Speaker 1: Four finger Discount.
Speaker 2: Dude, Hey, everybody, welcome to four Finger Discount. And this
Speaker 2: week we are joined by a man who I have
Speaker 2: on my Mount rush More of the Simpsons. He is
Speaker 2: Al Jeane. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 3: Good to be here now?
Speaker 2: What is life like post show running? Cause it's not
Speaker 2: post Simpsons. You're still a consultant on the show. What's
Speaker 2: it like not being the showrunner again?
Speaker 4: It's a step down in stress. Happy to turn it
Speaker 4: over to somebody else. Ran it for two years, make
Speaker 4: reas and twenty by myself. It's a job where every
Speaker 4: day I would constantly go, I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 4: let people down.
Speaker 3: I'm nervous.
Speaker 4: Edward don alf Before the Simpsons, it was a number
Speaker 4: ten show in year two, about a year four. It
Speaker 4: was after year and I was always nervous to day
Speaker 4: would happened with us? I guess at this point I
Speaker 4: can say that didn't happen with the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: When did you fully realize maybe the Simpsons is actually
Speaker 2: just never going to go away.
Speaker 4: There was a point that was fairly close to an
Speaker 4: ending season twenty three. The network considered the budget projections
Speaker 4: to be out of hand, and so they basically wanted
Speaker 4: everybody to take a reduction the cast. The writers had
Speaker 4: we not we were going to use the Stewart Burns
Speaker 4: Christmas episode as the final episode, and it wasn't conceived
Speaker 4: of as a final episode, and it was, but it
Speaker 4: was a Christmas show, and I always thought it'd be
Speaker 4: cool to end on a Christmas show when it started
Speaker 4: on a Christmas show, and it was a great episode,
Speaker 4: and you know, hadle sort of a future. Here's the
Speaker 4: ending of the story attribute to We've had other ones
Speaker 4: who have been great last episodes. Behind the Laughter would
Speaker 4: have been a good one in season four, The one
Speaker 4: where Maggie talk would have been a good one, you know,
Speaker 4: the one that was a couple of years ago. Bart's
Speaker 4: birthday would have been a good one. So we keep
Speaker 4: doing these last episodes and we'll run out of me.
Speaker 4: Just be a regular episode. I've had the other dea
Speaker 4: you know as well. But just the thought I had
Speaker 4: that you actually ended the last episode and the Christmas
Speaker 4: passion that the first episode began with it.
Speaker 3: It'd be an Internet loop.
Speaker 4: So there's no beginning or end, which animation fits perfectly
Speaker 4: because nobody ages, nobody changes. But that's just an idea.
Speaker 4: It's not in the works. There's no end in the words,
Speaker 4: it's that three more years at least.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not about to suggest that you're moving out
Speaker 1: of frame just then had an ulterior minded But did
Speaker 1: you actually move out of frame so we could see
Speaker 1: the plethora of awards that is behind my?
Speaker 3: Not my?
Speaker 4: Actually, the reason they're here is because we'll say I
Speaker 4: can show you I have many others over there.
Speaker 3: Uh, I really didn't intend I moved them.
Speaker 4: There was a fire in Los Angeles about a year ago,
Speaker 4: and we moved most of our stuff out of our house,
Speaker 4: which fortunately was fine. But yeah, that's why they're here,
Speaker 4: because I intend to show them that everybody. I mean, yah,
Speaker 4: they show these are pictures of my daughter and my
Speaker 4: younger daughter, So you.
Speaker 2: Need to have them in that do it for her?
Speaker 2: You need to have that board up there with her.
Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of yes, that's what it's for.
Speaker 1: Hell, you said your new position or conversation is consultant.
Speaker 1: Is a step down in stress. Do you still feel
Speaker 1: the same sort of level of responsibility to the show though.
Speaker 4: Well, I always feel like I got to do my best.
Speaker 4: What I'm doing now just before this session is going
Speaker 4: over the read script that is going to be read
Speaker 4: at the table Thursday, and I go over it like
Speaker 4: eight or nine times. I get it a copy early
Speaker 4: to just you know, put all the pitches I can
Speaker 4: think I'm in and every whatever I've done on the show,
Speaker 4: I've always wanted to do the best I possibly could.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I worked as a.
Speaker 4: Consultant in year one, I would write all these notes
Speaker 4: on a script and I was amazed at this first
Speaker 4: script by me pond, the first draft of the Christmas
Speaker 4: show that began the series. I had my notes and
Speaker 4: I found my old copy of it, and I asked
Speaker 4: the Smithsonian if they wanted it, and they said yes,
Speaker 4: that's where it is. And I pitched the title Simpsons
Speaker 4: Roasting on an open fire, so you can see that
Speaker 4: on the draft. It's really, you know, it's like of
Speaker 4: the you know, zillions of things that I never dreamed
Speaker 4: would happen.
Speaker 1: That's one that was about design. That must be an
Speaker 1: incredibly surreal kind of feeling. It's like, hey, Smithsonian Institute,
Speaker 1: do you want this script scribbling?
Speaker 4: It's all the surreal stuff comes daily, I mean at
Speaker 4: this point, because what you find, I was realizing somebody
Speaker 4: like James L. Brooks must get this all time, and
Speaker 4: it's great. People who are fans of work you did
Speaker 4: thirty years ago. Everything that happens on this show becomes
Speaker 4: this huge deal. I said it before, but like the
Speaker 4: original Chu Chu Choose Me Valentine, it was real Valentine
Speaker 4: I got in third grade and now it's probably the
Speaker 4: most famous val in the world. And I again, it
Speaker 4: all just is like nuts.
Speaker 2: Do you get a cut of the Merchilese for that?
Speaker 2: Because in Australian particular, we have every Valentine's Day there
Speaker 2: is just chew choo choose me Gia everywhere.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 4: I wish I did, although the true cut should go
Speaker 4: to the writer of the original Valentine in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 4: But I do have a credit on twenty nine shows,
Speaker 4: so because of that, get rerun money for those twenty
Speaker 4: nine shows. And what's great is that most of the
Speaker 4: people who've been here this long have a credit on
Speaker 4: about thirty episodes, so everybody's got this little piece of
Speaker 4: the show when it comes when the show continues to air,
Speaker 4: which is great.
Speaker 2: How often are you being consulted now? Do you expect
Speaker 2: to for you know, someone to call you up and say, hey,
Speaker 2: how what do we do here still these days? Or
Speaker 2: is it just going to be like sporadically when they
Speaker 2: need you.
Speaker 4: I say sporadically is the best term. I think that
Speaker 4: everybody knows what they're doing, and you know, the new
Speaker 4: person here is somebody you know who's been here five years.
Speaker 4: And you know, the median age of the writer, median
Speaker 4: age on staff of the writers, and the staff is
Speaker 4: about twenty. So the directors are great, obviously, the cast
Speaker 4: exactly how to play the characters. And I do get consulted,
Speaker 4: which is great. But I'm also open minded what I
Speaker 4: might do. I certainly had my opportunity to do everything
Speaker 4: I thought I actually do in twenty years, so you know,
Speaker 4: I'm all for exploring how the show can you know,
Speaker 4: adapt and be you know, relevant to everybody today.
Speaker 1: I love the notion of being a consultant, though it
Speaker 1: must be kind of a bit of an ego, but
Speaker 1: it's like there's a problem that only al Jean can solve.
Speaker 2: Get me, Get me, Al Jean.
Speaker 3: I wish it were so like a bad signal that
Speaker 3: clows up.
Speaker 2: What's the what's a giant jay in the sky?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But Jim Books was pretty much that for you guys
Speaker 2: for a long time, wasn't he In the years, he has.
Speaker 4: Had in hands this amazing superpower, which is he would say, oh,
Speaker 4: I put this line in, or I'm pitching this thing.
Speaker 4: And like in Michael Jackson episode, he pitched a line
Speaker 4: where one of the kids is to the Lee uncompassed character,
Speaker 4: you're a credit to dementia. So Mike and I put
Speaker 4: it in, like, well, it's Jim's Lyne, you know, sounds funny.
