How To Write A Simpsons Book (with Alan Siegel, author of "Stupid TV: Be More Funny – How The Golden Era of The Simpsons Changed Television

<v Speaker 1>Four Finger Discount.
<v Speaker 2>Dude, Hey, everybody, welcome to four Finger Discount. I am
<v Speaker 2>Brendandana joined it now by Guy Davis. Hello everybody, and
<v Speaker 2>we are lucky to be joined today by the man
<v Speaker 2>who has just written the best Simpsons book ever. Apparently
<v Speaker 2>it's Alan Siegel. Hey doing Allen.
<v Speaker 1>I'm great, Thanks for having me, guys.
<v Speaker 2>And I say, apparently it is. I just read it
<v Speaker 2>this morning, a lot of it this morning, and yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's fantastic. It doves into a lot of the Simpsons
<v Speaker 2>issue that we've touched on many times in the past.
<v Speaker 2>But I feel like you've found a way to find
<v Speaker 2>new information, which is great.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's funny.
<v Speaker 3>I've wanted to write a book about the Simpsons for
<v Speaker 3>like ten years now, and I could never quite figure
<v Speaker 3>out the angle, you know, like because the show is
<v Speaker 3>like an institution, especially in the States, really all over
<v Speaker 3>the world, and it just was too big.
<v Speaker 1>It was like too big to try to off.
<v Speaker 3>But just focusing on the nineties is what I really
<v Speaker 3>settled on because I sort of was like, this is
<v Speaker 3>what we talk about, it's what we quote. It's really
<v Speaker 3>like what the show, what the greatness of the show
<v Speaker 3>and the joy of it is, and so that's really
<v Speaker 3>what I wanted to focus on.
<v Speaker 4>It's also I really give us an insight into the
<v Speaker 4>people who I guess shaped the show and shaped its
<v Speaker 4>voice very early on. I mean I really came away
<v Speaker 4>from Radiant with a greater knowledge and even more of
<v Speaker 4>a greater appreciation of guys like Meyer and Swartzwel and
<v Speaker 4>Sam Simon, all those people. I mean, yeah, you really
<v Speaker 4>capture their personalities very very vividly.
<v Speaker 1>I think, thanks.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I feel like I could have written a whole
<v Speaker 3>book on Meyer and sports Wealth every I had so
<v Speaker 3>much material on them.
<v Speaker 1>Like my editor at one point was like, why is
<v Speaker 1>this in here?
<v Speaker 3>I mean I had like a whole long digression about
<v Speaker 3>the script that George Meyer wrote for David Letterman, and
<v Speaker 3>it was like a James Bond parody and the Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>writers would like steal jokes from it, and you know,
<v Speaker 3>and Meyer basically said like, oh it was funny, but
<v Speaker 3>you know, Austin Powers did it better. Like this is
<v Speaker 3>stuff that's like catnip for me, but yeah, it's hard
<v Speaker 3>to like excize. You know, it's killer darlings, right, And
<v Speaker 3>so there's just so much there.
<v Speaker 2>Was your editor a big Simpsons fan like yourself.
<v Speaker 3>So funny enough, My two editors were amazing, and they
<v Speaker 3>were not the biggest Simpsons fans.
<v Speaker 1>They were I would say moderate.
<v Speaker 3>But what that helped me do was like calibrate the
<v Speaker 3>book for like an audience that might not know the
<v Speaker 3>show so so ideally when you're reading it, it's sort
<v Speaker 3>of for for new new fans of the show, it's
<v Speaker 3>sort of like an explanation of why it was so influential,
<v Speaker 3>and then I think for the hardcore fans it's like
<v Speaker 3>it gets into like how it was so influential, and
<v Speaker 3>like those two things I think appealed to both groups.
<v Speaker 4>It's a real why to walk, isn't it. I mean, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>you want to you're sort of preaching the convert in
<v Speaker 4>a lot of ways. I mean, I think Simpsons fans
<v Speaker 4>are the ones who are more likely to pick up
<v Speaker 4>a book called Stupid TV being more funny. But at
<v Speaker 4>the same time, yeah, you gonna want to introduce more
<v Speaker 4>people to the fold. Yeah, and those little nuggets that
<v Speaker 4>you're talking about, I mean, there were so many that
<v Speaker 4>I enjoyed in it, just little tip bits of information.
<v Speaker 4>You're right in saying that that's catnip I mean the
<v Speaker 4>way you talked about I never knew that Phil Hoptman's
<v Speaker 4>nickname on SNOL was Glue for example. I mean, we
<v Speaker 4>all love Phil and we get the feeling, oh, I
<v Speaker 4>get the film that's the kind of guy he would
<v Speaker 4>be like, but to actually learn that he was, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>he's the kind of guy who bons people together all that.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 4>Uh, Dan Caslotta had to give up the Walton Mathow
<v Speaker 4>voice because it was just too much of austray. It's like,
<v Speaker 4>that's something I didn't know, and that's you know, that's
<v Speaker 4>worth the price of admission as far as I'm concerned.
<v Speaker 3>Well, thank you, And I think that is one interesting
<v Speaker 3>thing that I learned. Basically that obviously, like these are
<v Speaker 3>some of the smartest, funniest comedy writers in the history
<v Speaker 3>of TV, but so much of this stuff was not planned.
<v Speaker 3>Like you know, John Vitty, the writer talking about just like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>Homer needs friends, so Lenny and Carl and that's it.
<v Speaker 3>Like he didn't expect there to be Lenny and Carl
<v Speaker 3>action figures, you know, and limited edition action figures.
<v Speaker 1>Like forty years thirty years later.
<v Speaker 3>So there just was a lot that they threw against
<v Speaker 3>the wall and like it was like a combination of
<v Speaker 3>sort of them taking chances and also.
<v Speaker 1>Their brains that really made it work.
<v Speaker 4>It leads into something I wanted to watch because, I mean,
<v Speaker 4>something I loved about the book and love about the
<v Speaker 4>early writers of the show who really shaped the show.
<v Speaker 4>They were shaped themselves by, you know, growing up watching
<v Speaker 4>TV in all its fats. It's I mean, they didn't
<v Speaker 4>have unlimited choice. They had what was on the four
<v Speaker 4>channels or the three channels or whatever. So they got
<v Speaker 4>the good, the bad, the weird, the dull, and they
<v Speaker 4>knew what they liked, but they knew what they didn't like,
<v Speaker 4>they knew what they didn't want to be, and The
<v Speaker 4>Simpsons becomes the Simpsons as a result of that. I mean,
<v Speaker 4>I think there's a line from swartswear really talking about
<v Speaker 4>his target. Audiens said, well, I picture a smart kid
<v Speaker 4>watching some he's talking about himself and he's talking about
<v Speaker 4>the other guys.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean I think that I've said before, and
<v Speaker 3>I truly like believe this is that it's sort of
<v Speaker 3>the good side of watching too much TV. It's like
<v Speaker 3>you had these really really smart people watching, as you said,
<v Speaker 3>the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between, and
<v Speaker 3>they like somehow manage to process that in their brains
<v Speaker 3>like through a machine and spit it out into this
<v Speaker 3>thing that transcended everything that came before it.
<v Speaker 1>I mean a.
<v Speaker 3>Detail that I am obsessed with that people have mentioned
<v Speaker 3>to me is like their love of the original Batman
<v Speaker 3>TV show. I mean when I was a kid, I
<v Speaker 3>didn't I didn't understand that it was supposed to work
<v Speaker 3>on two levels. And they clearly picked up on that
<v Speaker 3>a long time before I would have, and like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>to them that that was sort of the basis of
<v Speaker 3>the show. It's like you have like silliness, tongue in cheek,
<v Speaker 3>you know, jokes and like sort of anti authority, kind
<v Speaker 3>of light anti authority stance, and then you mix that
<v Speaker 3>with action and then you throw in like seventies influences
<v Speaker 3>like All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and that's
<v Speaker 3>basically the DNA of the Simpsons.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, now you live through the initial crist You were
<v Speaker 2>right in the target market as well when the show
<v Speaker 2>first launched. Now we got the show a little bit later,
<v Speaker 2>so we never truly experienced Batman. And now I was
<v Speaker 2>still a little bit too young, So take us back
<v Speaker 2>what was like to be a child during by when
<v Speaker 2>it was originally happening.
<v Speaker 1>So bart Mania is what led me to watch the show.
<v Speaker 3>Like I sort of vaguely recall The Simpsons Rostik on
<v Speaker 3>an open fire, like the very first episode sort of
<v Speaker 3>being advertised just incessantly in the fall.
<v Speaker 1>Of nineteen eighty nine, but it wasn't.
<v Speaker 3>Until school, like in early nineteen ninety I think I
<v Speaker 3>was in first or second grade. Just every kid had
<v Speaker 3>shirts like Bart shirts, like ten different varieties of Bart shirts.
<v Speaker 3>I'm from the Boston area, so they had all these
<v Speaker 3>bootleg like Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, Boston Celtus is
<v Speaker 3>Bart on them. So yeah, I mean there were there
<v Speaker 3>are all sorts of inappropriate that were like pro Gulf
<v Speaker 3>War bar I mean you've probably seen them on ebed, right, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I mean, but so that got me interested, and then
<v Speaker 3>like my friends at school were into it.
<v Speaker 1>And so the first episode I saw.
