Talkin' Simpsons with Michael Price (Simpsons writer/producer)

<v Speaker 1>Four finger Discount.
<v Speaker 2>Dude, Hey everybody, welcome to a very special bonus episode
<v Speaker 2>of four figure Discount.
<v Speaker 3>I am Dano, and I am very excited because I
<v Speaker 3>was lucky enough to chat with the one and only
<v Speaker 3>Michael Price, legendary Simpsons writer, slash, producer, slash, you name it.
<v Speaker 3>His fingerprints are all over the show, and we had
<v Speaker 3>a really fun discussion. We covered, of course, his time
<v Speaker 3>joining the show, his first day on the job, a
<v Speaker 3>really funny story there about how he didn't know who
<v Speaker 3>Gil was and he was remanded for it. We also
<v Speaker 3>covered season thirty six and some episodes are going to
<v Speaker 3>be airing in the upcoming season, in particular the premiere
<v Speaker 3>episode Bart's Birthday with a few notable guest stars, and
<v Speaker 3>I think I may have drawn a little exclusive out
<v Speaker 3>of Michael in that discussion as well. We also covered
<v Speaker 3>the upcoming treouse of horror gags that they know may
<v Speaker 3>or may not piss off the audience, but it was
<v Speaker 3>just an absolute laugh. Michael was an absolute champion, So
<v Speaker 3>I thank him and thank you for tuning into the show.
<v Speaker 3>I know you guys are going to love the discussion,
<v Speaker 3>of course, Please if you can continue to rate and
<v Speaker 3>review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wheve you do enjoy
<v Speaker 3>this show helped spread the word about the show, and
<v Speaker 3>if you can do so, and you were early in
<v Speaker 3>ad free access as well as access to over one
<v Speaker 3>hundred hours of bonus content, you can do so by
<v Speaker 3>supporting us on Patreon for as little as one dollar
<v Speaker 3>per month. Link for that is in the description of
<v Speaker 3>this podcast. But enough shilling, It's time to get into
<v Speaker 3>my discussion with the legendary Michael Price. All right, so,
<v Speaker 3>Michael Price, you just said you just got finished working
<v Speaker 3>here on the Simpsons. What was the daylight today at
<v Speaker 3>the at the Simpsons studio? Did you go to the
<v Speaker 3>studio or is it just Simpson Studios your house now?
<v Speaker 1>No, no, no, we were in the studio. We work
<v Speaker 1>back in We're back in our writers room.
<v Speaker 3>Oh great, gether.
<v Speaker 1>We've been there since time, since the beginning of last
<v Speaker 1>year last February, and then we took a couple of
<v Speaker 1>months off because we were all on strike last year.
<v Speaker 1>But once the strike ended then we came back. So
<v Speaker 1>we're all in all together inside the writer's room again.
<v Speaker 3>Because I joined covid, obviously there's a lot of virtual rooms.
<v Speaker 3>I must have just been hammering to just get back
<v Speaker 3>into the right with the room of each other right
<v Speaker 3>because the energy you just can't compare the energy when
<v Speaker 3>you're doing over zoom compared because we were doing our
<v Speaker 3>podcast during COVID we do what I A zoom just
<v Speaker 3>can't embrace that that same energy, can you.
<v Speaker 1>No, it was it was different. I mean we were
<v Speaker 1>able to get Thank goodness, we're able to get the
<v Speaker 1>work done, and we came up with a lot of
<v Speaker 1>great episodes and the whole the whole show was produced virtually,
<v Speaker 1>you know, by remote, with the actors recording their parts
<v Speaker 1>from their homes and the animators working from home and
<v Speaker 1>in the writer's room. We made it work. But it
<v Speaker 1>was great to come back. We were all so excited
<v Speaker 1>to come back.
<v Speaker 3>What was it like when you first got back to
<v Speaker 3>to she had together? Was it just one big embrace
<v Speaker 3>almost almost?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was great. It was great. We kept we
<v Speaker 1>kept in touch, you know, through Zoom of course. But
<v Speaker 1>then during the course of the pandemic, as as things
<v Speaker 1>started to get a little better, we had a couple
<v Speaker 1>of outings where we met a like we had a meeting,
<v Speaker 1>a group meeting like at the outside and in the
<v Speaker 1>backyards of one of our homes and things like that,
<v Speaker 1>we're able to start together. Yeah, there were some people
<v Speaker 1>who were hired. One writer who was hired onto the
<v Speaker 1>show in the middle of the pandemic. So we had
<v Speaker 1>never met her and her name is Lonnie Steele Sausin.
<v Speaker 1>We had never met her in person, so at one
<v Speaker 1>of these backyard things, we you know, finally met her
<v Speaker 1>in person.
<v Speaker 3>So that's going to be intimidating, right, joining the Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>staff but not actually mating them until after you've started.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think so it's intimidating anyway. I mean it
<v Speaker 1>was for me, you know when I started all this
<v Speaker 1>years ago.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, late two thousand and you, wasn't it correct?
<v Speaker 1>One Yes, Stuart Burns and I both started day. It
<v Speaker 1>was something like December nineteenth or something of two thousand
<v Speaker 1>and one. I tell the story a lot, but we
<v Speaker 1>had one day. It was a Friday, I think, and
<v Speaker 1>then they were like, okay, that's it. We're off for
<v Speaker 1>two weeks for Christmas vacation. And I was like, this
<v Speaker 1>is a pretty good.
<v Speaker 3>Job because you came into the show post what people
<v Speaker 3>referred to as about the Golden Era, and I believe
<v Speaker 3>during that time it was late, late hours, all night
<v Speaker 3>as it wasn't that case when by the time you
<v Speaker 3>started pretty I think it was. Was it Mike Excallutt brought
<v Speaker 3>in the nine to five kind of mentality?
<v Speaker 1>I believe that's true. I mean, I don't think that.
<v Speaker 1>I think, you know, I've worked on a lot of
<v Speaker 1>different shows, and I've had my own shows that I've run.
<v Speaker 3>And it's a family, huge excess.
<v Speaker 1>Oh thank you. It doesn't have to be that way,
<v Speaker 1>I think often. I mean, I wasn't around here for
<v Speaker 1>the early years of the show, so I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>like what the dynamic was, but it doesn't have to
<v Speaker 1>be that way. Like there's no there's no correlation often
<v Speaker 1>between like working all night or working until three o'clock
<v Speaker 1>in the morning and quality. I mean, it turned out
<v Speaker 1>that those early years of this show are fantastic and
<v Speaker 1>great and legendary, you know, but I think that you
<v Speaker 1>can make great stuff and not have to drive every
<v Speaker 1>ready at the point of exhaustion either, exactly. Yeah. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so we we have a pretty good, pretty good work day.
<v Speaker 1>We worked usually from around ten thirty in the morning
<v Speaker 1>till around five thirty or six at night.
<v Speaker 3>That's a good way ten. That's a good slate. That's
<v Speaker 3>a good slate. Thank you. You needed for the LA traffic.
<v Speaker 1>Right, that's true, that's true.
<v Speaker 3>What was your relationship block with The Simpsons before you started?
<v Speaker 3>Were you were a fan of the show? I mean,
<v Speaker 3>obviously I say you were a fan. Everyone was a fan.
<v Speaker 3>But did you watch the show or what was your
<v Speaker 3>relationship block with the show?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Well, I would say that when it first started,
<v Speaker 1>I hadn't yet begun my doing, you know, I was
<v Speaker 1>I wasn't interested in I was an actor. I was
<v Speaker 1>doing theater, and I was doing comedy performance like improv
<v Speaker 1>and sketch comedy stuff in you at a little group,
<v Speaker 1>little comedy group in New York City. So we were
<v Speaker 1>all comedy nerds. And so when the show started, well,
<v Speaker 1>first it was part of the Tracy Ullman Show, so
<v Speaker 1>you know, a lot of us were aware of that.
<v Speaker 1>And I knew about mac Raining's work a little bit
<v Speaker 1>because I had seen some of his cartoons, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and Life and Hell cartoons. And then when the show
<v Speaker 1>itself started in nineteen ninety, that's when I was really
<v Speaker 1>in the middle of all that with working with young
<v Speaker 1>people and we're all excited about comedy, and somebody said said, oh,
<v Speaker 1>my god, the Simpsons is so great. It's so incredible
<v Speaker 1>right out of the box. We all watched it all
<v Speaker 1>the time, and I have a really great memory of
<v Speaker 1>us all being at an outdoor outing kind of thing
<v Speaker 1>in New York City. It was for Earth Day, where
<v Speaker 1>they had a huge concert in Central Park with the
<v Speaker 1>b fifty twos and a bunch of people playing, and
<v Speaker 1>we all got hot and sweaty, and we all went
<v Speaker 1>back to someone's house and said, oh, the Simpsons are
<v Speaker 1>coming on, and we all watched it together, and we're
<v Speaker 1>all remarking about how funny it was and how great
<v Speaker 1>it was. So yeah. So I was certainly aware of
<v Speaker 1>it huge phenomenon living in New York City at the time.
<v Speaker 1>So that's when suddenly everywhere you looked there were the
<v Speaker 1>T shirts on for sale, you know, these bootleg T
<v Speaker 1>shirts for sale on the sidewalk of every kind of
<v Speaker 1>version of Bart, the black version of Bart, like the
<v Speaker 1>Roster version of Bar. You know, all those are everywhere.
<v Speaker 1>It was so fun to see. And then as a
<v Speaker 1>then around that time is when I started really taking
<v Speaker 1>you know, comedy writing and trying to make a career
<v Speaker 1>of but seriously, so I stayed aware of the show.
