Writing For The Simpsons (with Carolyn Omine)

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four Finger Discount family on Patreon. Hey, everybody, welcome to four Fingered
Discount Extra. I am at Brendan Dano. Thank you for tuning into the
show this week. I am, of course incredibly excited because this week I
was fortunate enough to be joined by one of my favorite Simpsons writers of all
time. She is the amazing Carolyn Amine, and she was kind enough to
give me over an hour of her time. We're we cover a whole range
of topics, including her first down the job at Simpsons HQ, which gave
that she pleaded with Mike Scullery to be taken out of a script being the
only woman in the Simpsons writers room. We even talked about how she wrote
stuper Sexy Flanders. Plus we also delve into two of my favorite more recent
episodes Halloween of Horror and a mid childhood Night's Dream, both of which she
wrote. Now, if you enjoyed the show, I would absolutely love if
you could please show your support by joining the four Finger Discant family on Patreon,
where you will get early and ad free access to next week's episode of
four Finger Discount Extra, where I will be joined by Lyddy Out from the
Simpsons Theory. Of course, we also have our four exclusive podcasts on their
available as well. Plus we also have access to our discord server Facebook community.
A whole lot of fun. But for now enough shilling. Thank you
for tuning into the show. But let's sit back and enjoy my conversation with
the incredible Carolyn Amine. So Halloween is Halloween this week. I know your
boys moved away to college, but do you still do much for Halloween?
I feel really we just had Halloween. Yeah, and uh, my neighborhood
used to be so into Halloween and it hasn't recovered since the pandemic. Okay,
I mean there was there were a few people, but it used to
be like, you know you from like four o'clock, you would you could
open the door, you could hear like in the neighborhood people, you know,
kids laughing, and and it hasn't come back yet. It's made me
a little bit sad. But we used to. We would have like in
the you know, early evening, the little little kids and then they get
older, and then then then later and then I we'd have people coming in
from other neighborhoods into ours. Halloween was never a thing in Australia until about
maybe three four years ago, and then we well whether we had the pandemic
and was slowly starting to sort of build it up now. But as a
kid growing up in the nineties, I always to watch a treasts of Horror
and all these horror movies and think I want to do this and now finally
I can live through my kids. Oh that's so great. Yeah, so
the first Halloween this year. But how mad is the the rot Is Room
right now? Because you've just finished the strike And I was talking to Matt
a couple of weeks ago, an you guys, it's just absolutely crazy.
Now. Yeah, it's gonna be hard because we're doing two table reads a
week for a couple of weeks and so that's going to be hard and hard
for the animators too. I feel bad for everybody because uh yeah, and
our support staff in general like having to just go kind of crazy. But
and we're not. We don't want to cross these picket lines and with sag
and stuff. Although our actors are we have a separate contract stone. I
think they can work right now, but so we don't want to cross the
picket line to get onto the box. So we've been going to other We've
been working out of our it's currently working out of the animation studios. But
for a while we were like half of us were at Bleeding Fingers, which
is our music people, and half we're at in Burbank, And then like
five of us got COVID. Is this your first time of having COVID?
It is? I was so bummed because like like I'm like one of maybe
three who haven't gotten it. So I was a little bit of like maybe
I'm super human untouchable. That might have been my undoing. Maybe I was
little Yeah, I mean too the mindset though of a writer, no,
someone as creative as you during the strike process, because I know the main
focus was we're not going to be working technically, but someone like you who's
so creative, do you ever actually can you switch off or you're always just
working in some in some way, I you know, I I that's other
times we have I mean you're not supposed to, but yeah, exactly.
Yeah. The last strike, I remember thinking like I'm going to write a
novel and I'm gonna do that, but then I never did. And I
didn't do it this time either. But this time was different for me because
we have this I'm not sure if you know we would since season thirty three
and thirty four we were doing this thing where we have co co showrunners,
so like under Selman, each of us were in charge of four episodes per
season. And I'm not gonna do that anymore. So okay, so I'm
just going back to being a writer. So is it a personal choice?
Yeah, I mean there's a personal choice as a business choice. I mean,
you know, like in Just Broad Strokes, it was like it was
sort of offered and it was like this thing that I mean, for me,
it's gonna was gonna be a lot more work because I am very much
a control free and you know, I was a at one point wanted to
be an an, So I'm very very involved in animation and like when we
do you know, I mind like very hands on in the you know,
storyboarding and the designs and then and then I'm very opinionated the music and the
editing, and so I ended up, you know, it's just I work.
When I was doing these four episodes, I was just doing I was
just constantly, constantly working. And when when it was first offered, I,
you know, Salmon said, you know, is there any is there
any story that we were all off at that point because it was like the
actors were hadn't you know, we were between a contract negotiation, so we
were while we were waiting for the actors to sign their contracts. And so
he told us for and we didn't tell the rest of the staff yet,
but he said, you know, if there's any story you've heard or you
had any ideas for something, you know, because you know, besides what
you're writing, you're going to be in charge of. And so I had
had this thing where John Frank had pitched like he wanted to do there was
that TV show alone, and at first he wanted to do like the Simpsons
got on that you know, we're in that contest or whatever, and then
we were like, you know, maybe you shouldn't be the contest, let's
think of another way, and we really kind of just did an afternoon on
it. And at the same time I had told him, you know,
there was this thing I'd seen about these honeymoon cabins that had been left abandoned,
and then so I sent them to him. And it was one of
those things that sometimes a story will stick in my head even though it's not
my story, and I'll just go off and start so writing this story in
my head, you know. And so when Selman said that, when he
mentioned, like, is there any story he'd like to do, I was
like, yes, actually, because I had sort of come up with the
idea in my mind of for the story for Pixelated and Afraid because one of
the things during our talk at one point Simon went we talked about how when
alone, this guy kills the wolverine, and then Slone was like, Oh,
my god, wouldn't it be awful if, like we'd be crazy if
Homer killed a wolverine. And so in my mind I just sort of had
like the challenge would be, like to make it not only acceptable that Homer
kills the wolverine, but like could do it so that it was like the
most romantic thing you could do. And so I had come up with this
idea and I was like, yes, I really want to do this idea.