<v Speaker 3>Was Homer's Night Out, which is where Homer, you know,
<v Speaker 3>is canoodling with Princess Kashmir the belly Dancer, and my
<v Speaker 3>parents watched it and they were like, you can see
<v Speaker 3>a little of this, like it's it's inappropriate. And they
<v Speaker 3>kind of banned the show from that, like they were like,
<v Speaker 3>you can't watch anymore. And I don't know what it was,
<v Speaker 3>because like they're not you know, they're not very strict
<v Speaker 3>with that stuff, or they weren't, and they kind of
<v Speaker 3>just like let the groundswell like overtake them, and they
<v Speaker 3>were like, all right, you can watch now. So I
<v Speaker 3>would say, yeah, like nineteen ninety is when I really
<v Speaker 3>got into it. I probably understood like thirty percent of
<v Speaker 3>the jokes, which is like a lot of a lot
<v Speaker 3>of kids my age at the time, but I eventually
<v Speaker 3>like it's funny.
<v Speaker 1>When I really started appreciating it.
<v Speaker 3>Appreciating it was probably like fourth and fifth grade, so
<v Speaker 3>that's like the you know, the gene In Rece years
<v Speaker 3>and into the David Murkin years, and that's when I
<v Speaker 3>was like really into it.
<v Speaker 2>You said in the book that your parents understood the
<v Speaker 2>greatness of that episode and how they touched on the
<v Speaker 2>adult things of Homo really having in a fair but
<v Speaker 2>March was jealous and whatnot. But then they still banned you. Anyway,
<v Speaker 2>My mum banned me for watching The Simpsons when I
<v Speaker 2>was four or three or four because it was treous
<v Speaker 2>of horror One Bad dream House and they all go
<v Speaker 2>into the kitchen get knives and whatnot, and Maggie got
<v Speaker 2>a knife out, so little Brendan Dana went into the kitchen,
<v Speaker 2>got a knife out of the drawer and that was it.
<v Speaker 2>Simpsons was finished.
<v Speaker 3>Wow, that talk about art imitator, like imitating art, right,
<v Speaker 3>that that is wild. I mean that episode I remember,
<v Speaker 3>like when Marge comes out to give her a little
<v Speaker 3>speech about you know, if you have sensitive children, like
<v Speaker 3>put them to bed like that scared the shit out
<v Speaker 3>of me. Like that was that was absolutely terrifying, and.
<v Speaker 1>It was scary.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's what people don't realize, Like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>the raven is the raven. It's like you know, from
<v Speaker 3>the nineteenth century, right, so it's a little more antiquated.
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't feel as visceral as some of the other
<v Speaker 3>you know, like the Twilights don't parody like it's it's
<v Speaker 3>pretty intense.
<v Speaker 4>It's still pretty disconcerting. Absolutely, even if it's not explicitly
<v Speaker 4>sort of scary, it's it makes a skin.
<v Speaker 2>Crawl a little bit.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, we might be skipping over the timelines and
<v Speaker 4>ears a little bit here, but right now you're You're
<v Speaker 4>a senior staff writer at The Ringer, which is, you know,
<v Speaker 4>one of the current epicenters of pop culture commentary. And
<v Speaker 4>I'm wondering if the show was kind of if The
<v Speaker 4>Simpsons has kind of created a common language or shorthand
<v Speaker 4>for editors and contributors at a place like The Ringer.
<v Speaker 4>I mean either obviously in terms of like one liners
<v Speaker 4>or bits that you might drop or do, or just
<v Speaker 4>in terms of a general sense of humor.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean, I've said this before, but I think
<v Speaker 3>there are like two kinds of TV shows. Like you
<v Speaker 3>have water cooler shows, shows that you watch and then
<v Speaker 3>the next day you talk about them at work, like
<v Speaker 3>you think of Sopranos, Breaking Bad, all these sort of
<v Speaker 3>quote unquote prestige TV shows from the last ten or
<v Speaker 3>fifteen years. And then you have like secret handshake shows,
<v Speaker 3>And that, to me is what The Simpsons is. And
<v Speaker 3>it's like you bond, like someone tells a joke or
<v Speaker 3>references something and like the Shinning or something like that.
<v Speaker 3>I remember a friend of mine, like our eyes lit
<v Speaker 3>up at college and we heard that and you start
<v Speaker 3>to bond and it's funny. Like Sean Fantasy was my
<v Speaker 3>first editor at the ringer, and I was trying to
<v Speaker 3>pitch him some stories.
<v Speaker 1>And I didn't know what to pitch him.
<v Speaker 3>I had tried a few things that didn't quite work,
<v Speaker 3>and so I had I just googled, like Sean Fantasy Simpsons.
<v Speaker 1>And he was a.
<v Speaker 3>Music reviewer at one point, and he referenced the show
<v Speaker 3>in a music review and Spin magazine in a review
<v Speaker 3>of Little Way of Lil Wayne, and I was like, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>I know what to do.
<v Speaker 1>So I pitched an article.
<v Speaker 3>This was like twenty sixteen about Hank Scorpio, The Hank
<v Speaker 3>Scorpio You Only Move Twice episode sort of about how
<v Speaker 3>the show predicted like this benevolent tech dictator right that
<v Speaker 3>you know we know all too well now and it's
<v Speaker 3>a lot less funny now than it was. And the
<v Speaker 3>art for that story has him driving a Tesla and
<v Speaker 3>it's really bizarre. And this was twenty sixteen, so like,
<v Speaker 3>that is what the show does.
<v Speaker 1>It creates connections.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, well, you're right in the book that nineties kids
<v Speaker 4>have become tastemakers and power brokers. How persuasive and influential
<v Speaker 4>do you think The Simpsons is on pop culture right now?
<v Speaker 4>In twenty twenty five, in terms of like inspiration or
<v Speaker 4>even just plain imitation, and does does it still hold strong?
<v Speaker 2>Do you think?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>I mean there's like sort of obvious and subtle answers
<v Speaker 3>to that question. I mean, just look at the dozens
<v Speaker 3>of good animated adult television there is, I mean, not
<v Speaker 3>everyone is good, but BoJack Horseman King of the Hill,
<v Speaker 3>which the reboot is great.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if you guys have seen it.
<v Speaker 2>It's we're doing a King of the Hill podcast and
<v Speaker 2>we're doing in chronlogical order, and we had never seen
<v Speaker 2>King of the Hill before, so do we want to
<v Speaker 2>spoil the show for ourselves.
<v Speaker 3>It's very specific and grounded and like slower in a
<v Speaker 3>good way than The Simpsons, which which all this to say,
<v Speaker 3>it's like, if you look at the shows that the
<v Speaker 3>Simpsons influenced, that is a good example of it because
<v Speaker 3>it's so different and so so you have that and
<v Speaker 3>you have like just the comedic style of packing jokes
<v Speaker 3>and site gags that you see like thirty Rock is
<v Speaker 3>a great example, although that show came out twenty years ago.
<v Speaker 3>But I mean if you look at the influence, to me,
<v Speaker 3>like I think it created a worldview in people, like
<v Speaker 3>a big criticism of The Simpsons in later years is
<v Speaker 3>that it was sort of nihilistic, right, It was sort
<v Speaker 3>of like everything sucks, and like institutions are broken, especially
<v Speaker 3>in America, like the bureaucracy, the grifting, and that's one
<v Speaker 3>way to look at it. But also like I'm sort
<v Speaker 3>of cribbing something George Meyer said, which was you know
<v Speaker 3>there the writer's point of view was basically like the
<v Speaker 3>world is a punishing, unforgiving place, but it's still worth living.
<v Speaker 3>And I think that really informs a lot of people.
<v Speaker 3>And one thing I must say is like The Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>is so good that there are people who watch that
<v Speaker 3>don't seem to get it and still love it. Like,
<v Speaker 3>you know Ted Cruz, Republican Senator, Like you hear him
<v Speaker 3>talk about The Simpsons and he.
<v Speaker 1>Is obsessed with it.
<v Speaker 3>Yet you're like, did he watch the same show that
<v Speaker 3>we did, because it seems to sort of be inn
<v Speaker 3>opposition of everything he does.
<v Speaker 2>Do you think there will come a time where The
<v Speaker 2>Simpsons won't become irrelevant, will have just become sort of
<v Speaker 2>forgotten to an extent because I feel like maybe my generation,
<v Speaker 2>maybe the generation just after, were the last ones that
<v Speaker 2>truly watched the Simpsons relentlessly. I've got two kids now,
<v Speaker 2>who was seven and four, and if I didn't introduce
<v Speaker 2>them to The Simpsons, they would have no idea what
<v Speaker 2>the Simpsons is, whether it exists that kind of thing.
<v Speaker 2>Do you think there will come a time where people go,
<v Speaker 2>what's the Simpsons?
<v Speaker 1>I think absolutely.
<v Speaker 3>And here's the thing, though, what will live on are
<v Speaker 3>like the way we speak quotes from the show that
<v Speaker 3>people don't even know are from the Simpsons. I was
<v Speaker 3>doing an interview about my book and about The Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>and someone made a reference to a Krusty the Clown quote,
<v Speaker 3>which is, you know, he oops, I said the quiet
<v Speaker 3>part loud in the lab part quiet, and I stopped
<v Speaker 3>the guy, who's a very smart interviewer, and I was like,
<v Speaker 3>do you know where that's from?
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, no, I don't know. And I was like,
<v Speaker 1>that is a Simpsons And there are things.
<v Speaker 3>That I'm sure that I have forgotten or from the show,
<v Speaker 3>And I mean, like, how many shows can you guys
<v Speaker 3>say it sort of Actually it's like inception or like
<v Speaker 3>in our subconscious like the Simpsons. And I think maybe
<v Speaker 3>that's why it's somehow underrated, because people don't realize how
<v Speaker 3>sort of its seeped into our brains.