Speaker 4: Every review said, oh, this is the best line in
Speaker 4: the show, and they didn't know it was Jim. We
Speaker 4: obviously didn't put a little tag on it, you know,
Speaker 4: saying who pitched it? And same thing Lisa's substitute, which
Speaker 4: I'll probably get back to later. It was we remember
Speaker 4: we were sitting in the office, in Jim's office and
Speaker 4: he you know, we're trying to figure out how to end,
Speaker 4: how this teacher can leave and what he can say
Speaker 4: to Lisa. And Jim writes this note and he hands
Speaker 4: it and we all look at it and says, you
Speaker 4: were Lisa Simpson. First I thought, wait, I'm lisas like you?
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, And then we go Oh.
Speaker 4: That's what teacher hands are tie again. We thought Jim
Speaker 4: did it so that sounds good, sounds like a good conclusion.
Speaker 4: People loved it, really loved it was the ending, and
Speaker 4: you know I do too. I think it's like a
Speaker 4: simple statement that boosts the little girl's confidence, which is wonderful.
Speaker 1: Is there a ratio of not just Jim brook notes,
Speaker 1: but notes from anyone sort of high in the operational
Speaker 1: onsome since and stuff? Eighty percent of this stuff is
Speaker 1: going to work. There's maybe twenty percent a dozen. I mean,
Speaker 1: are you sort of ever reluctant to go now? We're
Speaker 1: not going with that it doesn't quite work or it's
Speaker 1: not quite it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: The famous thing is when Mike and I were running
Speaker 4: the show in season four, Conan started, so he brought
Speaker 4: him in for a separate session ahead of the time,
Speaker 4: before the story retreat. We had several ideas and we
Speaker 4: liked them, and one of them was the mono rail,
Speaker 4: and we both said, I don't know if Jim's gonna
Speaker 4: like it, don't pitch that first, and so he sold
Speaker 4: the other two. Okay, try the monorail, and then Jim
Speaker 4: loved it.
Speaker 3: So what do we know?
Speaker 4: But in terms of my rule as a showrunners was
Speaker 4: that if someone really really believes in something, then think
Speaker 4: about doing it. Yeah, because that's often been our best stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, when somebody goes, this is an idea I
Speaker 4: just really you know, believe in. And even if one
Speaker 4: of them was like deep Space Homer David Murkins, and
Speaker 4: it was a little different for that time that Homer
Speaker 4: would go into space, but to me, it always had
Speaker 4: a grounded reason. It was like Christa mccauliffe, someone who's
Speaker 4: like an ordinary person and getting THEND and he, you know,
Speaker 4: very funny guy, really believes in it, and it's a
Speaker 4: great show, one of people's favorites.
Speaker 2: I never felt ridiculous though as a kid growing up
Speaker 2: watching it. You know, obviously you're watching a cartoon anyways,
Speaker 2: so expected to be have a level of cartoony aspect
Speaker 2: to it. But watching that episode, it was just like,
Speaker 2: you home, he's going to space, of course he is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, I just saw hel Projects
Speaker 4: Hill marrying with Ryan Gasling. It's similar. It's sort of
Speaker 4: you know, the character in that movie has no training
Speaker 4: and they send him up in space and it's I
Speaker 4: don't see, you know why David's episode is any more
Speaker 4: implausible than that.
Speaker 2: Well, we spoke about it in depth with them, with
Speaker 2: Jake Cogan as well, and we particularly loved the press
Speaker 2: conference in that episode where Homer realizes that the the
Speaker 2: Panel of the Apes.
Speaker 3: Oh that was that was my joke?
Speaker 2: Well okay, yeah, well yeah, we both We spent that
Speaker 2: five minutes just laughing about that during the podcast in
Speaker 2: the room Wait a minute.
Speaker 4: Because of course, Planet of the Apes is one of
Speaker 4: those things like where people my age, it's this reference.
Speaker 4: You can't get enough, you know, when they put it
Speaker 4: at the to the Barerbe movie, I'm like, wow, still
Speaker 4: got power. It's amazing, you know, different Planet of the
Speaker 4: Apes things. And I wish I had been in a
Speaker 4: movie theater in nineteen sixty eight to see that ending,
Speaker 4: because I knew and I think ahead of time it
Speaker 4: would have I'm sure what it killed me.
Speaker 2: It was just like, well, the way Homer reacted in
Speaker 2: the press commence would have been you, yeah, yes, how
Speaker 2: did you feel because you weren't working maybe you were
Speaker 2: still doing some solo work posts when you left the show.
Speaker 2: But when they did it was season seven. Fish caught
Speaker 2: sound with the Planet of the Apes musical. What were
Speaker 2: your thoughts on that when you first saw it.
Speaker 4: This is really funny. I was in my office with
Speaker 4: Mike writing for the Critic, and next door we kept
Speaker 4: hearing doctor sayis doctors like We heard for about four
Speaker 4: hours then.
Speaker 3: Two it's really going. It's like drive me crazy.
Speaker 4: And of course it's probably the funniest I didn't have
Speaker 4: anything to do with the writing of It's probably the
Speaker 4: funniest song in the history of the show. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's the chimpan eided Chimpanzee line alone. Yeah, put it there,
Speaker 4: but yeah, just what they just keep going over again
Speaker 4: and again.
Speaker 2: So you guys were writing in the next room still.
Speaker 2: So when he left the Simpsons, he didn't leave the studio.
Speaker 2: He just sort of left the team.
Speaker 4: Well, one thing was we didn't I never wanted to
Speaker 4: leave the Simpsons ever. I mean, clearly, I'm here after
Speaker 4: thirty six years. So when we did the Critic, we
Speaker 4: said we would like to still consult on the Simpsons.
Speaker 4: When we went to a Disney deal, we said we'd
Speaker 4: still like to work on Simpson episodes, and every year
Speaker 4: of the show. I've had some involvement with it because
Speaker 4: it's the greatest, you know, it's it's I've been in
Speaker 4: other great things, but it was such a hit from
Speaker 4: the get go that you don't have to explain to
Speaker 4: people what you're doing. You'll get the money, you get
Speaker 4: the guest stars. It's the ideal job. But it wasn't
Speaker 4: his For a writer in LA I get the.
Speaker 1: Feeling of this stage of the game as well. You'd
Speaker 1: have to be some kind of Grinch or Munty Burns
Speaker 1: type to separate al Chine from the Simpsons if you
Speaker 1: wanted to go do something else, but it was sort
Speaker 1: of in your contract or in your negotiatings. Like, guys,
Speaker 1: you've got to give me a little time to sort
Speaker 1: of be to pick up the red phone for Simpsons.
Speaker 4: ICEQ, Well, I can say we're closer than ever John
Speaker 4: Lovetts and me and Mike Reeze to getting The Critic
Speaker 4: back as a reboot, So that'll be wonderful.
Speaker 2: Has that roadblock being fixed yet? He said there was
Speaker 2: a one roadblock block and everything.
Speaker 3: It's almost a good right almost. Yes, glad that you
Speaker 3: knew that.
Speaker 4: I think now, first time I've ever said this, I
Speaker 4: think it's more likely than that that it'll happen.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's very exciting.
Speaker 4: And John is very into it, and we were talking
Speaker 4: about who we would cast. I won't say, you know,
Speaker 4: nobody else has a commitment or anything. But one of
Speaker 4: the things that helped us was John was at the
Speaker 4: SNL fifty party and someone walked up to him and said,
Speaker 4: you know, The Critic is the best show ever.
Speaker 3: And he goes, what do you mean? He goes, I
Speaker 3: loved it. I grew up with watching it. It's the
Speaker 3: best it was. Jesse Eisenberg, Oh wow.
Speaker 4: So we realized that there's a generation now loved it
Speaker 4: the way I loved the Bowling Gloe cartoons as a kid.
Speaker 4: And Kenya the Hill did great as a reboot. Futurama
Speaker 4: has done great multiple times coming back, so I think
Speaker 4: we're going to do.
