specials in the regular
Speaker 2: show sometimes because you just don't have these restraints of TV.
Speaker 3: You know, there's just a different kind of excitement. I
Speaker 3: mean there's a little more concern that you're, like, you
Speaker 3: want to make sure people find it because if it's
Speaker 3: only on streaming, and we only if it's not part
Speaker 3: of like the Beautiful post football American Football ratings hammock
Speaker 3: that we're in for like the rest of our network
Speaker 3: experience in America. There's these America that's he's think called
Speaker 3: TV networks. There's this guy named Rupert Murdoch. Maybe you've
Speaker 3: heard of him. Anyway, He's got this great network called
Speaker 3: Fox and we're on it.
Speaker 2: And how great does gift to the world?
Speaker 3: And I don't know, he's had a great run.
Speaker 2: And that little scrapa has a sense of.
Speaker 3: Humor, that's for sure. So yeah, so it's for these
Speaker 3: ones I really want there. They are special, They are
Speaker 3: a little more creatively. We think of them as slightly
Speaker 3: more parodies of like streaming, if you will, so like
Speaker 3: there are maybe less kind of regular episodes about the family.
Speaker 3: So the the ones we've dropped so far were the
Speaker 3: hour long Christmas one, which also me felt like a
Speaker 3: short movie and had a, you know, a kind of
Speaker 3: an epic feel. Then we did a one that was
Speaker 3: like a parody of the Animal Planet Blue Planet type
Speaker 3: documentaries that was obviously something you could see on streaming.
Speaker 3: We did kind of us more science fiction e one
Speaker 3: time traveling one with Lisa and mister.
Speaker 2: Burns, Joseph Gordon Levitt, right, that's Gordon.
Speaker 3: Have it exactly, and that like some of these even
Speaker 3: have little fake streamer graphics at the beginning to kind
Speaker 3: of say this is a parody of the kind of
Speaker 3: more weirder, artistic, ear strange, indulgent storytelling you would see
Speaker 3: on a streamer network rather than other stuff.
Speaker 2: But the thing is so with these with these specials though,
Speaker 2: So you're saying this one's forty five minutes long?
Speaker 3: It's forty five?
Speaker 2: Is there a month? Is there a mindset though of well,
Speaker 2: we can't go too long though, because you don't people
Speaker 2: to confuse this for the movie, because the movie is
Speaker 2: what what ninety minutes plus? I'm assuming, So it's like,
Speaker 2: we can't go Is there a month of we can't
Speaker 2: go over an hour? What's the what's the sort of
Speaker 2: the limit? Do you think, Well, we.
Speaker 3: Don't have the budget, we don't have any Our animation
Speaker 3: budget isn't any different. So it's really forty five would
Speaker 3: be the most we could ever get out of two,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? It can't we can't spend
Speaker 3: infinite money. So there's there's there's there's a time budget,
Speaker 3: and there's like a money budget and can only afford
Speaker 3: to animate so much color animation. So this this this
Speaker 3: double trilogy or supersized trilogy, Homer size, it's called Homer
Speaker 3: size trilogy. I can't see one getting much longer than
Speaker 3: this sort of forty six minute.
Speaker 2: And I define if people want it to really I
Speaker 2: think that's probably enough, right.
Speaker 3: Probably not? And then the other two summer specials Disney
Speaker 3: Plus specials, those are just either of those are regular
Speaker 3: They're all regular size?
Speaker 2: Is that the plan going forward? Now? Less TV episodes
Speaker 2: and more specials? So to make the are they considered
Speaker 2: part of the season or is the season just shorter
Speaker 2: with specials? Now?
Speaker 3: Well, do we do seventeen new episodes a year, which
Speaker 3: is part of the production season? Fifteen of those airon
Speaker 3: Fox in the fall and two air on Disney Plus.
Speaker 3: Moving forward, so the four we have this summer are
Speaker 3: the leftover ones from season thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight,
Speaker 3: thirty nine, forty fifteen new ones on Fox in the fall.