<v Speaker 4>It's kind of a knee jerk reaction very much. I
<v Speaker 4>mean I've said many times that you know, I'll go
<v Speaker 4>to the supermarket, parking lot or whatever, and I may
<v Speaker 4>be parked a little awkwardly, but I'll sort of look
<v Speaker 4>outside the door and say, I'm in the lines. You
<v Speaker 4>don't like it, go tell your mama. It just happens,
<v Speaker 4>but it leads into something I want to talk about.
<v Speaker 4>There's a line that I always use about pop culture
<v Speaker 4>that it can be as dumb as you like and
<v Speaker 4>as smart as you need. That's the best pop culture.
<v Speaker 4>And that strikes me as really appropriate when we're talking
<v Speaker 4>about the Simpsons, and particularly the right of the Simpsons,
<v Speaker 4>who seemed like energized by folding deep emotional or psychological
<v Speaker 4>or philosophical ideas into the show and punctuating with jokes
<v Speaker 4>that are just playing dumb, yeah, and walking that balance.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, when you meet guys like George Maya, for instance,
<v Speaker 4>I mean, do they seem like a breed of pod
<v Speaker 4>Do they seem like all these guys operating on a
<v Speaker 4>whole different level, or are they just like some guy.
<v Speaker 3>George, especially you talk to him, and it's like everything
<v Speaker 3>he says.
<v Speaker 1>I may even mention this sort of in the acknowledgments
<v Speaker 1>of the book.
<v Speaker 3>It's like everything he says either makes you laugh or
<v Speaker 3>makes you think, and like, there are not a lot
<v Speaker 3>of people in this world that are like that. And Swartzwelder,
<v Speaker 3>who you know, he's a little bit reclusive.
<v Speaker 1>He's not giving interviews.
<v Speaker 3>Like the thing I heard about him was that he
<v Speaker 3>liked to look at The Simpsons as a drama done
<v Speaker 3>by stupid people, and like it takes a very smart
<v Speaker 3>person to do that. And again, like, and a thing
<v Speaker 3>that I love sort of hearing about was these rules
<v Speaker 3>that the writers would make and then just break, you
<v Speaker 3>know what I mean. Like the joke that I loved
<v Speaker 3>hearing about was, you know, Homer imagining winning the lottery right,
<v Speaker 3>and he becomes like jewel encrusted and he's he all
<v Speaker 3>of a sudden grows taller and taller and tolerting and
<v Speaker 3>he's a giant.
<v Speaker 1>And John Vitty, the writer was like, sorry, I.
<v Speaker 3>Don't know why I'm clarifying on your pod, Like people
<v Speaker 3>don't know who John Vitty is. But John Vitty's like,
<v Speaker 3>I don't get it. Why would winning the lottery make
<v Speaker 3>you grow taller.
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't make any sense.
<v Speaker 3>But what that did was it caused the writers to
<v Speaker 3>be like, we want to top that with our own
<v Speaker 3>version of a joke. And you know, with Meyer people,
<v Speaker 3>it was sort of like the class looking at Bart
<v Speaker 3>and being like, do the line?
<v Speaker 1>Bart? Say the line?
<v Speaker 3>Because like he would, things would escalate and escalate and escalate.
<v Speaker 3>And it was always Meyer who would have the best
<v Speaker 3>like topper to the joke.
<v Speaker 1>And I mean he may not have had his name.
<v Speaker 3>On a lot of episodes, but he might have written
<v Speaker 3>the funniest joke in like one hundred episodes.
<v Speaker 2>People consider that the first nine seasons to be that
<v Speaker 2>golden era, and my was a show running had Oakley
<v Speaker 2>and Weinstein? What is your era? What do you say
<v Speaker 2>as because my ear is Oakley Winstein. That's what I
<v Speaker 2>was relentlessly watching The Simpsons when now in new episodes,
<v Speaker 2>that's what I was finding that to watch the Simpsons.
<v Speaker 2>But honest think that that's when the Simpsons looked its best,
<v Speaker 2>at was its best it's best formula. I think when
<v Speaker 2>Bill and Josh were running the show.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think they they had the maybe not an advantage,
<v Speaker 3>but what was interesting about them was that they were
<v Speaker 3>the first show runners who were true Simpson's fans, Like
<v Speaker 3>they came in maybe ninety one ninety two, and you know,
<v Speaker 3>the show had sort of started, but they like loved
<v Speaker 3>the show, right, so that gave them this reverence, but
<v Speaker 3>also like the desire to really push it forward with
<v Speaker 3>things like you know, twenty two short films about Springfield,
<v Speaker 3>Like they knew that they couldn't do the same stuff
<v Speaker 3>over and over. And I'm digressing big time. But my era,
<v Speaker 3>I would say, is like half a season two through
<v Speaker 3>season nine.
<v Speaker 1>Like I think season nine has some really good episodes.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it kind of gets unfairly I think maligned a
<v Speaker 3>little bit. I mean I was really really loving it
<v Speaker 3>probably until season ten through season ten, which is like
<v Speaker 3>my high school years, and I continued to watch through
<v Speaker 3>maybe fifteen, and then I've come back and I've started
<v Speaker 3>to enjoy it.
<v Speaker 1>I think like a time away has helped.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we' we're up the season twenty of the podcast now,
<v Speaker 2>and honestly, I can count on my hand how many
<v Speaker 2>episodes I genuinely just don't like, even because I always
<v Speaker 2>say The Simpsons, even at seventy percent is better than
<v Speaker 2>most shows on TV, and we're.
<v Speaker 4>Definitely trying to accentuate the positive as well in terms
<v Speaker 4>of like everyone's sledging on these later seasons. But there
<v Speaker 4>are jokes in here that would slot imperfectly to a
<v Speaker 4>season eight, a season nine. Not all winners, but there
<v Speaker 4>are so Yeah, to use our term djure, there are
<v Speaker 4>nuggets in there.
<v Speaker 2>There are little gold nuggets in there. And it's interesting
<v Speaker 2>because a lot of the people because the Simpsons lives
<v Speaker 2>on through meme culture now the Facebook groups and whatnot,
<v Speaker 2>and a lot of people on there always go on
<v Speaker 2>the Simpsons died after season ten. I want to hear
<v Speaker 2>about Simpsons after season ten. That's what they say. That's
<v Speaker 2>their spiel. But I don't think many of them realize
<v Speaker 2>just how many memes came from after season nine, like
<v Speaker 2>the stupid sexy Flanders and that kind of thing. The
<v Speaker 2>what is the quote about? The why can't I have
<v Speaker 2>no kids in free money? Things like that get meaned
<v Speaker 2>all the time, but they're not in the golden near it.
<v Speaker 3>No, the one with it's like mister burns, like the
<v Speaker 3>germs coming through the door. Yeah, Like that's why he
<v Speaker 3>can stay not he doesn't get sick because the germs
<v Speaker 3>are fighting to get through that. I think that was
<v Speaker 3>maybe ten or eleven, I admit I don't remember, but yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it's there's definitely like an adherence to that golden era
<v Speaker 3>in terms of like what people want to talk about.
<v Speaker 3>They kind of won't admit that maybe there's some good
<v Speaker 3>stuff later. I mean, and again, like if you look
<v Speaker 3>at early message boards, I'm talking like nineteen ninety two,
<v Speaker 3>people were saying the show was going down the toilet then,
<v Speaker 3>and that was like, inarguably the best stretch of TV
<v Speaker 3>in the history of the media.
<v Speaker 2>Well, Bill and Josh always talk about how that would
<v Speaker 2>constantly go onto those forums and just see what people
<v Speaker 2>are talking about, and you can kind of say that
<v Speaker 2>maybe they cared too much about what people thought. But
<v Speaker 2>then it's got to a point where they went, you know,
<v Speaker 2>what is going to make the show that we think
<v Speaker 2>is the best, and who cares what they think?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I love George Meyer's sort of line about like, well,
<v Speaker 3>I never had respect for the audience what they think.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's very you know, it's easy for him.
<v Speaker 3>To say because he's so brilliant and the writers are
<v Speaker 3>so brilliant, But I do believe like that kind of
<v Speaker 3>becomes a cliche in comedy, right where it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 3>we were just making our friends laugh, like that's what
<v Speaker 3>we wanted to do. But if you think about The Simpsons,
<v Speaker 3>like that's what made it great is that it was
<v Speaker 3>this little hermetically sealed comedy bubble and there were no
<v Speaker 3>outside influences really, and that's that was extremely rare for
<v Speaker 3>the time.
<v Speaker 2>This show is brought to you by the four Finger
<v Speaker 2>Discount Patreon, where you'll find over one hundred hours of
<v Speaker 2>bonus podcasts, including exclusive Simpsons reviews and commentaries, as well
<v Speaker 2>as exclusive episodes of Going Down to South Park, Tales
<v Speaker 2>of Futurama, Bob's Pods, Speaking of the Hill, Talking Seefeld,
<v Speaker 2>the One About Friends, and so much more. So go
<v Speaker 2>ahead and join the family today at patreon dot com
<v Speaker 2>slash four finger Discount.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's a real sort of interesting comedy ecosystem, and
<v Speaker 4>I'm a real sucker for stories of like those creative
<v Speaker 4>incubator sort of environments. I want to talk about the
<v Speaker 4>way that you focus on the I guess the founding
<v Speaker 4>fathers of the show in Matt Groening, amesel Brooks, and
<v Speaker 4>Sam Simon. I love how much credit everybody gives Sam Simon.
