How We Made "Troyal Of The Century" (with Jayden Libran & Andrew Kepple)

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four Finger Discount family on Patreon. Hey, everybody, Danda here for another
episode of four Finger Discount Extra. I hope you're all having a fantastic week,
and I hope you're all having an even better holiday season. This week,
I am joined by the two talented gentlemen behind the incredible new Simpson short
Detroil of the Century, Troy McClure versus the Springfield Aquarium. I'm of course
talking about animator Andrew Cappele and the one and only Jayden Lebron. We delve
into the creative process behind the shot and pitching his Homer voice to Homer himself,
Dan Castelnetta recently, the current state of The Simpsons and where the show
could evolve to in the future, and so much more. It was a
really fun conversation there are links for this short in the description of this podcast,
so be sure to check it out and subscribe to Andrew's channel. But
for now, enough talking. Thanks for listening. I do appreciate your support
and I hope you enjoy my conversation with Andrew Keppel and Jade Lebron. Happy
holidays. Well finally here, gentlemen, how are we all doing. You've
just got off your busy phone call. IM assuming that was Mac Groenning saying
you're hi, Jade School wanting me to do a little presentation for them,
But yeah, thank you for having us under such short notice here. No,
why wouldn't I have this exciting video that You've been teasing it on social
media for a while now, But let's promote it so it's finally happening.
I think by the time people listen to this has probably been out, but
it hasn't come out yet. I haven't seen it. So let's tell at
least me all about it. What is this very important video? You guys
coming at me working on the siloon? So this is the brainchild of an
idea that I had for a while. I always felt that we had never
got a proper sindoff for Phil Harton's characters on The Simpsons, Troy McClure and
Lionel Huts, and you know, those characters after his untimely passing, sort
of just disappeared from the series. And not only did I think that we
didn't receive a final sendoff of them, but I thought it's very interesting how
the student never interacted. There's such bold, very out there personalities. All
the other cast members have characters that interact. Patty and Salmon, Marge,
Burns and Smithers, Homer and Grandpa, but we never got a scene with
Lionel Huts and Troy McClure. So I pitched this idea to Andrew here of
what if Troy McClure was in court for something he did fish related, say
maybe at the aquarium, and we'd throw in a bunch of fish related jokes
and Lionel Huts would be his unwitting defense attorney here. And that's what we
went with. Andrew conjured up a script practically overnight and through in all sorts
of characters and gangs, and over the span of a year and a half
had me recording different voices and noises and sound effects and grunts and growls and
crowds and screams and stuff, and I haven't seen it yet as of now,
but it's all finally coming together. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen bits
and pieces of it. Yeah. I've been seending Jaden a few completed scenes
every now and then, just to sort of, yeah, reassure him that
I am actually Yeah, it's taken a lot longer than I thought it would,
but yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, they just want to be
surprised Jaden, like everybody else when you watch it, do you want to
watch for the first time with everybody else or is it just it's actually finished?
Right, I'm assuming that actually is finished. There's still a little bit
of audio editing to go and just sort of tidying up a few inches here
and there. But you take another day or so. I'm looking to watch
in surprise with everyone else. Well, I can send you a little preview
if you want. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to do that. So
where will it be available? So it's already out there now, probably when
by the Times is out there? So where can people watch this video?
YouTube? New grounds and probably Facebook. YouTube and new grounds are the two
places I usually go to. Okay, all links in the description of this
is a particular channel we should be looking for, or she would just be
looking for the Springfield Acquarium Investors Trod mcclaur is that the thing we should be
searching for. Let me just find the name of my channel. I can
never remember. It's the Albino Sheep, right, Albino Black Sheep. That's
another channel that I usually give videos to look up, Albano Black Schep's youtu
channel. We'll find it on there. But it's a holiday season right now.
What do you guys got planned for the holidays? Anything special? Just
causing with my girlfriend watching a crap channel Simpson stuff. We did that last
time she was here for Thanksgiving, Simpson's Holiday specials and things like that,
so a continuation of that amongst other Christmas movies. We're in California, so
it's warm, very much like Australia is right now. It's about seventy five
degrees out, so it's not gonna be a whole lot of basking in the
snow or anything like that, but you know, some walks in the park,
things like that, gift exchange, relaxation and stuff. It's pretty much
a simple holiday for us. What are the non citizens related to Christmas specials.
You watch Massuming at Christmas Cattles up on top of the list, right,
yeah, I watch. We watched Muppet Christmas Carol. There's a Muppet
Family Christmas thing that we plan on watching where Fozzy and the gang go to
Fozzy's mom's house and they meet the Sesame Street characters and Frago Rock and the
Muppet Babies. That's on the list. I've watched all the American Dad ones,
all the Futurama Christmas episodes, and pretty much whatever I can find.
Really always Sunny in Philadelphia was when I watched recently. Usually I pick a
specific genre that I want to watch, So one year was Nickelodeon Christmas specials,
the year after that was Cartoon Network Christmas specials, and this year is
sort of the adult animation. We're gonna watch the Beavis and butt Head Christmas
one as well, So pretty much adult animation is what we're going for.
Well, you have to know that you're working for White Judge, right,
Yes, yeah, I think it's only fitting that I do. But it's
amazing how all those videos you put on Facebook have led to such great opportunities.
You're one of those people where you were just like, I've got the
talent, the opportunity might not come to me, so I'm just gonna make
it happen, you know, And I ap palled you for it. Yeah.
