Speaker 1: Four Finger discounted, Hey, everybody, welcome to the show, Dan
Speaker 1: do here.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited. You should be excited as well, because
Speaker 2: I was lucky to sit down with legendary Simpsons show
Speaker 2: runner mister Matt Salmon. Now, obviously, Matt, He's been on
Speaker 2: the show a few times in the past, but I
Speaker 2: feel like this is the most in depth conversation we've
Speaker 2: had to date. We covered a whole range of topics,
Speaker 2: including their recent appearance at San Diego Comic Co, some
Speaker 2: news on season thirty six. We also covered the chances
Speaker 2: of a potential Bluey Simpsons crossover, which is pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Also some potential storyline ideas for a Simpsons movie sequel.
Speaker 2: I know people have been asking you about a sequel
Speaker 2: for years, but it was just really interesting to hear
Speaker 2: what Matt feels a Simpsons movie sequel should look like. Also,
Speaker 2: most importantly, the pretty much the whole reason for this
Speaker 2: conversation was that Matt and I we did a real
Speaker 2: deep dive on that ninety show, which we recently reviewed
Speaker 2: here at the Fourthing of discaut Network, arguably the most
Speaker 2: divisive episode that Matt has ever written for the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: Some really interesting takes there at times even points out
Speaker 2: it sounds like he's defending it. He's just giving his
Speaker 2: thoughts on why he feels the hate that episode has
Speaker 2: generated and still received to this day is probably unjustified.
Speaker 2: So you're going to really find that interesting. Now, don't
Speaker 2: forget your support is what keeps the lights on here
Speaker 2: at the Fourth Finger Discount Network. I quit my office
Speaker 2: job two years ago to take a chance on this thing,
Speaker 2: and because of your support, we are still around. So
Speaker 2: thank you so much. If you want early and add
Speaker 2: free access to all the podcasts we do here at
Speaker 2: fourthing a discount as well as access to over one
Speaker 2: hundred hours of bonus podcasts, you can support us for
Speaker 2: as little as just one dollar per month on Patreon.
Speaker 2: You can find the link for that in the description
Speaker 2: of this podcast. But for now, enough shilling. Let's sit
Speaker 2: back and enjoy my conversation with the legendary Matt Salmon.
Speaker 2: Mister Matt Salmon, you just got back from SDC, Say,
Speaker 2: how was it in twenty twenty four?
Speaker 3: We had a really great panel. We really produced it well.
Speaker 3: We had you know, Kevin Smith was the moderator. We
Speaker 3: had like the special guest star of Seth Green from
Speaker 3: hilarious actor and his producing partner Harve Harvetein, who were like,
Speaker 3: have this amazing stop motion animation company called Stupid Buddies
Speaker 3: and they're doing this project. We revealed we announced a
Speaker 3: comic con that you know, we have this stop motion
Speaker 3: parody of the character Venom named Denim. We are talking pants,
Speaker 3: Tim talking symbiotic pants, and it's a very funny you
Speaker 3: know Halloween Trios of Horror thirty five idea, and the
Speaker 3: pants are so funny. And the fact that they're made
Speaker 3: of actual, real denim, They're not animation or computers, but
Speaker 3: actual cloth, I think is super cool. So we had,
Speaker 3: you know, we had Kevin Smith. We had all these
Speaker 3: you know, surprise videos we released. We he did this
Speaker 3: cool thing where, you know, a fan online gave us
Speaker 3: the idea of recording the scream of the crowd at
Speaker 3: Holly at the comic con, and we used we're gonna
Speaker 3: use that in the audio of the also of the
Speaker 3: Treous of War. So it was just a really you
Speaker 3: know Kevin Smith, who was so great and such a
Speaker 3: beautiful man, and he's really a big fan, and it's
Speaker 3: so funny, and we said so much stuff. It just
Speaker 3: wasn't like just talk talk talk yeap, yep, yep. It
Speaker 3: was like just tons of original produced content. So then
Speaker 3: I finally got into after years of failing, used my
Speaker 3: amazing success to get me into the big Marvel Comics
Speaker 3: Hall h Super presentation, which had always wanted to get
Speaker 3: into one of those. And this was a doozy. This
Speaker 3: was a doozy because they did the big Robert Downey
Speaker 3: Junior Doctor Doom Live reveal.
Speaker 2: And like, what was the end of you? In that room?
Speaker 3: It was like a million religions exploding at once. It
Speaker 3: was so intense and kids people were crying and screaming,
Speaker 3: and amazingly I had no So they announced only one
Speaker 3: actor is so good that they could play Doctor Doom
Speaker 3: if people are familiar with this at all, and familiar
Speaker 3: I was thinking, oh wow, Daniel Dave lewis cool. But
Speaker 3: of course I could see why they picked Robert Downey Jr.
Speaker 3: In some kind of clone variant comic book heep reworking
Speaker 3: of Tony Stark's genius into evil.
Speaker 2: Somehow I kind of felt I've kind of felt a
Speaker 2: bit of bright the Emergency Glass a little bit as well.
Speaker 3: I think no, I think it's I think it was
Speaker 3: like a good move, Like it's better than bringing back
Speaker 3: iron Man. You know, Oh, iron Man's not dead.
Speaker 2: It's creative. I'll give him that. That's all.
Speaker 3: Those guys are so smart, and I think I'm sure
Speaker 3: they're going to figure out a way to make it
Speaker 3: not feel like emergency glass and make it feel earned.
Speaker 3: I know they're gonna work hard on that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, that's cool that you've got to be in the room, though.
Speaker 2: That's that's a moment. That's a moment that's gonna live on.
Speaker 3: I always wanted that. I always would read about it,
Speaker 3: and I feel like that was good. Now I don't
Speaker 3: need to do it again. Now I can just read
Speaker 3: about it five minutes later and like, Okay, that's what
Speaker 3: it was, Michi.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's one of those moments, though, where you're
Speaker 2: going to be People are gonna be talking about that
Speaker 2: moment for a long long time. And to say that,
Speaker 2: to be able to say that you were there is
Speaker 2: pretty cook.
Speaker 3: But like this, my friend was next to this little
Speaker 3: kid who was just like sobbing with joy. It was crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what it was like when the Simpsons
Speaker 2: movie first premiered.
Speaker 3: Right, sure, Yeah, yeah, Sally was well, there was maybe
Speaker 3: maybe relief was the feeling.
Speaker 2: Did you know that? The thing is, so I think
Speaker 2: we got you guys obviously premiered in the States, maybe
Speaker 2: at a special premiere, but we were one of the
Speaker 2: first countries to get I'll put up a post on
Speaker 2: our social media. I've still got my original ticket stubs
Speaker 2: when I went to see it, and we got on
Speaker 2: the twenty sixth at ten am on which is the
Speaker 2: first thing. You guys got it on the twenty seventh
Speaker 2: in your cinemas, and you guys are behind us, so
Speaker 2: we essentially got it two days before you. So it's
Speaker 2: strange that we got before you guys. But I remember
Speaker 2: at the premiere when the movie finished, and I kid
Speaker 2: you not, it got a standing ovation and I've never
Speaker 2: experienced it before, and I've never experienced it since.
Speaker 3: That's pretty great. Yeah, well, our Australian fans are always very,
Speaker 3: very appreciative and cool. I think I remember that reading
Speaker 3: about it in Australia first and thinking is this like
Speaker 3: payback for the Australia episode.
Speaker 2: No. The thing is everyone thinks we don't like that episode.
Speaker 2: We love that episode. It's almost yeah, we obsessed about
Speaker 2: that episode. But SDCC, so you're talking about Denham. So
Speaker 2: you brought it Seth Green's Seth Green's company. I was
Speaker 2: going to ask you whether it was your animal, so
Speaker 2: you brought in him. So is it just the genes
Speaker 2: that are stop motion.
Speaker 3: With talking pants? Yeah?
Speaker 2: How does that work? That must be a lot of effort, right.
Speaker 3: Well, that you know, there's that You can see what
Speaker 3: I put online that kind of the little puppet model
Speaker 3: they're animating. Yeah, you can insert that into this, I'm
Speaker 3: sure and ah so yeah, and then they can just
Speaker 3: composite somehow. I don't know how the technology works, but
Speaker 3: they're you know, they've been fantastics. I mean it's where
Speaker 3: you feel a little more guilty telling stop motion animators
Speaker 3: to add something or make changes because you can sort
Speaker 3: of think in your head, oh man, that's so much
Speaker 3: more work of just sitting there click click, move, click move,
Speaker 3: like endlessly doing that. We're like drawing animators on computers.