<v Speaker 1>I watched it whenever I could. I wouldn't say I
<v Speaker 1>watched every single week, because back in those days, like
<v Speaker 1>you couldn't like it. It was on Sunday Night, and
<v Speaker 1>if you missed it, maybe you got to rerun. So
<v Speaker 1>by the time I got on the show, you know,
<v Speaker 1>about twelve years into the show, thirteen years into the show,
<v Speaker 1>I certainly knew about it. It was on all the time,
<v Speaker 1>reruns were on all the time, and I was and
<v Speaker 1>I'd worked with people who had worked on it. I
<v Speaker 1>had worked on. I'd worked with Al Jean and Mike
<v Speaker 1>Reese on a couple of shows, and then I had
<v Speaker 1>But right before I got on The Simpsons, the last
<v Speaker 1>one of the last shows I'd worked on was called
<v Speaker 1>The PJS, which was a animated show with starring Anddie
<v Speaker 1>Murphy and the showrunner on that with Larry Wilmore and
<v Speaker 1>Steve Tompkins who had worked on the show during the
<v Speaker 1>Bill and Josh years next season seven or season eight.
<v Speaker 1>So anyway, I was certainly aware of it, and we
<v Speaker 1>talked about it a lot, and sometimes episodes would come
<v Speaker 1>on and we'd watch them together. But there was a
<v Speaker 1>lot of episodes I hadn't seen. So when I started
<v Speaker 1>on the show, I knew I had about two months
<v Speaker 1>or so where I knew I was going to I
<v Speaker 1>had had the job, but we weren't starting yet. So
<v Speaker 1>I used that time to just watch it every night,
<v Speaker 1>and I had a VCR, so I would record the
<v Speaker 1>shows and whatever and.
<v Speaker 3>Trying to be alive, right, cutting out the commercials.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, that's right. So I watched as many as
<v Speaker 1>I could, and there were there weren't even any books
<v Speaker 1>or anything yet. I think there were a couple of
<v Speaker 1>those little tiny guidebooks that come out, but it was
<v Speaker 1>mostly just watched as many episodes as as I could,
<v Speaker 1>which I did. But even when I started, there was
<v Speaker 1>a vast knowledge of the show that I didn't have,
<v Speaker 1>and I had to do some catching up. And I
<v Speaker 1>remember one of those first days, Uh, we were working
<v Speaker 1>on the episode that's called barting Over, which has turned
<v Speaker 1>out to be episode three hundred, the one we're bart
<v Speaker 1>Tony Hawk and all that. So they were working on
<v Speaker 1>the episode, working on the scene where there's a trial,
<v Speaker 1>and they were talking about the writers were all talking
<v Speaker 1>about like who should who should the lawyers be and
<v Speaker 1>and so someone said Gil and I just kind of
<v Speaker 1>met there, like I had no idea what they were
<v Speaker 1>talking about. Oh really, because I had missed that episode.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I think he hadn't been around a long
<v Speaker 1>time by then, but now he's one of my favorite characters.
<v Speaker 1>But they're like, what if was Gil? And they're like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that sounds good, that sounds good. And I just sort
<v Speaker 1>of just just shut shut up and nodded along.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>But then I did open my big mouth and made
<v Speaker 1>a huge mistake, which was one of the writers said
<v Speaker 1>we need lawyers, like I think Gill ended up being
<v Speaker 1>Homer's lawyer. I think, uh, and then Barton ended up
<v Speaker 1>bart ended up hiring this other lawyer to be well,
<v Speaker 1>the blue haired lawyer. No, but lawyer worked for Home. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>It was a weird thing, but somebody pitched him. Somebody
<v Speaker 1>pitched him. But see what we call him in the show.
<v Speaker 1>Everyone calls him blue haired lawyer, but in the scripts
<v Speaker 1>and everything, he's called Burns his lawyer because way back
<v Speaker 1>when he was first introduced to the show, he was
<v Speaker 1>worked for mister Burns, and he would occasionally show up
<v Speaker 1>and like work for mister Burns and have Homer signed
<v Speaker 1>like a waiver saying you know you are now you
<v Speaker 1>know like that, but then he just became like all
<v Speaker 1>purpose annoying lawyer. So I didn't know this. So so
<v Speaker 1>one of the writers pitched like, what if it was
<v Speaker 1>Burns's lawyer and they go, oh, that's good, that's good,
<v Speaker 1>And I go, well, I don't know. Why would Burns
<v Speaker 1>his lawyer work for BARTI why would Burns his lawyer
<v Speaker 1>work for Homer? He works for mister Burns. And Ian
<v Speaker 1>Maxtone Graham, who was running that room, he looked at
<v Speaker 1>me very patiently but also with a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>like he goes we just called him at this part
<v Speaker 1>like that, you know, and I like, oh, man, I'm
<v Speaker 1>such an idiot. So luckily I had that two weeks
<v Speaker 1>of Christmas vacation to sort of like remind myself, does
<v Speaker 1>anything stupid? And learn more about the show, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>at Christmas vacation, watch as many episodes as you can.
<v Speaker 3>Do you think the episode? Do you think?
<v Speaker 1>I think? I was talking about this with someone the
<v Speaker 1>other day because one of our newer writers who's young, young, young,
<v Speaker 1>her name is Brothny Gupta. She just joined the show
<v Speaker 1>a couple of years ago. She is younger than the show,
<v Speaker 1>so I think she's around thirty maybe thirty years old
<v Speaker 1>or so, so, you know, the show is older than her.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, so she is recently. I mean she said
<v Speaker 1>she said it on her she said about making her
<v Speaker 1>quest to watch every episode, you know. So so she
<v Speaker 1>started at the beginning and just went through, watched, and
<v Speaker 1>she just finished and she's out. She's now caught up.
<v Speaker 1>So we were talking about that, and I think there
<v Speaker 1>might be a one or two that maybe I still
<v Speaker 1>haven't seen all the way through. Yeah, yeah, certainly, certainly,
<v Speaker 1>but there's there's a few there probably if I, if I,
<v Speaker 1>if I go through the episode list, I may find
<v Speaker 1>one or two that maybe haven't seen all the way
<v Speaker 1>through or don't quite remember.
<v Speaker 3>Can you rewatch the ones that you wrote or do
<v Speaker 3>you say there just nitpicking them all the time?
<v Speaker 1>Well, yes, and yet so I watched them. I do
<v Speaker 1>watch them. Uh, And it's funny. I will nitpick sometimes
<v Speaker 1>I will say, oh, this, that joke could have been
<v Speaker 1>better or whatever. But often what happens is I'll watch
<v Speaker 1>them and I'll be put back in the space of
<v Speaker 1>the memory of the writing of it, or like what
<v Speaker 1>I was doing at the time that time in my life,
<v Speaker 1>or what was going on, like why this joke became that?
<v Speaker 1>Uh So that's often what I think about when I
<v Speaker 1>watch those old shows. It's hard for me to just
<v Speaker 1>watch them it's just a show. It's easier for me
<v Speaker 1>to do that with every other everybody else's shows, like
<v Speaker 1>from seasons I worked on, But if it's the one
<v Speaker 1>that I wrote, then I'm off and thinking about like
<v Speaker 1>how did this idea come about? Or what was I
<v Speaker 1>doing then, or what was going on?
<v Speaker 3>Or how long do you do you give yourself before
<v Speaker 3>you go the joke's fine, move on to the next one.
<v Speaker 3>How long? How long do you sort of just focus
<v Speaker 3>on one gag? It can be better, it can be better.
<v Speaker 3>You haven't enough time just going to move on?
<v Speaker 1>Well, usually it helps to have a deadline of some kind.
<v Speaker 1>So so like when I when I'm off, when you
<v Speaker 1>get sent off to write a script, you usually get
<v Speaker 1>two weeks to go away and just go off and
<v Speaker 1>work from home or go to coffee shop or whatever
<v Speaker 1>and write it. So I guess if I didn't have
<v Speaker 1>a deadline, maybe I would still be tinkering with stuff
<v Speaker 1>because it's often it's hard to let go or it's
<v Speaker 1>hard to like, you know, and sometimes I'll find it,
<v Speaker 1>then I'll hand it in and then I'll look at
<v Speaker 1>it like a day later and realize something some mistake
<v Speaker 1>I made or I could have done better on that.
<v Speaker 3>But they'll fix it anyway. I'm different, Tell me guys,
<v Speaker 3>they have absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Then then it gets handed over to the the
<v Speaker 1>whole room, and the whole staff works on it and
<v Speaker 1>makes it way better.
<v Speaker 3>Describe that two weeks. So you get a star into
<v Speaker 3>the episode, You got two weeks to write it. Do
<v Speaker 3>you go and write it straight away? Or you said
<v Speaker 3>you got to a coffee shopping relax? Do you ponder it?