It's really just about, you know, getting in people's face when the
time is right. And you know, that's sort of how I got my
sort of golden ticket into the world of television voice acting was by posting religiously
on Twitter and Facebook, and Mike Scully saw me and brought me on too,
Duncanville and recently Simpsons writer Michael Price is bringing me on to a little
project we can't quite talk about yet. But that's been a lot of fun,
and it's been very gratifying to know that the people who I want to
see my work are seeing it and are responding to it and have passed along
my information. And you know, that makes me feel really good about myself.
Who be my starstruck about working for Oh Geez, I was very starstruck
getting a response from Mike Judge the first time. That was about three years
ago. Today I posted a Hank impression on Twitter. It's a lot better
now than it was then, but he saw that, and so did the
other cast members that played the Hill family, Pamela Adlin and Kathy and Jimmie
all liked it on Twitter, and I messaged him saying, yeah, it
was really surprised that you liked my Hank. Thank you for that. And
he said, yeah, Hank's a really difficult one to do. And so
for months we had been back and forth. I said, hey, I'm
always open, I'm always interested to work with you. How's Beaves and Budead
coming along? I heard that was something that was announced, and he passed
my information along to his casting director. And then nearly a year later,
a few days before Thanksgiving in twenty twenty one, brought me into record and
I was face to face with Mike Judge on a screen directing me doing his
Beavis and butt Heead voices, and shortly before I left, I summoned the
guts to do his characters in front of him, and I said, yeah,
be sure to smoke your turkey in a nice propane pirate grill. I'll
tell you what. And that got a good laugh out of him. So
that that's really exciting. It takes, like you said, it takes serious
guts, because didn't you also do that in front of Dan eid he's Homer
or which characters did you do in front of down at the Yeah. So
yeah, for those who don't know, I did get to meet a Simpsons
actor, Dan Castelenetta, who's the patriarch Homer Simpson, amongst others. And
we were striking for the WGA Writers guill of America this summer. Thankfully that's
the ended there. But yeah, the whole Simpsons crew got together that summer
in front of the Fox Lot, James L. Brooks, Conan O'Brien,
Josh Weinstein, uh, Jay Coogan, all sorts of David X. Cohen,
all sorts of these names from history from the goal heavy and amongst the
crowd, Yeah, yeah, amongst the crowd was Dan. And I had
met Matt a few weeks prior at an animation screening at the Dynasty Typewriter Theater
in Hollywood sponsored by Rock and Pins. They do this flight tra animation thing
restoration and they screen them and I met I met Matt Groening and saw Billy
West there for the second time, and Billy had introduced me and meeting Matt
Groening, I did Homer voice, my Homer voice and showed him the voices
that I had auditioned for in twenty twenty doctor Hibbert and Carl and others.
And when I met him again, it was him actually that introduced me to
Dan Castlenetta. And I introduced myself to Dan as my voice, and then
I slipped into Homer and said, oh, Dan, I love your voices.
And he got a good kick out of that. And Matt said,
I don't even know which one of you guys said that, and I went
on and said, yeah, I also do Crusty the Cloud, and I
did Carl and Hibbert and others. Dan's love is his flashing before his eyes.
I assured him in real time that hey, Dan, I'm not after
your job. I'm just a real big fan of yours. Look up to
you, look up to your voices, to your work. And he was
so moved by that and impressed, I would think by the voices that I
did for him that He said, Hey, come with me real quick.
And we walked over to this donut card and he grabs this blank card and
signs it as Homer and told me to hang on to that protected and I
did. I held extra tight to that and it got stained with the donut
stains in sweat and stuff. So I put stickers of his characters. I
bought a multi pack of Simpson stickers from Amazon and put Krusty Homer, mel
and ground Skipper Willie on them, you know, let him know that those
are my characters and that there were previously sweat stains on there. So that
was really exciting. That was really really exciting. Do you say that as
a long term potential opportunity to because eventually they're going to have to replace the
voices eventually. So do you think you've sort of you've planted enough, says
now, I'm probably talking to the future voice of Homer Simpson. Do you
think so? Maybe? And sometimes you know, I've I've had really surreal
dreams where like I'll on the news so and so has announced their retirement,
and then I get a call in the dream and they're like, hey,
hey, we need you to come in next week because we got to do
the show. And it feels more and more realistic every time I have that
kind of dream. So I like to think that's in the work, that's
in the works. Last time I talked with Michael Price, he mentioned that
it's only a matter of time, so never say never. But I've always
learned never to get complacent and never to get ahead of myself here. So
if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, then that's okay.
I'll have other things to work on. But ideally, yes, I would
love to do the next seven hundred and fifty Simpsons episodes. What we need
besides the review so you know, Oh yeah, I love your podcast?
Oh poor finger, disc out? What's he? Top five voices? Do
you think Simpsons related? Do you think Krusty Homer? You think Smith and
Smith's is pretty spot on? Right? Oh? Yes, mister Burns,
Ah, yes, I am doing a pretty good Smither. Yeah, question
the clown here is pretty good. Boy, Homer took a really long time,
so i'd have to put him in there. And of course, well
doctor Julius Hibbert here, that's real fun. What I like to do?
I know, you go to Bay, you know you gotta be pleasant,
but that one must sting right, the heap it one, because I'll watch
it now. I'm like, I'm pretty sure Jayden has a better one than
this guy. That's been the word. Some people, even within the show
have said that, hey, we don't know why you didn't get it.