<v Speaker 4>Everyone agrees he knew the rules and structure of making TV,
<v Speaker 4>but he was able to think outside the box and
<v Speaker 4>had this great ability to recognize in mold talent. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I mean the sensence really strikes him as of this
<v Speaker 4>perfect storm of a willingness to take risks but also
<v Speaker 4>color inside the lines, like you need rule makers, but
<v Speaker 4>you need rule breakers as well.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think I want to steal that line rule
<v Speaker 3>makers and rule breakers. But it really was like this
<v Speaker 3>first that rather this perfect sort of alchemy or chemistry,
<v Speaker 3>like you had the architect in graining creating this world
<v Speaker 3>that was you know, both irreverent and grounded and real
<v Speaker 3>and pretty diverse really, you know, like Springfield, his ideal
<v Speaker 3>Springfield was full of like lots of different types of people.
<v Speaker 1>You had James L.
<v Speaker 3>Brooks as sort of like the Godfather, Like you hear
<v Speaker 3>the writers talk about him and it's like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>God walking through the door. You know, he was this
<v Speaker 3>romantic comedy guru who always knew how to sort of
<v Speaker 3>insert emotion into the show when the writers were like,
<v Speaker 3>we're gonna go crazy and do all sorts of zany
<v Speaker 3>stuff and Simon was not only was he like Jeff Martin,
<v Speaker 3>the writer was like, you know, he just was really
<v Speaker 3>good at TV.
<v Speaker 1>He was really good at TV.
<v Speaker 3>And he also had a chip on his shoulder and everything.
<v Speaker 3>Everything was a fight, right. So Simon was just convinced
<v Speaker 3>because he was so jaded by TV. He's like, oh,
<v Speaker 3>we're gonna do these thirteen episodes that was the first
<v Speaker 3>order of the show and be done. And so he
<v Speaker 3>just told his writers like, yeah, just try stuff. Every
<v Speaker 3>episode should be different than the last. And the writers
<v Speaker 3>like took it to heart and they like, he was
<v Speaker 3>like the best coach, right. I mean he could be like,
<v Speaker 3>you know, he could have an acid tongue, but they
<v Speaker 3>wanted to please him so badly and that worked.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>The other thing is, i mean, you guys are relative
<v Speaker 4>spring chickens. I'm an age of Generation X stops and
<v Speaker 4>I'm we tend to romanticize the eighties and the nineties
<v Speaker 4>and yeah, but when we do that, I think we're
<v Speaker 4>looking at maybe three or four shows that run take
<v Speaker 4>me because there was a lot of garbage. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 4>mean it's great that The Simpsons was a response to
<v Speaker 4>that and a push back against that.
<v Speaker 3>In so many ways, yeah, and I mean it's funny
<v Speaker 3>because yeah, like you said, like Cheers is one of
<v Speaker 3>the best shows in the history of television.
<v Speaker 1>Like it was incredible.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, and you know Bill Cosby obviously, like when
<v Speaker 3>things came out about him, it showed of changes the
<v Speaker 3>tenor of thinking about this sort of wholesome show.
<v Speaker 1>But that was a very funny show.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I mean, it was huge.
<v Speaker 3>But the thing with the Simpsons is like the writers
<v Speaker 3>are really obsessed with kind of pushing the form forward.
<v Speaker 3>Like I kept hearing these writers be like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>TV was so stage bound. It was like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>I'm not sure this made it into the book, but
<v Speaker 3>George Meyer like talked about going to a sitcom set
<v Speaker 3>and noticing like, oh, that's why there's no ceiling on
<v Speaker 3>you know, there's no ceiling because there's lights up there.
<v Speaker 1>Like it felt so confined to him.
<v Speaker 3>And they were like, let's do some stuff that you
<v Speaker 3>can't do on family ties or family matters or whatever,
<v Speaker 3>like let's have Homer jump the Springfield Gorge like that
<v Speaker 3>that's just something you couldn't do on any TV show.
<v Speaker 4>Well, that's the origin of tree House of Horror as well,
<v Speaker 4>isn't it. I mean they've sort of had We've yeah,
<v Speaker 4>we've got this creative within this format. Yeah, let's go
<v Speaker 4>crazy Broadway style essentially.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like there would be no other show doing
<v Speaker 3>and a full adaptation of an ed Ground Poe poem.
<v Speaker 3>Right like that just seems like like I'm imagining now,
<v Speaker 3>like you know, even like a like a Netflix executive
<v Speaker 3>being like, I don't think this is for Quadron.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think this is gonna work.
<v Speaker 2>But and also a k to that success too. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know whether you can actually do all these things
<v Speaker 2>without the famous James L. Brooks no notes element to
<v Speaker 2>the contract. Now you've mentioned that people have misunderstood this
<v Speaker 2>thing over the over the years. Why have we misunderstood it?
<v Speaker 1>So?
<v Speaker 3>I think I misunderstood it. I basically thought, you know
<v Speaker 3>that because James L. Brooks basically negotiated Maybe I don't
<v Speaker 3>know if it was in his contract, but it was
<v Speaker 3>sort of known that the executives at Fox, the creatives execs,
<v Speaker 3>would not interfere with the Simpsons at all. No notes,
<v Speaker 3>no comments, nothing, And you know the cliche is that
<v Speaker 3>you know the notes were horrible, right, like the executives
<v Speaker 3>didn't know what they were talking about But Jeff Martin
<v Speaker 3>was really smart and he said to me, this writer
<v Speaker 3>like he's like, you know, I'd like to flatter myself
<v Speaker 3>and think that none of the notes I ever got
<v Speaker 3>on in my TV career were good. But he said
<v Speaker 3>it was not that there were good notes and there
<v Speaker 3>are bad notes, but the no notes rule what made
<v Speaker 3>it so important was that it it saved them time.
<v Speaker 3>So any note, good or bad was a time suck
<v Speaker 3>and they would have to be a back and forth
<v Speaker 3>with the executives to try to address it. And so
<v Speaker 3>without that kind of meddling good or bad, it just
<v Speaker 3>allowed the Simpsons writers to focus on the show and
<v Speaker 3>like like they could spend twelve hours, thirteen fourteen hours
<v Speaker 3>just like working on one joke, and they didn't have
<v Speaker 3>to worry about, you know, executives being like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>how come this character, you know, like Marge needs more
<v Speaker 3>friends or Bart needs you know, Bart needs to like
<v Speaker 3>let's letting up Bart a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>He's too too reverent. You know, they didn't need to
<v Speaker 1>deal with that.
<v Speaker 4>I'm glad you mentioned the work that went into the show,
<v Speaker 4>particularly in these early years. I mean reading about it
<v Speaker 4>in your book, I was reminded of the movie Whiplash,
<v Speaker 4>just this sort of relentless the cost of the relentless
<v Speaker 4>pursuit of greatness. And there's that great quote that from
<v Speaker 4>Kennan O'Brien. I think that opens one of the chapters
<v Speaker 4>where he's talking about, oh, yeah, you remember the magical
<v Speaker 4>time of making the Simpsons, and really it was full
<v Speaker 4>of fried food and crabby computers and fear and loneliness
<v Speaker 4>and second guessing. Now everything's great in hindsight, I mean
<v Speaker 4>twenty twenty. Hindsight is twenty twenty, of course, But I
<v Speaker 4>mean the writers that you spoke to and the people
<v Speaker 4>you spoke to about the show, how do they feel
<v Speaker 4>about that grind in retrospect? Do they kind of like, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it was worth it.
<v Speaker 3>I think they think it was worth it, but it
<v Speaker 3>was sort of the best experience they'll never want to
<v Speaker 3>have again.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I mean.
<v Speaker 3>Bill Oakley had a really good line that there were
<v Speaker 3>times when he and Josh are running the show where
<v Speaker 3>he just wanted to do anything else because it's sort
<v Speaker 3>of like the anxiety of expectation, Like you're running this
<v Speaker 3>behemoth of television and you don't want to grew it
<v Speaker 3>up right, and Rich Moore, who's an amazing, amazing animation
<v Speaker 3>director who like went on to make Zutopia, these big movies.
<v Speaker 3>He's like, the Simpsons took years off my life, Like
<v Speaker 3>it was like a total joke.
<v Speaker 1>But he's like, that was our Vietnam.
<v Speaker 3>It was like there were times when people sort of
<v Speaker 3>ask about that time and it would feel like fuzzy
<v Speaker 3>in his mind because just so so much work went
<v Speaker 3>into it.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, But at the same time, I Rickole is in
<v Speaker 4>the book where you know, so why'd you do it?
<v Speaker 4>Because I loved it?
<v Speaker 3>It was awesome, Right, they were so proud of their work,
<v Speaker 3>and like we're still talking about it today, which is
<v Speaker 3>not something that you can say about a lot of
<v Speaker 3>creative work.
<v Speaker 2>And who doesn't want to have the Simpsons on their resume.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I I writing a book about it. It's
<v Speaker 3>you know, even tangentially. It's like I've said this before,
<v Speaker 3>but it's like I think I'm spoiled because if I
<v Speaker 3>ever write a second book, I don't think I'm going
<v Speaker 3>to be able to find a topic that is beloved
<v Speaker 3>and that this like that I love so much.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I just wanted to say it is in the
<v Speaker 4>straining as well. I don't know whether to be hot broken.
<v Speaker 4>I'm proud that the term that really drilling down on
<v Speaker 4>the jug until it texted that you know, ten or
<v Speaker 4>eleven hours to actually get it rot is called a gallipoli.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, that story was incredible.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, Greg Daniels told me this story that he,
<v Speaker 3>you know, he's like a genius TV guy who's made
<v Speaker 3>like Parks and rec and King Hill and the American
<v Speaker 3>Office that you know, a he had a term for
<v Speaker 3>these like little tiny jokes that felt like a waste
<v Speaker 3>because in the nineties, you know, like people didn't see
<v Speaker 3>all these cutaway gags and psch gags because you had
<v Speaker 3>to pause the television and if you didn't tape it,
<v Speaker 3>then you couldn't see it. And he called it a gallipoli,
<v Speaker 3>which is basically like a battle not worth fighting, and
<v Speaker 3>it's it's you know, and you know the Peter Weir movie, right, am?