Speaker 2: You feel like you have to change the concept, though,
Speaker 2: because the idea of a coming attractions existing in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six.
Speaker 3: Oh no, there's no.
Speaker 4: Such thing as a successful film critic. Now you're one
Speaker 4: of one hundred rotten tomatoes. I would think, actually, just
Speaker 4: he's on a podcast and he's got nobody watching, and
Speaker 4: he's you know, down at the bottom. I think that
Speaker 4: the again, this is all so early, but the tentative
Speaker 4: arc would be he starts getting popular again, because I
Speaker 4: think you need a movie critic to call a bad
Speaker 4: movies more than ever. Oh and not like bad movies,
Speaker 4: but bad things in real life. So but yeah, I
Speaker 4: think my guess would be we'd age and a little,
Speaker 4: we'd have the sun be grown. But this is all
Speaker 4: you know, so yeah, premature, it's yeah, just the way
Speaker 4: we we have taken a look at it.
Speaker 2: It must feel like a sense of deja vous because
Speaker 2: you left the Simpsons thirty years ago to work on
Speaker 2: the Critic and now you essentially done the same thing again,
Speaker 2: except this time hype. It doesn't get canceled off the
Speaker 2: two seasons, uh.
Speaker 4: Well, or even if it does, you know, this will
Speaker 4: always be still here if I come running back with
Speaker 4: my tail between my legs. And it's so funny how
Speaker 4: everything comes around in a circle on this show. And
Speaker 4: the other thing I was going to say about Simpsons,
Speaker 4: which is very odd for me. I never saw it
Speaker 4: as a phenomenon. I was always on the inside as
Speaker 4: a writer. You know, Oh this thing I did over
Speaker 4: the summer with Mike and oh it came back. It
Speaker 4: looks really funny. I thought it would be a good show.
Speaker 4: I thought, gee, you got Jim Brooks and I loved
Speaker 4: Life in Hell by Matt Greening, and I thought Sam
Speaker 4: was brilliant, and it hadn't been any animated Timetime show
Speaker 4: in years, so I thought, this is going to get attention,
Speaker 4: This is really going to be, you know, special, But
Speaker 4: I didn't know nobody. I don't think I knew it
Speaker 4: was going to run forty years now.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, I mean, when you meet new
Speaker 1: people and they were informed that you're that Simpsons guy,
Speaker 1: I mean, what some of your action reactions you've ever said.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of they're meeting Santa.
Speaker 4: I see people who get very excited, and I'm like, what,
Speaker 4: what's wrong?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: I've said this a lot, although I don't think I
Speaker 4: could say it too much. The other thing that makes
Speaker 4: me really happy is I run into people who go,
Speaker 4: I was a kid, my parents were getting divorced. I
Speaker 4: was really sad, and I watched the Simpsons. That cheered
Speaker 4: me up. And that's the best, you know, I mean
Speaker 4: even more than the you know, people you get to
Speaker 4: meet or the people you get to work, whether the
Speaker 4: money is something like that that you have spent your
Speaker 4: life doing that, and it has that outcome.
Speaker 2: Well, I've said Tom and Tom again. I was a
Speaker 2: bit of a loaner when I was younger, and it
Speaker 2: was almost a lot of The Simpsons was like that
Speaker 2: a friend, you know, you can always fall back into.
Speaker 2: The Simpsons was always going to be there. You recordeous
Speaker 2: episodes off TV, and I was ever feeling filling down.
Speaker 2: I chuck one of the types and put The Simpsons on,
Speaker 2: and I was fine.
Speaker 4: I was, for various reasons, at different schools each year
Speaker 4: of my childhood. So I was a little bit of
Speaker 4: a loner, and I felt that way about something like
Speaker 4: Charlie Brown. I felt like, oh this gets me, this,
Speaker 4: this is how I feel, and they understand it.
Speaker 3: So that means the world.
Speaker 1: As a prematurely bolding guy with a crush on unrequired
Speaker 1: crush on redheads. Yeah, Charlie Brown was my guy. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Now was the Simpsons the other Simpsons of my child
Speaker 4: I mean there's no question now was genius.
Speaker 1: Now we're in Taylor Switz world now, and so koreas
Speaker 1: or bodies of work are kind of viewed as eras,
Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm wondering if you view your time
Speaker 1: with the Simpsons, your ongoing time with the Simpsons as
Speaker 1: like one continuous stream or do you break it down
Speaker 1: into bits and pages like, oh, this is this era
Speaker 1: of my of my time in Springfield or is it
Speaker 1: all one? Is it all of a pace or is.
Speaker 3: It you know.
Speaker 4: I think era is a little bit overrated when you
Speaker 4: consider the diagnosaurs.
Speaker 3: Had an era of a hundred million years.
Speaker 4: Sure, so like we should talk. The biggest thing I
Speaker 4: can say that was definitely changed was the methods of animation.
Speaker 4: After season thirteen we went to digital coloring. In twenty
Speaker 4: we went to HD. Those necessitated a lot of changes
Speaker 4: in the way we would do the show. We actually
Speaker 4: predate Google and we predate you know, digital editing, so
Speaker 4: those were both huge, huge helps. We used to go
Speaker 4: to a research library at five and ask for a book,
Speaker 4: you know, do you have the digits of Pie or
Speaker 4: something like that. So those would be the things that
Speaker 4: I think have been absorbed the most by the show.
Speaker 4: In the movie, David Siler and the other directors had
Speaker 4: a thing called the Syntique, which was a tablet that
Speaker 4: they could draw a scene on and they can pretty
Speaker 4: much put it in the rough cut and we could
Speaker 4: see it in a day like animated half animated. That
Speaker 4: changed differthing for the better too. We now do storyboards
Speaker 4: that way.
Speaker 2: Speaking of the Simpsons movie, will we be a consultant
Speaker 2: for the new Simpsons movie? You're still working on that
Speaker 2: or you separate yourself from that project.
Speaker 4: At the moment. No, Yeah, I can't really. I'm familiar
Speaker 4: with what's going on, but I can't really see any girl.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's fine. Yeah, obviously we spoke to someone recently
Speaker 2: as well. He said the same thing. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just nice to know that the Simpsons is still because
Speaker 2: it feels like the Simpsons had a bit of a
Speaker 2: resurgence in recent years with fans and just I think
Speaker 2: a whole younger generation of discovering the show because people
Speaker 2: like myself were having who grew up with the show
Speaker 2: are having kids and we're introducing the show to our
Speaker 2: children and they're loving it. I just think that it's
Speaker 2: great that a new Simpsons movie is being green lit
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 3: Yes, I can see.
Speaker 4: When the announcement was me the excitement about it was
Speaker 4: very gratifying. How nervous I was working now in the
Speaker 4: first one, just terrified what if this bombs again? The
Speaker 4: biggest thing every day here has been I don't want
Speaker 4: to screw it out, and I think the movie pretty
Speaker 4: much delivered with what people want at the first one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know I'm through second well as well.
Speaker 2: How do you go ignoring the outside noise? Because it
Speaker 2: feels like for a good while there it almost became
Speaker 2: like a running bit of The Simpsons isn't good anymore?
Speaker 2: And I was said by people who didn't actually watch
Speaker 2: the show anymore, so their opinion wasn't valid. But is
Speaker 2: it hard to ignore that crowd when you're working on it.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm the least objective person about this, but to
Speaker 4: be quite honest, people are saying it wasn't as good
Speaker 4: as it used to be. In the middle of season one,
Speaker 4: there was an Ali Times film critic but didn't like
Speaker 4: the Moaning Lease episode. He hated the season two premiere.
Speaker 4: The internet started getting on our case a lot, especially
Speaker 4: in season five and six. You know, you can find
Speaker 4: people saying, you know, Homer's enemy, you know e grade,
Speaker 4: you know the worst, and now people revere it now.