<v Speaker 3>Do you wait to the last second before you start
<v Speaker 3>writing it? What's that? Two weeks?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Yeah, Well, actually it turns out to be a
<v Speaker 1>kind of a combination of several weeks because because the
<v Speaker 1>first thing that happens is you do well, the first
<v Speaker 1>thing happens doesn't come up with the idea for the thing,
<v Speaker 1>And then we spend a couple of days in the
<v Speaker 1>room with a smaller group and ultimately with our showrunner
<v Speaker 1>Matt Selman, like working out the beats of the story
<v Speaker 1>and just talking it through and sort of arriving at
<v Speaker 1>the basic structure, and then you get a week to
<v Speaker 1>go off to write an outline so that then you
<v Speaker 1>turn into like a treatment, which is like a prose
<v Speaker 1>version of the show, and then we go through that
<v Speaker 1>again then you actually write the script. But yeah, to
<v Speaker 1>answer your question, like I tend to procrastinate a little bit,
<v Speaker 1>So like what I might do is like the first
<v Speaker 1>day or two, I don't do anything. Or maybe what
<v Speaker 1>I'll tend to do is I'll take the outline and
<v Speaker 1>then I will then sort of convert it from the
<v Speaker 1>outline software is Microsoft word right, which is like word
<v Speaker 1>like a pros and then I'll import it into our
<v Speaker 1>screenwriting software which is called Final Draft and sort of
<v Speaker 1>I'll just format it so it looks like a like
<v Speaker 1>a script. And sometimes we'll have like little sample lines
<v Speaker 1>in the outline, so I've already written, like I feel like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I've already written most of it, like there, you know,
<v Speaker 1>So they get to take a couple of days off
<v Speaker 1>or whatever, and then what I'll do I'll pick it
<v Speaker 1>up again and I'll print the I'll print the script
<v Speaker 1>out either physically in paper or I have a program
<v Speaker 1>on my iPad where I'm able to sort of look
<v Speaker 1>at it and make notes with the iPad pencil, and
<v Speaker 1>that's what I'll do. Then I'll sort of make notes
<v Speaker 1>about it and think of funny things. And again I'm
<v Speaker 1>sort of just like, to me, it's like, this is
<v Speaker 1>the fun part. It's just to think of funny things
<v Speaker 1>and I don't have to worry about it. Just be
<v Speaker 1>crazy and write a bunch of funny stuff. And then
<v Speaker 1>then after a couple of days of that, then I'll
<v Speaker 1>start in and like, Okay, now I'm actually doing it.
<v Speaker 1>But those I have those notes that I've made over
<v Speaker 1>the first couple of days to sort of turn it
<v Speaker 1>into something, and then they get scared. Then they always
<v Speaker 1>get scared of this is going to be terrible, it's
<v Speaker 1>going to be too long, or it's going to stink.
<v Speaker 1>You know. I always get through that every time.
<v Speaker 3>I was going to ask anxiety with writing because I
<v Speaker 3>just you know, I'd love to write things, but there's
<v Speaker 3>always that moment where you just second guess yourself all
<v Speaker 3>the time.
<v Speaker 1>All the time. Yeah, I think if you didn't, if
<v Speaker 1>I didn't, I feel like I'm ready to that's time
<v Speaker 1>to hang it up, like I always feel, I always
<v Speaker 1>every time like this one's going to stink. This one's
<v Speaker 1>going to be terrible. I don't know how to do this.
<v Speaker 3>What are your coping mechanisms for anxiety? When it comes
<v Speaker 3>to moments like that.
<v Speaker 1>Coping mechanis for anxiety? Boy, I don't know. Maybe go
<v Speaker 1>for a walk or something, or take my dog out
<v Speaker 1>for a walk, or just hang out with my family
<v Speaker 1>or whatever, or just do anything else, watch a baseball
<v Speaker 1>game or something. And you think, after all these doing
<v Speaker 1>all these years I've written how many scripts, twenty so
<v Speaker 1>scripts for the show, they feel like I got this,
<v Speaker 1>And I usually kind of hear that in the back
<v Speaker 1>of my mind, but in front of my mine is
<v Speaker 1>always like, this is no good. This is the one
<v Speaker 1>that's going to be terrible.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, you mentioned Matt Salmon before. How reliant are you
<v Speaker 3>guys on the likes of Al Jean and Matt Salmon
<v Speaker 3>when it comes to has this been done before or
<v Speaker 3>just knowledge of the show, because those guys are just institutions.
<v Speaker 1>Now, right, Yeah, certainly, I mean, we'll Al's been here
<v Speaker 1>since practically day one, so he.
<v Speaker 3>Did for The Critic for a couple of years.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, yeah, but even then, when he and Mike
<v Speaker 1>were doing the critic. They were still still doing things,
<v Speaker 1>which show they never quite left the show full time.
<v Speaker 1>And Ali's an amazing, amazing memory. Matt does two. Matt's
<v Speaker 1>been here a little bit less time than that, but
<v Speaker 1>still and yeah, I mean the other thing that's great
<v Speaker 1>is now again, when I first started in two thousand
<v Speaker 1>and one to two thousand and two, we didn't have
<v Speaker 1>a whole lot. We had those little books, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and the internet was there was some stuff on the Internet,
<v Speaker 1>but it wasn't like a as much as it is now.
<v Speaker 3>I've got behind me the complete Godbooks. You may.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, now we have those giant books. But now there's Wikipedia,
<v Speaker 1>like there's an article about everything. And and then now
<v Speaker 1>the other thing is that every episode is now available
<v Speaker 1>to be seen on Disney Plus. So everything I think
<v Speaker 1>it was an episode, blah blah blah, then we can
<v Speaker 1>like google whatever was in there and then it'll say like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>that was this season, season seven, episode twelve, and then
<v Speaker 1>we go call it up by Disney Plus and watch it. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so that's.
<v Speaker 3>Where they're worried, whether worries when Disney purchased Fox and
<v Speaker 3>the Simpsons, because for me, O, his thought's just been
<v Speaker 3>anbsolute positive because, like you said, Disney Plus, I feel
<v Speaker 3>like a whole new audience has been able to discover
<v Speaker 3>the show as a result. It's it's so easily accessible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think that now. I think
<v Speaker 1>there were many worries because the show has such a
<v Speaker 1>reputation that built itself, and then they from what I
<v Speaker 1>can gather, I'm not at the high highest level, but
<v Speaker 1>that they assured it was still a Fox Network show.
<v Speaker 1>So Fox Network has said, like, this is still the
<v Speaker 1>same show you know in Disney. You know, they've never
<v Speaker 1>told us to like, don't do that joke or don't
<v Speaker 1>do this joke. You know. To me, it doesn't seem
<v Speaker 1>like it's much different.
<v Speaker 3>That's why I feel like the fear would have been
<v Speaker 3>this Disney, you know, Disney's Disney. They would have liked
<v Speaker 3>to sort of put their fingerprints on it. But that's
<v Speaker 3>not the case.
<v Speaker 1>That's not the case as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they've been very helpful and very supportive, and yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>it helps that the show remains popular, you know, on
<v Speaker 1>the network, but also on Disney Plus. I think it's
<v Speaker 1>one of the if not the highest, one of the
<v Speaker 1>highest like streaming shows on there, So why why mess
<v Speaker 1>with a good thing.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's just helped for me as a as
<v Speaker 3>a podcast, as a fan of the show, to keep
<v Speaker 3>up with the show as well, because here in Australia,
<v Speaker 3>when it was on what you guys call cable I guess,
<v Speaker 3>or just or just commercial television whatever, it was sometimes
<v Speaker 3>airing at different times, different days. You couldn't keep up
<v Speaker 3>to date. Now I know because newing habits have changed.
<v Speaker 3>Now in twenty twenty four, I know every Wednesday in
<v Speaker 3>Australia is gonna be New Simpsons. I'll get to it.
<v Speaker 3>When I get to it. I know it's there. I
<v Speaker 3>know it's gonna be there ready. So I think that
<v Speaker 3>another plus as well, just being able to keep up
<v Speaker 3>to date with the show.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, you know how they're out there
<v Speaker 1>and they you know, so even there's people here in
<v Speaker 1>the United States where it's on Fox, but then uh,
<v Speaker 1>two days later it's on Hulu, which is the streaming site.
<v Speaker 1>But then then when the whole season is over, then
<v Speaker 1>the whole season will then move on to Disney Plus.
<v Speaker 1>So I know there's people who are saying I'll watch
<v Speaker 1>that when it gets on Disney Plus, so I'll watch
<v Speaker 1>that when it gets on.
<v Speaker 3>So we get them straight to Disney one where one Way,
<v Speaker 3>so you air on the Sunday in the States the
<v Speaker 3>following Wednesday, we've got him on Disney Plus, which is
<v Speaker 3>it's never been Wow, fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's incredible because I know, like in the UK
<v Speaker 1>it might be a month or two, you know, like
<v Speaker 1>because there was a show that I wrote that was
<v Speaker 1>on earlier this year that was about Willy going back
<v Speaker 1>to Scotland and getting married in Scotland, and and that
<v Speaker 1>aired in the United States and I believe in October,
<v Speaker 1>and then it didn't air in the UK or Scotland
<v Speaker 1>until like anywhere.
<v Speaker 3>We get it within Awaken. Now it's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>That's great.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Well, season thirty six starts soon, Matt, both Matts.
<v Speaker 3>We're actually at SDCC this week. Yes, and they announced
<v Speaker 3>that the premiere Bart's Birthday is going to have some
<v Speaker 3>guest stars. Yes, John Cena, Dane de Vito, Tom Hanks. Now,
<v Speaker 3>first times question is PA, please tell me Unky hov
<v Speaker 3>is returning.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I can say that Dan Avido is playing a show.
<v Speaker 3>We've been saying for years, please be back. Unkie hebe.
<v Speaker 1>I can tell you that. I can't tell you much
<v Speaker 1>more about it. I know that I heard that, I
<v Speaker 1>saw a little bit about Matt Salmon said. It's kind
<v Speaker 1>of a big, big, crazy, big swing of an episode.
<v Speaker 1>It does involve Bart's story, involves Bart's birthday, but that's
<v Speaker 1>just a small part of it, I would say, and
<v Speaker 1>the other these other characters show up for various reasons.
<v Speaker 1>Uh that we're going to keep it under keep it
<v Speaker 1>kind of under wraps until the premiere.
<v Speaker 3>But it's very exciting.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Sorry, I'm serious.