<v Speaker 1>I right about that? He was the one who directed it, Yes,
<v Speaker 1>And and it's sort of true. It's like it's funny.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think these writers thought that there would be
<v Speaker 3>like sites like Frenkiak where you could like go and
<v Speaker 3>pull screenshots of any episode at any time. Like they
<v Speaker 3>just thought they were making funny stuff for themselves, and
<v Speaker 3>the fact that an audience got to enjoy it thirty
<v Speaker 3>years later is like not what they expected.
<v Speaker 4>It's kind of the origin of that acronym of iyk
<v Speaker 4>yk or was it? If you know? You know, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>because I mean there's a great sense of very nerdish pride. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>maybe watching the show for the first time, or watching
<v Speaker 4>an episode for the first time and recognizing I think
<v Speaker 4>that might be a lift from Citizen Kane. I think
<v Speaker 4>that's oh yeah, just getting some really esoteric reference. I
<v Speaker 4>mean you just feel this weird sense of prisee like, eh,
<v Speaker 4>did you get that? Do you know about that?
<v Speaker 1>Of course?
<v Speaker 4>I mean it makes people hate you as well.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, right, I mean there are references that I
<v Speaker 3>put this in the book because I was almost embarrassed.
<v Speaker 3>Like in Mister Plow, there is a reference to a
<v Speaker 3>movie called Sorcerer from nineteen seventy seven William freaking got
<v Speaker 3>buried by Star Wars. It's an incredible action movie, and
<v Speaker 3>there's like a for shot parody of Mister Plow that
<v Speaker 3>like totally does not need to be in there. And
<v Speaker 3>like in nineteen ninety two, No One knew that movie.
<v Speaker 3>No one was watching that movie, but it's it's you know,
<v Speaker 3>rich more. I think called it like a one percenter.
<v Speaker 3>It's like for one percent of the audience. I didn't
<v Speaker 3>see Sorcerer until I was thirty nine years old, and
<v Speaker 3>then I rewatched mister Plow when I was working on
<v Speaker 3>the book, and I was like, holy shit, yes, exactly.
<v Speaker 4>I imagine fantasy at the Ring I made you it was
<v Speaker 4>kind of an induction process.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, it was definitely an on board joining a frat.
<v Speaker 3>You know, if you're a certain male of a certain age,
<v Speaker 3>you need to watch Sorcerer.
<v Speaker 2>Are you the Simpsons guy at the Ringer?
<v Speaker 1>I am? Yeah that.
<v Speaker 3>Like when I first started there, I wrote a lot
<v Speaker 3>about the show and then I sort of branched out
<v Speaker 3>a lot more, but I was sort of the Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>guy at the beginning. It's just like so much to mine,
<v Speaker 3>you know, it's endless, and I think like in a
<v Speaker 3>way that helped me get the job.
<v Speaker 2>What have you learned working for the Ringer? What? I
<v Speaker 2>mean some of the best takeaways from being a seniorata
<v Speaker 2>at the ring.
<v Speaker 3>People love nostalgia, people love looking back on things, and
<v Speaker 3>I think a lot of people sort of do nostalgia coverage.
<v Speaker 3>They look back at movies, music, TV, but you kind
<v Speaker 3>of have to do it in a way that pushes
<v Speaker 3>the story forward, Like I I My Cup of Tea
<v Speaker 3>is sort of learning the stories behind the story, right,
<v Speaker 3>like learning how these things were made and helping people
<v Speaker 3>appreciate movies and music and TV in a way that
<v Speaker 3>they hadn't before. And I think that that is what
<v Speaker 3>I hope it.
<v Speaker 1>Will be my niche forever, right. I mean, we have
<v Speaker 1>whole podcasts like the Rewatchables.
<v Speaker 3>Of people you know, rewatching the movies and like reliving
<v Speaker 3>it and it's funny. We did a Simpsons like Fantasy
<v Speaker 3>draft for Noah with Fantasy and Mina Kaimes and Charles Holmes,
<v Speaker 3>and it's so funny because I vowed when I went
<v Speaker 3>into that, I was like, I am not just going
<v Speaker 3>to quote the show, not just gonna do Simpsons quotes.
<v Speaker 3>Everybody does that. And then as the thing went on,
<v Speaker 3>everyone was quoting the Simpsons. Everyone was laughing, and it
<v Speaker 3>is like impossible not to do that, and that is
<v Speaker 3>what people love, and that is a sign of how
<v Speaker 3>damn good the show is that that is what people want.
<v Speaker 3>They don't necessarily want my behind the scenes anecdotes, which
<v Speaker 3>I love, which I wrote a whole book about. But
<v Speaker 3>it's like, yeah, they want like quoting Lionel Huts and
<v Speaker 3>Krusty and Marge, and it's like it's infectious and like
<v Speaker 3>that that was a good lesson for which is.
<v Speaker 1>Given what they want. Oh and I should do that
<v Speaker 1>more now.
<v Speaker 4>And you're clearly well versed in the Simpsons, you know,
<v Speaker 4>not just the show but also what goes on behind
<v Speaker 4>the scenes. But I mean, what do you say would
<v Speaker 4>be maybe your favorite discovery in either researching the book
<v Speaker 4>or conducting interviews. And we talked about while some of
<v Speaker 4>my favorites earlier, but yeah, what sort of leapt out
<v Speaker 4>of you is like I didn't know that. I'm so
<v Speaker 4>glad I do now.
<v Speaker 3>So this is a very small one, but I will
<v Speaker 3>go with Conan. So I had written a story about
<v Speaker 3>the mono rail episode, and Conan O'Brien said that he
<v Speaker 3>got the idea for the monorail episode from looking up
<v Speaker 3>at a billboard, yeah and seeing like a monorail train
<v Speaker 3>and it just said monoail and he thought it was
<v Speaker 3>very funny. What I didn't know was that LA in
<v Speaker 3>the late eighties excuse me. In the early nineties had
<v Speaker 3>a true mono rail PR campaign. They wanted to build
<v Speaker 3>a monorail and it was insane how sort of similar
<v Speaker 3>it the paralleled the show, Like there was this big
<v Speaker 3>PR push for it and then it died on the vine.
<v Speaker 3>Of course they didn't build it, but I love that.
<v Speaker 3>It was sort of like that episode was based on
<v Speaker 3>something real and that's like my favorite. Yeah, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 3>say nugget again. I mean those my favorite nugget of
<v Speaker 3>the book.
<v Speaker 2>May be wrong, but was Georgia Kaive supposed to be
<v Speaker 2>a guest on that episode because he was he had
<v Speaker 2>something to do with the montoarails. I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>bad math monorails or something. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>He he apparently had like a PR deal with the
<v Speaker 3>San Francisco Board of Transportation. He didn't want to bash
<v Speaker 3>public transportation. And he had been on you know, he
<v Speaker 3>had been in an episode as a Kira the sushi
<v Speaker 3>chef before and then they got Leonard Nimoy and so
<v Speaker 3>it was like so much better. He outranked you know,
<v Speaker 3>Spock outranks Zulu like we need him.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Ellen, you're right. In the book, unlike a lot
<v Speaker 4>of dumbed down sitcoms. The Simpsons trusted us to be curious.
<v Speaker 4>It's a great line. It's one that I really like
<v Speaker 4>today in popular culture. I'm sorry, oh Man, shakespeastic cloud.
<v Speaker 4>That's the kids say that everything seems kind of algorithm driven,
<v Speaker 4>kind of pre programmed, data driven. You might say, I mean,
<v Speaker 4>do you think that we currently have the kind of
<v Speaker 4>creative slash comedy ecosystem that would enable a show like
<v Speaker 4>The Simpsons to to be born and to thrive.
<v Speaker 3>So one thing I think that's not talked about to
<v Speaker 3>answer your question is like what the Simpsons had going
<v Speaker 3>for it was just in an enormous audience, like thirty
<v Speaker 3>three million, thirty million, twenty five million people were watching
<v Speaker 3>The Simpsons in its heyday, So you had this like
<v Speaker 3>thing that was spread across the entire country or world.
<v Speaker 3>Right that now the audience is so fractured that even
<v Speaker 3>the the very best TV, animated or otherwise is just
<v Speaker 3>viewed by such a small audience. Like a show that
<v Speaker 3>I love, I think you should leave right, Like, we
<v Speaker 3>don't really know. I don't know if you guys watch
<v Speaker 3>that show, but it's a very funny sketch show, and
<v Speaker 3>I just assume the audience is a fraction of what
<v Speaker 3>the Simpsons audience was.
<v Speaker 1>And I quote that now.
<v Speaker 3>As much as I do the Simpsons, but it's just
<v Speaker 3>not as shared a language as the Simpsons. And I
<v Speaker 3>think like maybe maybe it's less about like sort of
<v Speaker 3>the lack of creativity and the algorithmic drive of a
<v Speaker 3>lot of pop culture, and more like we don't have
<v Speaker 3>the same wide like monoculture. You know that's a cliche,
<v Speaker 3>but it's it is gone.