But you know, at the end of the day, it came down to
who you know. Kevin Michael Richardson is a terrific performer, and he had
been working with the show for about a decade at the point, so he
was already there. It would make no sense why they wouldn't select him for
one of the recast. But you know, I was a new, up
and coming voice actor. I was twenty one when I first auditioned. I
had only done one or two major voice acting things at that point, neither
of virture really out, so I couldn't really show anybody. But you know,
it's I'd like to think that at some point I'll yeah, I'll work
in some capacity as the characters. Very excited for you. Eventually it happened.
I'm telling you, positive positive mental energy out there. It'll happen.
Don't worry, it'll happen. Yep, we're all rooting for you. Yeah.
But let's talk about Andrew. So let's let's talk about the The Springfield
Quamasus Tron McClure a short film. How long does the film go for?
Looks like it's going to be seven minutes long. Seven minutes long? Okay,
So it's designed to give as Jame was saying, Phil Hartman's characters to
send off they deserved. Is it just Hudson Mclaw or are you going to
be incorporating more Hartman characters in? There's like sort of side gags or whatever.
What are the characters there? No, I think there's just mainly those
two. Just those two. Yeah, No, no Lanley or anything like
that, rocking up from north havenb whatever. No, Unfortunately he's been laid
to rest. Yeah, we did have a little a little nut in the
last one, all the Phil Hartman characters standing together. Right, there's a
pan of all the characters. You got the guy from Australia, you have
Lyle Lanley in the crowd, and a bunch of others that he did.
So that was sort of a nod. Cool. So what's led you guys
to want to do this? How did it all come together? So,
Jaden, you said, you come up with the idea and you pitch it
to Andrew. Is that how it all came together? Yeah, it was
just a throwaway idea that I had. Andrew came back probably a day or
two later with a full script and I thought it was funny as hell.
The last one was really funny, and I got to working immediately. I
think I recorded the main two characters, Troy and Lionel first, and then
over the course of say a year or so, there would be more things
add it. And it wasn't too long that he was already animating the thing
once he got my initial recordings, but he would throw in more characters and
more gags and say, Okay, we need the crowd to do this,
And you know, I made a list of characters I wanted to do for
the crowds and it's all coming together now. So now we've got the final
mix coming out, and it's going to be out the day the day of
the Christmas pilot episode Premiared. So yeah, yeah, December seventeenth for us.
Yeah, Before we did this video, we'd made another short that was
who Really Shot Mister Burns, which was kind of a fanfic reinvented ending to
it, and that one I managed to smash out in just a few weeks.
But with this new video, I've decided I was going to put the
amount of detail into the animation that I normally do when I'm at work,
and so that was quite a lot of a lot of detail for a lot
of characters, so it's taken a while. How many hours did you put
in Andrew for this one so far? Oh, I couldn't tell you.
It's just you know, I just animate whenever I could, and sometimes I
couldn't. For like, you know, I was moving house and I didn't
animate anything for like a couple of weeks or Yeah. What's what's Jayden like
as a boss? Is he just like where No, where's the episode?
What's happening? No, he's not like a boss like, if anything,
he's more like the marketing guy. Like I'm so grateful that there's someone who
can just post on Instagram, you know, every time there's a little bit
of something to show, people just always get people other people excited for it
as well. And my daughter has just entered the room. One second,
chair, My daughter just entered the room. I'll just get my wife to
remove her. Little Maggie, Maggie continue, Jane. Sorry, I was
just talking as Homer. Your daughter came in. I was like, a
little Maggie, Well, yes, she's adorable, she's lovely, but you
know, she's just turned three and she just decided. I know you're asking
me to do things like just stay out of the room for a bit while
I talk to these fine gentlemen, but I'd rather not. That's weird.
Yes, but I'm assuming all the hour has been putting in with this,
Andrew that you don't have children, no niss sometimes, but I haven't listened
them in a while because I've been too busy animating. But yeah, they're
one and three at the moment. Would you say this is your biggest non
work project that you've ever done. It's definitely the one that's taken the longest.
Like, usually if something would take me a year, I'd be a
worried as to whether I'd be able to finish it or not. But this
one, I just stuck with it. I think. Yeah, Like,
I've made animations that are longer than this one in terms of running time,
but they didn't take more than a year to make. So it's funny because
I know what it's like being a perfectionist. Like when I'm editing the podcast,
I'm constantly editing out little pauses and things like that. I can just
imagine. You said you're putting in lots of detail with this one. Do
you think even once it's out, you're silly seeing and going, oh,
should have done that, probably probably, but I'll have moved on to something
else. I can get into the detail with it anyway. So how many
contributions have you made to it, Jayden? Because I know you said that
Andrew wrote it, but obviously it would have been a collaboration, right,
Yeah. We were both bouncing ideas off each other for a while until we
came up with a good list of gags and characters that Jayden wants to do.
So yeah, there's there was one joke that I had in mind that
I totally think the Simpsons Raiders would have come up with, and it's Linel
hearts. He's starting to try mclar and he says, don't worry, joy
baby, I've got this case all locked up. Literally, all my notes
are inside. You would happen to have savedy Ben, would you? And
uh? That landed in the script and we added that right away. There
were miscellaneous noises and stuff that that would make as the crowd that ended up
making it, which I'm very proud of. So many great voices that were
just background mumbles that will run together and you can't really tell what they're saying,
but individually there were some great lines in there. Some of the best
thingses gags are just the murmurs in the crowd, like the taxes. The
finger thing means the taxes. I gotta kill Homer, So basically set me
up with the premise. So he's being sued by the aquarium for slipping with
the fishes. Is that basically what the premise is here? So there's a
huge misunderstanding. He was caught in a case of indecent exposure at the aquarium.