<v Speaker 3>There's some serious a list is to all put into
<v Speaker 3>one episode.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yes, that's true. Tom Hank, Uh, Danie Devido Johnson
<v Speaker 1>I think did mention it. But Joel McHale is in
<v Speaker 1>this episode as well. Uh and some baseball players and
<v Speaker 1>uh and Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien playing himself. Uh. It's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be very fun, very exciting. Episode is written by
<v Speaker 1>Jess Conrad, who's a great writer who's joined who joined
<v Speaker 1>us within the last couple of years. He's written a
<v Speaker 1>lot of amazing episodes. H And I'm you know, we
<v Speaker 1>have a newer system here on the show where we
<v Speaker 1>have I'm one of the co runners. Mean that, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Matt is our main showrunner, BUTLF myself, Robinson, mctim long,
<v Speaker 1>and Brian Kelly are the co runner. So we have
<v Speaker 1>a certain amount of episodes that we are responsible for
<v Speaker 1>sort of supervising, and that's this is one of mine.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm very very excited about it.
<v Speaker 3>That is very very cool. Yeah, so can we expect more?
<v Speaker 3>Guest stars are just gonna like blow them on the
<v Speaker 3>first side.
<v Speaker 1>No, there's more, there's more. I can't think of any
<v Speaker 1>of the bah. Yeah, there's there's certainly, there's certainly some more.
<v Speaker 1>Andy Serkis is going to be returning to the show.
<v Speaker 1>He was on the show a couple of years ago
<v Speaker 1>doing Gollum, I think some other things. He's playing a
<v Speaker 1>new character. We have our second We have a Halloween,
<v Speaker 1>our main Halloween show called Trios of Horror, and then,
<v Speaker 1>as we did before a couple of years ago, we
<v Speaker 1>had a second kind of horror themed Halloween show, which
<v Speaker 1>was the one based on Stephen King's It. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 1>this one now is based on the stories of Ray Bradbury.
<v Speaker 1>So it's called something. It's called Simpson's Wicked. This Way comes.
<v Speaker 1>So it's a little bit of Andy Serkis is playing
<v Speaker 1>kind of our version of the illustrated man who helps
<v Speaker 1>tell these introduce these tales that based on famous Bray
<v Speaker 1>Bradberry stories. And that's a really great one. And j
<v Speaker 1>justsict read that one as well. So it's a very
<v Speaker 1>very exciting love a great show.
<v Speaker 3>I one of my favorite episodes of the last decade
<v Speaker 3>as Halloween of Horror, the Canon Halloween episode. Yes, do
<v Speaker 3>you think you'll ever do Cannon Halloween once again? Because
<v Speaker 3>I thought that episode was just absolutely fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was great. I don't know if we'll do
<v Speaker 1>a canon Halloween show again. Maybe if a great idea,
<v Speaker 1>only because that one covered it all and was so amazing,
<v Speaker 1>you know, so we tend not to try to duplicate
<v Speaker 1>or do something we've done in the past. But you know, no,
<v Speaker 1>I was currently a me and I wrote that episode.
<v Speaker 1>That's yeah, that's such a great, amazing episode too.
<v Speaker 3>I've always said he could put that in season six
<v Speaker 3>to seven or whatever and just it wouldn't feel out
<v Speaker 3>of place. It was just so great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's a really really great episode.
<v Speaker 3>So you got so many guests in the premiere, is
<v Speaker 3>there is there sort of like a do you feels
<v Speaker 3>a need to have to start with a bang each season?
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, it's fun to start to start the season
<v Speaker 1>off with something fun and exciting and without without I
<v Speaker 1>can't get into spoiling more about this episode. This one
<v Speaker 1>makes sense to be the premiere, and it makes sense
<v Speaker 1>to be kind of big in that way, kind of
<v Speaker 1>a wider scope of an episode. It'll all make sense
<v Speaker 1>after you see it. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, it's going to
<v Speaker 1>air in the United States, I think in September, at
<v Speaker 1>the end of September. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's
<v Speaker 1>fun because we're starting the season, so you want you
<v Speaker 1>want the first episode of the season to be something,
<v Speaker 1>something exciting and something fun that people wanted to an
<v Speaker 1>end for, and this one just happened to be work
<v Speaker 1>out that way.
<v Speaker 3>Had the kind of I Brian aspect come into it.
<v Speaker 3>Did he contact you? Do contact him?
<v Speaker 1>We contacted him, so we had this idea to use
<v Speaker 1>him in this episode, and we asked him and he
<v Speaker 1>happily said yes and came by and recorded with us.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, wow, that's it was great.
<v Speaker 1>It was wonderful. It was wonderful. It was great. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>he's such a. He's so funny, he's so great, and
<v Speaker 1>we kind of caught him. We didn't know this when
<v Speaker 1>we recorded him back in January or so. I guess
<v Speaker 1>he was sort of at the beginning of like a
<v Speaker 1>big a lot of cool stuff that's going on with
<v Speaker 1>him with his podcast and his show where he travels
<v Speaker 1>in the world, and so we kind of caught him
<v Speaker 1>in the middle of like this kind of another upswing
<v Speaker 1>for him. He was great. He was just fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>What were you expecting from Kinnan And did he surprise
<v Speaker 3>you in any way?
<v Speaker 1>Not really, No, We're expecting him to be really as
<v Speaker 1>funny as he always is, and he was, and he
<v Speaker 1>was really I mean, he was really pleased and really
<v Speaker 1>happy to be back here. He came to the studio
<v Speaker 1>and recorded in a recording studio. Then he came and
<v Speaker 1>visited us all in the writer's room, and we have
<v Speaker 1>in our writer's room we have this wall covered with
<v Speaker 1>these posters for the show that we're Actually these posters
<v Speaker 1>were issued back in two thousand and eight or so
<v Speaker 1>when they made these United States postage stamps of The Simpsons,
<v Speaker 1>So the posters all have the characters faces on them.
<v Speaker 1>But we started using them around that time, around twenty
<v Speaker 1>ten or so, whenever anyone came celebrity came to be
<v Speaker 1>on the show or visit, we asked him to sign
<v Speaker 1>this wall. So we have now like five or six
<v Speaker 1>of these posters that are filled with like people's signatures,
<v Speaker 1>and so we had Conan you know, signed the wall
<v Speaker 1>and it was great. He was happy to be back.
<v Speaker 1>He had a lot of great memories from working on
<v Speaker 1>the show. And yeah, and he's friendly with He's friends
<v Speaker 1>with some of the like Roblezevnik, you know, knew him
<v Speaker 1>from school. A lot of a lot of the writers
<v Speaker 1>knew him going back to like college and everything.
<v Speaker 3>So, yeah, you mentioned the Tress of Heart. I think
<v Speaker 3>Denham was the one they revealed, as they say, say
<v Speaker 3>with the Jets, Yeah, do you intend to do you
<v Speaker 3>tend to enjoy those ones more most than others, the
<v Speaker 3>Halloween ones because it is so fun, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>There's super fun. They're super fun. I've always loved those,
<v Speaker 1>even when I was when I was just a casual fan.
<v Speaker 1>I remember, those are the ones I never missed, Like,
<v Speaker 1>I never like when it was Halloween time. I always
<v Speaker 1>made sure I watched Simpson's Halloween episode three hours of horror.
<v Speaker 1>So they're really super fun to work on. I will
<v Speaker 1>be like producing whatever co running the one that will
<v Speaker 1>be on a year from next year. So we haven't
<v Speaker 1>even started that one yet, but we started to come
<v Speaker 1>up with some ideas for it, getting some ideas, but
<v Speaker 1>we really have anything super set yet. But we'll start
<v Speaker 1>writing that soon and put that into production and that
<v Speaker 1>will be the Halloween show that will be a Halloween
<v Speaker 1>of twenty five?
<v Speaker 3>Is the transff Horror? Is that sort of what every
<v Speaker 3>rider in the Roter's Room wants to be a part of?
<v Speaker 3>Is that the one they won't get the idea for that?
<v Speaker 3>Because having your idea for a transfer setment must be
<v Speaker 3>sort of like one of the top two things as
<v Speaker 3>in the Roter's Room, right.
<v Speaker 1>I would say, so yeah, I mean, yeah, it's really
<v Speaker 1>fun there. They're fun to do, they're different, they're crazy,
<v Speaker 1>you know. And then I mean this is going to
<v Speaker 1>seem like the most whatever you want to call it,
<v Speaker 1>not insignificant, but whatever little thing is that they always
<v Speaker 1>put out a big poster every year, you know they do.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's very cool, and the poster.
<v Speaker 1>Lists the names of the writers on it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>So for me this. I'm going to make sure I
<v Speaker 1>write one of the segments, I guess, but it'll be
<v Speaker 1>fun to have my name on a poster like that
<v Speaker 1>that I can then put up in my house or whatever. Like,
<v Speaker 1>it's fun that they really still go all out and
<v Speaker 1>make a big make a big presentation for the for
<v Speaker 1>the Treehouse and send out it's usually for for TV
<v Speaker 1>critics here in the US. They send out like a
<v Speaker 1>box full of like candy with with the DVD of
<v Speaker 1>the episode and everything. It's still still kind of an event,
<v Speaker 1>which is fun. It's really fun to be part of.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm looking forward to to be more of a
<v Speaker 1>have more of a hand than the one for next year.
<v Speaker 3>Can remember the first time you saw your name on
<v Speaker 3>the TA eve a scene written by Michael Price.
