An Interview With Al Jean (Simpsons Showrunner)

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