Uh, he was. He fell into a fish tank of dolphin tank,
and his clothes had been ripped off, and that became exposure. Yeah,
a piranha tank. Excuse me, Yeah, much different than a dolphin.
What is going on here? There's a dolphin in it. I mean,
I haven't seen the thing in a while. I can't quite remember,
but we do have a dolphin in it. But his clothes get ripped off
and he's in the buff. He's nude, He's completely naked, and that
becomes a case of a decent exposure for him. People think that this confirms
the long standing rumors about him. He was viewed by the mob during this
instance, and they've always had rumors on him, They've always had dirt on
him. So now this is the career sinking moment for for Troy McClure,
and it's up to Lionel Huts to make the case that protects him. So
essentially kind of like I know, it hasn't got somewhere in it that that
b plot. Is it kind of like a part two to a fish court
Selma. Yeah, yeah, it does happen after that, because we do
refer back to that episode as well. Do we get a doctor zayas a
plenty of the apes reference at all? Please tell me what we do?
We do have a reference to that. Yeah, there's references to all sorts
of funny moments with Tru Mclair and Lionel Hunts that. Honestly, I'm surprised
we were able to get all of them in these things, even just visual
gags. If you notice the tie that Lionel Squear is doing, this is
a callback. So that's a fun thing. And we've got yes, I'm
wearing a tie. Let me tell you, Dan do baby a beautiful tie?
Yeah, he's got his tie in this one. It's really great the
details in this, the small jokes. It basically a real nod to the
fans. There's a really, really hilarious joke that Andrew threw in and that
had me rolling the first time I read it. Where Judge Schneider in the
early seasons, they would always get incorrect with the coloring. Yes, yellow,
yeah right, it goes back from yellow to brown to some weird mix.
But in this we decided like we would poke fun at that. And
Andrew came up with this idea that he would start off yellow and then with
every single shot that he's in, he progressively gets browner to the point that
he's at his current shade of brown like banana. When you watch it,
right, he's like a moly banana. When you watch it, you'll see
he starts off like Simpson's yellow and then he's black. So, yeah,
that's a fun little gag that we got. I'm glad you said Snyder.
I was going to say, please tell me you Judge Snyder and not the
Judge duty takeoff. Oh no, Constance harm Yeah no, I can't do
that, boys, but I'm doing my Judge Snyder here. The clown is
down. That's a fun voice. Hey, if they haven't cast him yet,
No, no, that's true. How many non non heart mean characters
in this is it like the whole Springfield town watching the court case. The
whole town is here. Yeah, Homer, Marge, Lenny, Carl,
Mister Burns, Smithers, Sea Captain, Chief Wiggum, Krusty the Mafia,
Snorky hlue haired lawyer. That was a fun one I got to do.
That was a new one for me doing the bluehead lawyer here. I uh,
there was a when I saw him animated, it just completely threw me
off because he's got all of the features of the characters are hyper exaggerated and
stylized, and Andrew gives him a huge nose and his posture is really wonky.
So when he moves, his nose kind of jiggles and he talks like
this the whole time. Oh really, wow, mister Simpson. And you
know, you see he moves very fluidly like everything is completely like not what
Matt Groening would sign off on if he was viewing the animation process, but
I think that it kind of adds to it. Yeah. I was having
a lot of fun with his big exaggerated, like sarcastic movements when he's sort
of mocking his parents. For me, the blue Head Lawyer is one of
those characters who as a kid, I did not appreciate anywhere near enough.
But now look back at what people call the Golden Near I'm just like,
man, what a great character. And he doesn't even have a name.
It's yeah, it's crazy, isn't it. Yeah? It's like, did
they realize how great the character was? Surely? Yeah, But what do
you think has been your favorite part of this whole process? Or start with
you, Andrew, what's been the most enjoyable part of it for you?
Sort Of throwing together the script was kind of fun. Note sort of kind
of liked taking all these jokes we've been sort of and memes we've been bouncing
around for a couple of days and then just trying to put them all into
a script, which then had to undergo a few edits over the next few
weeks as I was adapting it to animation and then sort of realizing, oh,
this scene isn't really going to link up to this one without something else,
you know, putting it all together, and then at each stage hearing
getting a voice back from Jaden, it would be like, Wow, that
character just came to life just like that, And then it was up to
me to make it come to life even more with the animation, which takes
a bit longer. But yeah, so, I mean, yeah, so
any one point in particular, I wouldn't say it was my favorite, but
just seeing the whole thing at each step of the way suddenly jump up level
of you know, this is actually something we're doing. What about you,
Jaden. The most exciting part about this for me is bringing back Phil's characters,
and it's it's a huge honor that I get to do this, and
I don't want to pat myself on the back or anything too heavily here,
but watching the footage complete, it feels like his characters are back, and
it's it's very cool to see. I spent days listening to the tracks of
the characters and tried to find a middle ground between their early voices and their
later voices, and I think I got a good sound out of them,
and they sound like like they're actually talking to one another, interacting fluidly,
and I think it's probably one of my better, if not best voice acting
things that I've done in the past year. So I'm very excited to see
how that comes out. Yeah, I just also want to say that it's
been so good making my own fun little animation, you know, just for
fun, not for getting paid for it or anything, and having such a
world class voice sector behind it, Like it's just, you know, so
much fun to have that rather than something I'd be making. I'd normally just
have to voice it myself because I couldn't find anyone, and it would be
like, okay, but yeah, so did you treat this short as a
goodbye to the characters? So look at the end? Was it sort of
like a not a farewell? Were you proud of how you sent them off
at the end, or was the final bit of this segment the most difficult
part to write? Well, this is it? This is their last hurrah?