<v Speaker 1>Oh absolutely, for Simpsons, certainly for everything. Yeah, but even
<v Speaker 1>for the first thing. The first time I ever got
<v Speaker 1>one of those whis for an animated show called.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah oh great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah that was fun. That was I mean, I was
<v Speaker 1>so happy to do that and I enjoyed that a
<v Speaker 1>great deal. Yeah, So That'll never forget that, Like, this
<v Speaker 1>is a huge, huge moment in my life. And then
<v Speaker 1>for the first time I had said on The Simpsons
<v Speaker 1>that was even like me, that was.
<v Speaker 3>Like I gather around children.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, So, as I was saying earlier, you came onto
<v Speaker 3>the show post golden era? Are there many people left
<v Speaker 3>besides you? Matt? And how really in the writer's room?
<v Speaker 1>Sure? Oh, certainly, I mean yeah, I mean when I start,
<v Speaker 1>there's so many people here who are still there when
<v Speaker 1>I started, Tim Long, Brian Kelly and still there. And no, No,
<v Speaker 1>Ian a few years ago went on to other great things.
<v Speaker 1>He was a writer on the show Beep, the Great
<v Speaker 1>Great Show Weep, among other things. No, like Dan Graney, Uh,
<v Speaker 1>Joel Cohen, Tim Long, Like I said, Matt Selman, and
<v Speaker 1>several of us all started around the same time, like
<v Speaker 1>like Stuart Burns, Jeff Westbrook. Uh, I'm sure leaving somebody out,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, a lot of us are a lot of
<v Speaker 1>people who have been there longer than me, and a
<v Speaker 1>lot a lot who have been around the same time,
<v Speaker 1>joining around the same time as me.
<v Speaker 3>So you mentioned a few of the newer rods just before. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>one of the questions they tend to ask you the
<v Speaker 3>most often when they're looking just for advice and things
<v Speaker 3>like that.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think they really tend to ask me or
<v Speaker 1>ask for advice. But they sometimes we'll have to say
<v Speaker 1>Who's they learn who Gill is. But it might be like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>it might be a thing where they go like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>we're thinking of doing this, this is an idea I
<v Speaker 1>have for a show, and someone like me might say like, well,
<v Speaker 1>actually we did we did kind of a thing like
<v Speaker 1>that back in season eighteen or whatever.
<v Speaker 3>Gett come up with guy on them will, Actually we
<v Speaker 3>did it in season twelve.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. But they're all great. I mean, they're all incredible people.
<v Speaker 1>They're all super talented. I'd say the people that we've
<v Speaker 1>joined in the last five or six years, Like in
<v Speaker 1>the last ten years we've added like Ryan co Dan
<v Speaker 1>Vebber super hilarious. And then after that, like in the
<v Speaker 1>last six or seven years. Uh, saysar Masriegos, who wrote
<v Speaker 1>the It thing. He also wrote the The Flanders two
<v Speaker 1>parter Serious Flanners. Yeh yeah, fantastic show. Great, right, there's
<v Speaker 1>Christine Nangel, Jess Conrad Brothy grouped, Lannie Steele, saatand Jess Conrad.
<v Speaker 1>Like I said, just they're all fantastic and wonderful people,
<v Speaker 1>and they're also smart and and they're a pleasure to
<v Speaker 1>work with.
<v Speaker 3>Do you find the younger ones, younger writers who didn't
<v Speaker 3>necessarily grow up on the Golden Era when it was
<v Speaker 3>first on? Do you feel that they bring a fresh
<v Speaker 3>approach to the show because they're not trying to sort
<v Speaker 3>of rely on that Golden Era sort of style.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'd say so that's true. I mean they also
<v Speaker 1>bring a fresh approach of their everyone that's what's great
<v Speaker 1>about it. Like everyone brings their own experience, their own
<v Speaker 1>life experience, or the kind of the kind of work
<v Speaker 1>they've done previously, or the kind of other things they've done.
<v Speaker 1>And I give full credit to Matt Selman for for
<v Speaker 1>really you know, adding different voices to the to the staff,
<v Speaker 1>you know, that enabled us to sort of reach out
<v Speaker 1>and too all different kinds of stories. So Lannie, you know,
<v Speaker 1>as a really interesting, you know, family story. She's she
<v Speaker 1>comes from a mixed race family, you know, half white,
<v Speaker 1>half black, and and she has in her in her
<v Speaker 1>her husband is a cool guy who's a stuntman but
<v Speaker 1>also like like a cow like a rider, a horse
<v Speaker 1>rider guy, and so based someone based on his past.
<v Speaker 1>Is the story that she wrote about Carl learning that
<v Speaker 1>his his roots go back to like the Rodeo and
<v Speaker 1>all that, you know, So that's based on her. But
<v Speaker 1>she also wrote an amazing story about about Lisa befriending
<v Speaker 1>the son of Blee and Gums Murphy, who's death one.
<v Speaker 1>That's right because Lannie has a deaf relative, so she
<v Speaker 1>was able to draw on that, you know.
<v Speaker 3>And well, my wife loved that because she works so
<v Speaker 3>she manages the officer who books the interpreters for the
<v Speaker 3>news and whatnot here in Australia, and when she heard
<v Speaker 3>that they were doing that, she thought, that's so inclusive
<v Speaker 3>and it's just it's it's so lovely to say that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it was lovely to do and she she
<v Speaker 1>does a great job with it and h and so
<v Speaker 1>we're all, yeah, everyone's coming in with different fresh perspectives
<v Speaker 1>and it's fun. It's fun to sort of like in
<v Speaker 1>the show who's been around for thirty five thirty six
<v Speaker 1>years now and done almost eight hundred episodes, So we
<v Speaker 1>need we need that, we need that fresh perspectives to
<v Speaker 1>keep the show fresh and keep it new. And that's
<v Speaker 1>part of what I think that what's made Met so
<v Speaker 1>great as the showrunner is that he really encourages that
<v Speaker 1>encourages us to find unique stories based on what's going
<v Speaker 1>on in our own lives and to take big swings,
<v Speaker 1>big creative swings that we've has been really fun to do. So,
<v Speaker 1>like we did the great show that Brian Kelly wrote
<v Speaker 1>that was the one that was on earlier this year
<v Speaker 1>where it was like juxtaposing the modern story of March,
<v Speaker 1>trying to get bart tickets to this, you know, Spanish
<v Speaker 1>rap concerts, you know, with the with the story of
<v Speaker 1>like primal kind of story of Caveman times March. And
<v Speaker 1>it's so fun to do. The challenging to do and
<v Speaker 1>shows that break the form, that play.
<v Speaker 3>With so many more of those now and I love that. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that is that's more enjoyable for me because by season, well,
<v Speaker 3>season thirty six now, oh, season thirty five, you know,
<v Speaker 3>but we've seen pretty much everything we could possibly say, right,
<v Speaker 3>give us something fresh and different. I like people complain
<v Speaker 3>about continuity thirty five years. You can you can bend
<v Speaker 3>that a bit. And that's so I found. That's Matt
<v Speaker 3>Sunmond's mentalities. No, if it's entertaining, it's.
<v Speaker 1>Entertaining, absolutely, and I think that it would it would
<v Speaker 1>kill the show. I think to sort of hold on
<v Speaker 1>to this rigid kind of thing, you know that sometimes
<v Speaker 1>I feel that certain amount of fans get get upset when, like,
<v Speaker 1>for instance, I wrote a show a couple of years
<v Speaker 1>ago that that dealt with Homer's love for these these
<v Speaker 1>robots and the pizza parlor you know, you remember from
<v Speaker 1>his teenage years, and so it was really fun that
<v Speaker 1>was based on a real thing, that was based on
<v Speaker 1>a real person here in the United States, that that
<v Speaker 1>there were these places called Chucky Cheeses. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>there was in Australia or not, kind of robot bands
<v Speaker 1>playing and.
<v Speaker 3>Wally Ways, yeah, yeah, that's.
<v Speaker 1>One of them, and that they ended up shutting them down,
<v Speaker 1>but people became nostalgic for them, and they tried to
<v Speaker 1>restore these things. So we said that would be a
<v Speaker 1>fun story for Homer to do. So we concocted like
<v Speaker 1>a backstory that when he was in high school he
<v Speaker 1>worked at one of these places. So so we wrote
<v Speaker 1>that show at Aaron I guess in twenty two or
<v Speaker 1>twenty three, and it was like, all right, well, Homer
<v Speaker 1>is Homer was whatever, fifteen years old, then that's whatever
<v Speaker 1>twenty years ago, twenty two years ago, that's nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 1>you know, so in that episode, Homer was a teenager
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen nine, year ninety one, so he was a
<v Speaker 1>fan of like Digital Underground all those things. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>some people got really upset about that. And we even
<v Speaker 1>put in a joke that it was fun that I
<v Speaker 1>felt that that Matt added a joke where we saw
<v Speaker 1>one of the kids at the pizza parlor, at the
<v Speaker 1>pizza parlor that Homer was working at, was wearing a
<v Speaker 1>Bart Simpson T shirt. You know, it's fun to me that,
<v Speaker 1>like the show is always taking place now in the present.
<v Speaker 1>So Bart our current version of Bart is ten years
<v Speaker 1>old and he was born in twenty twelve or twenty thirteen,
<v Speaker 1>twenty fourteen, you know, so he's that he's a kid,
<v Speaker 1>a ten year old kid now, and Homer is a
<v Speaker 1>forty year old man now. So that is fun to me.
<v Speaker 3>And do you sometimes rot Jackson, go, this will piss
<v Speaker 3>him off, but you do it.