Speaker 4: I think it's the highest rate at IMDb. So there's
Speaker 4: demes with the other way where you go, Okay, none
Speaker 4: of it means anything, so I don't know. My view,
Speaker 4: which I'm sure I'll always have, is we always work
Speaker 4: really hard. We always have really talented people. I can't
Speaker 4: say whether it's as good as it was, but I
Speaker 4: think it's always been at least good. And if there's
Speaker 4: a decline, I think maybe, well America's decline and we're
Speaker 4: just declining a little slower.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the Simpsons, even a fifty sixty percent
Speaker 2: is better than most shows still these days.
Speaker 4: Anyway, So we wanted any two years ago, we wanted
Speaker 4: any four years ago. The writers build as an animation
Speaker 4: award we've won I think like twelve or fourteen or
Speaker 4: some sort of a high percentage.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: And I watched similar shows like south Park. South Park
Speaker 4: is in a great year. So I don't get I'm
Speaker 4: the last one that you know, make a judgment about this,
Speaker 4: but I think people find really funny episodes every year,
Speaker 4: and not everything's perfect, but there's a lot of work,
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff that's put into each one.
Speaker 1: You don't want to make a judgment now, but I'm
Speaker 1: about to ask you to make a judgment, Okay, I'd
Speaker 1: like you to define a successful or perhaps a bit
Speaker 1: of time is satisfying episode of The Simpsons for you
Speaker 1: now one way you can sort of sit back as
Speaker 1: the as the closing credits for I Want to Go,
Speaker 1: We Now Live.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can give you one that I just saw.
Speaker 3: I just aired about a month ago.
Speaker 4: The eight hundredth episode, written written by Christy Nangel was great.
Speaker 3: She's a huge.
Speaker 4: Dog owner, you know, loves dogs, really really loves dogs.
Speaker 4: We have three rescue dogs and it really Then the
Speaker 4: funny thing is that her what happened to her happened
Speaker 4: to my wife as well, where she fed the dog
Speaker 4: grapes and then the dog went to the bad Like
Speaker 4: how do you feed the dog grapes? It's horrible, like
Speaker 4: nobody knew. And then you know how Marge feels when
Speaker 4: she thinks the dog is dead. Like that was very moving.
Speaker 4: I thought that was a combination of funny oh and
Speaker 4: had a lot of great Philadelphia jokes, Like it was
Speaker 4: really really you know, cool for people who've been to Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: So funny, you know, like a lot of really interesting
Speaker 4: stuff and a clever plot and real emotion.
Speaker 2: We review that one of the podcasts went after at first,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I found a lot of relatability because my
Speaker 2: mother was the same where she always sort of unless
Speaker 2: she didn't like the dog. But she goes, I've got
Speaker 2: to clean up off the dog after the dog a game,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But then when the dog got sick, exactly,
Speaker 2: she was the one that was the most sad, you know,
Speaker 2: she was the saddest.
Speaker 3: Nothing wrenches your heart like a dog that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, and then it's just being objective about it. Human
Speaker 4: life fans are so much longer than dog life fans,
Speaker 4: Like you're you're pretty much buying yourself a very sad ending.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but the years you have, but the years
Speaker 2: you have them as worth it though.
Speaker 4: So yes, Also you can always get a new dog,
Speaker 4: you know, same, but it's a great new dog. So yeah,
Speaker 4: we've gone through that cycle.
Speaker 1: It's not cold now.
Speaker 3: Well, I I'm not the one that I.
Speaker 4: Would pick, like, let you know, get a giant like
Speaker 4: Greenland whale that was four hundred years and then you'll
Speaker 4: definitely never see it before you.
Speaker 1: Break the turtle top. Yes, I don't like to I'd
Speaker 1: like to want to type back a little bit to
Speaker 1: pre Simpson's I was interested to rate that you worked
Speaker 1: on the Johnny Carson Show, that you worked with with
Speaker 1: Casson on the I just like to know.
Speaker 3: I did, Yes, what that was like?
Speaker 1: I mean, working with someone like that. Did you ever
Speaker 1: encounter Johnny?
Speaker 4: We met him to get the job. There was a
Speaker 4: one hour interview, wow, and then we saw him maybe
Speaker 4: two more times in person the whole time we were there. Right,
Speaker 4: I have to say I never met John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 4: of course, but it was like that I think to
Speaker 4: have met him. He was an extremely funny, you know guy,
Speaker 4: and had a lot of admirable qualities. He was more
Speaker 4: nervous about his success, you know, and how he would
Speaker 4: do than you might think. When he went on David Letterman.
Speaker 4: The first time he went on a Letterman show, we
Speaker 4: had to give him eight different bits that Carson writers,
Speaker 4: so he had his pockets filled with jokes, and I
Speaker 4: pitched the thing. We had this folding desk we're going
Speaker 4: to one time have him leave with but I said, no,
Speaker 4: have him bring it and set it up because he
Speaker 4: needs it next to Letterman and that kind of big laugh.
Speaker 4: And Letterman would show it on his subsequent shows. But
Speaker 4: like Johnny really wanted that like big thing, you know
Speaker 4: that once he got that laugh at the beginning, then
Speaker 4: he was like Okay, you know, I can relax and
Speaker 4: I could be Johnny Carson.
Speaker 2: Was he intimidating in that interview? Was he there for
Speaker 2: the entire hour?
Speaker 4: No, it's just an interview again. He was Letterman's hero,
Speaker 4: you know, beloved.
Speaker 3: He was nervous.
Speaker 4: I mean, I you know, I think that's one reason
Speaker 4: he was so successful because he never took it for granted.
Speaker 4: After I never knew any of this director, you know,
Speaker 4: and I say, stuff, It's not like, oh Johnny said
Speaker 4: this to me. Oh I'm nervous, you know. But he
Speaker 4: was an amateur magician as a kid and was great.
Speaker 4: So his whole career was kind of I'm going to
Speaker 4: do this thing that's really cool and then disappear before
Speaker 4: you gets sick of me. And that kind of sums
Speaker 4: up his whole career. There's that a great book Cursing
Speaker 4: the Magnificent about it that just came out of a biography.
Speaker 2: Have you ever felt like you were sick of the Simpsons?
Speaker 2: Have you ever got to a point where you felt
Speaker 2: you were worked so high I just can't do this anymore.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 4: Even though I'm not show running every night now, I
Speaker 4: have a dream about being in the rewrite room trying
Speaker 4: to think of a joke with the other writers I
Speaker 4: just met, you know, saw to them and said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I just dreamed about you guys last night. There's usually
Speaker 4: some sort of bureaucratic thing like we need to get
Speaker 4: ahold of Jim Brooks, but he's traveling or we can't
Speaker 4: pitch it to him. So I guess that's my sisyphus
Speaker 4: curse every name for the rest of my life. I'm
Speaker 4: going to dream them in the rewa room.
Speaker 2: Can you is it besides your dreaming obviously? Can you
Speaker 2: switch off just during the day now that you've left
Speaker 2: the show full time or you just are you still
Speaker 2: constantly just feeling and thinking of ideas.
Speaker 4: You're always looking at with something hammers and go, oh,
Speaker 4: that'd be a good episode for Patty and some you
Speaker 4: know like that in every steps.
Speaker 2: Do you note them down still or is it now
Speaker 2: a case of what doesn't matter anymore? Or you always
Speaker 2: note these ideas.
Speaker 4: Down now I'm thinking about critic flights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was wondering how much sort of real
Speaker 1: estate in your head is like Springfield, and how much
Speaker 1: of it is Jay Sherman and how much of it
Speaker 1: is other projects.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think about it's great about it being a
Speaker 4: critic or anything else. If you're pitching a Simpsons story,
Speaker 4: you know, I have to mentally run through the seven
Speaker 4: hundred nine name previous stories, go is this too similar?
Speaker 3: Did we do this? You know that's rough and that
Speaker 3: was probably the artist fair? Or is the artist far?
Speaker 4: You know, when you're doing a new Simpsons, so it's
Speaker 4: liberating on anything else where you're just going, it's just
Speaker 4: not like everything's been done.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I al was wondering if you actually had any like
Speaker 1: sort of quote unquote secret weapon characters or gags or situations,
Speaker 1: ones where you feel like I can punch up or
Speaker 1: in bigurette a storyline or a plot point that sort
Speaker 1: of needs to needs just a little bit of something.