Was that the mentality going into this one or was it a little bit
different. I wouldn't say that this was like a goodbye to them, but
I would say that it's sort of like we want to see these characters succeed,
and that it's not really very kind to the characters that they sort of
just were forgotten about, never mentioned again. So I thought if we could
just like not even mention that they were gone, or not even mention that
they're going away, or anything. Just bring them back in Simpson style,
have them as the center of it, and then on to the next just
to show that the characters are still alive, you know. And we don't
own the characters by any means, but I think the fans have some level
of entitlement, you know, seeing how the characters play out in their minds,
you know, some imagination towards that. And you know, since we
never really got to see how their lives play it out, we never really
got to see Lionel Huts win a big case, or Troy McClure get a
career resurgence or anything. I thought it'd just be nice just to see the
characters one more time in their fullest, you know, not like a little
Thoroughway joke or a little background appearance in the later seasons or whatever, but
just like, the characters are back. These are characters the fans haven't seen
in over two decades, and here they are truest to themselves, And so
that's sort of what this is all about. I'm just I'm sensing. You
know, you said you had dreams before. I feel like, once this
is out there right, surely the guys like Matt or whoever ol behind the
show, we'll see how great this is. That will contact the family of
the great Phil Hartman, and I will ask the permission to give him one
last prop hurrah on the show, and hopefully you get brought back to do
it. Can you imagine hell fucking amazing that would be. I mean,
it's a long shot. Honestly, I don't know if i'd say, yeah,
it's in an official capacity. I know a lot of fans would probably
be horrifically offended that, oh, the symptoms are bringing you back after thirty
thousand years. But you know, they bitch and moan about everything else,
so who knows. But why was not chucking Bond anymore? What's going on
here? He's not strangling his kids. The show's gone woke. It'd be
nice even if it's like even if they had like extra audio of him doing
stuff, or like a demo or whatever, or just unused lines and could
use that in a new episode, that would be nice. But if they
had a good enough script, if his family gave me their blessing, and
I had every sign in the world that this is the right move, that
I should do this, and yeah, I think I would be okay with
doing them at least once on the show, but that'd be it. You're
right, it is sad that he didn't get all those two characters in particular,
didn't get the send off that they deserve that had sort of forgotten about.
But I can see why they didn't because it was sort of as a
you know, no tribute to Phil, but it's just out of respect for
Phil. But it is a shame that they couldn't at least work into a
story that they've moved away, you know, at least even Preacher got to
you know, he's gone back to his own planet. At least two characters
should have got something at least, not just oh, they're gone. Because
a lot of people were credit that that was kind of like at the same
time that the show didn't drop in quality, but it changed after that about
the same era. It's just purely coincidence. Yea, yeah, I think
that was when Bill and Josh left as showrunners and we got Mike Scully.
Mike Scully incredibly talented, but took the show in a different direction. Whether
you agree with the direction or not, that's you know, that's up for
discussion. But it was just coincidence at the same time, that was when
Phil was taken from us, and of course everyone sort of credit when Phil
left that's when the show dropped off. That's unfortunate, too, beyond unfortunate.
If anything, he was a terrific actor with terrific credits under his belt.
I was actually just watching Jingo all the way the other day. We
just reviewed it in the neighbor He's sort of like a Ned Flanders mixed with
the mixed with the Lionel Hutts level of sleeves. And it's so funny.
He's so organic with his characters. He's got such a rich and fun and
iconic voice that's so hard to forget, and one could only wish. One
could only wonder what his characters could have done throughout the Scoli era and the
resurgence about Gene and say, if he was still around the Sealman episodes or
what have you. I think there was a lot a great deal of untapped
potential with his characters that hopefully we can showcase within this short here. Yeah,
sort of remember around the time that Phil Hartman, like that was when
I left home, so I wasn't really keeping up on the state of current
events like that. So it was into a couple of seasons after that where
I sort of realized I haven't seen Lionel Huts for a while, like here's
that lawyer guy. And then I sort of found out that, you know,
the voice actor isn't around anymore so because what was the last appearance from
McClue. It was just a self help video, wasn't it, the one
where he's is it was Bart the Mother, Yeah, he was. It
was a bird watching video of bird care video or something like that. And
uh, you know that's fine at all. That's that's uh, that's something
for him. But you know, for for a last appearance, that's you
know, it just sort of ends, and that's kind of that. And
Realty Bites was the last with Lionel Huts season four and that was fun almost
in a way. It seems like the passing of the torch between Huts and
Gil Gunderson in a way, and Gil's fun. I know, he's not
the fan's biggest favorite nowadays. I think he more or less has become a
staple of the gene era, but he never really rose to the comedic heights
of Lionel Huts in terms of his legal capabilities, and none of the other
characters really have. No one's really filled the void that his character's left,
and I think that's kind of unfortunate. Do you think there's a feature?