Speaker 3: You can just break their spirits anytime you want, because
Speaker 3: again they'll figure it out. Computers, where the tactile experience
Speaker 3: of cloth and wood is more real.
Speaker 2: Did you guys get them to do their side first
Speaker 2: and then animated to it is that how it works.
Speaker 3: We do our side first, we send them, then we
Speaker 3: send it to them, and then they're they're still making
Speaker 3: their part right now. They't they haven't finished. Our part
Speaker 3: is done.
Speaker 2: They haven't finished it yet.
Speaker 3: No wait, well Halloween isn't asn't air till early November anyway.
Speaker 2: I suppose yes, not the premiere, not Botts birthday. I
Speaker 2: want to get the boss birthday as well, because the
Speaker 2: man of guest stars you announced for that one. So
Speaker 2: what have we got We've got? Is it John Cena,
Speaker 2: you got, Dane Devita Attorney's Unkie Herb you got John
Speaker 2: McHale was.
Speaker 3: Another one I forgot about that.
Speaker 2: Conan O'Brien is a huge get. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about Coon O'Brian in a minute, I said. Someone I'm
Speaker 2: missing though, something not Tom Hanks. Of course, that's a
Speaker 2: lot of guest stars for one episode. You didn't want
Speaker 2: to space them out a bit over the course of
Speaker 2: the season.
Speaker 3: I think when I don't want to reveal the premise
Speaker 3: of the show, but I think when you see it,
Speaker 3: you'll understand. You'll understand why it is this, why it
Speaker 3: is so jam packed with big personalities from the history
Speaker 3: of the show. Yeah, as Tom Hanks was in the
Speaker 3: Simpsons movie if you will, he was yeah, and uh,
Speaker 3: but you know it's funny. I will say this, Brendon
Speaker 3: as you as you know during part of the writer's strike,
Speaker 3: I was in Australia, New Zealand, as you know all
Speaker 3: too well, and the idea of this episode came out
Speaker 3: of cover. I have a conversation with a with a journalist,
Speaker 3: either a New Zealand or an Australian journalist who gave
Speaker 3: me the sort of accidentally gave me the idea for
Speaker 3: this episode that I don't want to.
Speaker 2: Spoil but and you don't want to credit I could.
Speaker 3: He will know who it was when it happens, and
Speaker 3: we will be able to recreate that and I can
Speaker 3: give him credit.
Speaker 2: I'm still waiting for that blue couch gag that I
Speaker 2: gave you the idea.
Speaker 3: For that idea. We're definitely so Bluey did their own
Speaker 3: version of the Simpsons intro on their own Yeah, and
Speaker 3: we want we want to do the blue couch gag.
Speaker 3: Big fancy couch gags are hardcase. Our shows are sold.
Speaker 3: We only have twenty minutes and forty seconds per episode.
Speaker 3: So it's like, if you're going to do a if
Speaker 3: Bluey Creators in Brisbane. If you're listening to this, I
Speaker 3: believe Brisbane h we ass as the most successful show
Speaker 3: on Disney Plus and we're the second most successful. We
Speaker 3: would love to do a collab as they call it,
Speaker 3: but we just haven't had the time or energy to
Speaker 3: find the great placement for it. Maybe, but there's definitely
Speaker 3: ways to do it. There's definitely ways to do it.
Speaker 2: How about Louie Simpson's short for Disney Plus?
Speaker 3: That would be cynical. I would like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I mean maybe.
Speaker 2: Competing to say who can be number one?
Speaker 3: I mean it's weird. Though shorts are funny. Their shorts
Speaker 3: are kind of fun. They their shorts are good because
Speaker 3: they introduce younger viewers to the show. Yeah, so like
Speaker 3: I kind of see them as they're like candy cigarettes
Speaker 3: you give to the kids on the playground and then
Speaker 3: to get them hooked on the real deal. Look at
Speaker 3: the nigga that is the actual show. But there's definitely candy.
Speaker 3: They're not sweet sweet nikkas.
Speaker 2: I was talking about this with Marchael Price the other
Speaker 2: day about how do you guys take mentality of when
Speaker 2: you write the show now that you're writing for kids
Speaker 2: today or you're writing for people who have always enjoyed
Speaker 2: the show. It's a bit of a combination. You have
Speaker 2: to sort of blow the lines.
Speaker 3: Well, it's definitely in our heads that we're so popular
Speaker 3: with kids, and that being on Disney Plus has become
Speaker 3: almost like a write of passage for so many I'll say,
Speaker 3: like eight to twelve year olds to like get super
Speaker 3: into the show for like a couple of years and
Speaker 3: then move on to the next craziest thing, right, but
Speaker 3: let that be part of their satirical animation education. Right.
Speaker 3: So that's so, you know, we're so proud of that
Speaker 3: role in young people's lives to do that. It's but
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say we're writing for kids. I just feel
Speaker 3: like we're writing for our for ourselves, you know, like
Speaker 3: as writers and comedy writers and citizens of the goofy
Speaker 3: world that like we just want to make ourselves laugh
Speaker 3: and know that we're telling good stories and have Jim
Speaker 3: Brooks think the stories are emotional and transformative and you know, gripping, and.
Speaker 2: He's still asking where's the emotion? Is the still least thing?
Speaker 3: Sure And We're always thinking emotion for Jim for sure,
Speaker 3: which is what all writers should also be thinking and everything.
Speaker 3: Unless you're writing something you know, just deliberately nihilistic, which
Speaker 3: is fine, but if it's sort of in any way
Speaker 3: a popular thing you're creating, it has to be emotion first,
Speaker 3: and from emotion comes comedy. From emotion comes everything else.
Speaker 2: Well, we touched on earlier Bat's birthday, so all the
Speaker 2: guest stars Conan O'Brien. Whose idea was it to bring
Speaker 2: him back? Obviously, like Michael said that, you guys contacted him.
Speaker 2: What was it like having cod because you went, you went,
Speaker 2: you went work on the showing kindon was there? Were
Speaker 2: you originally you went there for the first run?
Speaker 3: No, but I met him over these Yeah, the idea
Speaker 3: to have him in it, I don't remember who.
Speaker 2: Thought of that, Okay, But what was it like having
Speaker 2: him back in there? Though?
Speaker 3: He was super funny, he was very on, he was
Speaker 3: very like complimentary. I think he showed the script to
Speaker 3: one of his kids for to make sure it was
Speaker 3: like funny and which I thought was.
Speaker 2: Fun Yeah, it seems the treasure he's time on the show.
Speaker 3: Well, people know about it, you know, I mean the
Speaker 3: fans certainly have, like there's a I'm gonna use the
Speaker 3: word hagiography, look it up, everybody. For Conan's time here,
Speaker 3: he was He's probably only here for eighteen months or
Speaker 3: you know, twenty six months or something. Not to I'd
Speaker 3: to say he wasn't amazing, and his shows aren't. Maybe
Speaker 3: the most beloved in the history of the show, or
Speaker 3: the era when he was here is possibly deservedly the
Speaker 3: most beloved, but in the geo history of the show,
Speaker 3: it was almost a blink of the eye, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like where Grandpa me has been there for like Paleozoic,
Speaker 3: the Mesozoic, all the later weird eras people don't like
Speaker 3: how many.
Speaker 2: Years have been there now, i'd be clus to thirty now, right,
Speaker 2: twenty five ish?
Speaker 3: Oh if you started, yeah, twenty something, because I started
Speaker 3: in January ninety seven, so now twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well wait, you get me telling about your thirtieth
Speaker 2: anniversary soon. You're special, Yeah, wrap it up soon.
Speaker 3: The show people just.
Speaker 2: I honestly, I think we discussed this when you were
Speaker 2: Dan here, when we went after dinner. I just can't
Speaker 2: see The Simpsons ever ending, even if it's not in
Speaker 2: its current form. It'll it'll evolve into something. It'll never end,
Speaker 2: never end.
Speaker 3: Our dinner, it's with our dinners, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a great time, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Three places we did a click every week. Thank you Phil,
Speaker 3: all Me Brendan and Phil Rosenthal from Everybody Loves Phil.