And I started, you know, we couldn't meet with John or anybody,
so because nobody else knew this thing was happening. So I started writing
this story and I was very very excited about it, and I knew what
I thought about this others, you know. So I had all these story
ideas and I was really excited about this thing I was going to do.
And then then they came to us with like the awf of what was you
know, because first they had to deal with the actors, and then they're
like, okay, so here's the deal. Zero percent raise, no credit,
no and the same title. And so it was like, okay,
so for nothing, I'm going to be working all these extra holities. So
and you know, I was like, all right, well, it's kind
of hard to to not feel like a huge chump. But then the other
hand, the opportunity to have a little bit more say and to like,
generally, when whoever is running the rewrite room is basically the writer, you
know, because it's all going to be filtered to them, So to be
the filter to be the one who runs a rewrite room and the one who
decides a lot of the things, and of course it's always going to be
under Salmon's supervision. I was like, all right, that is that's not
nothing. So I decided that's that's what. So I did tell myself,
like my plan was, I'm just gonna use a shit out of it.
I'm just gonna really these episodes, I'm just gonna like, I'm just gonna
do it to the hill. And I will say that there came a point
where at one point, and it was starting out with pixelating and afraid that
like I had a very strong idea of like how I wanted it to be,
and one of the things that I wanted to be very different from our
usual. Usually in a story, somebody will point out, hey, this
is what's wrong with you, Like in this case, Lisa and Bart say
you guys aren't romantic enough, and they say, no, we're fine,
and then usually that means later they're going to find oh, no, we
weren't romantic enough, and they learned their lesson. But what I wanted was
I wanted that they would say no, we're fine, we're great, and
then they would be right, and you know, which was not the usual
story path you take, and that I feel like most kids and most I
think all of us, you know, this sort of Instagram world we see
like a couple of goals and stuff like that. What you think a couple
should be and what romance is is very different from like actual old I'm not
old love, but like a love that's been for a while, where it's
comfy and it's the person who can help you get the splinter out of your
foot or whatever, you know, or like help you you know, like
just those cozy, schlubby that kind of love. That's what real love is.
And so it was really that's what I wanted. But there was this
movement to try and make it a normal story, because whenever you have this
thing where you deal with eleven writers, everybody's gonna want to go, well,
here's the note I'm going to give because it's a normal note, which
is, oh, there already seem a little romantic at the beginning, Like
there was a note about you know, Homer feeding her cheese puffs already seems
romantic. So and I was like, yeah, that's the point. But
I think had they given me a raise, and it was actual promotion.
I think that I would have felt like, okay, you know, I
got to take your note, but because I wasn't, I was. I
just felt like, look, the only thing I'm getting out of this is
that I get to do it my way, so I'm going to insist that
it be this way. And so in a way I kind of feel like
had it, you know that in the end, in an artistic way,
it sort of helped it because it did make me have to say, like
I might not have had the guts to like stand up and say no,
I want this this, I want to do it this different way and that's
why we're doing it, and you know so, but maybe so in the
end, maybe that's that's uh, you know that maybe that all worked out
for the best. But this is a really long answer to this is a
personal decision. It's great, yeah, you know, but but so after
two years of this, then you know, the next offer was zero more
percent. Then I was like, uh, now I'm good. I mean,
I'm only getting artistic fulfillment out of this, which is great. It's
not a small thing, it's a huge thing. But I was like,
I'm fulfilled. I guess it's kind of a case of, you know,
I did it for no extra money. I prove what I can do with
my with my work. How about you stop paying me more now? No
thanks, Okay. It's amazing to think though, that Fox or Disney,
whoever was running the shot at the time, them being cheap skates somehow resulted
in you putting in a better product in spite. I think so in a
weird way, it did. And they don't tell them that we've discovered the
secret. I mean, the biggest problem in show business. I'm gonna tell
you the biggest problem the show is not No, it's not the biggest problem.
A problem is that the people who negotiate our contracts and stuff are not
the people who are in the room doing work. So yeah, I mean,
it's it's it really would depend on people within the room having to like
go to bat for me. But at the same time, you know,
everybody's like, you know that their own struggles, But yeah, no,
I don't. I don't know that. Like it's hard to say, Like
Fox and Disney don't don't get how good I am. I what whoever Fox
and Disney are, They're just like this giant like I'm not sure who should
know, but the people who negotiate the contracts are not the people who know.
They don't. How did the relationship change between the execs per se and
the stuff you guys when Disney took over? Was there a shift? No?
Not really? But did I did I just kick the same people on
like when it comes to Fox? I mean, you know, that's what
I'm saying. There's a whole disconnect because so I only deal with you know,
we we deal with Matt Salman, and so it's a good person to
deal with. Yeah, and Matt would I mean, I'm maybe Matt has
more insight. Yeah, I don't know that they're not you know, they're
not like showing up them. Yeah, you know, it's uh yeah as
middleman. Yeah. Do you think we should expect a write a strike based
episode of someone collin in season thirty six? Or was it just let's just
pretend that never happened? There is an episode Czar did, an episode that
does have sort of a union theme to it. Yeah, I don't know
that it's writers strike based, but I think just you know, it's good.
I think I do feel like just this in America. I don't know
things are in Australia, but you know, because writers, the actors,
the ui W hotel worker, i mean, there's everybody's sound strike and I
think there is a general undercurrent of just sort of reawakening of people starting to
understand that, you know, the actual people who do the work should be
compensated barely, and that things have been going the other way for a long
time where just the people with a lot of money, you know, just
keep kind of hoarding it to themselves. It's just nice that everyone seems to
sort of be on the same the same mindset now we have to stick together,
because it felt like for a while they're saying that from from a fire
that you know, there was the rumblings that you know, we're not getting
we're getting screwed here, but no one's really going to sort of speak up.