<v Speaker 1>Anyway hardly Ever, Yeah, I will say, I will say
<v Speaker 1>there is one particular joke in this premiere that they
<v Speaker 1>can't tell you about. Yeah that if you talk to me,
<v Speaker 1>you know, in September after that aired, I'll tell you
<v Speaker 1>what that was, but there is one that we put
<v Speaker 1>in there that to me, it was like, oh, we
<v Speaker 1>got to have this in there because you know, it'll
<v Speaker 1>make these people go crazy.
<v Speaker 3>Sometimes going to while I'm up, just to get some
<v Speaker 3>sort of people talking about the show, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, But I don't
<v Speaker 1>think we don't do that otherwise, we don't do that
<v Speaker 1>on purpose, like, oh this is really good to screw them.
<v Speaker 3>Over all, the Simptons fans, the sobs.
<v Speaker 1>No, it's great, it's amazing. I mean that's sometimes we'll
<v Speaker 1>we'll go online. I'll go on line and see it's incredible.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's amazing to me that that it's still
<v Speaker 1>even though like a lot of the references are still
<v Speaker 1>to older episodes, but it's still great to see that
<v Speaker 1>the show is still part of a national conversation about
<v Speaker 1>things and like when so when when big things happen
<v Speaker 1>in the news, like people find Simpsons means to use
<v Speaker 1>it to comment on or you know, or or like
<v Speaker 1>this whole thing about how we predict things, which we
<v Speaker 1>really don't.
<v Speaker 3>But you guys just so sick.
<v Speaker 1>Now, Yeah, it's it's a little crazy. I mean, what
<v Speaker 1>what's made it even crazier is that. I mean, there's
<v Speaker 1>certain things that the show did do that did happen.
<v Speaker 1>That's fine, you know, and like, but there's no one
<v Speaker 1>here that has any kind of you know, psychic power
<v Speaker 1>or whatever. Some things just seemed to happen, ye, Like,
<v Speaker 1>for instance, the fact that Dan Greeney wrote that episode
<v Speaker 1>twenty plus years ago, twenty three years ago predicting like
<v Speaker 1>Lisa would be a president and would inherit the budget
<v Speaker 1>crisis from President Trump.
<v Speaker 3>So that happened, did you got? Oh shit?
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, in the way it was because I mean
<v Speaker 1>but also like if you go back to that time,
<v Speaker 1>around that time, Donald Trump, at least here in the
<v Speaker 1>United States was famous already and he was already talking
<v Speaker 1>about like forming a third party and running for president. Then,
<v Speaker 1>so the fact that he would have run for president
<v Speaker 1>wasn't that big of a deal. And to say, like
<v Speaker 1>twenty years in the future he was president was a joke,
<v Speaker 1>you know, But then like the joke became real because
<v Speaker 1>like someone says this, I didn't say this, but like
<v Speaker 1>the show rights stupid things, and then America got stupid.
<v Speaker 3>You know, so you play subconsciously.
<v Speaker 1>I guess. I mean, then there's other things that are
<v Speaker 1>that are just weird and like looking for stuff that
<v Speaker 1>isn't real. I mean that that we would never have predicted.
<v Speaker 1>And then the third thing is that they've now taken
<v Speaker 1>over and thinking creating things that never happened. And like
<v Speaker 1>let's say a news, a news, a thing will happen
<v Speaker 1>in the news, and then someone will doctor up an
<v Speaker 1>image seemingly saying like the Simpsons did this, but we
<v Speaker 1>never did. So that that just muddies the waters. It
<v Speaker 1>makes it even more crazy. But you know, I wish,
<v Speaker 1>I wish we could really predict things, but we don't.
<v Speaker 1>Like the one thing that I was the show I
<v Speaker 1>wrote that just sort of happened that way was the
<v Speaker 1>one where Homer became the referee at the World Cup
<v Speaker 1>in Rio, and we wrote out a year or two
<v Speaker 1>before the World Cup and we had to have a
<v Speaker 1>final game, and we said, oh, we know Brazil should
<v Speaker 1>play Germany and the final thing and that's what that
<v Speaker 1>is what happened. But I mean those were big Brazil
<v Speaker 1>and Germany are major soccer football powerhouses, so happened that way.
<v Speaker 3>Of course, of course it was going to happen eventually.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, but you know that's how it.
<v Speaker 3>Goes, but speaking with the newer episodes, right, because you know,
<v Speaker 3>you always gonna get these people that say it's not
<v Speaker 3>as good as it used to be.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 3>But I put my son is now just turned six,
<v Speaker 3>and I've got an almost four year old daughter. When
<v Speaker 3>I put the Simpsons on, they want to watch the
<v Speaker 3>new episodes, right because I just think it's more visually pleasing.
<v Speaker 3>You know, it's brighter, it's more colorful, it's more happening,
<v Speaker 3>and I think I think the jokes are more written
<v Speaker 3>for a kids of today's generation. That's the moment for
<v Speaker 3>me when I realized, you know what, even though I
<v Speaker 3>may not necessarily enjoy the Sympsons as much as I
<v Speaker 3>did when I was a kid, it might necessarily be
<v Speaker 3>for me anymore. These are for today's generation.
<v Speaker 1>I could see that. I mean, we're writing it for now,
<v Speaker 1>like we're existing in the present day, writing it for
<v Speaker 1>what the present day audience now.
<v Speaker 3>II the nostalgic connection with those earlier episodes as well,
<v Speaker 3>which obviously helps. But now I watch it and they go,
<v Speaker 3>you know what, maybe I just need to just embrace
<v Speaker 3>it and say, this is now for today's kids who
<v Speaker 3>are now going to have nostalgia connection with the show
<v Speaker 3>in twenty years time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's interesting, you know, because I can use an
<v Speaker 1>analogy of that, which is that because I mean, naturally
<v Speaker 1>I'm part of the show. So I mean, I remember
<v Speaker 1>watching the show, early episodes of the show before I
<v Speaker 1>was a part of it, and I still go back
<v Speaker 1>and watch those and I still enjoy them. I'm I'm
<v Speaker 1>immentally proud of all the shows that I've worked on,
<v Speaker 1>you know, starting with when I started with the show
<v Speaker 1>in season thirteen. So it's hard for me to say,
<v Speaker 1>like whatever, but like I have an experience as a
<v Speaker 1>fan of a different franchise, which is Star Wars, which.
<v Speaker 3>Is like, I say, the same thing Star Wars. Yep.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So I mean I remember, I'm old enough to
<v Speaker 1>remember Star Wars when it first came out in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>seventy seven and just like loving it and being so
<v Speaker 1>thrilled by it, and then the Empire strikes back and
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't believe that that was like the greatest movie
<v Speaker 1>I've ever seen. And Return of the Jedi was was
<v Speaker 1>pretty good. It had some stuff I wasn't so crazy about,
<v Speaker 1>but it was still like I still love those and
<v Speaker 1>I have huge memories of those, and then the prequels
<v Speaker 1>came out in like nineteen ninety nine and two thousand
<v Speaker 1>and two, and I was not a huge fan of those,
<v Speaker 1>and I was disappointed by those. And if you've seen
<v Speaker 1>any other things I've done, I've done some stuff with
<v Speaker 1>Lego and Star Wars and some of my other time. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I've took I did some jokes in those about how
<v Speaker 1>boring some parts of the prequels are. But then I
<v Speaker 1>was surprised. I guess you could say I was surprised
<v Speaker 1>to see that like people who were kids in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety nine. Let's say, if you were a ten year
<v Speaker 1>old or so, or eleven or twelve year old in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety nine, that's the Star Wars that you watched
<v Speaker 1>growing up with. And there's a huge amount of devotion
<v Speaker 1>and love for those prequels by people who were ten
<v Speaker 1>or ten or eleven years old when those movies came out,
<v Speaker 1>and to them maybe the In fact, it's interesting because
<v Speaker 1>years I went, I had the chance to go back
<v Speaker 1>and see a friend of a friend had had a
<v Speaker 1>print of the very first the original Star Wars movie,
<v Speaker 1>which I just we still call like the Star Wars,
<v Speaker 1>you know, episode four. But anyway, and we all went
<v Speaker 1>to see it at a movie theater and it.
<v Speaker 3>Was really really the untouched version, or yeah, it was.
<v Speaker 1>It was a it was a print from the very yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like an original print from like nine eighty or something maybe,
<v Speaker 1>but it was before yeah, the the special edition and
<v Speaker 1>all that stuff. And we watched it. It was great. It
<v Speaker 1>was fun. But the first like forty minutes of that
<v Speaker 1>movie are incredibly slow.
<v Speaker 3>Oh. I put off my son thinking I'm gonna shine
<v Speaker 3>style wars Naw's and I love it, and I got
<v Speaker 3>to you and I'm like, oh my god, does anything
<v Speaker 3>happening right?
<v Speaker 1>But that's by modern standards or by contemporary standards. It's
<v Speaker 1>incredibly slow moving, and it doesn't really get started. It
<v Speaker 1>really doesn't really get started until after they.
<v Speaker 4>Like, yeah, well, I say, until until the stuff with
<v Speaker 4>Han Solo and the canteena now like kind of blast
<v Speaker 4>when they're blasting away.