Speaker 2: Fate, Phil Loves Raymond and somebody Faithfield. Yes, but everybody
Speaker 2: does love Phil, that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they certainly walking around with Phil in Australia and
Speaker 3: New Zealand, people love him Like I'm like, I knew
Speaker 3: he was popular, but I didn't know people would cry
Speaker 3: when they saw him on the streets. Yeah, well they
Speaker 3: were like, oh here comes the accent. Sorry people. Oh Phil.
Speaker 3: You know, my partner had spinal fusion and we watched
Speaker 3: your episodes and they got him through the healing from
Speaker 3: the spinal fusion. My partner. You guys love partners over there,
Speaker 3: which is a very old thing. Yeah, it's good. Well,
Speaker 3: who knows what the deal is just partner your partners.
Speaker 2: But this sort of their way of saying, you know,
Speaker 2: you might not be married, might not.
Speaker 3: Be this friend, you know, hanging together just seating or
Speaker 3: there were partners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have that one memory of in one restaurant
Speaker 2: and this chef came out the back and started crying,
Speaker 2: and I thought, wow, wait, this guy is serious.
Speaker 3: Figure because he's so positive and he's about exploring and
Speaker 3: being open and you know, celebrating and getting to know
Speaker 3: people and not you know, dividing and being gross and
Speaker 3: you know, people everyone. He's not a snob either. He's
Speaker 3: like some food snob. He's like a regular guy who
Speaker 3: likes hot dogs at snap. You know. He's not like
Speaker 3: he likes, you know, a really good pastrami sandwich. He's
Speaker 3: not a you know, molecular astronomy food east. He doesn't
Speaker 3: have foody snob energy, you know, even though he loves
Speaker 3: food and I mean travel is definitely traveling with him
Speaker 3: with one of the great things. I mean what happened
Speaker 3: was during the writer's strike, I Phil had a speaking
Speaker 3: tour in Australia and New Zealand and I was like
Speaker 3: his one man Elvis entourage, very privileged role. And usually
Speaker 3: when I travel with my family, I'm the one looking
Speaker 3: at my phone like, Okay, we can't waste a meal.
Speaker 3: We have to eat at the best places. We have
Speaker 3: to eat the most interesting places and most beloved places
Speaker 3: of the you know the most essential places, Like what
Speaker 3: we can't we just go to some random, you know,
Speaker 3: boring tourist restaurant. We've We're never coming back here. We
Speaker 3: can't waste it. I'm not fun to travel with so
Speaker 3: but on this trip, Phil is that guy. He's the
Speaker 3: one more worried than me about like we have to
Speaker 3: find the best, most cool places. So I just sit
Speaker 3: back and enjoy the ride. It was possibly no offense
Speaker 3: to my family. Best vacation in my life. Family.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they understand.
Speaker 3: I'm surely you're great.
Speaker 2: Families are good at times, but you know, sometimes sometimes
Speaker 2: with Phil resent family, Phil resental.
Speaker 3: Emotionally heightened dynamic. It in many different ways that as
Speaker 3: you know, and with Phil Rosenthal was just like where's
Speaker 3: the best meat part? Like that was the only dynamic.
Speaker 2: The thing is, you didn't tell me it was Phil.
Speaker 2: I didn't clue in because you just sent me a
Speaker 2: text he said, do you mind if my friend Phil
Speaker 2: comes as well? But then I was like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: I didn't care. I want to bring whatever friend you want.
Speaker 3: I did a surprise on you.
Speaker 2: You did and I got there and I walked into
Speaker 2: the hotel and I see you standing there, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, it's that Phil's.
Speaker 3: I'm so blase with my famous friends.
Speaker 2: I honestly, and for about five minutes, I'm just thinking,
Speaker 2: holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
Speaker 3: But he's such a great guy. He we just hung
Speaker 3: out with everybody. You know, done that trip. He's turned them.
Speaker 3: It's so hot here.
Speaker 2: Well you are, Yeah, I'm there.
Speaker 3: That's better. But that was that was one of the
Speaker 3: most fun times in my life.
Speaker 2: That well, I remember just being last thing over when
Speaker 2: on my way home, I misses my wife and I said,
Speaker 2: he's one of those people where you just you're glad
Speaker 2: sometimes the good guys win. You know, Phil, lovely guy,
Speaker 2: rich is anything. He's just successful and you just you're
Speaker 2: glad that he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just you know, so we this we did
Speaker 3: like a pub crawl, right, or a bar food crawl.
Speaker 3: We went to three different bars and ordered like five
Speaker 3: things at each one of these their favorite little snackies.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was we ate so much. We covered
Speaker 3: that was this is Melbourne. Yeah, and uh we we
Speaker 3: covered a lot of food territory in one night.
Speaker 2: We did. We did, indeed, Yeah, great time. The first
Speaker 2: time I ever ate Sea Urchin.
Speaker 3: Right. But now you're addicted.
Speaker 2: Yes, now, it's great if I could afford it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a crippling financial problem for your fad my
Speaker 3: podcast money on tongues of urchin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, delicious. But the bot's birthday. So you get all
Speaker 2: the guestars there, I'm assuming throughout the season you got
Speaker 2: plenty of the guestars that we haven't announced yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Who are they? Well, Susie Esmond from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yeah,
Speaker 3: who's plays Susie Green on the show and is always
Speaker 3: screaming at Larry.
Speaker 2: That's she's a she's in a show you need to
Speaker 2: get Larry on.
Speaker 3: Well, you have an idea, you have an idea. They
Speaker 3: know we have an idea.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, then that's all we need, an idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I won't be surprised if he said no, but
Speaker 3: we do haven't a good idea. Andy Serkis came back.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. He's got that trilogy episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, another the Brave Bradbury Trilogy and he plays a
Speaker 3: couple of parts in that MM And you know now
Speaker 3: he's directing the new Gollumn movie, which I also hope
Speaker 3: they know what they're doing with that because I'll definitely
Speaker 3: watch it, see what they do. It's wife and kids
Speaker 3: maybe I don't know, get a family that we never
Speaker 3: knew about and they died.
Speaker 2: Or that annoying middle class family.
Speaker 3: He was married to, like a nice hobbit lady and
Speaker 3: two half column kids.
Speaker 2: And would it be a good father that do you think? No?
Speaker 3: I jored lended in Middleshire divorce.
Speaker 2: I want to touch on good ideas. You know what
Speaker 2: I thought was a good idea, that ninety show. We
Speaker 2: would read that this week? Right, there we go and
Speaker 2: here we are so many people I've read I didn't
Speaker 2: hated it, right and n I watched it this week
Speaker 2: and we went, what do you do? What are you
Speaker 2: talking about? This was just so much fun.
Speaker 3: Well, it speaks to the emotional connection people have with
Speaker 3: the with the flashback romance episodes, right that people love
Speaker 3: the the way we was and you know, the like
Speaker 3: I Married Marge and all the flashback Marge Homer romance
Speaker 3: shows from the classic years, with which were so kind
Speaker 3: of groundbreaking in their time because they did like culturally
Speaker 3: specific you know, the b Sharps episode right.
Speaker 2: Which which I had comparisons with this one. I wanted
Speaker 2: to bring that up because I watched this going You
Speaker 2: watch Homer's Barbershop court Tet and you can enjoy the episode,
Speaker 2: but if you're a Beatles fan, you enjoy it more.
Speaker 2: This ninety show you can enjoy it, but if you're
Speaker 2: a Navana fan, you enjoy it more for sure.
Speaker 3: And you know, I just I just I just rewatched
Speaker 3: it before just now to refresh my memory. And it
Speaker 3: was fun. It was a fun rewatch, and there definitely
Speaker 3: was a ton of stuff I'd forgotten and ah, but
Speaker 3: it really was me wanting to write a flashback romance
Speaker 3: show like I was jealous of, Like you know, the
Speaker 3: one where he and Marge go to see Empire strikes Back,
Speaker 3: and you know, he ruins it for everybody, right, and
Speaker 3: you know, the when as a Simpsons fan, you and
Speaker 3: they were doing the shows that came out in the
Speaker 3: nine and they were doing eighties jokes. You know, that
Speaker 3: was kind of a revolutionary idea. And it seems like
Speaker 3: so many people have ripped it off now, right, including
Speaker 3: us ripping off ourselves. But you know, that was very
Speaker 3: you know, a big idea that one of the reasons
Speaker 3: people really connected to the show is something super original
Speaker 3: in like the first generation of Simpsons fans, right, and
Speaker 3: those shows are really also have great emotion and great
Speaker 3: tenderness and all, but they're also you know, jam packed
Speaker 3: with retro cultural observations with you know, the irony of
Speaker 3: what happened later mixed in. And so I was definitely
Speaker 3: watching this. I was like, oh, I was jealous of that.