<v Speaker 4>You know, it's funny that you're talking about. I think
<v Speaker 4>you should leave. I mean, I've only seen one or
<v Speaker 4>two episodes, and I've not seen this specific episode, but
<v Speaker 4>I can tell you exactly what is meant by Tim
<v Speaker 4>Robinson in the Hot Dog. So he's saying, we're all
<v Speaker 4>looking to the guy who did this. You know, I
<v Speaker 4>know what that means now because of meme culture, but
<v Speaker 4>you know, I don't necessarily know what it means in
<v Speaker 4>the wider context of the show. So yeah, it's really interesting,
<v Speaker 4>isn't it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's sort of the genius of a show
<v Speaker 3>like that or The Simpsons, is like you can take
<v Speaker 3>images from it or jokes from it and put them
<v Speaker 3>in a completely neutral context and people will know what
<v Speaker 3>it is without any other background, and that is really impressive.
<v Speaker 2>Getting back to the no notes deally we're discussing earlier,
<v Speaker 2>did you ask does that deal still existes that still
<v Speaker 2>in the contract?
<v Speaker 3>I think that it still does in some form. I
<v Speaker 3>think again, like the Fox was not Fox is not
<v Speaker 3>like this scrappy underdog anymore. So I think that The
<v Speaker 3>Simpsons doesn't quite have the leverage that it did in
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one. But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I think that they operate on their own independently.
<v Speaker 1>Still.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, do you see the future of The Simpsons being
<v Speaker 2>a Disney Plus exclusive series? Do you think it will
<v Speaker 2>remain on TV or it will make that migration to
<v Speaker 2>streaming because at the moment, they're starting to do shorter
<v Speaker 2>seasons and some Disney Plus exclusive episodes, which I think
<v Speaker 2>is their way of just testing the waters see where
<v Speaker 2>people will respond to it. I think it will eventually
<v Speaker 2>end up being a Disney Plus exclusive. Where do you
<v Speaker 2>see the future of The Simpsons.
<v Speaker 3>I see it staying on Fox at least for the
<v Speaker 3>time being. Again, it is impressive that they've kept these
<v Speaker 3>really long seasons for the people that make the show.
<v Speaker 1>It gives them more work. It's more lucrative. But I
<v Speaker 1>don't know.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's interesting when you watch the show now,
<v Speaker 3>like the voice actors are aging.
<v Speaker 1>Like you hear Julie Kavner.
<v Speaker 3>It's this brilliant actress and she kind of sounds like
<v Speaker 3>when she was playing Marge's mom in the nineties, and
<v Speaker 3>it makes it it's bittersweet, right, Like I think, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>here's one thing I've been thinking about. It's like we
<v Speaker 3>want our athletes to retire on top, right, like the
<v Speaker 3>winning championships. Like we don't want to see the aging athletes,
<v Speaker 3>you know, you know, on the field like as a
<v Speaker 3>shell of what they used to be. But you know what,
<v Speaker 3>with the Simpsons, I don't even care. They should be
<v Speaker 3>able to go out on their own terms. And I
<v Speaker 3>hope that happens, you know, God forbid. I if somebody
<v Speaker 3>passes away, if one of the main cast passes away
<v Speaker 3>or wants to retire, I think that's when you have
<v Speaker 3>to end it.
<v Speaker 1>I just don't know if it's actually gonna happen.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, you hear stories about AI and sort of
<v Speaker 3>licensing voice rights and stuff like that. I have no
<v Speaker 3>insight into that, but I hope it doesn't get to
<v Speaker 3>that level.
<v Speaker 2>So you wouldn't be for the AI of the voices
<v Speaker 2>if they were to pass on, if they gave their
<v Speaker 2>thumbs up for it. I think if they agree for
<v Speaker 2>it to be allowed to happen, I'd be okay with it.
<v Speaker 2>I think as a Simpsons fan, ensuring that the Simpsons
<v Speaker 2>can go on, I don't think I want a replacement.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's either Dan's voice or it's nobody's voice.
<v Speaker 1>Right, or it's done.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I admit AI part of it kind of
<v Speaker 3>creeps me out because the whole thing about The Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>is it's humanity, right, Like, you want the depth of
<v Speaker 3>that voice, even if it can be recreated with a computer.
<v Speaker 1>I just I don't want to see that happen, but
<v Speaker 1>we'll see.
<v Speaker 2>I wonder if you could get an actor to act
<v Speaker 2>the scenes but then just change their voice to dance. Well,
<v Speaker 2>that's it's it's getting creepy. But I don't know, It's
<v Speaker 2>just it's a weird thing. It's gonna have to happen eventually.
<v Speaker 2>The decision is going to have to be made at
<v Speaker 2>some point.
<v Speaker 4>And it's interesting when you talk about voice acting, because yeah,
<v Speaker 4>you primarily think of those Oh, it's just the voice,
<v Speaker 4>but no, it's acting as well. It's not just the
<v Speaker 4>sound that that Dan or Julie are inbuing with the show.
<v Speaker 4>It's the creativity of their thought processes that their acting
<v Speaker 4>agility as well, which yeah, I might be able to
<v Speaker 4>quite un quite replicate, but yeah.
<v Speaker 2>But legendary voice actor Jess Haa, now he has said
<v Speaker 2>that voice acting is lower case V capital A. It's
<v Speaker 2>all about the acting, and that's what people tend to forget. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>good point.
<v Speaker 1>Yardley Smith, who's you know Lisa.
<v Speaker 3>She told me this great story about recording for Lisa's substitute.
<v Speaker 3>She's like a classic emotional episode and she's like the
<v Speaker 3>tears were real, like you know, she got into that
<v Speaker 3>character and with her it's interesting because her voice is
<v Speaker 3>Lisa's voice, so there is like a singularity there that's
<v Speaker 3>maybe different than some of the other characters.
<v Speaker 1>But she is not holding back.
<v Speaker 2>Not at all, and that's the that's Dustin Hoffman. Is
<v Speaker 2>that samitic for me? Personally? I really liked that episode,
<v Speaker 2>but I don't love it as much as others.
<v Speaker 4>Guy.
<v Speaker 2>He's example of that is Cape Fear. He's just not
<v Speaker 2>huge on the right gag. Are there any gags of
<v Speaker 2>the Simpsons from that original era, the Golden era that
<v Speaker 2>everyone seems to love that you just don't quite get
<v Speaker 2>it on that level.
<v Speaker 3>I am not the biggest Ralph Wigham fan. I think
<v Speaker 3>he is so one note. I think he's made me laugh,
<v Speaker 3>but like the next time I hear like Super Nintendo Chalmers, like,
<v Speaker 3>I just don't. I don't find it that that funny,
<v Speaker 3>Like he is kind of easy to rely on in
<v Speaker 3>a way that other characters maybe aren't. Although you know
<v Speaker 3>the Valentine's Day episode I Chew You Choose You like
<v Speaker 3>that that is a very classic episode, and like when
<v Speaker 3>they use him correctly, he can be funny.
<v Speaker 1>But I would say he's maybe my least favorite character.
<v Speaker 2>I think that's why it's disappointing when you see what
<v Speaker 2>they turned him into, because we've seen what you can
<v Speaker 2>do with the character with I love Lisa.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I mean he he again is like such easy
<v Speaker 3>comic relief, which I sort of get, like it's it's
<v Speaker 3>you know, not not every character is as nuanced as
<v Speaker 3>it's like Krusty the Clown or Sycho Bob, like it's
<v Speaker 3>gonna you know, you need a Ralph Wigham.
<v Speaker 4>True, but the same could be said for Homer as well.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, you know, initially he's this sort of gruff
<v Speaker 4>family man the writers send to realize we like it
<v Speaker 4>when he's dumb, but then I also like intercutting that
<v Speaker 4>with occasional moments of like sophistication or intellect, where like
<v Speaker 4>I won't stand by that vassa bashing young lady or
<v Speaker 4>something like that, which is just marvelous and the last
<v Speaker 4>thing we expect coming out of Homer's mouth. But it
<v Speaker 4>does seem like in yeah, late season, certainly that's like, now,
<v Speaker 4>let's just really dumb down on the on the stupidity,
<v Speaker 4>not just in terms of inla but also emotionally as well.
<v Speaker 4>And it kind of I think Daniel and I about
<v Speaker 4>that it a bit bit off footing was jarring.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's like the what do they call it?
<v Speaker 3>The jerk ass Homer where it's like where I think
<v Speaker 3>they've dialed back on that. But there definitely was a
<v Speaker 3>moment like a story that I love. I think it
<v Speaker 3>was like on a on a round table with Codin
<v Speaker 3>O'Brien once where he talked about, you know, there's like
<v Speaker 3>a joke where Homer like is like by a rendering plant,
<v Speaker 3>and the joke is that, like it's Homer, not the
<v Speaker 3>rendering plant that smells bad, and like George Meyer, I
<v Speaker 3>guess was walking by and is like, I guess Homer
<v Speaker 3>smells now, and it's like just like truly making him
<v Speaker 3>a pig, you know, And it could be really funny,
<v Speaker 3>but but that sort of sets like a a precedent
<v Speaker 3>that moved in a direction that like, wasn't that great.
<v Speaker 4>There's nothing wrong with a blunt falced trauma kind of joke,
<v Speaker 4>but eventually at least a concussion, right.