Obviously, this is a fan made thing could eventually lead to something more,
But do you think there's a feature in fan made Simpson's animation or do you
think that Disney will be like, uh uh uh, We'll do this as
long as we can. I already have an idea for another one if we
can can get to that. But I think there's definitely a high demand for
it, and you see the kind of things that other people are making with
Simpson's animation. There was one that I saw the other day. It's got
five million views, was out a few years ago. I can't quite remember
the name of it, but it's a really it's a three D version of
Homer and Lenny and Homer's mourning loss of his son Bart, and it's all
audio from the show, but he's I think it's called Homer Goes Crazy and
it's super depressing but also like emotionally realistic. Homer's going on this path of
destruction and sorrow after Bart dies and drives around the city thinking and crying,
and it's sad, but it's so wonderfully animated and brings us into this avenue
of the show that we aren't quite used to, and I think fans would
like that. I think fans do like that and respond to such that we
can see the characters in different ways, do different things, but we still
at the end of the day know that these are the characters and this is
how they would respond in these scenarios. So I think that's what fans like
to see. I think fans are going to want to see that. More
people are going to want to create things like that. Yeah, I think
that, like we're seeing more fan things show up in the show, Like
sometimes there'll be a geest or right, Yeah, there was one where they
wanted all those people who just wanted people to draw the It's clown or Krusty
is that clown for Yeah, yeah, one of the episodes. Like I
think, you know, it'll eventually get to a point where they should be
letting not just fans, but just other well known directors do a whole episode
for themselves, just to give something different for the show. Yeah, they
even did that something like that recently, they responded to the fan theories that
have been lingering for the last yeah years. Yeah, Lisa the Boy Scout
Season thirty four is Lisa the Boy Scout delves into all these crazy theories,
Selma being Marge's mom, I can't cry, Prince being an adult. I
remember watching that one. But did they touch did they touch into Ralph being
the son of Eddie? Was that touched on of Eddie? Right? Yeah?
Martin being a grown man working at the school, and the Wise Guy
being a replica of himself, an alien crease that self replicates. They know
what the fans like, they know what the fans do, and I think
they've responded more so than ever in these last few years, even within the
last two Halloween specials and other stuff that they're doing. They do the classic
animation now and callbacks, and they'll retool episodes that we've seen a thousand times
before, but now, hey, what if it hit it this way?
And that's sort of what we're doing nowadays, is you know, with who
really shot mister Burns and the Springfield a querium versus Jory McClure, what if
this happened with these characters? And I think The writers are picking up on
that too, and we like that those episodes have done really well when they
do that. So that's I think where fans and writers have sort of intersected
in the recent years. Matt Salmon got himself a Finn Mongoern. He's pushed
the waterf machine. Now that's hero his room. Oh yeah, is my
thing longer love? It's funny. I was really impressed. Is what I
want to have to dinner with? Matt abet three months ago now here in
Melbourne. He came in his little notebook and it was several times he sort
of he come with an idea for an episode. He's like he's writing in
his book and I was like, oh, he's Larry David and this shit
Like he's he's always on, you know, he's always thinking of ideas,
and that really impressed me. Yeah. Yeah, I got to meet Matt
earlier this year too. Matt Summon at the strike that I mentioned. He
was great. What's funny about him is that not only does he know what
the fans love about The Simpsons, but he also knows the huge avenue of
bootleg stuff that's being cranked out, and he wore a bootleg bart shirt that
was very funny. So he knows, I think, more so than anybody
else on this show, what the fans like, what the fans don't like,
how to respond with, how to give the fans exactly what they want,
and hey, I'd be happy to work with them at some point.
Who knows. But I think he's been the fresh boost of energy that the
show's needed for a long time. All credit to al Jean. Has been
great for the last twenty some years, but you know, it's nice to
see a change of pace. We get superstylized episodes, and I think we
can expect a lot more of that from him. It's funny because we're walking
around and Phil Rosinfall was like, Hey, that place is called like Simpson's
Pizzas, and they've just got a Homer painted on the front of the window.
It's like, is that allowed? And Matt's like, yeh, fuck
it, not my money again, Homer's Pizzas. Do you guys watch the
new episodes much? Yeah? I watched them when I remember too. Yeah,
I haven't missed an episode. I really enjoyed the last season more so
than the current season. I think I think this one's had a couple of
there was one in particular I thought it was a bit of a stinker.
Was the mister Burns Ted talk one. I was just like, I just
can't get into it. Yeah, thirty three and thirty four I feel was
the show's resurgence. But thirty five this doesn't feel like, in my opinion,
this doesn't feel like, you know, the big thirty five, the
big thirty fifth Hurrah. Yeah, the season opener with Homer as the Grass
and Gar was great, the one with Marge's dream was real good, and
then we got, you know, another documentary style episode, change of format
format Benning episode there. Mister Burns and that wife that he has was an
interesting concept, but it just felt like we had been there and done that
before. MC manchin and mcwife or something like that. I felt like was
something we had gotten before. And there was that whole controversy he doesn't choke
part anymore that we mentioned, But like it sort of just feels like a
return to like the early twenties seasons of episodes, you know, the like
season twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, whatever, sort of just
feels like that of just like you know, later season Simpsons just doing a
topical thing and then onto the next Yeah, it was just referencing so many
things that were just around at the time but may not last. So yeah,
right, yeah, the NFT Halloween special, Yeah what she's going,
Oh boy, it's like, yeah, this is a good idea for two
years ago. Yeah. Now, I don't know, but okay, I
see where your energy, I see where you're hurting. Maybe they were just
waiting for everyone to catch up to the fact that NFTs are kind of not
that great, right, And I didn't know anybody who's got to deal with
a McMansion problem of zoning it something like that. I think that might have
been a thing like two thousand and six and seven, two thousand and eight,
but I don't know. It's sort of just seemed like one of those
episodes that doesn't really catch up or really tells what the audience is really thinking
and feeling these days. I don't know what the Mister Burns episode deal was,
but that that was just something else. I didn't finish it, but
you know, it's it's yeah, it's it's it's what nine episodes into the
season so far, who knows what the new year will hold for us,
But yeah, I'm hoping we can get more stylized episodes. Got the last
few seasons more format benning stuff, but one can only help. We definitely
got a lot more format bending ones last season than ever before. I think
there was like an eight or nine of them in the one season, and
I thought for the most part, they all stuck the landing. Yeah,
they worked, and that's what people want to see. We don't really need
another Marge is angry at Homer story or a rich do neighbors story? Or
who's the celebrity that Homer's friends with this time around. You know, we
want to see people playing Simpsons characters. When we got that with with the
ned Flanders two part are those weren't celebrity guests. Those were celebrity guests playing
new characters and characters that we like, characters that were funny, characters that
were intimidating. That's where the show needs to go. We don't need to
see Simpsons and Lizzo in a recording studio. We want to see a new
character. We want to see something that we haven't seen before. But you
know, we get that, you know now, and then we get new
stuff. But you know, I think the writers have sort of caught on
this sort of format doesn't work. We should lean off these type of stories,
or you know, March doesn't have to be angry at Homer nowadays,
now they sort of present them as more loving and cozy and relaxed. So,
you know, in some aspects, I think they've sort of picked up
on that. But every now and then we retread. There was another one
earlier this season where Bart's afraid of Nelson again after you know, decades,
I thought they were friends. What the hell? But now we're back to
that story, and you know, I want them to sort of grow and
let the characters grow and actually commit to that. But sometimes they do.