Speaker 3: I wanted to do one. So I did one. And
Speaker 3: but you know, the reason people hate this episode so
Speaker 3: deeply they write it off completely. Which write it off
Speaker 3: people the residual calculator doesn't know that you've written it off.
Speaker 3: The money still comes in is because they feel it's
Speaker 3: it's it's this term retcon, right, a retroactive continuity, you know, overlap,
Speaker 3: which yeah, and I don't want to found defensive, but
Speaker 3: I will. It was Nave our intent to retcon the
Speaker 3: other flashback romance cultural episodes, of which this is a
Speaker 3: love letter to. Speaking of romance, this is a love
Speaker 3: letter to those episodes, and like, we were actually very
Speaker 3: cautious not to duplicate or contradict anything that happened in
Speaker 3: the flashback episodes that took place in the late seventies
Speaker 3: and early eighties and what have you. That people so
Speaker 3: emotionally have connected to like perhaps the only contradiction, having
Speaker 3: just watched it, that I can think of that's like
Speaker 3: hard contradiction is the like the way into the mini
Speaker 3: golf in pregnancy, right, thought.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you about that. Was that your
Speaker 2: sort of was it in homage to the divisionals or
Speaker 2: is that your way of trying to make it seem
Speaker 2: like it's still part of the same universe.
Speaker 3: I guess we were trying to dovetail it. If I
Speaker 3: were to do it again, I would have maybe made
Speaker 3: it match more exactly so that like in a way,
Speaker 3: the both timelines could have led to the exact same
Speaker 3: mini golf castle clothing dialogue like that. I you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know how close it is to what the
Speaker 3: first mini golf scene, whether there's a joke Marge, maybe
Speaker 3: this is the champage talking, right, is that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it's definitely that's okay, guilty as charge. That's that's
Speaker 3: the Reccon element. But in no way were we trying
Speaker 3: to say this is the new thing. Is this is
Speaker 3: not Marvel, who also have clearly thrown their hands up
Speaker 3: with continuity with Deadpool and Wolverine, where the thing is
Speaker 3: just like e fit, this is all insane. Multiverses are insane,
Speaker 3: they never make sense. Just let's have fun with it, right,
Speaker 3: Marvel is saying that let alone the Simpsons, for whom
Speaker 3: deliberate contradiction and absurdity and silliness is in the DNA
Speaker 3: of the show is evidenced by like the most beloved
Speaker 3: joke from the well deserved Glory Years of like Homer
Speaker 3: saying it's a cartoon. Cartoons don't have to make sense.
Speaker 3: In another Homer walks by out the window, right, like
Speaker 3: that's why you love the show fans, that kind of
Speaker 3: joke of like messing around and being silly with continuity
Speaker 3: and not taking yourself too seriously. So there is there is,
Speaker 3: as Lisa noticed, God, I'm really going off here, aren't
Speaker 3: I good? As Lisa notices in that that nineties show episode,
Speaker 3: there is a time window that was never addressed in
Speaker 3: the DNA of the canon of the show, which is
Speaker 3: Homer and marg are in their late thirties, Bart is ten,
Speaker 3: yet they met in high school. There's like a huge
Speaker 3: amount of unaccounted for a time there, like a giant,
Speaker 3: a massive chunk of time. So this all could have happened,
Speaker 3: not in the nineties because The Simpsons was on in
Speaker 3: the nineties. But again, if you want to do flashback
Speaker 3: episodes about characters that are have a thirty five year
Speaker 3: lifespan where they haven't gotten any older, you either have
Speaker 3: to have the flashbacks take place in a different time,
Speaker 3: or you have to just have all the flashbacks lock
Speaker 3: into a decade that was so far in the past.
Speaker 3: Of neither version makes sense. There's either going to be
Speaker 3: contradictions and goofiness, or there's going to be, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: a sort of unsatisfying repetition of seventies bullshit, which we
Speaker 3: or just don't do flashback episodes at all.
Speaker 2: Which wouldn't mean anything to kids watching the show in
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven seven slashbacks.
Speaker 3: No, I mean to them. I mean even that timeline
Speaker 3: in the Marvel Universe way of thinking of things, even
Speaker 3: that timeline doesn't add up anymore, right, I mean, in
Speaker 3: this one current timeline, Maggie was born in twenty twenty three, yeah,
Speaker 3: something that, Yeah, was born in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we could do with that two thousand show about
Speaker 3: more unaccounted.
Speaker 2: Please do that.
Speaker 3: I'm in that would sort of would that makes sense
Speaker 3: decade wise, maybe.
Speaker 2: We were you surprised by the response of gut originally, Well, I.
Speaker 3: Not not surprised, but I was. You know, it makes
Speaker 3: people feel good sometimes that Blake have a strong reaction
Speaker 3: because they care about something so like I mean, they
Speaker 3: wouldn't describe the feeling as good, but to me, it's
Speaker 3: a powerful reaction, and that's always better than apathy. I
Speaker 3: think it's a little bit lazy or kind of first
Speaker 3: thought to say again it's a retcon when we really
Speaker 3: tried to say this is a playful, you know, joy
Speaker 3: ride with the Simpsons continuity that was clearly not trying
Speaker 3: to change what specifically happened in the classic flashback cultural
Speaker 3: romance episodes. So by this hundreds you know, people just
Speaker 3: love to think the first thing that comes into their
Speaker 3: mind and think, oh, that's I'm going to lock in
Speaker 3: on that for the rest of my life. The first thought,
Speaker 3: lock it in, Just lock in on the first thought.
Speaker 3: So that's okay. But then, you know, I watched it
Speaker 3: and I felt just now that we really did earn
Speaker 3: our love letter credential to those beloved types of flashback
Speaker 3: cultural episodes. In that tons of jokes about the nineties,
Speaker 3: tons of music, tons of culture, tons of costumes and
Speaker 3: haircuts and TV shows and trends. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 3: as dense as any of these things. And I thought
Speaker 3: it with a section of a couple jokes they didn't
Speaker 3: love anymore, I thought it really held up. And the
Speaker 3: animation is really good. It's that great kind of late
Speaker 3: right before we went digital and everything so to look
Speaker 3: cold and ugly.
Speaker 2: Who made that decision back changing the animation? Me?
Speaker 3: Ah, it might have been just we were feeling out
Speaker 3: the technology at the time and then it kind of
Speaker 3: got away from us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But but but the episode, though, it does it
Speaker 2: looks great as you were saying.
Speaker 3: It's great, and the actor directing is great, and there's
Speaker 3: that thing at the end of it where like he's
Speaker 3: like Professor Moose pounds him into the set. I mean,
Speaker 3: that is silly. That is silly, But there's a little
Speaker 3: that I don't do stuff that goofy in myself these days,
Speaker 3: but it you know, it's it's it's silly. It was good.
Speaker 2: I we talked about that moment and we sort of
Speaker 2: said that you had you and Guy and I, yeah,
Speaker 2: we could be review you and me and I forgot
Speaker 2: Guy and I and that moment there, like whilst it's goofy,
Speaker 2: I was saying, the guy has been such a douchebag
Speaker 2: for the entire episode that you just want to see
Speaker 2: him get some come up. And and it's an animation,
Speaker 2: so it's goofball comedy, and I don't think.