But now that everyone's on the same team going we want more, and
so it was just great to see yeah, yeah, they're they're yeah.
It's it's strange. Every once in a while I'll notice because everyone it's so
strange to me when there are people who feel the opposite, especially if they
are I mean, there's a thing that happens in America and I don't know
if it happens in Australia too, but I think sometimes there are people who
who want the rich to get away with paying less taxes and less help and
alls because they think of themselves as like, I'm just I'm gonna be rich,
so I'm locome like I'm just a frustrated billionaire right now, but but
one day it's gonna happen to me. So they put up with laws that
aren't in their favor and in hopes of one day being the rich guy.
But I think people are starting to understand that. Yeah, so I'm just
realizing that you know you, so you screwed yourself over them in the first
place by putting out a great product when you won't getting paid enough. One
thing, I used to work in a factory right and my very first day
I was trying to work hard impress the boss. I used to work at
Ford before it closed in Australia. I'll never forget. Towards the end of
my shift, this old man who I worked with for the day just went
slow down. I was like, what do you slow down? Over time?
It's just that ment kind of never showed them how good you were working
because I expected every other day. Yeah, I mean, you know,
I do think that like in the you know, early on I heard that
when you know, I wasn't there at the beginning of the sentence, but
I was there with like people like George Meyer and John Shwartzwelder and like that
who came would come in and we talk about and they said that, like
at the very beginning that Sam Simon came in and said, you know,
here's this crazy idea we have and it's probably going to be thirteen episodes and
we'll be done. And so there was this very this mindset of like,
let's just do it. Let's just do a really good job. And I
think, I think, you know, just ultimately as a as an artist.
And I always like, I always like cringe when I say artists because
it sounds so pretentious, but I there is sometimes you have to kind of
think in a sort of pure way because you're really the only one who's going
to be able to like try and keep this thing pure. So yeah,
I thought that was how I was going to approach these eight episodes that I
would have in my care to sort of be like it, Yeah, like
I'm gonna I'm just gonna go balls to the walls. Yeah, with that
first season, there was no expectation was there. It was just here's a
go make a show. And then but by the time you came around,
what was it like, was that was the running room? That feels like
there was an expectation to live up to because The Simpsons was such so critically
acclaimed at that point. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely that by the
time I got there there, everybody was like, I remember when I was
interviewing because Mike Scully hired me, okay, and I remember him saying that
like that, he was just sort of admitting to me how terrified he was
like when he took over, because it's like, you don't want to be
the one that screws it up, yeap, and and many people do.
Pigeonhole Mike and is saying that's when the show changed. But I remember,
you know, from a workers perspective though, wasn't he the show runner that
introduced the go home at a normal time. We're finishing at a normal time
work day. It was like knocking off at six as opposed to we're staying
till two am until we get the right joke. Mentality. He definitely was.
I don't like since I started with him, I don't know, I
do. I did hear that it had there had been some terrible hours,
you know, I left my Oh he's great, Oh brilliant. Yeah.
Now I want to touch on something. I was going back and doing my
research for this, for this chat, and I was going through all the
lists of female writers that the show has had over the years, and I
couldn't help but notice something that absolutely astounded me. So that correct me if
I'm wrong. Now, besides Mimi Pond getting her name as a writer for
the pilot and now writing an episode in season two, you were one of
only a couple female writers to actually get a solo writing credit who wasn't either
married or related to a male staff member until like something around the show's twentieth
season. But regardless that, there was nowhere near enough female staff writers on
the simps. And I will say, I just to like not to just
Mimi part who was a friend of Matt braining she was a cartoonist. She
hadn't I don't know that she had had any writing credits before that, but
it's sort of a misnomber to say that she wrote the pilot, because the
actual pilot of the show is the episode that is written by Sam Simon and
Matt Graine. I think it's the only episode that has Yeah, someone chanted
a Thing's the actual pilot, right. It came back and looking terrible,
and Silverman and kind had to fix it. You know, it was they
were you know, it was everybody who's learning how to do animation. And
so apparently when it came back, the first animation came back, they were
like, oh no, and they had to like fix a bunch of stuff,
and then they were like and then like, I think the next episode
in the in the order came up and it was Mimi, who was a
freelance writer, so the script had been I mean all scripts are rewritten quite
a bit. Yeah, Yeah, freelance writers tend to be were rewritten because
you know, they're they're not in they're not they don't have access to like
the discussions about the show because they kind of come in, they pitch,
and then they and and also and especially for a show that is new,
so you know, she she had no idea what the show actually looks like
or looked like. So but anyway, yeah, I think Jennifer Crittendon.
I think she. I definitely think she had, Uh, she had a
few a couple of episodes. Yes, So you look, there's only a
couple of handful like you and maybe Jennifer and a couple of And it's just
amazes me how a show can be going be so popular on TV. But
is that just the sun of the times? I guess, like, what
what was the mentality behind just such a male dominated ROTS room? I mean
part of it, I mean, there's a couple of things. Part of
it is like the show is very at the time, it was very rare
to have a show where you didn't have any network and studio interference, so
anybody who came on the show never was not going to leave. So there
was there was that, like there just wasn't a big turnover. And too
you have like coming out of the Harvard lampoon and all so and a lot
of those guys. Know I feel weird saying because I don't really didn't go
to Harvard, but I know other women who you know, had experiences difficult
getting into like women who are very good writers and proved to be quite brilliant
in other when they had other opportunities had a hard time getting into the Harvard
mypoon, So I don't know. I think it was maybe started there and
like and so yeah, I by the time I got there, I remember
because you know, for a long time, I was the only woman in
the room, even like Julia Thack, Julie Sacker was there a lot of
the times, but she was not all the time, not a full time
And so it I think that part, I think that can be unpleasant for
some people, But I didn't find it that unpleasant. Did you feel you
couldn't speak Was there something you wanted to speak up about? But it just
didn't feel like it was going to be hurt or speak up to say?