Speaker 3: That's our season. Again. I'm not sure how it works
Speaker 3: in Australia, but probably similar and then are so then
Speaker 3: we'll next summer we'll have two specials in the spring
Speaker 3: and summer when there's no new Simpsons on Fox TV
Speaker 3: on Disney.
Speaker 1: Plus, they sound like they're really hitting the sweet spot
Speaker 1: Matt in terms of given that not the Sandal generation
Speaker 1: X slash boomer, but you know, with short attention spans
Speaker 1: these days, a forty five minute special, a forty five
Speaker 1: minute sort of episode. As you're talking about it feels like,
Speaker 1: as you said, homicides feel like, Oh, I'm getting something
Speaker 1: special here, I'm really filling up. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's not so long. It's like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: real drag on my time or a real time suck.
Speaker 3: I hope. So Plus, the one we have has it's
Speaker 3: like stories within stories, so it's not you don't have
Speaker 3: to you know, you generally don't have to track one
Speaker 3: story for forty five minutes. It's a it's a pretty
Speaker 3: basic family story that is the wrap around, but very
Speaker 3: sweet and the there's three very you'll know what we're
Speaker 3: making fun of. Let's just say that you're not You're
Speaker 3: not gonna have any what our targets are, one of
Speaker 3: which Family.
Speaker 2: Guy has already done pretty well.
Speaker 3: I love Family Guy. I mean the version was also
Speaker 3: very funny. Some of some of this exact same jokes,
Speaker 3: some different jokes.
Speaker 1: Did I read somewhere that you were considering or have
Speaker 1: even done like a rip off slash homage of the
Speaker 1: Netflix series Ripley, you know, which was old in that
Speaker 1: very Yeah, that stock black and white, which was yeah,
Speaker 1: which I really really enjoyed. It's like, oh, that's it.
Speaker 1: I want to say, it's a deep cut for you
Speaker 1: guys to do, but it's like, Oh, that's pretty. It's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting that you guys are tackling something like that.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you're gonna love it. That's another one
Speaker 3: of our summer specials this summer. It is cizarre. Maseriegos
Speaker 3: wrote and produced it, and it is a thing of beauty.
Speaker 3: It is so artistic. It is so the shots, the lighting,
Speaker 3: the camera work, the black and white, the art, the Europe,
Speaker 3: the dark, twisted humanity on display at its worst. It's
Speaker 3: so good. It's a really it's a deep homage to
Speaker 3: like the move, both the books, the movie and the
Speaker 3: other and the TV show of which I've consumed all so.
Speaker 3: I've read all the high Smith Ripley books, which are
Speaker 3: good books, fun books, although if there is one flaw
Speaker 3: in them, it just seems to be he just gets
Speaker 3: lucky and gets away with it every time, which if
Speaker 3: you're a writer and like, luck is the reason the
Speaker 3: ending of the thing happens. Not that Ripley doesn't work hard.
Speaker 3: He does. He makes his own luck, but a lot
Speaker 3: of a lot of times at the end he's like,
Speaker 3: I hope they don't catch me. Oh, luckily they didn't.
Speaker 3: In the movie of that with the or the nineties
Speaker 3: movie with Matt Damon and Jude Law, which is such
Speaker 3: a good movie. And if you're interested in the art
Speaker 3: of screenwriting, read the Talented Mister Ripley book and then
Speaker 3: watch that movie and see how they rebroke it. Rebroke
Speaker 3: the story, recrafted an ending, kept what the essence of it,
Speaker 3: but still added new characters, built new drama, and crafted
Speaker 3: a unbelievably tragic, heartbreaking ending in the movie that doesn't
Speaker 3: exist in the book, where the ending is I got lucky,
Speaker 3: they didn't catch me. The ending of the book is
Speaker 3: a true movie ending. It's a tragedy, it's it's heartbreaking,
Speaker 3: but it is a real ending. It's a real movie.