Speaker 3: It like it didn't really stick out as a sore
Speaker 3: thumb in an episode that is so many crazy. I mean,
Speaker 3: I really liked the rock star who hates being a
Speaker 3: rock star, you know, heroin grunge chic that was I
Speaker 3: thought that really held up pretty nicely and all those
Speaker 3: that kind of Kobaine stuff because I was I myself
Speaker 3: like much like Mike recent Algeen, like iconic Simpsons writers
Speaker 3: you know who were running the show for these classic
Speaker 3: flashback cultural romance episodes. They were in high school in
Speaker 3: the seventies and college in the early eighties. You know,
Speaker 3: I was in high school in the eighties and college
Speaker 3: in the early nineties, so like this was a little
Speaker 3: bit of my college experience, a little bit my alma mater,
Speaker 3: the University of Pennsylvania, which there is a little easter eggs,
Speaker 3: the bit of famous Klaus Oldenberg statue of a broken
Speaker 3: large broken button which we snuck into the background of
Speaker 3: the campus there. You know, it was a little bit
Speaker 3: of that kind of being introduced to cultural revisionism, which
Speaker 3: now seems to be a big hot button cultural fascism
Speaker 3: issue that people can't sort of accept that we can
Speaker 3: ever say anything bad about the people who built what
Speaker 3: we have, which not that they were all bad, but
Speaker 3: you know, there's just like two sides of it, right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But now watching it, I felt like this sort of
Speaker 3: reinforced at various reactionary hateful thought.
Speaker 2: I do feel that that alone, the episode didn't feel
Speaker 2: dated because of that, because it just still feels like
Speaker 2: that's what happens today. It's crazy, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's you know, I guess personally, I feel
Speaker 3: that there has to be some kind of middle ground
Speaker 3: between the Founding Fathers or Mountain monsters and the Founding
Speaker 3: Fathers were heroes, you know what I mean, only heroes,
Speaker 3: only monsters. Like they were poor, they were you know,
Speaker 3: products of their time. They could have been a lot worse,
Speaker 3: and they much in other countries were much much worse.
Speaker 3: But you know, to acknowledge their the things they did
Speaker 3: that caused you know, big problems that we still haven't
Speaker 3: really dealt with like slavery. You know, you have to
Speaker 3: acknowledge that too. There's got to be a way. Oh
Speaker 3: but there isn't. Oh there isn't. Oh there's no way.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, Well, where's the eraser.
Speaker 3: Burn burn half the textbooks?
Speaker 2: I thought you brought up the product of us time
Speaker 2: there because we review some of these season eighteen nineteen episodes.
Speaker 2: That's what we're up to now season nineteen obviously, and
Speaker 2: there's some jokes here where you go, this wouldn't fly now,
Speaker 2: but you know what, this was two thousand and seven
Speaker 2: and it flew then. It's just a product of its time.
Speaker 3: But there was nothing that I was like, super that
Speaker 3: I thought was super dated.
Speaker 2: In this in this episode in season nineteen. There's been
Speaker 2: some jokes, yeah, yeah, this episode. Nothing in this episode
Speaker 2: that sort of caught me off guard. I thought it
Speaker 2: was just more non dated than anything.
Speaker 3: I love the Professor guy. He's such an annoying version
Speaker 3: of that guy. I actually had a little Easter egg
Speaker 3: for your fans. So remember the trilogy episode Trilogy of Error,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite episodes eight thank You, and so
Speaker 3: that was based on the movie Go written by friend
Speaker 3: of mine who's a screenwriter's guy, John August. So we
Speaker 3: named Professor Stefan August. I did after John August, although
Speaker 3: both pretty woke, those guys. But John is bald for
Speaker 3: one thing. There doesn't have beautiful hair, and he's not
Speaker 3: and he's in no way annoying, so that's also different.
Speaker 2: Did you have a Telli in that?
Speaker 3: I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Do you finally do that often where you sort of
Speaker 2: base things on people in real life and you just
Speaker 2: never get a man to tell him that's that's based
Speaker 2: on you, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Or like it'll be based on a little funny thing
Speaker 3: from their life or the name of their cat or something,
Speaker 3: and then you then you just forgot, you know, you
Speaker 3: never told them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they never knew. I wanted to ask Madge here, right,
Speaker 2: there's a moment where they're on the ika beds and
Speaker 2: she says, I don't want to have sex before marriage.
Speaker 2: Did you put that in there so that viewers wouldn't
Speaker 2: assume she was sleeping with the Professor?
Speaker 3: Well, when she's with Homer. He thought it was important.
Speaker 3: Again in terms of the Cannon Beloved canon, is we
Speaker 3: Marge was a virgin when she slept with Homer. And
Speaker 3: got himpregnant with Bart. That's I believe that is that
Speaker 3: is locked in. So like, like even the scene where
Speaker 3: she was making out with the professor, which I just
Speaker 3: was watching, I'm like hoping it didn't go much further.
Speaker 3: I mean, it ends with them having a little smooch
Speaker 3: sash right, Yeah, yeah, I'm hoping that was just it.
Speaker 3: I mean, he granted he had to ask for permission
Speaker 3: for every step of the way, so that was again,
Speaker 3: consent is important people, But so I'm hoping it just
Speaker 3: was a little smooch.
Speaker 2: I do feel that Marge came across more poorly than
Speaker 2: Homer in this episode. I will say that I just
Speaker 2: think that she gave Homer. The canon story of the
Speaker 2: Simpsons is that Homer held Marge back, right and all
Speaker 2: this that. Now, he did have a big angry response
Speaker 2: to her getting into college, but then he says, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm going to get a job at a
Speaker 2: job that I hate to pay for your education, and
Speaker 2: then she leaves them for the professor.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, you know, but that's that's like a real storey.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Definitely she is like immature, yeah right, and having a
Speaker 3: kind of confusing self discovery with doing with her, with
Speaker 3: her and her own evolution being more important than you know,
Speaker 3: a real relationship, which is a real thing that happens
Speaker 3: all the time, right that someone goes leaves their small
Speaker 3: town and sees the big city and then like, I've changed,
Speaker 3: you know, and even if the small town people were
Speaker 3: supporting them along the way, they feel like they're a
Speaker 3: different person now. But then it's you know, so, I mean,
Speaker 3: I like episodes where Marge is flawed, you know, I
Speaker 3: think those are. We've done a lot. I can't remember
Speaker 3: any of them, but we've definitely done a lot where
Speaker 3: she is flawed, and is because it's because she's such
Speaker 3: a good person and we know she wants unlike Homer
Speaker 3: per se, she tries to be a good person and
Speaker 3: her self image of herself and her image in the
Speaker 3: town is that of someone who's really nice and doesn't
Speaker 3: make enemies and isn't rude or have temper tantrums unlike
Speaker 3: her terror. And also she's married to someone that is
Speaker 3: such a destructive vortex of problem problematic behavior that like,
Speaker 3: on some level she sort of enjoys being the superior one, right,
Speaker 3: but Marge, you know, screwing up and being selfish or
Speaker 3: being greedy or that those kinds of stories and having
Speaker 3: her realize that it is usually a pretty satisfying journey.
Speaker 2: But with this episode here, what was the vibe you
Speaker 2: were going for with it? Because I was getting, for
Speaker 2: some reason in the nineteen ninety seven kit coming into
Speaker 2: my head, nineteen ninety seventeen comedy love story kind of vibe.
Speaker 2: That's what I was getting from it. What were you
Speaker 2: going for?
Speaker 3: Well, I just sort of wanted to do my own
Speaker 3: nineties version of one of those classic shows, and you
Speaker 3: know there were there isn't and then I just wanted
Speaker 3: to use all the cultural tropes of that era to
Speaker 3: tell the story and just to jam in as many
Speaker 3: things as I could. There wasn't. Like I mean, there
Speaker 3: was this movie that came out in the nineties that
Speaker 3: was called PCU that I I don't think I ever saw,
Speaker 3: but was sort of about you know, liberal colleges in
Speaker 3: America in the early nineties, and so that was not
Speaker 3: really direct inspiration, but it was sort of a thing.
Speaker 2: And I was getting give me the film Loser from
Speaker 2: two thousand, I was getting that kind of vibe as well,
Speaker 2: because it was the it's main that she's sort of
Speaker 2: having a relationship with the professor. So I sort of
Speaker 2: saying that came out in two thousand, but it's still
Speaker 2: kind of that era as well.
Speaker 3: Also that movie like Okay, there's kicking and Screaming, which
Speaker 3: I think is early what's his Face? Noah Bombbac movie,
Speaker 3: which is about people in college and you know, but
Speaker 3: there's also the thing in Animal House, you know, where
Speaker 3: the guy's girlfriend is sleeping with the professor, and that's
Speaker 3: like a classic you know, sort of love story dynamic
Speaker 3: of the kind of that particular story hasn't aged well
Speaker 3: from Animal House, unlike every other joke in that movie,
Speaker 3: which is aged like fine wine. But you know, it
Speaker 3: was funny, like as whatever. Gen X. That's the generation
Speaker 3: I am where we didn't really have so much like
Speaker 3: a big movie that was like our cultural movie, like
Speaker 3: say for the sixties, it would be Born to be Wild.