<v Speaker 2>This show is brought to you by the four Fingered
<v Speaker 2>Discount Patreon. Well, you'll find over one hundred hours of
<v Speaker 2>bonus podcasts, including exclusive Simpsons reviews and commentaries, as well
<v Speaker 2>as exclusive episodes of Going Down to South Park, tales
<v Speaker 2>of Futurama, Bob's Pods, Speaking of the Hill, Talking Seiefeld,
<v Speaker 2>the One About Friends, and so much more. So go
<v Speaker 2>ahead and join the family today at patreon dot com
<v Speaker 2>slash four finger Discount. I think for us too, watching it,
<v Speaker 2>you can see that there were always repercussions for Homer's
<v Speaker 2>actions in the original era, where if he did something
<v Speaker 2>wrong he'd eventually learned his lesson by the end in
<v Speaker 2>maybe i'd say about season fourteen onwards, when that joke
<v Speaker 2>ass Homer era really starts. He's doing all this really
<v Speaker 2>bad shit and margin are just not holding him cannibal
<v Speaker 2>for it anymore. And that's where it gets annoying.
<v Speaker 3>It's kind of like the writers like threw up their
<v Speaker 3>hands and they're like, Oh, this is Homer now, and
<v Speaker 3>we're just gonna like, we're just gonna lean on that.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, the Homer's Enemy the Frank Rhymes episode is
<v Speaker 3>a really interesting I don't know if it's a turning
<v Speaker 3>point or an example where it's like, oh, this is
<v Speaker 3>what Homer, this is what reacting to Homer would really
<v Speaker 3>be like like in real life. And the end, you know,
<v Speaker 3>Frank Rhymes he dies and Homer just.
<v Speaker 1>Like doesn't give a shit and you lough at that.
<v Speaker 3>And it's funny, and I mean it's sort of an
<v Speaker 3>evolution of you know, things that you saw in early seasons.
<v Speaker 3>Like a good example of that is like it's like
<v Speaker 3>when Homer eats the poison blowfish, right, I think it's
<v Speaker 3>it's season two, and he has this like tour through
<v Speaker 3>his life where he's like both making amends and spending
<v Speaker 3>quality time with everybody in his family, and it's like
<v Speaker 3>you think he has a new lease on life, and
<v Speaker 3>then the next day he's eating pork rimes on their couch,
<v Speaker 3>and it's like that was so relatable, right, It's like
<v Speaker 3>you forget so fast, But in later seasons it's sort
<v Speaker 3>of less charming.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Well, I'm reminded of the Gimes O Brooks line where
<v Speaker 4>he talks about this is the the American family in
<v Speaker 4>all its horror. Yeah, and I think it means like
<v Speaker 4>quite in a complimentary sense, because I mean the sacred
<v Speaker 4>source of the sentience, recognizing the good and bad, add
<v Speaker 4>the light and frustration that can all coexist under one roof.
<v Speaker 4>In fact, they can they do.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, And I mean the show like it is a
<v Speaker 3>like I don't know how much Johnny Carson you two
<v Speaker 3>have watched in your days, but I mean, hi, Carson,
<v Speaker 3>Carson said, you know, like the Simpsons seems like a
<v Speaker 3>more realistic family than the Cosby's, Like this was a
<v Speaker 3>true typical American family, which is like basically live paycheck
<v Speaker 3>to paycheck. You know, it's kind of miserable. You're always
<v Speaker 3>trying to make ends meet. And of course you know
<v Speaker 3>back then you could afford a house, but I don't.
<v Speaker 1>Know if you could do that anymore in America now.
<v Speaker 3>On Homer's salary, it's like Greg Daniel said, it's like
<v Speaker 3>it's like the episode where they go to India and
<v Speaker 3>Greg Daniels like, wait a second, We've established that Homer
<v Speaker 3>makes two hundred and forty dollars a week, Like like,
<v Speaker 3>why yeah, how can he do that? It doesn't make
<v Speaker 3>it doesn't make any sense. I mean again, Brooks wanted
<v Speaker 3>to show a family and its struggles and also like
<v Speaker 3>the humor.
<v Speaker 1>In that, and I think like that was again, like
<v Speaker 1>you said, the secrets.
<v Speaker 2>Do you think it's still is relatable the family dynamic
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty five of The Simpsons, because you'll say
<v Speaker 2>that's one of the chims go people hoopd on the
<v Speaker 2>show was it's just like watching us on TV. Do
<v Speaker 2>you think people still get that vibe when they watch
<v Speaker 2>it in twenty twenty five do they? Does it still
<v Speaker 2>come across as relatable or is it aspirational? Man?
<v Speaker 3>I think it's not quite as relatable just because it's
<v Speaker 3>almost as if the Simpsons became celebrities, like so the
<v Speaker 3>guest star quotient like went skyrocketed, like you have like
<v Speaker 3>Lady Gaga and episodes like I'm not saying that's necessarily
<v Speaker 3>a bad thing, but the show is so famous, the
<v Speaker 3>characters are so famous that they like sort of ceased
<v Speaker 3>to be like a normal family anymore, even though, like
<v Speaker 3>there are episodes now that that really have tackled, tried
<v Speaker 3>to tackle like modern issues, like Lisa. There's an episode
<v Speaker 3>where Lisa has anxiety and it's it's very touching in
<v Speaker 3>a way that that is relatable. But also you know,
<v Speaker 3>in another episode it's like, oh, the Rolling Stones are
<v Speaker 3>here or whatever. Any any kind of any celebrity now
<v Speaker 3>it means you've made it if you've been on The Simpsons.
<v Speaker 2>Sure, a lot of the time the guest stars when'tre
<v Speaker 2>in that original run, a lot of the guest stars
<v Speaker 2>were voicing characters, right, and then it got to the
<v Speaker 2>point where the guest stars were just the guest stars.
<v Speaker 2>Hey it's Britney Spears. Hey it's so and so.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like my favorite random ones are like I love tennis.
<v Speaker 1>It's like Pete.
<v Speaker 3>Sampras and Andre Agassi, like Serena Williams. I mean it's
<v Speaker 3>like it's a little weird. I mean, like Meryl Street
<v Speaker 3>played Bart's girlfriend, Like imagine that today, it's like the
<v Speaker 3>most famous actress on the planet actually, like isn't playing herself.
<v Speaker 2>What are your favorite memories of just watching The Simpsons.
<v Speaker 2>We touched on Home as Enemy before, and one of
<v Speaker 2>my favorite memories of watching as a kid is my dad,
<v Speaker 2>who we know we have good relationship, but I've never
<v Speaker 2>really heard my dad laugh out loud all that often.
<v Speaker 2>But that end scene where he says change the channel March,
<v Speaker 2>my dad was just uproarioushly laughing, and I remember looking
<v Speaker 2>at him and smiling and feel like connection that the
<v Speaker 2>Simpsons brought us. But we were able to watch the
<v Speaker 2>show together. So that's one of my favorite memories of
<v Speaker 2>watching the show, seeing my dad laugh at that moment.
<v Speaker 2>What are some of yours?
<v Speaker 3>I remember Lisa the Vegetarian, like, you know, you don't
<v Speaker 3>make friends with salad. Like when they were singing that song,
<v Speaker 3>I was, I think I was in seventh grade.
<v Speaker 1>I was like crying with laughter.
<v Speaker 3>There was that that episode Homer's Phobia, which is another
<v Speaker 3>one that was like really ahead of its time with
<v Speaker 3>John Waters. You know the steel mill scene, which maybe
<v Speaker 3>in eighth grade, I there might have been some latent
<v Speaker 3>homophobia sort of mixed in a little bit, which I'm
<v Speaker 3>not proud of. But that episode is so brilliant and
<v Speaker 3>like very you know, progressive in a lot of ways,
<v Speaker 3>and that killed me at the time.
<v Speaker 1>And also like it's not really a watching the show.
<v Speaker 3>But when the episode guide came out, you know, I
<v Speaker 3>think it was ninety eight, we at summer camp. We
<v Speaker 3>would read from it and just like go around in
<v Speaker 3>a circle and read jokes, and we were like the
<v Speaker 3>show wasn't even we didn't have a TV at summer camp,
<v Speaker 3>but it's what like we were in hysterics, which again
<v Speaker 3>is a sign of how good the show was. Like
<v Speaker 3>we didn't even see a lot of those on rerun yet.
<v Speaker 2>That Things You Miss section on the side of every
<v Speaker 2>episode was like, ah, loved it. It's like catnet for me.
<v Speaker 2>And my son is just turned seven. He's just learned
<v Speaker 2>to properly read, like read chapter books and whatnot, and
<v Speaker 2>he's just properly started watching The Simpsons as well, because
<v Speaker 2>I sort of how back a bit because I know
<v Speaker 2>I wasn't ao to watch it till I was six,
<v Speaker 2>and I look at it, and I go, this is
<v Speaker 2>genius scratchy cartoons pretty full. Bought my kid watching it.
<v Speaker 2>So he's just started watching the Simpsons now, so he
<v Speaker 2>now sits there with this episode guy, and he goes,
<v Speaker 2>I want to watch this one, you know, And it's
<v Speaker 2>just I'm watching that's the actual book I had when
<v Speaker 2>I was a kid, and now you're reading it and
<v Speaker 2>you're discovering this show that I've loved, you know. It's
<v Speaker 2>just it's amazing that the show can bring us all together.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, there's like a weird flattening of it that Disney
<v Speaker 3>Plus has, which is not a bad thing or a
<v Speaker 3>good thing. Like my best friend has an eleven year
<v Speaker 3>old and he finds the same enjoyment out of episodes
<v Speaker 3>from twenty twenty one as he does from an episode
<v Speaker 3>from nineteen ninety one.
<v Speaker 4>Great.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's just it just like a product of
<v Speaker 3>having it all at your fingertips, which I think has
<v Speaker 3>its The discovery process is a lot easier, but it's
<v Speaker 3>still joyful.