Is there no other is it to say? Like, it would have been
nice to have another female writer sort of bounce ideas off of Right when you're
writing like a March centric episode, a forty year old male isn't going to
understand the March character as much as like a from from an experienced perspective of
say, a female writer, you know, right, I mean that was
I mean that? Yeah, I don't know that I I yeah, I
don't know if I ever like said, hey, we get us another woman
exactly. Yeah, they weren't really hiring in general, so it was like,
I mean, I can remember later when I was like, really,
another guy like what we did. But I did find myself sometimes not wanting
to say I mean, sometimes I would want to say well, as a
woman, I don't think this, or and then at I trying to not
want to say that too much because I don't want to be like I represent
everybody, like my vote should count play more than everybody else. But and
I don't know that it came up right. I felt that was true all
the time, but there definitely were certain times where I was like, no,
that's not what we think. And it just would be the most bizarre
things too, you know. Just I remember there was like one time where
it was like I was getting really frustrated because they were it was about how
they wanted to pitch his line where Lisa was like, and we don't even
have the good toys. We have to play with stupid dolls and we want
to play with chemistry SAIDs and rockets, and I was like, that's not
true, like I do or know, yeah, but take me to how
you got your position on the show, because he said they weren't hiring all
that often, So how did you make that happen? Well, I do
so what I've heard from Brian Scully, who's my Skilles brother. I had
been on a show with him and he told me once and he's so sweet,
but he he told me, he said, look, I knew that
I could maybe recommend that. He said, I didn't want to recommend too
many people to my brother, because I'm sure everybody recommends people. So he
said that I thought really hard about who I was going to recommend and what
I recommended. You wait, that was definitely my intro. And then my
agent is also my Stones agent, so my agent I had interviewed and what
was your mindset where you scared? Yeah, I was really scared. I
also because I didn't it took so long for me to get the job because
I I interviewed and then and then that's still Hartman thing happened, and so
it was like they were just like, we're not doing anything for a minute,
and Dave and I think they told my agent like it's not a no,
but we're we're just not We're just not doing anything. So it was
like two months had passed and I should have given up hope, because,
like you know, usually if you interview for a job and you don't hear
for two months, it usually means you can forget it. But but they
had they did kick sort of checking in and I was like okay, and
then when I got it, I was like I remember first being super elated
and happy and and then I had I had had a lot of success in
my early career where I felt like I knew that I could go to a
room and I could go and I knew how to contribute. Yeah, and
I knew like okay, I know what to do. But then alsoid I
was like I'm going to go now this this room is going to be different.
And I really had like this one moment of like as I was driving
it like maybe I want to go back what I can do? But yeah,
no, I think I did. Okay. Everybody always told me that
like George Meyer was the person you had to impress and he could be kind
of tough, and although I didn't really find that to be true, I
mean, I think we just sort of hit it off. I'm not sure.
I think we just sort of have a similar sense of humor. Was
there something you'd wanted for a while or was it just something that sort of
popped up and you went, oh, you guess So this was because in
the ninety seven ish, wasn't it when you when you got your gig ninety
seven ninety eight ish? Yeah, because ninety eight was was Phils. Yeah.
So at that time and it's still argue with to this day, was
the Simpsons writers room for writers sort of like the mecca? Absolutely, it
was at that point for me, it was the ultimate. It was like,
Okay, this is everything, this is the best. Did you have
ideas already going in what you and you watched the show and gone, oh,
I'd love to do this with my module. Was it just going in
fresh and thinking nobody is once you got there? I don't think I had.
I don't think I had any ideas. I was just like okay,
I just kind of And it did turn out to be true that like they
you know, it was gonna take a while to get us, Like I
was on for like a year before I got a script. Now we're I
feel like we're more like, Okay, when there's new writers, we gotta
get them scripts. And you know, my main thing was like I'm I'm
an improv person. So I was just like, I'm going to go in
and my main thing, like the main advice I give people who want to
be a TV writer, because this is what most of your job is,
is like go win and be the solver. And as I'm often I'm often
the only woman or one of two women in these rooms now and now I
think there's more women now. So what you kind of learn is to be
seen as somebody that's helpful. Is sometimes there are jokes one of our shorthands
where it is like cranberry sauce because like, okay, so it's like,
you know, it's kind of like the example is or where this phrase cranberry
sauce comes in, is like you're pitching jokes and it's all silent because everybody
has any ideas, and then then you go, okay, well all right,
and then then they have Thanksgiving dinner and then all of suddenverybody's like cranberry
sauce gravy, like you know, everybody, there's certain jokes where everybody knows,
you know. So I realized and I sort of learned early on that
sometimes this is definitely a thing that happens to women and maybe hopefully happens least
now that there's more word is that sometimes your voice doesn't get hurt and it's
hard to shout above the boys, and so sometimes I just be like,
okay when there's the cranberry, when there's a joke, and everybody's great,
but you know, I can try and like slip into the blank spots.
But the best strategy for me is to wait for the jokes that where everybody
goes silent because they can't think of anything, and then be the saver there.