Speaker 3: Like a movie should tell one story the end, except
Speaker 3: the Simpsons the movies, which then should tell other movies
Speaker 3: down the Road. But then then the show, which I
Speaker 3: was inclined to be to pooh pooh, I did not
Speaker 3: poo poo it. I peep eat it. I'm sorry you
Speaker 3: give that to your stunt. He'll like that. That's four
Speaker 3: year old humor right there. Ah, the show is so good,
Speaker 3: it's so funny. It's the show is legit funny. Also,
Speaker 3: the Black White I believe Stephen Zalien did it, and
Speaker 3: the show was our main inspiration, although I would say
Speaker 3: our ending is more akin to that from the movie,
Speaker 3: but much more twisted and dark and tragic, and there's
Speaker 3: stuff in this people are not gonna like.
Speaker 2: That's for sure, it must be great.
Speaker 1: Then when the creative urge or it's just hits in
Speaker 1: that way when you when someone sees something that's in
Speaker 1: the culture or just in the world around there goes oh,
Speaker 1: we can we can take that to Springfield, or we
Speaker 1: can do that on the Simpsons, and we can transmute
Speaker 1: and turn into something that's genuinely us. I mean, when's
Speaker 1: the last time you sort of really felt like that,
Speaker 1: that's like, all this stuff going on and weak, it's
Speaker 1: such great clay for us to turn into something with this.
Speaker 3: I was like, hey, Cisarre you should watch this and
Speaker 3: do a thing about it. And he was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: you know it's a good it's really good feeling. I
Speaker 3: mean we haven't like hasn't been another streaming thing that
Speaker 3: we've been able to kind of super soak up their
Speaker 3: style of And we.
Speaker 2: Did the white Lotus in a best season ago, didn't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, white Lotus, low Lotus. Uh for sure, But like
Speaker 3: that's it still feels that it's still more. It's still
Speaker 3: like it's still have the Simpsons in their own reality,
Speaker 3: Like this thing is not, oh not in their reality?
Speaker 2: Is there a fit to when you're making these I
Speaker 2: say parodies, but you know what I mean in homage
Speaker 2: that the audience haven't seen the source material, so you
Speaker 2: have to sort of write in a way that is
Speaker 2: still entertaining if the audience hasn't seen it. Or do
Speaker 2: you just expect them to just go back and do
Speaker 2: their research and then enjoy it more. I guess you could.
Speaker 3: Say, whenever you're telling the story, it has to work
Speaker 3: regardless of the source material. But I'm not worried or
Speaker 3: I don't expect them to know what it is. Some
Speaker 3: people will know what it is. The ridiculously idealistic goal
Speaker 3: is that people who don't know what it is will
Speaker 3: then go watch the source material and open their minds
Speaker 3: to something they wouldn't have ordinarily seen. Like when I
Speaker 3: was young in the nineteen oh twenties or whatever, and
Speaker 3: I would read Mad Magazine and like, I don't know
Speaker 3: what Rosemary's Baby is that they're parodying, but that I would,
Speaker 3: you know, and go watch Rosemary's Baby here. So I
Speaker 3: don't know any young people have that type of curiosity anymore.
Speaker 3: With the phones in their faces.
Speaker 2: You would assume they would, though, Yeah, you think that
Speaker 2: was Researching should be easier now than ever, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, but I think that's what That's what the
Speaker 2: Simpsons did well in what people call the Golden Era
Speaker 2: was I was watching it as a kid, and you'd go,
Speaker 2: I know, I don't really quite know what this is,
Speaker 2: but I know it's something, and I'm going to go
Speaker 2: find out what it is.
Speaker 3: Yes, the Simpsons in the Golden Ere it did better
Speaker 3: than what we do is they would just do like
Speaker 3: a one minute scene that was a parody of say,
Speaker 3: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
Speaker 2: Where they would just Indiana Jones or the Homer down
Speaker 2: the stairs.
Speaker 3: Now we don't have the luxury of the of the
Speaker 3: one minute parody. We have to do the full episode parody.
Speaker 3: Are deep into the eight hundreds, so we do a
Speaker 3: full you know, six minutes of Who's Afraid of Virginia
Speaker 3: Wolf for you know, twenty two minutes of Ripley.