<v Speaker 1>From from most Isley and everything, and then you know,
<v Speaker 1>and then they when they get they get to the
<v Speaker 1>depth Star and they rescue Princess Lea. But the beginning
<v Speaker 1>of it is very slow moving. But I remember at
<v Speaker 1>the time seeing it as a teenager in nineteen seventy seven,
<v Speaker 1>not thinking that at all, thinking like, this is the
<v Speaker 1>most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. This
<v Speaker 1>is absolutely incredible. So everyone has like a different floating
<v Speaker 1>relationship to things. So I think, in a way bring
<v Speaker 1>back to the Simpsons, like everyone has a memory of
<v Speaker 1>seeing the early episodes and will always be there and so,
<v Speaker 1>but they're you're older now and your life is different,
<v Speaker 1>you know, so when these new episodes come around, you
<v Speaker 1>have a different relationship to them, and everyone everyone that
<v Speaker 1>gets to experience it their own way. So you're saying,
<v Speaker 1>like your children, they're watching the newer episodes, and maybe
<v Speaker 1>they if you watch, if you watch the season one episodes,
<v Speaker 1>now you go back through them, you might say like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>this is kind of slow moving, or you know, it's whatever.
<v Speaker 1>It's just everyone has a relationship to things that The
<v Speaker 1>things don't change, the shows don't change, but your relationship
<v Speaker 1>for them changes and your view on them changes.
<v Speaker 3>Well, just becoming just becoming a dad and being married.
<v Speaker 3>I watched those shows from when I was a kid,
<v Speaker 3>and through a whole new lens. Now I enjoy the
<v Speaker 3>jokes that I never enjoyed as a kid, and the
<v Speaker 3>jokes don't joy as a kid, I'm just.
<v Speaker 1>Like whatever, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
<v Speaker 3>Do you think the pacing of the writing has changed
<v Speaker 3>over the years.
<v Speaker 1>You mean the actual shows, the pacing of the shows, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think they have. I can't think. Well, they have
<v Speaker 1>partly for out of necessity too, which is that over
<v Speaker 1>the course of these past thirty or so years, the
<v Speaker 1>business model of Fox has changed so that they put
<v Speaker 1>more commercials in there. So I believe like the early
<v Speaker 1>the early seasons, episodes were maybe let's say, twenty two
<v Speaker 1>minutes long. Let's say, you know, now we're about twenty
<v Speaker 1>minutes and thirty seconds, so really, yeah, because there's more
<v Speaker 1>commercials squeezed in. That's why largely, that's largely the reason
<v Speaker 1>why you don't see as many like couch gags and
<v Speaker 1>full credits of all this bart skateboarding, and it takes
<v Speaker 1>up too much time, you know, so, and we also
<v Speaker 1>have to get a little more into the story as
<v Speaker 1>quickly as possible. I'm a huge fan of talking to
<v Speaker 1>one of the writers last week about this of the
<v Speaker 1>kind of older way of storytelling in the show, which
<v Speaker 1>is that like often the first act would be just
<v Speaker 1>we call like a first act set piece. It would be,
<v Speaker 1>you know, they go to the swap meet, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and you have all these jokes and butter and then
<v Speaker 1>by the end of that suddenly it turns out that's
<v Speaker 1>what the show is about, you know, like the one
<v Speaker 1>with George Bush moving in next door. I believe started
<v Speaker 1>that way with like that's what it just goes to.
<v Speaker 1>I think first shows up, but it's like the swap
<v Speaker 1>meet whatever, because the neighbors are the neighbor are moving,
<v Speaker 1>blah blah blah blah blah. Who are the new neighbors.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, it's it's former President George Bush. And
<v Speaker 1>that's the end. That's the first act break. There isn't
<v Speaker 1>as much time for that anymore. So often we'll find
<v Speaker 1>ourselves like not having as much of that kind of
<v Speaker 1>style of storytelling because we have to get there's a
<v Speaker 1>limited amount of time now, you know, because of the
<v Speaker 1>shows being shorter, So we'll get into this, we'll get
<v Speaker 1>into the main story a lot quicker than than we
<v Speaker 1>used to. And and this and the scenes are shorter
<v Speaker 1>and quicker because again we have to We still want
<v Speaker 1>to tell our story, we want it to be funny,
<v Speaker 1>but there might not be as much time for these
<v Speaker 1>kind of extended, long, longer digression kind of things that
<v Speaker 1>we used to do.
<v Speaker 3>Do you think the show would not being not improved,
<v Speaker 3>but sort of benefit from being a streaming show where
<v Speaker 3>you wouldn't have to worry about commercial breaks anymore. Do
<v Speaker 3>you think that the Simpsons being on Fox Fred on
<v Speaker 3>television is an important aspect of the show that should remain.
<v Speaker 1>I feel it's an important aspect of the show, and
<v Speaker 1>that even if the show became a streaming show, I
<v Speaker 1>would imagine that they would still write it the same way,
<v Speaker 1>like it would still have the same act break structure.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, but do you think they gave me the twenty
<v Speaker 3>two though instead of the twenty thirty. It gave me
<v Speaker 3>the extraty ninety second doesn't seem like a lot, but
<v Speaker 3>it is a lot.
<v Speaker 1>Well, it's sometimes it has to do with not just
<v Speaker 1>the time but the budget, because every every few seconds
<v Speaker 1>of animation costs this much, this much money, you know too,
<v Speaker 1>So like on efforts for family show on for Netflix,
<v Speaker 1>we there was no time constrained and we had to
<v Speaker 1>be We couldn't be any longer than twenty five minutes,
<v Speaker 1>I believe, and they didn't want us any shorter than
<v Speaker 1>like twenty two or twenty one minutes, so some episodes
<v Speaker 1>were longer than others. And that was an interesting, whole
<v Speaker 1>different experience of working on a whole different kind of
<v Speaker 1>show because that show had no had no commercial break,
<v Speaker 1>so there was no act structure, conventional act structure, and
<v Speaker 1>it was a whole different It was fun because I
<v Speaker 1>got to I was still working at The Simpsons, and
<v Speaker 1>I would just sort of take time off to work
<v Speaker 1>on the other show.
<v Speaker 3>So sort of how'd you find that balance because that's
<v Speaker 3>two completely different styles of shows.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was fun, It was great. It was a
<v Speaker 1>really interesting thing. And I was so happy that the
<v Speaker 1>people who are my bosses here, like Jim Brooks and
<v Speaker 1>Al Jean and Matt Zellman, they allowed me to take
<v Speaker 1>time off, you know, whenever, whenever we'd do a new
<v Speaker 1>season of ephis for Family, I would essentially take like
<v Speaker 1>five months off or six months off, like a sabbatical
<v Speaker 1>as it were, and just go and do the writer's
<v Speaker 1>room for Officer Family. And then when the show got
<v Speaker 1>put into production there was also animation going on. I
<v Speaker 1>would then come back to The Simpsons and spend a
<v Speaker 1>year at the Simpsons because every season of Efficser Family.
<v Speaker 1>We would make one like once every year and a
<v Speaker 1>half or so, so so, but I would still be
<v Speaker 1>I would still be involved with Simpsons in some small
<v Speaker 1>way when I was away, But for the most part,
<v Speaker 1>I was just like, Okay, now myn Officer family had
<v Speaker 1>Now I get to be back, and the Simpsons said,
<v Speaker 1>and it was It was really fun and exciting and
<v Speaker 1>to do a whole different kind of show, and it
<v Speaker 1>was a show that was I employed a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the same kind of humor and comedy and like sign
<v Speaker 1>jokes and things that we do on The Simpsons and
<v Speaker 1>style of humor, but at the same time, it was
<v Speaker 1>different in that this was an ongoing, like serialized story
<v Speaker 1>and we did season arcs and things like that.
<v Speaker 3>Seventy four, wasn't it.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, Yeah, that's right, Yeah, seventy three to seventy four.
<v Speaker 1>But it was whole. It was all like every episode
<v Speaker 1>led into the next, and it was sort of like
<v Speaker 1>writing for me. It was like writing up seasons of
<v Speaker 1>like my kind of shows that I really prefer to
<v Speaker 1>really watch on television, which are shows like Sopranos, are
<v Speaker 1>Breaking Bad, mad Men, which which has like season arcs
<v Speaker 1>and the characters, remember things that happened, you know, seven
<v Speaker 1>Episode or Wire, another great show. So it was really
<v Speaker 1>fun to be It would have been hard to me
<v Speaker 1>to have to do like a if episode only had
<v Speaker 1>been like a Simpsons, but in this andies like it
<v Speaker 1>would be like there's no reason to do it, like
<v Speaker 1>there already is a Simpsons, you know. So we were
<v Speaker 1>so happy that we were able to sort of find
<v Speaker 1>a different kind of show, a different kind of storytelling,
<v Speaker 1>different kind of characters, and it was very, very exciting
<v Speaker 1>and fun to do.
<v Speaker 3>Do you think it sort of just kept you creatively
<v Speaker 3>just engaged because you would do this fresh project that
<v Speaker 3>wasn't the same thing you've been doing for twenty years.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, yeah, absolutely yes. I mean as great as it
<v Speaker 1>is to be part of the Simpsons when when you're there,
<v Speaker 1>and until I became sort of somewhat elevated to be
<v Speaker 1>this kind of co runner, you know, when you're when
<v Speaker 1>you're a writer on staff of a show like this,
<v Speaker 1>it's really fun. You get to write your episodes and
<v Speaker 1>you're there every day and you're pitching on great things
<v Speaker 1>and working with everybody else. But it's not as personal
<v Speaker 1>of a stake as like a show it's your show
<v Speaker 1>that you created, your running and also that's where it
<v Speaker 1>was her family was get to work with the amazing
<v Speaker 1>Bill Burr on that show and we were to cost Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it was incredible, and we were both pouring in so
<v Speaker 1>much of our own lives into it. So so much
<v Speaker 1>of it was based on Bill's life, and the main character, Frank,
<v Speaker 1>is based largely on to some degree on Bill's father
<v Speaker 1>and his family situation growing up. But so much of
<v Speaker 1>it is based on my family situation growing up, my neighborhood,
<v Speaker 1>growing up in New Jersey in the seventies, And so
<v Speaker 1>it was really fun to be able to sort of
<v Speaker 1>put all these so much personal stuff into it that
<v Speaker 1>made it great and exciting and different, and that where
<v Speaker 1>the Simpsons will put some personal things in, like a
<v Speaker 1>story from your life or something like that, but you're
<v Speaker 1>still sort of serving this amazing show created by Macarini
<v Speaker 1>and Sam Simon and you know, with incredible characters. But yeah, so,
<v Speaker 1>but it was really fun to get to go every
<v Speaker 1>couple of months and just really have a thing where
<v Speaker 1>it was my show and I was a showrunner, and
<v Speaker 1>get to work out my own issues.