That's where you can be seen as like, oh, thank god,
that person. And so that that was my strategy, was that I was
just gonna be that person. And I don't know, but I know that
when I got home that day that my agent had told me that Mike Scully
had called him that day after my first answer, she's gonna she's gonna be
fine that way. So I had a good day. And I remember my
first joke that got in and it was on the first day, and it
was it's not an episode. I don't even think I'm credited on that episode,
but it's the Vegas episode and they needed a sign joke for like these
Vegas signs. Mine was loose at craps in town. Oh wow? How
often? How long do they spend on the and still to this day on
the sign gags because a lot. Yeah, and it is still over the
stew over rock. What was that writer's room like in ninety seven, ninety
eight, even through the early two thousand compared to now, because you said
there's a lot boys shouting and trying to get hurt over the top, is
there still that kind of vibe of just everyone in the room just bantering ideas
back and forth to seeing what sticks. Yeah, I mean, you know,
it's it's sort of different, a different vibe depending on what the thing
is. Like if we're doing a story, it is going to be different
kinds of things. And when we're doing a story, it's just it's sort
of like we'll just kind of go this whole area. It could be this,
it could be this, and then this could happen like you know,
and then you know, then you kind of get in there and shape it
and then you but then as as then when you're rewriting a script and then
you're sometimes you get to where it's like very specific, like okay, here
this joke, what can we replace it with, and sometimes you can pitch
something that will change the whole thing, or sometimes you know, the whole
change the setup. Sometimes then as we get further along, when it's like
color, then it's like okay. Then it starts to become like, okay,
we can't change the setup. We can only change this line. And
then sometimes if we're trying to even save the lip flap from the color because
we don't want to do a retake, it'll be like, okay, so
it needs to be a new line. It needs to be this long blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah, and then the last symbol has to go
ooh, because that's the way it go. So you know, you have
to get very very specific, and you know, sometimes you can do it,
and sometimes you can put things, you know, at the color.
You can can start a line on the back of somebody's head or something so
that there's the flap. Does Sometimes you watch the old episodes and the mouth
clearly doesn't work for like a certain line. Obviously at that time, this
went this joke's too good, we don't care, we're putting it in.
Yes, every once in a while you kind of well and those are usually
done at adr you'll just like kind of go like sometimes the actor will come
up with something, or you'll come up with something and like just kind of
okay, that kind of good. Yeah, And a lot of times,
if it goes by fast enough, people don't How do you decide on a
joke? Obviously everyone's just contributing. Oh, you could say this, it
could be that, could be this. What is the quota before everyone agrees
that that's the joke we're going with. Is there a certain sort of like
checklist? Is it like a vote of hands? Or That's the thing about
where it has to be you know, the person running the room. It's
really really the only way it works because it can't be a democracy, you
know, you can't, So it has to be you know. Now.
That's the other thing I always tell people who are new to this TV writing
room is because like sometimes you'll have like new writers will come in and you
know, they'll pitch a joke and somebody else picture joke and they'll go no,
and you're like, no, no, no, You're you're not the
one running through. You don't have to say no, don't because you know,
you why why give yourself that grief. Yeah, uh, you know,
you just it's only it's only the one person who's running the room.
And that's kind of the word has to be because it can't really be well,
okay, how many people like this joke? All right, raise the
show of hands, you know, because it kind of has to be this
whoever has kind of the vision for this thing, and and in the end
it's generally the show winner. I guess it would establish a bit of a
divide amongst the writers as well, to say three are voting for your joke
and for art to be like, well why not, guys, what's going
on here? You know? Yeah? Yeah, And then it's like,
well, yeah, just see if I vote for your joke, but it
feels yesterday, what do you them? Yeah. So it's just like I
was, if you're new and you're you know, just just go and pitch,
and like, if you hate a joke, it's probably not going in
and but you don't have to be the one to knock it down. You
just pitch another one, and like, you know, occasionally if they go
yes and they're like it's some baby killing joke and they're like ok, and
you're like, you know, you can't go you know what, Excuse me,
I think we shouldn't do the baby killing joke. You know, maybe
then, But other than that, it's not really up to you know.
Now, I'm a little more opinionated. I'm the more senior member. Sometimes
I will have opinion about other jokes and what they get in. While'll be
like, I don't know, that makes her seem a little unlikeabull or whatever.
I will, but usually I'll just I do realize that whoever's running the
room, it's they're the person that's that's there. When you're you're obviously running
the room on occasions, right when it comes to this situation. Yeah,
So when you're running the room, is it challenging to when you know that
one of the writers really thinks the joke's gonna work, but you know that
it's probably not best for the episode. Is it? Is it challenging to
say no to them even though you know they really want it, or is
it just that's just part of the gig, you know, It's just you
need to understand I know what's best. I mean, yeah, ultimately that's
true. So like I run the room on the on the shows that I
co write, Yeah, yeah, I mean generally, generally, that's not
something you really run into that much when it's just somebody pitching a joke on
it. And I think what you might sometimes get that is when somebody has
it's like from it's their draft, you know, it's like they're they're they're
written by writer the baby. Yeah, So sometimes I'll be like, sometimes
you might get a little sort of petulant, Well I call a locals in
this group, you know, and then you know, and sometimes I'll just
say, well, okay, I feel like I need to change it because
of this. Sometimes I explain myself clean your desk on the way out,
sir. But you know, generally, I do think in the end,
hopefully it's gonna it's there's gonna be a level of respect anyway. Right when
you go into the Simpsons writers room, you just respect the people who have
been there for so long. You just listen to what they have to say.
I'm assuming, right, I mean, yeah, it's a it's a
respect for as yet it is also the process. You know. It's just
that like I can't remember one time even like you know, we're doing stories
and I was, I was, you know, this is a long time
ago. So it's not a writer who's on the show currently, but like
a writer who later quickly googles list of rights. I'm not. I'm not,
but I will say this and when I everyone, if I say this
problem writer was problematic everybody who is listening, who's on the staff and what
I'm talking about. But we, you know, we were I don't know.
At one point he pitched it like and then Bart gets a job doing
this, and then Barket's a job doing this, And at one point I'm
like, Bart is is ten, so I can get all these jobs,
you know. Then he's like, there had been this episode where Bart had
like taken over the comic book shop and he's like, oh, but if
you run a comic book shop or whatever like it. I was just like,
Okay, that's not a job. Yeah, And they went through a
lot of machinations to make that make sense. And a ten year old would
take a comic book shop. But you know, at the same time,
I was like, look, I'm I'm in charge of the room right now.
All I can do is choose the thing. I like, that's all
I can do. So I don't like it, you know, I mean,
I'm you know what is best served is whether I like it or not.