Speaker 2: One thing I found with season thirty seven is it
Speaker 2: actually feels like a new version of the show. It
Speaker 2: feels fresh, it feels new. And that's not just like
Speaker 2: the writing or anything. I'm talking about just the way
Speaker 2: it's structured. So I've noticed a few tweaks besides the
Speaker 2: eight hundred episode. You seem to have just removed the
Speaker 2: intro and the couch gag they're gone, and with the
Speaker 2: closing credits there's always a scene over the credits now
Speaker 2: as opposed to just the theme song. Were these tweaks
Speaker 2: that you had in mind for a long time to
Speaker 2: implement once you became showrunner or what was the mindset
Speaker 2: behind that? Was just to bring more Simpsons because you
Speaker 2: know you're cutting back the one minute intro. It's just
Speaker 2: getting more story time into the show.
Speaker 3: Well, you asked too smart, too smart observations. I was
Speaker 3: rising one few, very few couch gags. I wish we
Speaker 3: could have a time for a funny couch gag every episode,
Speaker 3: but I'm not going to cut the storytelling short to
Speaker 3: do so. So to me, the episode is a thousand
Speaker 3: times more important than this flight of fancy at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the show is short and we have a couch gag,
Speaker 3: but usually it's just I want to tell the best
Speaker 3: story we can, and you work to do that. We're
Speaker 3: going to need twenty minutes and forty seconds. The Disney
Speaker 3: Plus double that I just mentioned, the trilogy called the
Speaker 3: title of which is Extreme Makeover Homer Edition, there is
Speaker 3: a mega couchgag on that. Okay, that is very cool
Speaker 3: and is a collaboration. I can't say who we collaborate with.
Speaker 3: We collaborate with very special team of artists to make that. Also,
Speaker 3: for the eight hundredth we said we said to ourselves, oh,
Speaker 3: this is the eight hundredth we need a couch gag.
Speaker 3: So we did do a big, dark, weird couch gag.
Speaker 3: Then we realize, oh, no, we don't have time for this.
Speaker 3: We can either cut the episode to pieces, but then
Speaker 3: when the show drops on a different kind of streaming
Speaker 3: probably it's already dropped already. Now the couch gag is
Speaker 3: on the streaming will be on the streaming version. And
Speaker 3: also it was kind of cool that in other countries
Speaker 3: there weren't the same time constraints, so they kind of
Speaker 3: leaked that immediately and people were like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: like a bonus secret, hidden thing.
Speaker 2: I was so confused, right because we watched the we
Speaker 2: watched the division, we watched the visional version, right, we're
Speaker 2: doing a review of the entre of the episode, and
Speaker 2: then on the wikipag just says, here's the catch gag,
Speaker 2: and I went, did I miss something here? What is
Speaker 2: going on? And then on the Disney Plus version there
Speaker 2: it was, and I was like, ah, did I just
Speaker 2: forget to put it into the episode? But that explains
Speaker 2: it yet yet, because it was quite a lone one.
Speaker 3: I mean, every streaming service has our own bit of
Speaker 3: rules of how data and ratings are analyzed. But like
Speaker 3: in America, we can put the longer version on seven
Speaker 3: days after the original airing, So the longer version went
Speaker 3: on after seven days. So for these little tags, these
Speaker 3: little tag things, Fox came to us and they're you know,
Speaker 3: they're smart. Fox is smart and they're trying to keep
Speaker 3: network TV alive and they're doing a great job, so
Speaker 3: they're like, you know, it really helps the next show
Speaker 3: if instead of having the credits over black, there was
Speaker 3: a little bit of animation there kind of keep people's
Speaker 3: interests peaked, right, And sometimes we would we would do
Speaker 3: tags on about half the episodes anyway, with a little
Speaker 3: if there was like a little funny bit of extra
Speaker 3: animation or a fun idea, or like just some funny
Speaker 3: stills with a song or something or so, but now
Speaker 3: we should have said to Fox, Okay, this is a
Speaker 3: good idea, let's put color animation over the end of
Speaker 3: every show. But we can't always afford to do, or
Speaker 3: rarely afford to do forty seconds of new animation. So
Speaker 3: we will find creative ways to kind of create these
Speaker 3: little extra comedy sequences. And it's actually kind of fun
Speaker 3: to think of them. It's kind of creatively, it can
Speaker 3: be quite fun to craft bits of comedy with no budget.