Speaker 3: What's the one with the stupid the guy on the motorcycle?
Speaker 2: Do you mean as Rider?
Speaker 3: Easy Rider? There it is Grandpa ex Grampa forgets everything. Ah,
Speaker 3: you know, Easy Rider And movies like and sort of
Speaker 3: Bonnie and Clyde, which also was not even was a
Speaker 3: period piece, but that was at a seminal counterculture film
Speaker 3: in its way, and many others, I'm sure, but like
Speaker 3: like there was Reality Bites right with flackers in it, that.
Speaker 2: Was that that's very similar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there were romantic comedies with like edges
Speaker 3: of that, but none of those movies were like transformative
Speaker 3: or you know, unbelievably memorable. I mean people like them,
Speaker 3: but but does gen X nineties cultural You know, grunge
Speaker 3: coffee bar Irony Douglas Copeland, who's a novelist who wrote
Speaker 3: books about that McJob. You know, kind of latchkey kids
Speaker 3: who were sort of over educated and undermotivated was the
Speaker 3: kind of and cynical and sarcastic was the and like
Speaker 3: not like nihilistic music that was like a well that
Speaker 3: was I mean to say, those song lyrics just listening
Speaker 3: to them again, those like grunge hating grunge lyrics are
Speaker 3: so I'm sorry there, they just make me laugh.
Speaker 2: Were you and Nevada fan?
Speaker 3: Well, everyone was a Nirvana fan, And certainly Kurt Cobain
Speaker 3: dying was like a kind of John Lennon dying, Elvis dying.
Speaker 3: There were you moment for sure for people my age,
Speaker 3: and but like writing those those lyrics of like just
Speaker 3: kind of ridiculous rebellion against nothing in boredom are really funny,
Speaker 3: and I certainly.
Speaker 2: Love did you want the songs?
Speaker 3: I did write? Yeah, I wrote, The room wrote them,
Speaker 3: and I wrote, but I definitely wrote a lot of
Speaker 3: them myself. I love. The worst lyric ever written is
Speaker 3: what is it like tears from my eyes?
Speaker 2: Are you kissed or something?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, no, that's it's that's It's like I'm talking
Speaker 3: about tears, like watery tears, like rain from my eyes,
Speaker 3: like the worst most least imaginative metaphor the history of songwriting,
Speaker 3: as like rain from my eyes as tears is so
Speaker 3: beautifully unimaginative. I just I adore it. So if that
Speaker 3: means I had to blow up Simpson's continuity forever and
Speaker 3: erase the past like we wanted to do with this
Speaker 3: catful retcon, it was worth it for that awful, deliberately
Speaker 3: awful lyric.
Speaker 2: We watched this right, and I thought, we've been we're
Speaker 2: watching them in order, right, so we're watching season nineteen
Speaker 2: all through order. We've had episodes where things don't feel
Speaker 2: that they can I thought, in the first two minutes
Speaker 2: of this episode, it was pretty well established that this
Speaker 2: isn't going to be canon, this is just gonna be
Speaker 2: a bit of fun for twenty two minutes. That was
Speaker 2: my thoughts for it. Well, I don't I don't understand
Speaker 2: why people got so up and about about it.
Speaker 3: It's just we were just having fun with the paradox.
Speaker 3: It was fun with the paradox.
Speaker 2: I thought it was cool seeing the Simpsons in an
Speaker 2: era where they were the pop culture icon of the time,
Speaker 2: but watching these characters live through that era but they'll
Speaker 2: actually be the pop culture icon of the time. That
Speaker 2: makes it.
Speaker 3: Even mentioned in the show that a struggling Matt Greening
Speaker 3: created Futurama. So yes, I guess in that multiverse Strand
Speaker 3: there was no Simpsons, but there was a Mac and
Speaker 3: he only created Futurama. And then Brendan in another episode
Speaker 3: we did later called do Pizza Bat's Dream of Electric
Speaker 3: Guitars from season something like in the last four or
Speaker 3: five years.
Speaker 2: Is that the one Michael Price wrote about the Yes, yep,
Speaker 2: we talked about it the other day.
Speaker 3: That took place to flashback sort of act one of
Speaker 3: that place in the in the nineties. But then Homer
Speaker 3: in that one, Homer is like a young teenager in
Speaker 3: the third of the same era as that nineties show,
Speaker 3: and so but yet so he's working at the pizza
Speaker 3: place with the animals, the Chuck E Cheese type place,
Speaker 3: and one of the kids in the audience is wearing
Speaker 3: a classic nineties Bart Simpson T shirt. Yeah, we just again,
Speaker 3: that's that's part of the DNA of the show is
Speaker 3: deliberate contradiction, deliberate paradox. Don't take this too seriously.
Speaker 2: Do you think companies changed now to the point where
Speaker 2: that ninety show came out in season thirty six wouldn't
Speaker 2: like a clown? But do you think people would be
Speaker 2: as bothered with it?
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think so, because now so many
Speaker 3: crazy things have happened, and yeah, I mean so many.
Speaker 3: Rick and Morty had been a post Rick and Morty
Speaker 3: world where like every explosion of genre and and nihilistic
Speaker 3: shredification of pop culture has happened to such a relentless
Speaker 3: degree in all these kind of really smart, weird cable cartoons,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't seem as sort of weird to people now.
Speaker 2: I feel that that two thousand show is something we
Speaker 2: should definitely consider. Are going to go well, But.
Speaker 3: Should we see to be with single margin, single Homer.
Speaker 2: That be a reality show, right, yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Could be a whole thing. An episode. Well we did another, yeah,
Speaker 3: but another one I wrote maybe the last. The last
Speaker 3: one I actually wrote was the one was another. It
Speaker 3: was sort of took place in that same era. Haters
Speaker 3: and lovers of that nineties show, which is the show
Speaker 3: The Clowns Days in the picture where young Marge and
Speaker 3: young Homer are PA's on a nineties blockbuster in Mexico
Speaker 3: directed by Krusty. This one, Oh my god, Oh this
Speaker 3: is this is a great I mean, so there, it's
Speaker 3: the same thing. It's young Homer and Marge in their relationship,
Speaker 3: but they're working as PA's on a nineties tight in
Speaker 3: the green the era of nineties high concept movies on
Speaker 3: a kind of crazy space movie directed by Krusty in Mexico.
Speaker 3: And I really love that episode supremely much as well.
Speaker 3: And it has many jokes about the nineties and the
Speaker 3: era of the kind of the big log line high
Speaker 3: concept movie like nuns who are ninjas? Nin nanjas? You
Speaker 3: know when they don't make movies like that anymore, right.
Speaker 2: Right, all come up, But movies are all serious as well, well,
Speaker 2: the Batman movies are serious. I does want fun again.
Speaker 3: Well, it's weird because like Wolverine and Deadpool is like
Speaker 3: unbelievably fun and as many jokes as as like Airplane.
Speaker 3: I mean not the same types of jokes, but it
Speaker 3: is every scene with exception of like the big feeling
Speaker 3: scenes are as jammed with comedy and craziness and visuals
Speaker 3: and explosions and slapstick and him saying crazy weird things
Speaker 3: as any comedy you would ever see. Right, Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it's people don't make just comedies. That has to be
Speaker 3: another genre or Barbie, which also is as dense with
Speaker 3: jokes as a Simpsons episode and as many Simpson style
Speaker 3: jokes in it, which all people loved and they laughed
Speaker 3: through the whole thing, And yet people are afraid to
Speaker 3: make just comedies. You know, it has to be another
Speaker 3: thing that's also with Simpson's level comedy density inside it.
Speaker 2: Well, we ate a Simpson's sequel, then hurry.
Speaker 3: Yup working on it.
Speaker 2: So so if they came to you tomorrow, I said, guys,
Speaker 2: we want a saquel. Do you think you've got the
Speaker 2: idea that ready to go? Not not fully flashed out,
Speaker 2: but we've got a pretty good sense of what we
Speaker 2: want first sequel. If it was required, I.