And maybe if somebody else were running room, they would love it,
but I don't. But also if you can't see that the people who have
been there longer probably know the process, I understand the process and know what's
best for the show, then you're probably not suited for this, right And
that's the thing that is the main thing is like this really does not come
up very often because generally that is, we all understand that, you know,
we all understand, and I also know, like as for myself and
I and I do try to acknowledge this to people. Like sometimes people will
go sometimes people will bring up a problem and they'll go, well, this
is this, and I'm like, I don't see that, and then I'll
I honestly don't. And then I'll at dinner, I'll go, oh,
wait a minute, and then I'll understand what they're saying. Sometimes it takes
me a minute, and then like the next day, I'll go, you
know what, you were right, and then I'll change it. Sometimes,
you know, that's all you can do is really I just feel like once
you start second guessing yourself, you're lost. That's it. You have to
go by what you think is funny and what makes sense and what seems right
for the characters. And that's all, you know, all you can do,
and and and so most people will understand that, and and so even
if they disagree with me, and if I'm running the room, then they
just and that's and that's the way I feel with other people too. But
I disagree with them and they're running the room. It's like, Okay,
did you have experience that yourself, like when you first sort of started working
for the show and got your first script. After that first year, did
you ever have an idea that you thought to yourself, I really think this
is better, but you know what, they're really running the show. I'll
go what they say. I never I don't know if I ever thought like,
wow, my joke was so great. I never thought like a joke
was so great that I wanted to or a story bat or something. There
was one thing, yes, there definitely was my very first episode. Well,
I mean we were going for the story and we were just talking about
it and then at one point are you talking a little big mum? Is
that what you're talking about? Yeah? Yeah? And then also they're like,
then maybe they convinced Spartan Homer that they have leprosy. And sometimes we
go off on crazy tangents that we're never gonna do. We're just like,
yeah, that begrets, and we pitch on this thing that's not real,
but just sometimes just to sort of amuse ourselves. And that's what I thought
was happening. I thought we were I thought we were just kidding, and
then then it was like, oh, oh, oh, we're really doing
this. And then so I wrote it, you know, I was like,
okay, okay, yeah, all right. So I remember being surprised
at that, and then there came a point and I was fine with that.
I thought it was kind of funny. And I liked the idea that
they get visited by the ghost of the seal Ball, just because it's such
a crazy idea. But there were at some point there were jokes that were
kind of hard hitting. I won't even say them, because I actually found
them to be sort of mean about lepers and because I go to the island
at the end, and I grew up in Hawaii, and I think that
for a lot of the guys in the room, they were they were talking
about like a biblical disease that didn't exist anymore. Whereas I grew up,
I remember seeing these people on the news who had been banished to this leper
colony and now they were going to take away their land, and they you
know, they you know, they were real people to me, and I
was like, I don't want to do that. I'm glad you brought this
up, because I thought it was very un karolin Amine. At the ending
of that episode, I thought, this just seems we that this story's felt
somewhat granded, and then it's just gone so wacky, you know. It
was. It was, you know, it was I was like, okay,
I mean, I'm fun too, you know, but yeah, I
do. There was Actually I went to visit Cala Papa and which is the
leper colony in Mulokai, and just you know, really being there and it's
really it's very moving. And at the time, I'm not sure because it
was so long ago. At the time, they were only if you left
me because they had discovered the cure in nineteen seven, I think, so
it was really the only people who sort of had been disfigured, and they
had lived there in all of their lives, and so they were just letting
them live the rest of their life. But I was just like, I
just remember calling Mike Seleton, please, we cannot make this joke about and
he's like, okay, So that's I didn't get into the episode. No,
No, there were a couple of jokes there that got taken out.
Yeah, but it did take me calling in tears from from the island of
Molokai to get it taken out. But it just felt like in those earlier
days, that particularly with the LGBTQ plus community, that there are a lot
of jokes that you would not make now. But as we were reviewing them,
we sort of go, well, that doesn't seem fair about this joke.
But it's also just a sign at the times as well. I guess
you know, you can't you can't review it just should never have been that
way, But you can't critique it from twenty twenty three something that was made
in two thousand. If that's just seemed to be that wasn't as it should
never have been, shouldn't have been accepted, But it just was, I
guess, on television to make those jokes. Yeah, I think so,
it definitely was. I always hope that like, no, matter what,
even you know, everybody wanted to be edgy and come right to the line.
It was that the South Park mental was because we were reviewing these episodes
now season eighteen. But it just felt like for a while they felt that
the Simpsons were almost trying to lean into that Family God territory because Family God
was sort of taking the will by Stone at that point. And that's not
why people liked the Simpsons, you know, And that's why the Simpsons are
still on TV. And I don't know, Family Guy's on TV, but
people don't talk about Family talk about the Simpsons. You know. The Simpsons
didn't need to be edgy the way Family Guy was. Yeah, I always
just wanted to, Like I mean, for me, I always just feel
like it has to be really obvious that your intention is not to hurt somebody,
because otherwise if you feel that in the least bit. But then at
the same time, like I like, I love drag Race, I don't
know if you're Grace, but they did this whole thing, like this reading
challenge where they like read each other, and it's just where you really see
that like, if you're really funny, you could say the meanest thing and
it's like, oh my god, that's so funny. But like if that's
the scariest thing about those reading challenges, like if you're if you're not funny,
then you're and you're like, and you know this thing now it just
seems like the meanest thing ever. It's like, oh, it's like it's
such a scary thing that like, if you don't have the levity of actually
being super funny, that joke is gonna hit so hard and so mean.
It's the same thing that goes for the roast that you see on TV exactly.
Yeah. Sometimes you watch shows and you go, oh, that didn't
land well yeah, yeah, and like somebody else have said something way crueler
but it was really funny, and you're like, oh, well no,
one just flew over and that was fine. But they're like something just like
the mildest thing, but it ooh, just like what that was just rude.