Sometimes they don't. Yeah, like, if we want to see episodes about
those old themes, we've got hundreds we can look back on for that,
you know, right, the Simpsons. If any show I can keep trying
new stuff, it should be The Simpsons exactly. I feel like they came
out at the start of the season and they said, all right, guys,
Homer and March aren't going to fight once this season. I think everyone
will be talking about the going shit seriously, really, finally you're listening.
Or they would either do that or they would get upset. They think if
the show's gone walk that now Marg isn't about with their husband. But you're
touching on like the format bending ones before though, I thought that was going
to be the evolution of the show. Eventually it would be taken not taken
off the air, but moved. When they got beat up by Disney,
I thought he started getting those Disney shorts, right, which I think are
pretty terrible. But that's another discussion, right. They feel like they're just
trying to meet a quota, and you know, talking people from yeah,
talking people from the show. They roll their eyes like, yeah, let's
not talk about those, right, But I feel like they're a real opportunity.
I thought that was going to be the evolution of the show, where
you know, maybe it won't be twenty two episodes a year, because that's
got to be strenuous just to put out ten specials a year on Disney,
plus that's knocking out of the part ten the specials. I think that's the
way forward, right, And yeah, they haven't done one of those in
a while, I think. But yeah, I sort of thought the same
thing, and that had been the general announcement that we'd get new Simpson's exclusive
Disney exclusive content. I thought we might get a mini series of Ralph or
a silent more silent stuff with Maggie, or you know, see sort of
the idea that they had in the nineties of giving the characters each their own
show or a show about all the characters, like twenty two short films.
But nope, it's The Simpsons at a bar with Disney characters and stuff like
that, and Bill basically what we would expect out of Disney owning the Simpsons.
Every Simpsons fans worst nightmare, so to speak. It was kind of
a good thing that that episode was so that little minipisode was so bad,
because it just confirms what we would hurt. The writers would are right.
And what's so interesting is like you see the credits of those things and that
they're animated by They're directed by David Silverman, who's been with the show since
the Almond era. They're written by like all the writers. They've got Matt
writing, They've got James L. Brooks writing, they've got al Jean and
all the others, all the head Houn shows. And then like it comes
out and it's like, Okay, I've seen it once. I don't know
that I need to see it again, and you know that's ultimately I think
Andrew and I could probably crank out just in the exclusive content for them,
the stuff that fans I actually want to see stylized original characters and stuff like
that, but that do't ever happen, so, you know. But the
thing is, though, it's like I think their mentality going into those shorts
is it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. It's just we're just got
to put something out there. Well, I feel like that they're still passionate
about quality with the show with those shorts, though you watch it going,
did you guys actually write any of this old? Did you? You know?
I hate to bring it up, but did you just ai this shit?
Because this doesn't feel like you're writing at all a lot of it.
It just feels so generic. So much of it doesn't it. It doesn't
feel like Simpsons. Much of it doesn't feel like the Simpsons. The Force
Awakens Maggie thing it felt like a Star Wars short that happened to have Maggie
Simpson in it. The Disney celebration thing plus a Versary thing that just felt
like a Disney short that happened to have the Simpsons in it, and it
shouldn't be that way. It should be the Simpsons and everybody else is just
living in their world. You know, in an ordinary episode, Mickey Mouse
would be shot up by Itchy and Scratchy or something, or Goofy would get
the shit beat out of him, or you know, something something horrifically violent
and a way of like saying screw you, We're not gonna give into the
corporate entities, you know, the way that they've always bullied and badgered Fox
on the show. I was expecting that, you know, from these shorts,
that they'd go after Disney harder than they have, but it's been kids
gloves. So yeah, you're right, normally they'd be going at Disney,
but it feels like they're extending their handout saying friend. It's like what all
right? Yeah, It's like that's not what would happen. Homer would be
drinking with Goofy. He'd probably like think that he's a rabbit dog and run
him over with the car or something, or trying to get him speed.
But with you know, obviously you guys are both massive Simpsons fans, are
what are both of your earliest memories of the show. We'll start with you,
Andrew. You're from New Zealand. What are your earliest memories of the
show. Well, when the show first came out at the end of nineteen
eighty nine, I wasn't really too aware of it, but I was basically
the exact same age as Bart, because it came out like the day before
my birthday. Okay, so, and when I turned in and in the
following year, like, I didn't really see a lot of the show because
my parents weren't really big on cartoons. They tried to discourage how much I'd
watched, and it was on after my bedtime and all that kind of thing.