Speaker 3: Think we could do it. I just would want it
Speaker 3: to be I wouldn't want it to be a story
Speaker 3: that was trying to outmovie the last movie. I would
Speaker 3: rather just have to be a great family story that
Speaker 3: was rich enough to sustain for seventy six minutes or
Speaker 3: eighty two minutes or however long animated movies are.
Speaker 2: It's probably gonna be plus exclusive, right if they do it,
Speaker 2: what do you think they have to go to the cinema?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, animated movies are very popular.
Speaker 3: They're having a huge resurgence, right, Yeah, with movies that
Speaker 3: people have nostalgia for, like Inside Out, Like okay, a
Speaker 3: lot of maybe there's nostalgia there, I know, just a
Speaker 3: big it's a high level conversation. But I would just
Speaker 3: say to me, it's like, let's not do the Simpsons
Speaker 3: multiverse movie. Let's just do a great family story about
Speaker 3: the characters that is worthy of holding your filmmake attention
Speaker 3: for seventy two minutes.
Speaker 2: I feel like the taste of trailer would just have
Speaker 2: to be nothing. Then all of a sudden, the monoail
Speaker 2: goes by and it's like Monterreel, You'll sell a million tickets.
Speaker 3: Maybe not, because in the one experience from the first
Speaker 3: movie was there aren't so many super fans that would
Speaker 3: actually make the movie a hit. You know, it has to.
Speaker 2: You don't think.
Speaker 3: It's it's there are There are a lot of people
Speaker 3: who are familiar with the sh show, but the number
Speaker 3: of like crazy super fans, I'm not sure. I think
Speaker 3: it has to be something that you would almost write
Speaker 3: it as if they haven't watched The Simpsons. They don't
Speaker 3: watch the Simpsons religiously, and this is something we have
Speaker 3: to really engage them with as if this was not
Speaker 3: we can't coast or even on the success of the franchise.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of jokes in the first movie
Speaker 3: about trying to coast on it, and a lot of
Speaker 3: those didn't even score that well, you know. And so
Speaker 3: like when Homer says, haha, you know you're watching a movie,
Speaker 3: he's watching the Chains Stack. Yeah says ha ha, You're
Speaker 3: paying to watch something you get for free at home,
Speaker 3: Like that'ss met our joke, right, YEA, yeah, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: want to do that anymore. I would just want to like,
Speaker 3: is this story funny, emotional gripping, you know, edge of
Speaker 3: your seat, hug your kids kind of a story. And
Speaker 3: guess it should be silly and have Simpsons dock comedy,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't have to like reinvent meta relationship with
Speaker 3: audiences and because so much of that has happened already.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was the novelty of the first one.
Speaker 2: It was it was the first movie, so that that
Speaker 2: worked for that one.
Speaker 3: Like, I would just want this to be a classical
Speaker 3: movie storytelling with great characters and great comedy and great
Speaker 3: visuals and maybe some more songs. Maybe more songs, who knows.
Speaker 2: That's one thing I thought that the first one missed
Speaker 2: was the song and Dances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what's a big song that was cut from
Speaker 3: the first movie. Shit, it was in the beginning of
Speaker 3: the movie. It was called Springfield Saturday Night, Everybody go Berserk,
Speaker 3: and it was kind of about everyone in Springfield partying
Speaker 3: and trashing the town on.
Speaker 2: The blue rays. All the David A's is that I
Speaker 2: don't know, Okay.
Speaker 3: Maybe this is breaking news, but you know, it really
Speaker 3: slowed it down. It was a great song, It just
Speaker 3: kind of slowed it down. You wanted to get to
Speaker 3: the You don't want your act one to be you
Speaker 3: want the movie to be two thirds act one because
Speaker 3: they're still going to Alaska. There's a dome, there's mutants,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of stuff happening in there.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been fun chatting to you, miss the mesself.
Speaker 2: I was sitting there. There's really appreciate and you getting
Speaker 2: that you gravances about that Naughety show and it all
Speaker 2: makes sense to me.
Speaker 3: It's like, I know I sound defensive and annoyed, but like,
Speaker 3: it's just I don't totally understand why people want to
Speaker 3: think it's a retcon when it's not. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: just watching that show. I'm just like, some of my
Speaker 3: favorite jokes we ever did are in that show. Which
Speaker 3: are which?
Speaker 2: Which ones?
Speaker 3: Which are that? The The acronym acronym for rising nilis
Speaker 3: grunge Ennery, so grunge is in its own acronym and
Speaker 3: speaking of paradoxes, right, So that to me, it's like
Speaker 3: I don't think i'd ever seen I think we're the
Speaker 3: first person knew that joke of acronym with word of
Speaker 3: acronym in acronym, right. And then I love the Marvin
Speaker 3: Cobaine Back of the Future reference.
Speaker 2: That was fun.
Speaker 3: I love that we brought weird out classic weird al
Speaker 3: after having modern weird al in an earlier show. We
Speaker 3: brought classic nineties classes Hawaiian shirt weird al back. You know,
Speaker 3: I think it even better parody of a parody of
Speaker 3: an original song caled brain Freeze, which I think is
Speaker 3: a very weird al type of comedy idea that he
Speaker 3: he would think is funny. We got Kurt Loader, right,
Speaker 3: actual Kurt Loader.
Speaker 2: I mean, who is reporting from the nineties.
Speaker 3: Nineties is Kurt Loader? You know? Seinfeld and like that
Speaker 3: was cool.
Speaker 2: Guy was just like, I don't know, because I know
Speaker 2: he thought it was on the nose with me. I
Speaker 2: really loved just hearing that Seinfeld theme in the Simpsons universe.
Speaker 3: The music clearance for this episode must have been crazy.
Speaker 2: Oh the song choices you chose closing closing time unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So I guess we had to pay the Rolling Stones
Speaker 3: for that. I mean the lawsuit that they stole that song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we talked about that in the review. It's like, poor,
Speaker 2: poor it. What's them? Brandon the singer right? Richard Richard
Speaker 2: Ashtroft Dashtroft. Yes, yeah, but the thing is, though, it's
Speaker 2: just the song choices you chose for the episode were fantastic.
Speaker 2: Whenever you hear whenever you hear closing Time, you immediately
Speaker 2: had taken back to the nineties.
Speaker 3: And the parodies also are yea terrifyingly those to the originals.
Speaker 3: I don't know that happened, but they're on TV. And uh,
Speaker 3: then the like you know, at the end, we took
Speaker 3: a shot at George W. Bush. Oh, they'll never be
Speaker 3: a worse president than Clinton, and then there was one
Speaker 3: a thousand times worse than George W. Bush. Here's one
Speaker 3: of your Simpsons predictions for you.
Speaker 2: Oh god, let's loo get into predictions. I saw that
Speaker 2: you were a bit shitty about people saying, hey, they
Speaker 2: predicted that the symphony, orchestra and cyperceed. It's like, it's
Speaker 2: not a prediction that they just copy.
Speaker 3: If they love it and they replicate it, that's like
Speaker 3: a that's like an homage. I believe work for it.
Speaker 3: Oh my, I noticed that, Like that joke about the
Speaker 3: annoying professor won't put a book on his shelf unless
Speaker 3: he's read it, I also won't do that. Really, I'm
Speaker 3: a pedantic, unbearable snob.
Speaker 2: So you leave it there until it's been read and
Speaker 2: then they can go away.
Speaker 3: No, no, no opposite. I don't put it on the
Speaker 3: shelf until I've read it, and then it goes on
Speaker 3: the shelf. You see it on the shelf. It's been read,
Speaker 3: and I find it morally wrong to display a book
Speaker 3: that has not been read.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on me owning movies, Blu rays whatever
Speaker 2: on the shelf that I haven't watched yet? Is that
Speaker 2: the same thing?
Speaker 3: Well, I know I don't care about Blu Ray, Blue
Speaker 3: Ray display.
Speaker 2: Is that it's on the shelf. I'm check out my
Speaker 2: Blu Ray collection also for.
Speaker 3: When, like whatever. Hopefully this won't happen, But if the
Speaker 3: world Internet ever went down and you only had electricity,
Speaker 3: it'd be great to have a few Blu Rays around, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone's so dependent on precious streaming, you know. You can
Speaker 3: see the grid taking some hits, and then you have electricity,
Speaker 3: an old Blu Ray player and a book of three
Speaker 3: books of DVDs and Blu Rays. Why would I throw
Speaker 3: those away? They take up this much space. They're just
Speaker 3: like a little backup plan.