Speaker 4: There are certain ones that would have like huge batting averages,
Speaker 4: like Comic book Guy if you would bring him in
Speaker 4: for something. That voice just you know Hank's creation. He
Speaker 4: said it was based on a college door made of
Speaker 4: his used to say you're on my list.
Speaker 3: This area That one I always thought was a good
Speaker 3: go to mo.
Speaker 4: Another of Hank's characters, Homer's Great Where with Homer, what
Speaker 4: we would do is just we'd still trapped. For Dan Casseline,
Speaker 4: I would say, Homer reenthesies, hungry, but sad noise, so
Speaker 4: like just to see what he would do, and that's
Speaker 4: always fun. He's always great.
Speaker 2: At what point did you realize The Simpsons was becoming
Speaker 2: Homer's show and it was no longer.
Speaker 4: Bought when people told us it wasn't conscious. What happened
Speaker 4: was again, nobody knew the show would be a phenomenon,
Speaker 4: and Bart was obviously like the breakout star in the
Speaker 4: first season. Good, I mean, Nancy's great. Bart's a great character.
Speaker 4: Just again it says four. But by dint of trying
Speaker 4: to come up with stories, it's easier to come up
Speaker 4: with stories for an adult who can, you know, work
Speaker 4: and go places than it is to come up with
Speaker 4: stories for a ten year old boy. It's kind of
Speaker 4: constrained by reality into what he can go and do.
Speaker 4: So you know, you would have Bart being a general
Speaker 4: or something, but it would be hard to you know,
Speaker 4: think of really fire fetch things as was Homer. And
Speaker 4: then people said, oh, you consciously switched it. It's just
Speaker 4: the writers were more Homer's age than Bart's. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: now it'll you know, my stuff will all be Grandpa.
Speaker 4: I started to really think like, yeah, I think like him.
Speaker 1: No, actually, I wouldn't ask you. Have you old relationship
Speaker 1: with the residents of Springfield? Have they changed as you've changed,
Speaker 1: as You've got a few more miles on the matter,
Speaker 1: And do you get sort of prepressive, possessive, will proprietary
Speaker 1: about certain characters on the show.
Speaker 4: I relate to the line you kids get off my
Speaker 4: lawn a lot more than I used to.
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll do.
Speaker 2: I found myself laying to I'm thirty seven, and I
Speaker 2: found myself laying to Grandpa already you know, just yes,
Speaker 2: what's it is? Weed and scary to me.
Speaker 4: Also, Lisa was the one that was closest to me
Speaker 4: growing up. My sister was more of a bar So
Speaker 4: I feel a little proprietary towards Lisa character, who's been
Speaker 4: like in the lead, And many of the scripts I've written.
Speaker 2: We've noticed that. So we're about to Sason twenty one
Speaker 2: now we've been doing chronologically, and it feels like Lisa
Speaker 2: is the real voice of the writers. When they've got
Speaker 2: something to say, they say it through Lisa.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true.
Speaker 4: And again, another secret weapon is Yardley Smith match is funny,
Speaker 4: which he very much is. But also when you give
Speaker 4: Lisa an emotion, the character and the early performs at
Speaker 4: the table, it really works great, you know, really works
Speaker 4: great with Jim Brooks while you're always trying to you know,
Speaker 4: reach and you know, make him you know laugh or
Speaker 4: cry or whatever, you know, And that is definitely I mean,
Speaker 4: that's a secret but weapon.
Speaker 2: And you guys, with your what you did, what you
Speaker 2: were changing those early nineties, you paved the way for
Speaker 2: so many shows, and you change shaped comedy for an
Speaker 2: entire generation of viewers. But shows like Bob's Burger's Family Guy,
Speaker 2: these shows don't exist without the Simpsons and the success
Speaker 2: that you guys created.
Speaker 3: I think. So I think South Park probably would have.
Speaker 2: South That's why I love South Park out. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think south Park it was a different Yeah.
Speaker 3: Don't know. Yeah, I mean, what's so bizarre to me.
Speaker 4: In nineteen eighty nine was also the year Little Mermaid,
Speaker 4: which we vitalized feature animation, and I don't know if
Speaker 4: there would have been a pixere about Little Murmaid. So
Speaker 4: I love animation, So I'm thrilled there's so many animated shows.
Speaker 4: Now I'm thrilled that the animation category in the Emmys
Speaker 4: is so art, and I'm thrilled that there's so many
Speaker 4: great animated movies.
Speaker 2: Did you ever watch those other shows and go, you've
Speaker 2: taken what we didn't just put a clock in it.
Speaker 4: Well, the reason I don't watch them is because, as
Speaker 4: I just said, eight hundred episodes is making your things
Speaker 4: that haven't been done, you know, very small. And then
Speaker 4: if you watch the other ones, someone goes, oh, wait,
Speaker 4: Family guy did, Like, Oh, it's impossible. If you're watching
Speaker 4: them all and you're trying to exclude everything they do,
Speaker 4: you're going to just like spend the whole day in
Speaker 4: the room just saying no to everything. So I haven't
Speaker 4: seen as much of them as people might think. But
Speaker 4: there's a reason that has noting to do with whether
Speaker 4: I like them or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think it matches if Family God had
Speaker 2: done a story and you guys hadn't yet.
Speaker 4: Oh, people call you on it, I believe you know. Uh,
Speaker 4: they go, you stole and I'm like, what, I didn't
Speaker 4: even know about the biggest The biggest thing I can
Speaker 4: say being inside is people think ideas are being stolen
Speaker 4: all the time, and at least on The Simpsons.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's certainly things that we do homages to,
Speaker 4: you know, like that we are clearly like emulating like SCTV.
Speaker 4: But when when something happens and where you have a
Speaker 4: similar thing, it's just coincidence. Just like our predictions, you know,
Speaker 4: we steal from the future constantly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me give you a hypothetical. If you were
Speaker 1: going into Simpson's HQ in twenty twenty six with a
Speaker 1: spec script that you wrote, what do you think it
Speaker 1: would be about? Who do you think it would be
Speaker 1: front and center in this It.
Speaker 4: Would probably still be about Lisa and Homer if I
Speaker 4: really wanted to sell it. One that I wrote not
Speaker 4: too long ago, the navierating credit is when I saw
Speaker 4: Keill a Mockingbird. I hadn't seen it for, you know,
Speaker 4: till I was fifty, and it was so good and
Speaker 4: I was in tears, you know, at that scene where
Speaker 4: little girl Scout stopped the mob killing her dad, Nica's finch,
Speaker 4: and I just thought, oh, this would be a great
Speaker 4: relationship to you know, put with Lisa at Homer. So
Speaker 4: that's the kind of script I would bring in in
Speaker 4: you know, any season.
Speaker 1: These are the characters that still sort of resonate with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was a movie from nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 4: There's a joke I was really happy with in the
Speaker 4: episode where it said, Lisa, I just want to tell
Speaker 4: you that the horrible you know, discrimination that occurs in
Speaker 4: the movie in the South and you know now occurs everywhere.
Speaker 2: I wanted to touch on al you mentioned earlier at
Speaker 2: the Critic. I want to get back to the critic
Speaker 2: and what is it like working with Mike again on
Speaker 2: a project like this.
Speaker 4: Well, I've never stat working with me one day a
Speaker 4: week when I was show running, and when I would
Speaker 4: have a draft of a script that I hit a
Speaker 4: writing credit, the first person i'd show would be him,
Speaker 4: and in generally he would go, oh, this is really good,
Speaker 4: which would make me very happy. You know, he doesn't
Speaker 4: you know, see he likes something if he doesn't like it.
Speaker 4: So once I got his seal of proof, White Phil
Speaker 4: out more confident. But yeah, no, I just emailed him.
Speaker 4: He travels a great deal, that's what he loves to do.