Speaker 3: You know, you have no budget, so what can you
Speaker 3: do with editing and music and stills and existing stuff
Speaker 3: or leftover stuff, as opposed to the blank canvas of
Speaker 3: do whatever you want for forty seconds.
Speaker 2: I mean, for me personally, as a lifelong fan, it
Speaker 2: felt like, oh, there's no more topboard gags. Ah, there's
Speaker 2: no more catch gags. It felt like they were part
Speaker 2: of the show. But realistically, in twenty twenty six, we're
Speaker 2: living the world of the skip intro button, and you
Speaker 2: can guarantee that most people watching the show are just
Speaker 2: skipping that intro. I'm missing that cauch gig anyway, So
Speaker 2: it's probably good thing that you just ripped that band
Speaker 2: aid off and went look, well, saving for the specials,
Speaker 2: But do we really need them anymore? Probably not right.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I had infinite money, I would put
Speaker 3: a cash gag on every episode that would just pop
Speaker 3: up on streaming and you'd be surprised by it. But
Speaker 3: we have to put our money into what's on the
Speaker 3: main product first. But that skip intro phenomenon you mentioned,
Speaker 3: we have a joke about that. Simpson's predicted it. We
Speaker 3: have a joke about that also in that Extreme Double episode,
Speaker 3: Extreme Makeover Homer Edition episode. So you you're thinking the
Speaker 3: way we're thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked to learn you don't have inputite money.
Speaker 2: Matt.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the collaboration that's on the Extreme makeo of
Speaker 1: a Homer edition.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: About guest stars and collaborations and working with other people.
Speaker 1: I mean, how often are you sort of revising your
Speaker 1: wish list in that regard and how sort of I
Speaker 1: don't know, how often are you approaching people, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's guest starts to do voices, whether it's bands
Speaker 1: to add music, whether it's artists who are adding their
Speaker 1: own particular style and flavor to the show. How receptive
Speaker 1: are they? How receptive are they designing? Yeah, I'd love
Speaker 1: to be a part of it.
Speaker 3: You know, people are usually very into it. It's a
Speaker 3: kind of a luxury item that we don't usually have
Speaker 3: time or money for. But it's sort of those things
Speaker 3: that you rarely have time that to sit down and think, Okay,
Speaker 3: who's the cool who's the Banksy of twenty twenty seven
Speaker 3: who we could collab with? Right? And they of course
Speaker 3: thrilled to do it the way Banksy was. You know,
Speaker 3: It's it's rare to think and then do we have
Speaker 3: the bandwidth to make it great? I mean, Banksy made
Speaker 3: it great, and the one coming up also made it
Speaker 3: really great. I mean, I wish I don't know when
Speaker 3: we're going to announce it, but very pleased with it.
Speaker 2: Now. I know you hate the word timeline, right, I've
Speaker 2: just just just bear with me. Right. So in the
Speaker 2: season pilot we reviewed on the PODO, both really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Fell it c classic people say classic Simpsons. It was
Speaker 2: thrifty Waist to Save your Mother. It was the one
Speaker 2: where it felt like you reset the timelines that Marge
Speaker 2: and Homer were young in the nineties with March pulling
Speaker 2: out the David decollection of Dawson's Creek and whatnot. But
Speaker 2: I'm watching this going There's been other episodes like that,
Speaker 2: like that nineties show and one where Homer works in
Speaker 2: the pizza parlor where it feels like they were sort
Speaker 2: of in their own bubble. This one felt like, you know,
Speaker 2: if canon could exist, it felt like it was canon.