<v Speaker 2>What Disney Plus, I say, is probably the best thing
<v Speaker 2>to happen to The Simpsons in a long time. For
<v Speaker 2>that reason, because The Simpsons was so hard to find,
<v Speaker 2>particularly new episodes. You didn't know what channel was going
<v Speaker 2>to be on, what time it was going to be
<v Speaker 2>airing in Australia anyway, and it just it just sort
<v Speaker 2>of got lost in the shuffle. And now we know
<v Speaker 2>every Wednesday after it's and in the States we're getting
<v Speaker 2>it two days later. It's great.
<v Speaker 4>I'm trying to recall. Forgive me, you might fail me
<v Speaker 4>out with this the expert here, but you know, one
<v Speaker 4>of my favorite gags is very throwaway gag of Homer
<v Speaker 4>same may I played Devil's advocate for a moment and
<v Speaker 4>then cutting to him playing the Devil's advocate Pinball. I
<v Speaker 4>don't know what an episode that it actually it's a
<v Speaker 4>teen ear and when it came out, but I I
<v Speaker 4>just recall, well, first of all, that just makes me
<v Speaker 4>laugh to this day. But it was also the thing
<v Speaker 4>of like, wait a minute, you can do that. It's
<v Speaker 4>like with pulp fiction. You know, when during the opening
<v Speaker 4>credits the they changed the song on the radio and
<v Speaker 4>the song changes minstream. It's like, wait a minute, you're
<v Speaker 4>allowed to do that in the movie.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, it's like this weird mix of diegetic sound.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and even then in the Simpsons, like I'm telling
<v Speaker 4>a gag cut away to this other gag wait a minute,
<v Speaker 4>and it turns out to be the funniest thing I've
<v Speaker 4>ever seen. So I love that rule breaking aspect of it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like the Monarel episode with that starts with the
<v Speaker 1>Flintstones parody rate of you know, Homer leaving the plant
<v Speaker 1>and driving into a chestnut tree, Like there was no
<v Speaker 1>reason for that to be in the episode, but it
<v Speaker 1>was funny.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there are so many things. That's why twenty two
<v Speaker 2>Short Films was born. Obviously, as you talk about in
<v Speaker 2>the book where they had the Flanders little cutaway bit
<v Speaker 2>at the end of was it Homer and a Pooh?
<v Speaker 2>Or what was on an early episode of The Simpsons,
<v Speaker 2>And then Bill and Josh said, let's make a full
<v Speaker 2>episode where it's just short bits. And that's my favorite
<v Speaker 2>episode because I think that it captures a day in
<v Speaker 2>the life of Springfield. And I love the episodes that
<v Speaker 2>truly incorporate as many of the side characters as possible.
<v Speaker 2>But what about what's a What do you look for
<v Speaker 2>in a great Simpsons episode? Do you want as many
<v Speaker 2>towns people? Do you want emotion? What are you looking for?
<v Speaker 3>So I want like a combo of all those things,
<v Speaker 3>and and I would say a good example. I'm sort
<v Speaker 3>of wasting my material for later maybe, but mister mister
<v Speaker 3>plowed to me is a great example of this. So
<v Speaker 3>it's like something you couldn't do on a live action
<v Speaker 3>TV show, which is like Homer and Barney, you know,
<v Speaker 3>rival plow drivers. There are all sorts of weird pop
<v Speaker 3>culture references. Linda Ronstadt is a guest, you know, Adam
<v Speaker 3>West is a guest, right, and then at the end,
<v Speaker 3>you have this really emotional bond between two friends that
<v Speaker 3>like is sort of the heart of the show. And
<v Speaker 3>you also have like Homer sort of this profundity that
<v Speaker 3>he shouldn't have, Like he's like, you know, if two
<v Speaker 3>friends put their heads together, like even God can't stop
<v Speaker 3>us or something like that. And it's like that is
<v Speaker 3>a good combo of everything. And yeah, that's what I
<v Speaker 3>would say, is like the quintessential episode.
<v Speaker 2>Now, we usually ask our guests, I've sent you the email.
<v Speaker 2>We always ask our guests for their marathon. So it's
<v Speaker 2>it's nineteen ninety eight. Fox have asked you, Allen put
<v Speaker 2>together a Simpsons marathon on a Friday night, five episodes.
<v Speaker 2>What are you putting on.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, So I think you have to start with Lisa's Substitute,
<v Speaker 3>which is a very good example, an early example of
<v Speaker 3>the show. It's sort of its emotional best and it
<v Speaker 3>has great Lisa Homer bonding, which to me is the
<v Speaker 3>most interesting relationship in the show. It's an amazing contrast
<v Speaker 3>of like the OAF and the genius, right, and they
<v Speaker 3>they oddly like have these really sweet moments in a
<v Speaker 3>lot of episodes, and so, okay, so I start with that,
<v Speaker 3>and I think I would go to Itchy and Scratchy
<v Speaker 3>and Marge, which is, you know, these are these are
<v Speaker 3>episodes in the first two seasons, and that's the episode
<v Speaker 3>where you know, itch and Scratchy is basically canceled for
<v Speaker 3>being too violent and Marge goes in this campaign against it.
<v Speaker 3>I like it because it's sort of an early example
<v Speaker 3>of like really sharp social commentary, right, and again that
<v Speaker 3>that sort of represents like the Sam Simon era. So
<v Speaker 3>then I would do Mister Plow, which is all the
<v Speaker 3>things I just explained. It's sort of the quintessential you know,
<v Speaker 3>you can't do this on live action TV, and it's
<v Speaker 3>sort of again one sign of the show's growth in
<v Speaker 3>you know, with Mike Reese and Algen as the showrunners.
<v Speaker 1>Then after that it's really tough. So I think you
<v Speaker 1>move into the David Murkin era and I think you
<v Speaker 1>do Deep Space.
<v Speaker 3>Homer, which was kind of a controversial episode because Homer
<v Speaker 3>becomes an astronaut with Barney or they train, you know,
<v Speaker 3>like the right stuff, and Homer becomes an astronaut, which
<v Speaker 3>is completely ridiculous and is not an idea that they
<v Speaker 3>would have done in season two or three. But it's
<v Speaker 3>so funny and it works, and it's a great example
<v Speaker 3>of Murkin, who had this knack for sort of cinematic
<v Speaker 3>touches like the two thousand and one parody. Right like
<v Speaker 3>he wrote the episode, he was the showrunner. Amazing episode.
<v Speaker 3>And then I would finish so is that is that four?
<v Speaker 3>And I would finish with the Itchy and Scratchy and
<v Speaker 3>Pucci Show because to me, I think it would make
<v Speaker 3>for a perfect series finale of The Simpsons. Right. So
<v Speaker 3>it's an exploration of the fans response to the show,
<v Speaker 3>and it's sort of a look at like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>like who does a show belong to?
<v Speaker 1>Like who does pop culture belong to?
<v Speaker 3>Is it the fans? Is it the writers? Is it
<v Speaker 3>something in between? And it really, sadly was like a
<v Speaker 3>sign of things to come with fan interaction with pop culture,
<v Speaker 3>like just people sort of acting not psychotic, but like
<v Speaker 3>crazy about the pop culture they love and like thinking
<v Speaker 3>that they own.
<v Speaker 1>These things and like they needed to go their way.
<v Speaker 3>And again it was a good sign of like like
<v Speaker 3>The Simpsons was aware of these things happening a long
<v Speaker 3>time before other shows weren't.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm voting on rotten tomatos before you've actually seen
<v Speaker 2>the product.
<v Speaker 4>Who is the who got riped into doing the ask
<v Speaker 4>me anything with the with the fans and he's like, okay,
<v Speaker 4>but yeah, there are certain questions that I just win answer.
<v Speaker 4>And the first question is what make is Lisa' sex boys?
<v Speaker 4>That's the shit I'm not.
<v Speaker 2>Answering it was.
<v Speaker 1>It was, Yeah, it was. It was Mike Scully, that's right,
<v Speaker 1>is a great dude and really funny.
<v Speaker 3>And so he took over season nine and that was
<v Speaker 3>tough because again like all these writers had left, and
<v Speaker 3>he again so he agreed to do a Q and
<v Speaker 3>A with with this site, and he basically was like,
<v Speaker 3>can you screen the questions, because like I really want
<v Speaker 3>to get I do really want to get into how
<v Speaker 3>do I make the show?
<v Speaker 1>How how is this show made?
<v Speaker 3>But I can't do the minutia because it's just exhausting,
<v Speaker 3>like and it's fine for fans to talk about it,
<v Speaker 3>but it's not. It doesn't make for fun conversation, not
<v Speaker 3>at all.
<v Speaker 2>Well, thank you so much for your time. Allan's been
<v Speaker 2>absolute pleasure to talk to you and make sure you
<v Speaker 2>get Allen's new books, Stupid TV being more funny. And
<v Speaker 2>if you do like Simpson's books, they want to get
<v Speaker 2>al Simpson's book that came out a easy ago, Haven's
<v Speaker 2>Honesty and the biggest Simpson's God.
<v Speaker 4>Daniel's being very generous when he says he calls it Alice.
<v Speaker 4>This was actually kind of and by the former girl
<v Speaker 4>host of four Finger Discount. I'm not going to take
<v Speaker 4>credit where credit.
<v Speaker 2>Is not due, but yeah, stupid TV be more funny.
<v Speaker 2>It's been called the best things this book of all time.
<v Speaker 2>It's true and not just by Alan s No. But
<v Speaker 2>thank you again, Alan for your time. It's been been great.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you so much.
<v Speaker 3>I really appreciate And I wanted to end with my
<v Speaker 3>favorite Simpsons quote of late which changes all the time,
<v Speaker 3>which is doctor Nick and it's the most rewarding part
<v Speaker 3>was what he gave me, my money.