Speaker 4: So I don't think he'll be full time, but he
Speaker 4: definitely wants to be involved with the critic, and of
Speaker 4: course I'd love it as much as he wanted.
Speaker 3: To do it.
Speaker 2: Is there a hesitation to bring in the critic back?
Speaker 2: Is there some sort of worry of we made it,
Speaker 2: we did it change what we did initially? Or do
Speaker 2: you think that the show in its initial run the
Speaker 2: world just wasn't ready for it yet?
Speaker 4: If that hesitation in me, because first of all, if
Speaker 4: people go, you ruined it, I go, well, we created,
Speaker 4: like you know, it's ours to do what we will.
Speaker 4: And then that, honestly, Lovett and I each tweeted that
Speaker 4: there was a chance that would come back.
Speaker 3: The respondence was so huge. I was just watching it.
Speaker 3: Seth Meyers.
Speaker 4: That was recommended to me. Where really great actors, very funny.
Speaker 4: Christin Miliotti said, you know, well, as a kid, I
Speaker 4: watched the critic and audience cheered like, so, I go,
Speaker 4: I would love to see you know how that plays out.
Speaker 4: And love It's is great. He does stand up all time.
Speaker 4: He's just as funny as ever. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 4: don't as you say, that kind of critic isn't really
Speaker 4: a thing now, but the character and what's going on
Speaker 4: and it's perfect.
Speaker 1: And yeah, Lovets hasn't lost as fossible in any way,
Speaker 1: and and and it seems like the years that the
Speaker 1: uh that have gone past, and like, you know, where
Speaker 1: where Jai Shiman will be at now? It feels like
Speaker 1: a fit loveds would be at now as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, Well the thing with him is I just
Speaker 4: told him this. He's one of those guys where people
Speaker 4: know who he is, you know, people remember him, and
Speaker 4: people go, oh, that guy's funny, you know. I mean
Speaker 4: that's two things they think, and that's hard to get.
Speaker 4: And he's got it, you know, I mean, and you
Speaker 4: know it's somebody like Norm McDonald had it as well. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and in a different way. And I think that's a
Speaker 4: you know, great person to write for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a really distinctive voice that doesn't yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to say doesn't age, but yeah, just sort of gets
Speaker 1: better with age in a way.
Speaker 3: Sounds just the same. Yeah, No, he's just as funny. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like even with the critic, you could have
Speaker 2: yet if you had a full length show, But it
Speaker 2: could also work in short form as well, where it's
Speaker 2: just you know, we might not want to dedicate an
Speaker 2: entire episode to particular movie reviews or parodies or whatever,
Speaker 2: but you could just have Jay just for marketing purposes
Speaker 2: reviewing two or three films throughout the week for like
Speaker 2: thirty seconds on social media.
Speaker 1: Actually have been doing reviews.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: One of the thoughts was exactly that you we did
Speaker 4: an episode where Homer was live, you know where. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he was like filmed with Dan Castlemetta, and you would
Speaker 4: do certain moves so the credit could review a movie
Speaker 4: that just came out, and you put that at the
Speaker 4: end of the episode exactly.
Speaker 2: So was he actually live when that was going on.
Speaker 4: Yes, Dan was in a room. What there were is
Speaker 4: we'd programmed you know, like forty hour movements into the
Speaker 4: possibilities for the animation. David Silverman was like directing what
Speaker 4: the visual would be. So you see, you know, see
Speaker 4: Homer looks down, he looks up, he blinked, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just a limited number of reactions.
Speaker 3: But yes, that was live.
Speaker 4: You could you could have had him say anything, you know,
Speaker 4: like read the today's newspaper and it would have been
Speaker 4: you know, right up to the current event.
Speaker 2: Well, that's another thing of the same as it's not
Speaker 2: just the rod is in the people who put the
Speaker 2: tank together. It's the cost. I mean, without that cost,
Speaker 2: it probably doesn't exceed eight though, you can.
Speaker 3: Go without a doubt. I mean, you can't think of
Speaker 3: anybody better than any of them for the parts they do.
Speaker 2: Just you know, you just like you said, you just
Speaker 2: you said to Dan how it was high angry cry
Speaker 2: and he just made it work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a genius. I mean he.
Speaker 4: I remember the Killing Us was like when he was
Speaker 4: the teenage kid having a nightmare about zinc and you
Speaker 4: know the way he goes ding zing. You know, we
Speaker 4: just you know, had to like bite our lips keep
Speaker 4: from laughing on the track and he's been like adulted.
Speaker 3: But they're all great.
Speaker 4: Nancy does these, you know, unbelievably good and different boy voices.
Speaker 4: Ralph Nelson Bart you know, I mean, there's no question
Speaker 4: that's an enormous part of the success in the show.
Speaker 1: Now you're bringing back the critic. There's a show you
Speaker 1: worked on back in the eighties that I feel would
Speaker 1: be prime for a ray boot in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: although maybe could be problematic, but you worked on sledge Hammer.
Speaker 1: This is a show that not a lot of people remember,
Speaker 1: but it's one that I really dug back in the day.
Speaker 4: Alan Spencer did write a reboot of it. Oh for real,
Speaker 4: which was good, and it went to Fox but I
Speaker 4: you know, hasn't been bought yet, but yes he did.
Speaker 4: He send it to Mike and me and we both
Speaker 4: thought of it was a really good script.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for those with me, it was kind of a
Speaker 1: pisstake on Dirty Harry. I think the Niked Gun kind
Speaker 1: of stole a bit of its thunder with.
Speaker 4: A hilarious actor we would have just seen in succession,
Speaker 4: David rash Yeah, he was fantastic And Cassinetta told me
Speaker 4: s he at Second City at the theater group. Oh, Rashie,
Speaker 4: everybody thought he was the best, like he was just
Speaker 4: and he is. He's I mean, they're all great, but
Speaker 4: he's super funny and talented and you know, a nice guy.
Speaker 1: All right, use that cloud or yours l get it,
Speaker 1: get it back?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I know, we could see like a nostalgia
Speaker 4: network of all the shows, you know. Alf you know,
Speaker 4: I've talked about a little bit. We had Fuzzco do
Speaker 4: a cameo on The Simpsons. He sounds great. He's just
Speaker 4: the same so almost all my career, everybody but Johnny
Speaker 4: and and you know a lot of people can invitate,
Speaker 4: you know, Dana Kara, he could do, Johnny, So I
Speaker 4: guess you could all back.
Speaker 2: Do you think love it would be up for hosting
Speaker 2: a podcast as Jay show and interviewing people.
Speaker 4: I think, based on what I know about podcasts, it's
Speaker 4: a lot of work. It is I think portrayed Jace
Speaker 4: Sherman hosting a podcast, but I think in real life
Speaker 4: John lovets with that Between The Week the Fur Show.
Speaker 2: So when the original Simpsons writing team, you had two
Speaker 2: teams within that. What did each of you, so, Jay
Speaker 2: and Wally, yourself and Mike? What did you eh bring
Speaker 2: to the table? What were you How did your processes differ?
Speaker 1: How did that work?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: People always go, oh, one of you writes the you
Speaker 4: know story and one of you writes the jokes. That
Speaker 4: isn't the case, and neither of those teams. G and
Speaker 4: Wally became a team because they were both production assistants
Speaker 4: and they you know, started writing for the Trace Salman
Speaker 4: Show and both have had great solo careers. And then
Speaker 4: Mike and I met in college. We were roommates, and
Speaker 4: he got in the Harvard Lampoon because that's something he'd
Speaker 4: always wanted to do, and I saw how great the
Speaker 4: people were there, so I joined as well, and then
Speaker 4: we started. We got an offer to write for National
Speaker 4: and Pooon, so we started writing there. The thing on
Speaker 4: the team, there's two things. You know, you're writing with
Speaker 4: somebody who's funny. First of all, you have a great editor.
Speaker 4: Somebody go it's too good, so immediately have a yes
Speaker 4: or no, which is good, how very helpful. Plus then
Speaker 4: you have somebody who can make it better right away.