You've said in the past, I've read that the other shows that you
worked on, the actors would at times add lieb or paraphrase your writing,
which can be quite annoying. But you've said it rarely happened on The Simpsons
when you were when you're in this interview. Can you remember a particular line
on moment on The Simpsons where one of the actors ad libbed one of your
jokes and improved it? Yes, because I mean that's That's one thing that's
really great is that our actors will always give us at least one take or
two takes, and not just like not just like, oh, here here's
your take, you know, like the way you wrote it. They will
they will try to perform it the way you they clearly you wrote it,
and and then they will also try and add lib on it. And I
can't think of any particular but I know what happens all the time. Yeah,
that's so much more. I'll do a podcast with Jim Cummings, who's
the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Tiger, and he always says that when
he's doing the acting, he voices it as written, and then he gives
his version and sometimes I'll go his version, sometimes they want he doesn't.
It doesn't boll the hum which version they go with, but he just likes
to give his input that way. No, it's I think it's really I
think it's really important because one I like that our actors feel that they have
that ability because you want you want everybody to feel like creative and like that
they can contribute. But I think it's also very important to do it the
other way, choose that the writers feel because I feel like when I was
on shows where the actors were always just going to be sort of in the
ballpark of the line you wrote, Well, then you stop trying to like
worry over exactly how you word it, you know, because it's like,
why are we bothering with the exact wording of this when they're just going to
kind of do something close but not really that. But with our actors we
do, and so we and so the writers do really really think about the
exact wording, and you know, that's what writers do. And so I
think sometimes there are really really well written jokes that come from from knowing that
that will be treated without much care, so you can craft it or you
know that it's it is funny, or if it's this word instead of this
word, and you know, like who imprompts the most, I feel like
it would be Dan and Hank, right, Yes, Dan and Hank definitely
Hank is Hank really loves to just go off, especially certain characters who loves
to go off and Harry could too. He's just not as I found Harry
hard to read these days, he's hard to He's not as often in the
kind of playful mood when wouldn't need to be in to uh improvise. But
uh yeah, and and trust also trust Mcneilie Truss is unbelievable. Yeah,
she's a great improviser. Like Dan just comes up with like these great little
things, like he loves his sounds. He's going to come in or just
random sounds and groans and things. Yeah, to have only just little sounds
like I remember one day I just always thought was the funniest thing. It
was like actually during the little beep beep beep, you know, like those
things that happened before that, the thinking was on and home just went here
comes true, Like Homer, he's so smart, what's coming next? And
but you know, we did. There was one thing that I just thought
of we were in I don't know if you saw this episode a while ago
called fantaly Feed. There's there's this it's really fun and there's a Beyonce.
It's basically, uh, I'm obsessed with Beyonce, especially who isn't a Lemonade
parody, and there's a where we just wanted him to do a background voice
and she's singing with this woman named Jade Nova, who is brilliant there,
and so she sings like even when I do things wrong, and then he's
supposed to say I do wrong things and then Dan gets on and he's like,
I wrong do things and it's so wrong. We're like, oh my
god, that's so good. Just put So that's what we put in.
And I don't even know if people realize, you know, but it just
it's it just tickles me. But that is that's sort of like he also
you know, like I think you might know the story that like when he
was the line I am so smart s m. Marti, Like that is
him just h yeah, he's just he's just inhabiting that character. Yeah,
well with the writing. So when you record the audio, when does the
animation actually start? So do you record the audio the dialogue first and then
they animate to the dialogue or is it the case of the Yeah case that's
that allows for the improp because you would not start the animating and oh man,
Dan just created a great joke. Now we're going to reanimate the face
for that joke. Yeah, yeah, like I was, I was just
thinking about this end of the day. I guess I talked to somebody about
the stupid sexy Flanders meme. But that was one of my first records that
I got to watch and was did you write that or is that a group
effort? That I always say I came up with that line, but but
the definitely the thing because I you know, I born and raised in Hawaii
when they were like, yeah, you know when you go skiing and some
guy shows up like your your friend and they up in that really tight snowsuit
and you're like embarrassed, and I'm like, never happened from Australia. I'm
the same. I could imagine what it would be like. They're like,
yeah, you know you see every so I mean I could imagine it,
but yeah, it wasn't really like but uh so, you know just before
Homer has that thing where he his skis spread and he gets hit in the
crotch moguls and so so Dad did one line and then I was like,
could you do it again? But when you do it, could you just
because it's you're you're going downhill and you're just being hitted hit repeatedly in the
crotch by these mogules, So could there be a little rhythm to the oh,
like as a hit and he does it and it was so brilliant.
It had like this very particular rhythm to it, and he cries and like
that that's what they animated to. So like they timed the moguls to hit
his crutch with his cries and it's just really great. Can you believe that
the stupid sixty flanners became a thing? No? I mean I knew,
like we were. I remember actually because Ian was running the room at that
time, and like like even the way he wrote the thing that like Flanders
turns around and and waggled his shapely dairy air or something like he says something
like that, so we knew he did say it in a way that definitely
spun the animators to a certain things. And then when it came in and
we're like whoa, We're like, oh, that's intense. Okay, all
right, cause it's it's now it's nuggas an like action fee it's like a
funky pop for it and never it's it's it's it's like it's been immortalized yeah,
yeah, you know that is that is just all whenever we have any
thing that works, it is that thing where it's like thirty percent writing,
thirty percent of the voice acting, thirty percent of the animation. But then
it's not really like it's it's somehow it's that thing where it's actually turns out
it's actually more like this, you know what I mean. Like, but
all three of those things weren't really well in that. It's funny because at
the time that wasn't necessarily like I was still I wouldn't say kid, I
would have met thirteen fourteen when the episode came out, and we still talk
about the Simpsons of school, but it wasn't what We all went to school
the next day and went nothing at all. It was just you know,
but twenty years later, for some reason, we had just clung onto it.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know's that's true for a lot of that
means, yeah, Homo, through the hedge and just I think just the
introduction of social media and gifts, I think just really helped those things.
Yeah, I think. So. I want to talk about the writing process
in general, though, so we've heard about the nine month process. It's
just been a thing that we've all known nine months from creating the idea to
coming on TV. How has it changed from what ninety eight to now?