Speaker 2: Do you think you would ever write a book about
Speaker 2: your tom on the show.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I've forgotten everything, no one wants, no
Speaker 3: one cares, nothing happened, and I don't know reckon. I
Speaker 3: don't reckon when the show ends. I just want to
Speaker 3: move on and some people, because.
Speaker 2: You'll never move on from the Simpsons, right, I mean
Speaker 2: until people, Well, I'll.
Speaker 3: If I can make money from it, I'll do that definitely.
Speaker 3: Some former Simpsons, people who've done excellent work Race is
Speaker 3: one do seem to live in the nostalgia zone as
Speaker 3: a big part of their actual lives, which if that
Speaker 3: makes them happy, that's awesome. But I don't super want
Speaker 3: to do that because I know, Brandon, if we're you
Speaker 3: know the work I've done, I'm so proud of it.
Speaker 3: I'm the luckiest man in the world. I'm so proud
Speaker 3: of these shows. But like they will never be as
Speaker 3: beloved as the kind of first eight years, which is
Speaker 3: which is totally cool. I love the first eight years,
Speaker 3: but I don't think me coasting on my quirky shows
Speaker 3: from seasons twenty five to thirty to forty is going
Speaker 3: to be so it doesn't feel like as meaningful a journey.
Speaker 3: I'd rather just go back to Sydney with my wife
Speaker 3: and take her to the restaurants and she'd be like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's gross.
Speaker 2: Why did you I remember when we were in that restaurant,
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh my god, it's Phil Resenthal And
Speaker 2: then feels like in my friend Mats Suon, do you
Speaker 2: watch the Simpsons and the guy guys not anymore? I
Speaker 2: love that I died a little bit inside as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, the show is who are we kidding? The
Speaker 3: show it's HD. It's different. It's different, Like we still
Speaker 3: write the characters honestly who they are. But you know,
Speaker 3: comedy has changed, writing has changed, the animation has changed.
Speaker 3: So many other animated shows have come out as reactions
Speaker 3: to the Simpsons the classic years, like, you know, arguably
Speaker 3: the modern Simpsons is another. She's almost like a new
Speaker 3: Oh Jesus get me in trouble. It's like a new
Speaker 3: show that's like a reaction to the original as well,
Speaker 3: you know, or like three new shows based on people's
Speaker 3: styles of writing, you know, And that's that's okay because
Speaker 3: the characters are so strong. Jim Brooks is emotional, DNA
Speaker 3: is so strong, MATC. Greenings drawings and comedic, subversive sensibility
Speaker 3: is so strong, like we can absorb that, you know.
Speaker 3: And but like you'd have to be pretty dishonest with
Speaker 3: yourself to say that modern Simpsons is connecting to people
Speaker 3: my age the way the original did because they were
Speaker 3: young men and they're old now.
Speaker 2: As viewing habits, viewing habits of change as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we're getting a lot of good you know,
Speaker 3: the Simpsons are back. The Simpsons are good again.
Speaker 2: Oh, the last three years have been fantastic compared to
Speaker 2: what They're definitely on the upswing for sure, And.
Speaker 3: I think you know, every season is terrific, and it's
Speaker 3: just sort of different. You just try different things, and
Speaker 3: there's no bad season, right, They're all fun. And you
Speaker 3: watch any episode and there's like twelve great jokes that
Speaker 3: you love at the very least, you know.
Speaker 2: I As I said, we're watching them more in order, right,
Speaker 2: And I find that when you watch all these older
Speaker 2: episodes in order season eighteen nineteen, it feels like there
Speaker 2: was a running gag in the writer's room that you
Speaker 2: guys just couldn't get enough of, and you're snuck it
Speaker 2: into every episode. Can I ask what was the deal
Speaker 2: with Sacho Meal getting a line in every episode in
Speaker 2: season eighteen, the guy was saying barely seen throughout the
Speaker 2: first like twelve fifteen years. In season eighteen, he just
Speaker 2: had a line to speak like this in every episode.
Speaker 3: I don't think it was a plan, but I do
Speaker 3: think you're like, if you're going to table reads and
Speaker 3: you notice a character scoring and has a funny character
Speaker 3: as big energy and also can say plot and tell
Speaker 3: the audience what's happening, that's probably like, oh, that's useful,
Speaker 3: you know. And you know, I mean characters come in
Speaker 3: and out of favor with the writers through no plan, right,
Speaker 3: Like we really like Shawna. Now Shawna's relatively new character,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of like the sort.
Speaker 2: Of well she's been it forever, but she's now getting
Speaker 2: more airtimes, right.
Speaker 3: And the fact that she's chalmers his daughter is there's
Speaker 3: good from that, you know that when the same way
Speaker 3: like when people discovered Ralph was Wigham's son, right now,
Speaker 3: we've got a lot of mile which fro Matt over
Speaker 3: the years, and now Shauna being Chalmers's daughter has actually
Speaker 3: turned out to be a pretty clever, useful thing in
Speaker 3: terms of this very square single guy having up you know,
Speaker 3: the ultimate teenage daughter who he has no control over,
Speaker 3: like he can get.
Speaker 2: What you're living through now?
Speaker 3: Is that? Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that like your life?
Speaker 3: My my kids are not Shawna's, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Thank god.
Speaker 3: Everything is never easy, but they're not Shawna's.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, Matt, thank you so much again to talk
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: First show is always leave the audience wanting more. I've
Speaker 3: already already failed at that, so, uh, this is great.
Speaker 3: I love talking to you. I'm always around whatever ended
Speaker 3: out this yap and he stuff and uh, but definitely
Speaker 3: watch the premiere. Well, I don't know when it's gonna air.
Speaker 2: Well, we get a few days after you, guys.
Speaker 3: September the premiere, which is definitely a big, big swing.
Speaker 3: And then we have that great Halloween with Denham coming up,
Speaker 3: and then sort of a parody of like au of
Speaker 3: how American, you know, partisan, super divided politics have become
Speaker 3: Kai Jews world destroying kai Jews. And then we we
Speaker 3: did like a kind of a hammer horror movie, which
Speaker 3: is like an old f sixties, you know, crazy scary, bloody,
Speaker 3: pastrionic horror movie where we tried to get like kind
Speaker 3: of jump scared how to do a lot of jump scares.
Speaker 3: Not as easy to do a jump scare and animation
Speaker 3: as it is in live action.
Speaker 2: We just I can't imagine that. Yeah, yeah, is it
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot more non canon eposides? I felt
Speaker 2: it was it last season was sason before there was
Speaker 2: like seven or eight that felt like just non canon episodes,
Speaker 2: and they're the ones I tend to enjoy the most. Sure,
Speaker 2: I feel like that's your influence, your fingerprints coming into
Speaker 2: the show, which is great because let's.
Speaker 3: Just there's nothing we there's nothing we shouldn't try. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so definitely. Also, the premiere has i'll say, format wreaking energy.
Speaker 2: Get your pitch Fox ready, buddy? All right? Thanks aging
Speaker 2: Matte Chuck you said, mister Matt Salma everybody, what an
Speaker 2: absolute legend. It's just so nice that the guy who
Speaker 2: runs the Simpsons is so open and willing to just
Speaker 2: chat with fans like myself. I hope he knows how
Speaker 2: much we all appreciate it. Now, the next guest I'm
Speaker 2: going to have you on the show is the writer
Speaker 2: of the season thirty six premiere, Jessica Conrad. She recently
Speaker 2: joined the writing staff the last couple of years, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be having a conversation with her, so if
Speaker 2: you got any questions for her or myself, be sure
Speaker 2: to send them through to mailbag at four finger discount
Speaker 2: dot com dot au Also, please continue to rate and
Speaker 2: review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you do find
Speaker 2: this show. All the support is really appreciated, and of
Speaker 2: course if you can, you can also support us on
Speaker 2: Patreon for a little as one dollar per month and
Speaker 2: get access to hours of bonus podcast But for now,
Speaker 2: thank you again for listening to my conversation with mister
Speaker 2: Matt Salmon. Thank you Matt for Johnny on the show,
Speaker 2: and I'll catch you all in the next episode here
Speaker 2: of four finger discout Auch