Speaker 4: So like when you see people like combining to make
Speaker 4: a joke, it's really good. Like you can come off
Speaker 4: you know great, you know, much better than the something sparks.
Speaker 4: The advantage to being solo, which I was suddenly suddenly discovering,
Speaker 4: you know when I wrote at least Sacks was like,
Speaker 4: oh wait, I could do it whenever I want. I
Speaker 4: don't have to do it like between business hours. I
Speaker 4: can write it at midnight.
Speaker 3: That's wonderful. I never thought it'd be. It get paid
Speaker 3: twice as much too, that is it?
Speaker 2: And what are the negatives of it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: The negative is the total. Now I ever read writers
Speaker 4: black and you can say this because I'm not too good,
Speaker 4: but it's like the fear.
Speaker 2: The way you've got is bad stuffed doubt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And how do you.
Speaker 2: How do you power through that?
Speaker 3: You just have to you write.
Speaker 4: I write a first draft and oh this sucks, but
Speaker 4: you know, further's the plot. Oh this, Oh I hate this.
Speaker 4: Oh I kind of like this, you know. So I
Speaker 4: get thirty pages of a forty page script that's supposed
Speaker 4: to be forty and then they go over it again
Speaker 4: and again and again, going oh this sucks.
Speaker 3: I can make this better.
Speaker 4: And then finally, when it's forty pages of stuff I
Speaker 4: kind of like, then I send it to Mike and
Speaker 4: he'll give me the thumbs up or down, and that
Speaker 4: really helps.
Speaker 1: At some stages as well, you've got to realize that
Speaker 1: you've got enough runs on the battle hits on the
Speaker 1: board that it's probably gonna be good. It might be
Speaker 1: better than you think it is.
Speaker 3: Never it's never for sure, ye never, ever, ever, never.
Speaker 2: Can you have a call times where you thought you
Speaker 2: had a solid idea and maybe Mike said, look al,
Speaker 2: it needs to be punched off a bit.
Speaker 4: Well, we each were vetoed good ideas. The other one
Speaker 4: he had when he first pitched Bark the Lover, I
Speaker 4: thought it wouldn't work, and I pitched Sherry Bobbins episode
Speaker 4: and he didn't think it would work and I was
Speaker 4: wrong and he you know, so yeah, I know it
Speaker 4: came out great with Sterry Bobbins, So that kind of
Speaker 4: loosened me up a little about you know, like Terry
Speaker 4: Bobbins was one where I was like, I really really
Speaker 4: think combining the Simpsons and that beloved move of you
Speaker 4: will work. Like you have a strong feeling, then it
Speaker 4: may really be that's the one time the self doubt
Speaker 4: vanishes a little bit. But yeah, I know we've both
Speaker 4: been right and been wrong, and you learn it's just
Speaker 4: impossible to be sure.
Speaker 1: Well you've been in the ring crane the Simpsons, or
Speaker 1: you've worked as a troubleshooter in that regard for you know,
Speaker 1: many years with the show all through you know, different
Speaker 1: different phases of society. I mean, when the world's in
Speaker 1: a turbulent state as it is right now, one might say,
Speaker 1: does it dictate the mood of the show and it's creation.
Speaker 4: You know, It's funny because we did an episode about
Speaker 4: during the foreclosure crisis, about the family getting their home
Speaker 4: foreclosed and Flanders water, and the response surprised me because
Speaker 4: people were going, oh, this is you know, it's happening,
Speaker 4: But it's so sad, like too much of a bummer.
Speaker 4: So you know that made me shay away a little
Speaker 4: from that kind of thing. Yeah, but the honest thing,
Speaker 4: like when these insane crazes keep happening, to be in
Speaker 4: a room with funny people who can make it funny
Speaker 4: really makes.
Speaker 3: You feel better. The hardest thing is to be alone,
Speaker 3: I think when something bad is happening.
Speaker 2: When you came back to and so he came back
Speaker 2: doing solo scripts from time to time. But you became
Speaker 2: showrunner again season thirteen onwards. How had the show evolved
Speaker 2: since when you left full time? What were the biggest
Speaker 2: differences that you noticed.
Speaker 4: Mike Scully had a great idea which I never thought of,
Speaker 4: which is to divide the writers into two groups, so
Speaker 4: that you could like one would do Act one and
Speaker 4: one would do Act two. I played a joke on
Speaker 4: him once my room was doing Act too, and I
Speaker 4: called him and I said, Okay, we just finished the
Speaker 4: rewrite Fract one and you know it's midnight, and he.
Speaker 3: Goes, wait, do act too, and I gotah, we did.
Speaker 4: But the basic mechanism for doing the show has changed
Speaker 4: very little. You know, you sinkired about an idea the
Speaker 4: showrunner approves it or approves it through Jim and Matt,
Speaker 4: and then you pitched the story out. They go through,
Speaker 4: you know, dozens of drafts, you read it with the cast,
Speaker 4: and then you know, you recorded, and it keeps getting changed.
Speaker 4: We added in season four what it's called the animatic rewrite.
Speaker 4: The animatics. In the first season they just used to screen.
Speaker 4: Then certain things would come in people would pitch them
Speaker 4: in the room, but there wasn't like a separate draft,
Speaker 4: which we wound up taking a day or two to do.
Speaker 4: And it made the Joe, It made the shows that
Speaker 4: people notice denser, and you know, and another great benefit
Speaker 4: of all that is what you don't get in live
Speaker 4: TV is distance. So something that you thought was funny
Speaker 4: three weeks ago, when it comes back, you go, oh wait,
Speaker 4: this doesn't work. So you're constantly like looking at it
Speaker 4: down the pipeline and refining it based on your objectivity
Speaker 4: that you get from distance.
Speaker 2: Had any characters changed, do you think?
Speaker 3: Very little?
Speaker 4: Obviously we had the controversy over at Who, although she
Speaker 4: never changed and was always conceived of as somebody who
Speaker 4: was extremely smart, smared Hman, almost anybody in town, and
Speaker 4: hard working Homer originally was a little angrier and a
Speaker 4: little less stupid, although you know, everyone taking over the
Speaker 4: show tries to make them a little smarter. Then he
Speaker 4: maybe had got like it's constant battle.
Speaker 2: So you feel like every time he does a new show,
Speaker 2: every time does a new showrunner, they tried to twake Homer,
Speaker 2: is that well, he.
Speaker 4: Gets a little stupider, and then like you go, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to bring him back to a little smarter
Speaker 4: and then you know, kind of drifts. It's like there
Speaker 4: is a thing good. They call it flanderization, which isn't
Speaker 4: just in The Simpsons, but it's where a character becomes
Speaker 4: the extreme version of that character. You gotta fight that.
Speaker 4: Although with Flanders, because I certainly was part of a
Speaker 4: quote flanderization. The reason he changed somewhat is because I
Speaker 4: think Christian became a term that was more pejorative. You
Speaker 4: would find these people who are sort of some quote Christians,
Speaker 4: in my view, are power seeking and not really following
Speaker 4: what Jesus might say, and he reflected a little bit
Speaker 4: of that. Although being basically a nice guy.
Speaker 1: Was there a like a Goldie Looks period Bahoma where
Speaker 1: he was just smart enough and just dumb enough.
Speaker 4: Do you think I can say even bigger than Homer.
Speaker 4: People talk about a golden age. I've been here the
Speaker 4: whole time. No one and any times said oh, this
Speaker 4: is the golden age.
Speaker 2: You know this?
Speaker 4: In fact, Season four, which many often say is a
Speaker 4: golden age, was misery in terms of all the writers left,
Speaker 4: because at that time you'd get a big deal somewhere
Speaker 4: else if you're a writer on The Simpsons. So we
Speaker 4: had v D and George Meyer, who are great, and
Speaker 4: Conan we hired obviously is great.
Speaker 3: But it was.
Speaker 4: Very scary, you know. I remember having a little card
Speaker 4: with the list of the episodes in at like Dephalis going, oh,
Speaker 4: we're getting there almost at the end. I think we're
Speaker 4: going to make it, but it was no sure thing.