<v Speaker 3>What did you learn making family that you could bring
<v Speaker 3>to the Simpsons. Is there anything sort of just from
<v Speaker 3>a creative perspective that you could sort of learn from that,
<v Speaker 3>Oh that's different, that works, I can maybe apply it
<v Speaker 3>to the Simpsons as well. Or was it just true completely?
<v Speaker 1>So I think there was two completely different entities. I'd
<v Speaker 1>have to say it was fun because when I'd be
<v Speaker 1>at The Simpsons waiting for let's say a new season
<v Speaker 1>Officier Family to hopefully get picked up, I'd be there
<v Speaker 1>saying like, oh, I can't wait till I can be
<v Speaker 1>It's never a thing where we'd like argue that much
<v Speaker 1>or whatever, you know, but like some occasionally you'd write
<v Speaker 1>something and then maybe the showrunner would say, oh, we're
<v Speaker 1>going to go this way, this direction, you know. So
<v Speaker 1>I'd have that kind of feeling of like, well, if
<v Speaker 1>I'm in the showrunner, I get to say what goes
<v Speaker 1>whatever like that, you know. But so then then i'd
<v Speaker 1>be over there at Efficier Family. But where an Officer family,
<v Speaker 1>I was sort of like the one man kind of showrunner.
<v Speaker 1>Like Bill was amazing, but he was busy with acting
<v Speaker 1>and he would go off and do his comedy. So
<v Speaker 1>I was essentially like the showrunner. And so there was
<v Speaker 1>a lot of responsibility, which was all very challenging and fun,
<v Speaker 1>but it was like, you know, approving designs and going
<v Speaker 1>to edits and things like that, and also being the
<v Speaker 1>one in the room saying like, well, we're not gonna
<v Speaker 1>do that, We're gonna do this. So then when that
<v Speaker 1>was by by the end of six months of that,
<v Speaker 1>I was like, just kidn't wait to get back to
<v Speaker 1>The Simpsons, where I would just be one of the
<v Speaker 1>guys in the room again, just thrown out some stupid,
<v Speaker 1>crusty joke whatever, and like it's not my problem, you know.
<v Speaker 1>So it was fun to be able to go back
<v Speaker 1>and forth.
<v Speaker 3>Did you struggle being the show runner at first telling
<v Speaker 3>people what to do?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I did. I did because I like to think
<v Speaker 1>of myself as being a nice person, and so so
<v Speaker 1>much of when you're running a when you're show running
<v Speaker 1>a writer's room, a comedy writer's room, is you're dealing with,
<v Speaker 1>you know, seven or eight people that are all really funny,
<v Speaker 1>all really talented, all have amazing ideas, but only one
<v Speaker 1>of them is going to work, you know. So I'd
<v Speaker 1>have to be the one saying, well, we're going to
<v Speaker 1>go there, but that this you know. So I found
<v Speaker 1>myself in the beginning of it being having to sort
<v Speaker 1>of maybe I used a lot of times sort of
<v Speaker 1>explaining why, you know, I think we're gonna go this instead,
<v Speaker 1>you know, like because I didn't want to. I didn't
<v Speaker 1>want to hurt anybody's feelings. And you know, it took
<v Speaker 1>me a while to I still was that way, but
<v Speaker 1>like I was able to have a little more confidence
<v Speaker 1>in myself to say, like they'll understand, like it's not
<v Speaker 1>the end of the world. Like everybody pitches and it's
<v Speaker 1>kind of like I'm a big baseball fan, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and they say, like in baseball, yeah right, yeah, of course, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>But in baseball, if you get a if you if
<v Speaker 1>you get up ten times and you make three hits,
<v Speaker 1>that's three hundred average, and that's that's great, but you're
<v Speaker 1>still going to strike out or make it out seven
<v Speaker 1>times out of ten. So everyone feels that way of
<v Speaker 1>like you know, when we're all working together in a
<v Speaker 1>comedy room, everyone's pitching, and the idea is like you'll
<v Speaker 1>get a few in. You might not get a few in,
<v Speaker 1>but it's all for the greater good. So well, I
<v Speaker 1>ended up being able to sort of not have to
<v Speaker 1>be so much. Every time I'm like explaining away why
<v Speaker 1>we're not going for that, I just say, I know
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna go there whatever like that. And it was great.
<v Speaker 1>We had a great, great writing staff on that show,
<v Speaker 1>just an absolutely great staff, and so it was fun.
<v Speaker 1>It was it was a really great learning experience for
<v Speaker 1>me to learn how to be a show runner on that.
<v Speaker 3>Show based on the success, just because it was just
<v Speaker 3>critically just acclaimed that show five seasons. Do you think
<v Speaker 3>Netflix would ever tour the idea of another Michael Price's series.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I would hope, So who knows. I mean, you know, Netflix,
<v Speaker 1>this business has changed a lot, even in the last
<v Speaker 1>since the last time we did, like that last season
<v Speaker 1>came out three years ago. Now it's changed so much
<v Speaker 1>that they had a huge boom and then a huge
<v Speaker 1>contraction and animation. And I always.
<v Speaker 3>Say, is a good effort for a show these days?
<v Speaker 1>Everyone says that. Yeah, Like everyone says, like, you got
<v Speaker 1>five seeds out of Netflix. That's that's like thirty five seeds.
<v Speaker 1>So that was great. I mean, we felt we felt
<v Speaker 1>we could have done more. It wasn't our choice and
<v Speaker 1>it but so you know, it was such a great experience,
<v Speaker 1>and I loved those characters so dearly, and and we
<v Speaker 1>had some ideas for possible like another ship, like a
<v Speaker 1>spin off of taking a character and giving them a
<v Speaker 1>spin off show, or possibly like a sequel show that
<v Speaker 1>Netflix at the time didn't seem to be interested in.
<v Speaker 1>But you never know, Like it's amazing to see like
<v Speaker 1>everything is being rebooted, Like, yeah, they're doing Trauma, They're
<v Speaker 1>making a new King of the Hill. Yeah, you know,
<v Speaker 1>so who knows, maybe someday down the road, Netflix or
<v Speaker 1>somebody else will decide they want to do a little
<v Speaker 1>more with those characters. I'd be very happy if they did.
<v Speaker 3>It's good for us because we do podcasts on King
<v Speaker 3>of the Hill and on Futurama. It's like give us case. Yeah, well,
<v Speaker 3>thank you so much, Marga for you Tom, it's been
<v Speaker 3>much appreciated. Yeah, it's just been lovely just to finally chat.
<v Speaker 3>We've been trying to do this for what months now,
<v Speaker 3>it feels like we've finally made it happen. And yeah,
<v Speaker 3>but yeah, all the best with them with Sason thirty
<v Speaker 3>six and on when he says, say thirty seven, So yeah,
<v Speaker 3>congratulations on that and all the best.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much. It's been so fun to talk
<v Speaker 1>to you. It's been great. Thank you.
<v Speaker 3>As I say, guys, A really fun discussion there with
<v Speaker 3>Michael Price, an absolute legend. And yeah, did you guys
<v Speaker 3>pick up on these sclusies. I may have gone out
<v Speaker 3>of that discussion. Yeah, yeah, I think you know. I
<v Speaker 3>think you know the ones I'm talking about. It was
<v Speaker 3>when I said, I thought that's interesting. I don't forget guys.
<v Speaker 3>You want to get in touch with the show, it
<v Speaker 3>is simply mailbag at four figure discount dot com, dot you.
<v Speaker 3>If you enjoyed this chat, you're also going to enjoy
<v Speaker 3>another interview I've got coming up next week with Matt
<v Speaker 3>Salmon himself. He's going to be coming on the show
<v Speaker 3>to discuss season thirty six, and in particular that ninety show,
<v Speaker 3>the episode that's going to be reviewed by us in
<v Speaker 3>the next week or so. We loved it spoiler alert,
<v Speaker 3>and I'm sure Matt will have great delight in discussing
<v Speaker 3>why he loved writing it as well. A very divisive
<v Speaker 3>episode of the Simpsons. I really enjoyed it, guy, I
<v Speaker 3>really enjoyed it, and I'm sure Matt someone enjoyed writing
<v Speaker 3>it as well. So we're gonna be discussing that ninety show,
<v Speaker 3>season thirty six, and so much more Matt Salmon on
<v Speaker 3>next week's show. Please also don't forget to rate and
<v Speaker 3>review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Reb you do listen
<v Speaker 3>to this show, and if you can, always support the
<v Speaker 3>show on Patreon for a little as one dollar per
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<v Speaker 3>of discat network. You also get access to over one
<v Speaker 3>hundred hours of bonus contents patreonic com slash four finger
<v Speaker 3>discount link for that is in the description of this show.
<v Speaker 3>Thanaks again, guys for all off at fourfing of thiscat.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you Michael Price for joining me on the show
<v Speaker 3>this week and I'll catch you on next week for
<v Speaker 3>that ninety show. Slash My interview with Matt Salmon s