Speaker 2: And I'm watching this going my child who was seven,
Speaker 2: my my daughter was five watching this their parents are me,
Speaker 2: myself and my wife where Homer and Marge's age now
Speaker 2: and we grew up in the nineties. So I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: do they now have the mindset of kids watching the
Speaker 2: show now? Because the show is made for kids, So
Speaker 2: do we want to make it, so it feels more
Speaker 2: relatable for kids watching that their parents who are Homer
Speaker 2: in Marger's age are now in the nineties. Is that
Speaker 2: a mancher going forward or was that just specifically for
Speaker 2: that episode.
Speaker 3: I think it's for that episode. I don't think we're
Speaker 3: really ever seeing anything as permanent, or anything is sticky,
Speaker 3: or any cannon is one is better than another. And
Speaker 3: I don't really one hundred percent think the show is
Speaker 3: for written for kids. I think it's in a dream world.
Speaker 3: It's written for kids and parents to watch together, where
Speaker 3: like the parents watched it when they were kids the
Speaker 3: way you did, so like there'll be some jokes for
Speaker 3: the parents and some jokes for the kids, but the
Speaker 3: jokes that only the parents like the kids won't ask
Speaker 3: what does that mean? And even then we don't even
Speaker 3: do that many of those anymore because we're also we're old,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of a Sneaking in dirty things is
Speaker 3: like kind of a young man's game, ah and woman
Speaker 3: young women's game. So it's not now, there's nothing conscious
Speaker 3: about it. There's nothing universal, there's no like official anything
Speaker 3: to me, like there's another one of our fantastic Disney
Speaker 3: Bus exclusives. Written and produced by the amazing Caroinomine has
Speaker 3: flashback material connected to the first flashback episode where the
Speaker 3: Homer and Margin high school in the seventies. So that's
Speaker 3: you know, I think all all timelines are happening at
Speaker 3: the same time, and there's no one or another that
Speaker 3: takes precedence. And I mean we have we still haven't
Speaker 3: done a flashback show set in the two thousands, but
Speaker 3: we could.
Speaker 2: Do you have an idea of when you're writing an episode,
Speaker 2: because obviously you said it's for adults and for kids,
Speaker 2: but now when you're writing it, do you have the
Speaker 2: menture of the adults watching grew up watching the show
Speaker 2: as well? So do you try to have sort of
Speaker 2: hidden references or back references or meta gags that go, hey,
Speaker 2: remember when this happened? Already trying to avoid that stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes if it feels playful and fun and
Speaker 3: not burdens them, like in the have you guys seen that.
Speaker 2: You've seen the eight hundredths, right, yeap, Yeah, we reviewed
Speaker 2: it last weight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like you know, in the beginning, you're cutting
Speaker 3: forward and Homer is wearing outfits.
Speaker 2: From stone cutters and stuff that, Yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Know, episodes over the thirty eight years, thirty seven years.
Speaker 3: You know, he's a stone cutter guy, and he's the
Speaker 3: pie man guy, and so I mean, you know, we're
Speaker 3: just sort of being playable with the idea that like
Speaker 3: all these stories, somehow magically happened in one year, which,
Speaker 3: of course that would be quite mad if that happened
Speaker 3: to one group of people, because it's just there's just
Speaker 3: too many. The paradoxes and impossibilities pile up at a
Speaker 3: startling rate, and more so every year. So just just
Speaker 3: be silly.
Speaker 2: But what is the Matt Salmon vision for the Simpsons?