Speaker 2: Can you describe Swartzwolder in one word? He just seems
Speaker 2: like such a unicorn.
Speaker 4: I could say two friendly recluse. He's reclusive to a degree,
Speaker 4: but if you met him, you would go, oh, what
Speaker 4: a friendly guy like He wouldn't run away.
Speaker 3: He's very chatty.
Speaker 4: He's done a New Yorker interview, he's on Twitter. You know,
Speaker 4: for a recluse, he's actually pretty reachable. So that'd be
Speaker 4: my description of very funny, very original talent.
Speaker 1: So we could just broke up to his house and
Speaker 1: he'd be very friendly, that he'd be happy to see us.
Speaker 1: I mentioned, well, you know, unannounced.
Speaker 3: I believe he was.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean that's always been in my experience, and
Speaker 4: I member my wife introduced her to him, and she's like,
Speaker 4: he's really friendly.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: We touched on the Simpsons sequel earlier. What do you
Speaker 2: think you guys have learned from working on the show
Speaker 2: and a movie at the same time. From the burnout obviously,
Speaker 2: what have you learned to tweak this time to make
Speaker 2: sure that doesn't happen?
Speaker 4: This face each one twenty years apart, so you know
Speaker 4: season sixty w another. I mean that was the only
Speaker 4: real That's another reason why I'm fine with being significantly
Speaker 4: less involved with the movie this time, because I.
Speaker 3: Was really working seven.
Speaker 4: Day weeks, you know, eighteen hour days two thousand and
Speaker 4: six and early two thousand and seven. It was huge
Speaker 4: amount of pressure and it didn't really lift until we
Speaker 4: being a test screening in Phoenix that we revised the
Speaker 4: character of Russ Carr Gill. He spoke a lot quicker.
Speaker 4: That went great that whole screening and then I thought, Okay,
Speaker 4: this audience is pretty happy. I think we're almost there,
Speaker 4: But not till then did I feel any sort of relief.
Speaker 4: And then, you know, the typical thing. You know, we finished,
Speaker 4: and the movie came out and it was a success,
Speaker 4: you know, a total gross over five hundred million worldwide,
Speaker 4: and I had to immediately go back and keep working
Speaker 4: on the next season. So it was like running a
Speaker 4: marathon and then you have to swim for two hours.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, did you ever have a time
Speaker 2: to sort of just appreciate what you would change with
Speaker 2: that film?
Speaker 4: I have a little of that time now, and it's
Speaker 4: a blessing, you kind of go, I've been very lucky,
Speaker 4: very very lucky to have been where I've been.
Speaker 3: For forty years.
Speaker 4: Systems comparison too, al fare all really lucky experiences.
Speaker 1: You need that time to let your creative battery sort
Speaker 1: of recharge and to live life, to sort of gain
Speaker 1: experiences that can then be sort of translated into art.
Speaker 4: Well I had if I had two children, you know,
Speaker 4: one born in nineteen ninety one, two thousand and four,
Speaker 4: huge chunks of the childhoods of both was working long,
Speaker 4: long hours. But you know, so they're Int've got a
Speaker 4: really good schools and there's a lot of benefits there
Speaker 4: for them, but it's it's trade off.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you again, alf your time. Before we let
Speaker 2: you go, though, I did say to you, we do
Speaker 2: ask all of our guests a certain question, and it's this.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen ninety eight and Fox have asked you, specifically,
Speaker 2: Al Jane, to put together a five episode Friday Night
Speaker 2: Simpsons marathon. Which episodes are you choosing and which episode
Speaker 2: particularly will you kick off with.
Speaker 4: I thought about it, and I would do it in
Speaker 4: a historical progression that shows how the show did changed.
Speaker 4: So Episode one would be the Christmas Show. It was
Speaker 4: a defact or pilot, even though it wasn't the first
Speaker 4: one and recorded, but it introduced people to the characters
Speaker 4: in a really good way, although obviously it'd been in
Speaker 4: the shorts, and that'd be my first. The second would
Speaker 4: be Lisa's Substitute, which I think is the epitome of
Speaker 4: the more realistic, emotional driven shows that we did in
Speaker 4: seasons one and two. And what I can say about
Speaker 4: that was funny was it came back to screen for
Speaker 4: the writers in color, and people thought that's not too funny.
Speaker 4: But Mike and I thought, you know, this is very
Speaker 4: heavy with Jim Brooks stuff, and people really liked what
Speaker 4: he writes, so we're not going to make it too silly.
Speaker 4: We're not going to like put funny noises in it,
Speaker 4: and it's beloved. Number three, I would say Homework the Bat,
Speaker 4: which was an idea Sam had to get the baseball
Speaker 4: players from the came to LA and that was, you know,
Speaker 4: way different from being like sentimental. The read for that
Speaker 4: show I've mentioned was there were two reads which we
Speaker 4: have done back to back once and ever since, and
Speaker 4: it was the second and it was a total disaster.
Speaker 4: The players weren't there.
Speaker 2: Obviously, the cost went fan were they some were not?
Speaker 3: Yes, two of them when they do the you know
Speaker 3: eighty airlines were like, oh, this is funny. Again.
Speaker 4: Cut to we're at the Hall of Fame in twenty seven. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's be conducted for a year and you know, somebody
Speaker 4: like Wade Boggs gets asked every week more than once
Speaker 4: about Lord Palmerston and Fit the Elder that four episodes
Speaker 4: five would be as I mentioned, deep Space Homer, which
Speaker 4: was very cinematic. Obviously Kubrick influenced maybe a little less
Speaker 4: real than season two, but I think a classic episode.
Speaker 4: And if I could add number six, it would be Home,
Speaker 4: the one with the baptism, which I thought was a
Speaker 4: great episode and a really emotional and wonderful to show
Speaker 4: you wanted you to find this to the first eight seasons,
Speaker 4: I think. So I would say that run would show
Speaker 4: like a pretty good evolution of the show.
Speaker 2: I feel it seems like you're a fan of the
Speaker 2: emotional side of things, which is maybe personally as well.
Speaker 2: That's what I preferred.
Speaker 3: That my favorite at the bat, where there's no emotion
Speaker 3: besides that, of.
Speaker 2: Course, besides that one, of course, but I'm a big
Speaker 2: fan of the sappy endings. That they do it for hers,
Speaker 2: and that I mean my wife, she's can you believe,
Speaker 2: has not seen many Simpsons episodes, right, but I put
Speaker 2: that one on for her and she just bored herized
Speaker 2: it at the end. And I think that's what separates
Speaker 2: the Simpsons from all the other shows, is that it
Speaker 2: can just draw that kind of emotion from you.
Speaker 4: Well, when the pilot aired, when the Christmas show aired,
Speaker 4: an eighty nine treend calling Goes, my wife had tears
Speaker 4: in her eyes because she was crying. Well, wow, never
Speaker 4: thought anything i'd work on if I didn't get six
Speaker 4: total of the other one. I had my marriage and
Speaker 4: the minor rail But again, you know, like in terms
Speaker 4: of the evolution of the show whatever, it's like, no arbitrary,
Speaker 4: so I can put in as many as I want, absolutely,
Speaker 4: but yeah, no, I mean that. You know, we worked
Speaker 4: with great people Gary Shandling as well had mentioned. But
Speaker 4: in terms of the emotion when I grew up watching
Speaker 4: Jim Brooks shows like Mary Taylor Moore, it wasn't just
Speaker 4: the comedy, it was the real you know, heart and
Speaker 4: emotion that nexted you to the characters that I really
Speaker 4: wanted to have and everybody did you know with the
Speaker 4: Simpsons when we worked on it.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you again, Alphaea. Time has been an absolute
Speaker 2: pleasure to finally have you on the show. It's sent
Speaker 2: you so much again and all the best with the critic.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to see what you can achieve with it.
Speaker 3: Fingers crossed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's again not a sure thing, but it's
Speaker 4: fair to say I've never thought I've never been as
Speaker 4: optimistic as I am this minute.
Speaker 3: Thanks, thank you,