But I did get to see a couple of episodes that a friend of
mine had recorded to VHS and we watched. I can't remember what they were
now, but I know that some of the earliest episodes I saw were Bart
the Daredevil and Bart the Genius. I think were two that just and I've
always liked those ones. You know. It's like some of the older ones,
you see them so many times in reruns and they start to get a
bit grating, but those two are just yeah, They've always been a favorite.
But I also do remember that later on my parents did start to soften
towards The Simpsons, and sort of in the early nineties they started to realize,
oh, maybe this show isn't as bad as some of the other crap
that he watches. So they recorded for me while I was out at boy
Scouts one time they recorded the Halloween episode Threehouse of Horror. I can't remember
which one, but it was the one where with the Monkey's poor and all
those episodes. Yeah, yeah, and seeing like an actual this. I
know there were earlier Halloween ones, but that was the first one I saw,
and just it was so funny to see a cartoon that just went really
hard on the violence and like brains getting scooped out and all that kind of
thing. What about you, Jaden, So obviously you know massive fan as
well, massive Muppets fan as well. I can see from the back Ben
Navel you muppet. Yeah, parapherally the backroun so one of your earliest memories
of the of the Simpsons, though, incidentally enough, it's I think through
the merchandise. We had the car, the pink car that it talked when
you pressed down on the characters. It had all for the main Simpsons characters,
and when you pressed down on them, they would say a line from
the show, typically travel related, like oh, we left Grandpa at the
gas station, or a Homer would say doll or or something like that.
And I remember Marge kept breaking off and we'd have to super glue her back,
and then eventually we lost March. I remember there was a we ended
up returning that toy to this sort of a thrift shop at the corner.
I don't even remember if that building's still there, it was so old,
but there was a whole aisle of out of the box Simpson's toys and stuff,
and my brother had bought the little figures that when you stand them up
they say a line or so he had a handful of those. But I
remember the first my first glimpses as far as the actual episode goes, was
I remember, my this is gonna sound weird as hell, but my grandma
had a TV in the bathroom and it was one of those TVs where it
didn't plug into anything. It was just like you you pulled out the antenna
and then it would like play a really really staticky black and white version of
whatever was actually on real TV and a Simpsons episode was on and I sat
there watching it in the bathroom for a little bit until I was told to
get out. But I remember Reverend Lovejoy was on the screen, and it
had to have been the Listen Lady episode because I remember he was at the
train. I think that's the episode. Yeah, this, well, there's
a very sad man. And that was sort of my first memory, and
later when I got the DVDs, I contextualized that. And then one of
the other ones I remember really really young, scared the hell out of me
was the Funzo episode. I remember seeing the skeleton version of the Funzo toy
creeping towards Lease saying give me a hug again. That scared the hell out
of me. In and years later I see it what the actual episode was,
and it was fun so and it's actually really funny. So I used
to scare my sister as well. We'll talking about I see you, like,
stop it, stop it. I also have a memory about watching The
Simpsons on a bad TV, which was it wasn't a portable one, but
sometime around the golden era of the Simpsons, it was on TV at six
o'clock and my parents would always watch the six o'clock news, so I couldn't
watch The Simpsons unless I watched it on an old to monitor that only played
monochrome green in the other room. I watched a lot of the classic episodes
in black and white or green and white at first, and then got to
see them in color later. They're yellow. I've been seeing the green of
myself. You were yellow the whole time. You're like, why are Springfield's
favorite yellow family? What's going on here? Greenfield's favorite green yellow family.
Yes, exactly right, it must be why I like doctor Colossis so much.
He stayed the same. Alrighty guys, Well let's wrap this up,
shall we. But of course we're here to talk about the Springfield Aquerium versus
Tromiklos Let's plock promote one more time. So basically the setup is Troy's found
himself naked in a tub full of primes, which sounds very dangerous, but
he's been accused of sleeping with the fishes, as guess reference one of the
gags. By the way, in the episode of fish Court Summer, where
as a kid, I was like, what's he talking about? But you
watch it now and you're like, hol hot diggity damn. How do they
get that one through the senses? Weirdly enough, by the way, Phil
Harburn plays fat Tony in that episode in some strange twist for some reason,
he wasn't available for that one. But Joe, he doesn't like that if
fat Tony's in the show, he has to voice him. It's going to
be a good reason for him not to voice the character in the show yet.
But so basically being sued by the aquarium? Who's being sued by in
this short? It's just a public and decency kind of thing. It's probably
been brought against them by the aquarium. I'm not sure who. It's like.
Everything I know about how the legal system works on the States I got
from The Simpsons basically so well. I cannot wait to see it. Is
it basically? Is it left open ended where you could do another one featuring
these two characters, or is this going to be it for these two?
You think, no, we don't kill them off or anything good in the
air right now, But probably the next one I'll focus on some other untapped
area of characters that we haven't seen before. Who knows, but you know,
I love playing mister Burns and Smithers so we could do who really really
really shot mister Burne's knags? I don't know, but hey, you know,
keeping open air, there's always something that we'll be working on alrighty,
And we'll put the links for all the videos in the description of this podcast.
But again, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. It's
been an absolute pleasure. All the best of the video and all the best
of the holiday season. Thank you. Merry Christmas, wait, thank you
very much. And Mary Beer miss