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, just to me what I
Speaker 3: alllo say when I watch shows that I'm associated with
Speaker 3: and I feel the storytelling is good, and by storytelling,
Speaker 3: I mean it brings up an interesting character journey. That
Speaker 3: journey is satisfyingly told with good with the character suffering
Speaker 3: and having setbacks and having it you know, things get
Speaker 3: worse and worse and harder and harder, you know, and
Speaker 3: it resolves in a way where the character has grown
Speaker 3: a little bit at least that week, and then next
Speaker 3: week it's all reset. I just to me, are the
Speaker 3: ones where I watch it and I feel like the
Speaker 3: storytelling is good classical storytelling of like like the way
Speaker 3: you would write a movie of like a three acts
Speaker 3: story where like I'll just say, for example, this episode
Speaker 3: I'm Super Proud of written by Ryan Coe that was
Speaker 3: called The Dad Feelings Limit that begins with the comparison
Speaker 3: of Homer in Marg's and Comic Book Guy and his
Speaker 3: wife Camiko's days and they're doing hipster fun things with
Speaker 3: no responsibilities and Homer and Margin and a nightmare end
Speaker 3: of birthday parties with kids stuff, and that's it seems
Speaker 3: just like a random set piece, but really that's the
Speaker 3: premise of the episode, like what is it to be
Speaker 3: a parent and what does that feel like? And Comic
Speaker 3: Book Guy doesn't want to be a parent, And then
Speaker 3: he briefly he watches a movie with Bart and Lisa
Speaker 3: and then feels that thing that you felt, you know,
Speaker 3: when you show Simpsons to your kids and there you're
Speaker 3: watching it again for the first time. Like that's that's
Speaker 3: that's a universal human experience in which to build an episode.
Speaker 3: So Comic Book Guy briefly changes his mind and is
Speaker 3: open having a kids, but then when Bart and Lisa
Speaker 3: then have emotional needs that they need to be you know, comforted.
Speaker 3: He can't do it. He's too closed off, he's not
Speaker 3: prepared for that. And then he runs to his family
Speaker 3: we've never met before, and we see the dysfunctional origin
Speaker 3: of his father with hell love using the toolkit of
Speaker 3: Wes Anderson movies and that ultra quirk tweenness. And then
Speaker 3: in order to like for comic book Guy to be
Speaker 3: open to having kids, his own father has to apologize
Speaker 3: for his own failings and you know, with emotionally, withholding
Speaker 3: energy of only caring about things and not caring about
Speaker 3: people and only caring about collecting. So you know, people
Speaker 3: think I'm a lunatic for liking my own material, of
Speaker 3: our own material, But that is like a beautifully told
Speaker 3: story with many great character moves and unexpected journeys, but
Speaker 3: it is all one super coherent story about a universal
Speaker 3: experience of deciding whether or not you want to be
Speaker 3: a parent or not.
Speaker 2: Matt.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, I'd like to ask about maybe
Speaker 1: your criteria for bringing new people on board, if you
Speaker 1: actually do that, because it things like no one leaves.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I mean someone who wants to
Speaker 3: work on the show. I generally just try to get
Speaker 3: out of the conversation as fast as I can. I
Speaker 3: can't help them. I can't really help them or save them,
Speaker 3: And I you know, the universe is unfair and I cannot.
Speaker 3: I cannot change those unfairnesses. But I'm just trying. My
Speaker 3: main goal is to protect the jobs of all of
Speaker 3: our writers and producers and animators and musicians from the
Speaker 3: onslaught of technology and budgets and everything. So rather than
Speaker 3: bringing new people in, I'm really just trying to like
Speaker 3: allow the people who have worked here and made the
Speaker 3: show excellent to have a you know, a good safe
Speaker 3: life from everrom you know, everybody on them all the
Speaker 3: way up the ladder.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: That leads into the second part of a two POC question.
Speaker 1: I didn't say it was a two poc question. How
Speaker 1: much of your job do you view as maintaining what
Speaker 1: the show is and how much of it is exploring
Speaker 1: it and creating what it can be.
Speaker 3: It's just how do we not waste the opportunity to
Speaker 3: keep this show original? Every day? So is it brave
Speaker 3: to do a show about Ripley where Homer is a
Speaker 3: very version of Homer? Some people are gonna think is
Speaker 3: pretty saucy or is it desperate? You know, is it
Speaker 3: courage or is it desperation? And there's you know, it's
Speaker 3: a great it's a great Brice Sprinting is a great musician,
Speaker 3: and he's a great poet. And it's just it's a
Speaker 3: line that I think about a lot. So the answer is,
Speaker 3: I can't tell my courage for my desperation. But you
Speaker 3: guys are awesome.
Speaker 2: Matt, You're awesome. We appreciate all of your time.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna listen to this as soon as it comes
Speaker 3: out in a kind of narcissistic cycle of self love.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 2: That all the best. Thank you again, man,