Is it still a very similar process when you when you sort of break it
down, it is generally the process is and then I do if we because
I know we were going to talk about a mid childhood, Yeah, what's
what's let's talk about that now of your life. Let's let's go for it.
I mean, just because that was a very different process. I mean
usually usually we come in where you're like, I have this story idea,
Like sometimes you might have a whole story. I tend to like to have
my ending and you know, to know where I'm going, and then like
pitch ideas and then like figure out where these scenes are and then you pitch
it outline and then you can just when you write the script and then come
back. But for a mid childhood that was different because one I had had
I'd had this one idea in my head and I had sort of tweeted about
it that, like Yardley had said, she'd asked me once what advice I
would give Marge her being the mother of a ten year old, because at
the time my son was fifteenth, and I was like, wow, that's
a great idea, I mean, great question. And I didn't have an
answer, but I thought about it for a long time, and then when
I realized the thing I would say is that you know, ten is when
I realized, like, ten is kind of the end of like when they
were a little kids. And then that made me dad and I remember I
remember like my niece who I kind of raised as my daughter too, Like
when she was ten, she was I was going to get her an iPod.
That's what she wanted, like a little iPod nana or something. And
then as we were watching, she saw the American Girls Store and she's what
is this store? I don't love And I normally can't stand the American Girls
Store. I think like they're just I don't know why I kind of think
about that, but I was like, it's a store with these dolls and
she's like, oh, I want one of those. And I was like,
so happy that you want. I was like, oh, you know,
Norma'm like, oh, you need dinner with them or were lunch with
them, and I was like, do you want a doll? And I
was so happy that she wanted a doll? And because she was, you
know, she was almost at the end of you know, being a little
girl. And anyway, so I was I kept thinking I wanted to write
something about that, and I couldn't think of what, but it was always
just sort of stuck in the back of my head. And so here we
were now doing this co running thing, and I knew I needed to write
another script, but it was like so much work doing all this running these
episodes. And by now it was like, because it was my second season,
they were starting to kind of double up, you know. Now I
was sort of dealing with eight episodes, and so I couldn't I know,
I wouldn't be able to take the time off to write it, but I
had to take time off to drop my son off at college, and I'm
you know, he's my only child. And I already knew I was going
to be a mess. And so we didn't have anything. We didn't have
a story. I had this sort of one idea, and I just told
Matt, I said, look, I'm just gonna I'm going to write this
script and we're not going to be like pitching on the story and all this.
I'm just gonna and I and and and he was very I could tell
you was he would. He had been sort of feeling like, Okay,
we got a daycare of Carolyn, because you know, this is gonna be
really hard time for her, and so he was being very like, yeah,
it was very very sweet, and I was just like because I just
remember, I was like, I'm just gonna write it, and he's like
okay, and I'm like, and it's gonna be sad, okay, okay,
and so I you know, I just I was like writing it like
in between, like like at the same time trying to like get every moment
I had with my son left, but then like on the plane and night
after we went to sleep, and I just it was it was really like
probably the most personal I've ever done, where like I'm like and most like
this is happening right now and I'm just gonna write about it, and the
memories of just you know, just like it was all of those things,
you know, just like even that moment at the beginning when she goes to
the store in at the grocery store, I remember that feeling of like as
a as a parent, that which actually starts happening around ten when you kind
of realize you know, when you're when they're little, you can you can
see a little like toy car or something, and you just toss that in
and then you come out and go look what I got and it's like,
oh my god, like this joy that you cannot believe. And then you
know, later there comes a point where it's like, you know, maybe
maybe if you buy them a camera or a new phone, like there's there's
a little bit but not quite the same as like like it's not like,
oh my god, I've brought magic into the world. Yeah, you know,
and even as a as likes at a certain age, you you drive
around and I remember just seeing like there's this really specific kind of sadness when
you go, oh, look at that park, Like you notice there's this
really good swing area and you're like, that's great, and then you realize,
oh, my kid's too old for that, and it's so sad.
So I just thought that's you know. And the other thing was to me,
one of the saddest songs but also one of the most beautiful songs is
that song Puffed the Magic Dragons. Yes, there's a band from Australia or
the Seekers who used to sing the song and it's they were on the first
bands I ever want to see live. So I know that song very well.
Yeah. I my son, I remember when he was like four,
he came home from preschool and he was singing it and he wanted me to
sing it with him, and every time we got to that part, it
was like then one day this happened. I could never sing without right.
Just that that's anyway one one that with Beautiful Boy. For John John Lenon,
I'm a huge John Lennon fan and Beautiful Boy when he goes, I
can hardly wait to see you come of age and it's just like, oh,
I can't wait, but I also don't want you to ah. I
mean, you know, I will say, because I know your kids are
like five five and just turned three. Yeah, so my boys starting school
next year. And that's why I think this episode hit me so hard.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it is. It is because there is a
part of you that's like, you know, you go through like the minute
you have this baby and you're like night, have to protect my baby,
have to protect my baby, like and then all of a sudden, it's
like my baby's gone. My baby's not with toddler, you know, and
and it's really it's just that dual thing where it's like it's always great because
it's like, oh, but they're so cute at this age, and then
but then you do miss this stuff, and like, right now, my
son is so great, he's so much fun to talk to, and it's
really exciting to he's an adult now, you know, it's really really,
really great. And but yeah, you know, there's there's that magic of
childhood. My son he's just started to be able to do things for himself.
So he'll go, I want to watch the Muppets place and I go,
yeah, sure, I gotta get their money. He goes, I
can do it. I'm like, oh, okay, you don't need me,
no worries, all right, we'll help you get this. I'll get
dressed by myself. Ah okay, no worries. All to sit here then.
Yeah, But I think just this episode in general, because you know
it starts with Bart going to is it kindergarten he goes to in this episode
or was at school where he looks back and he's sad. I think it's
kindergarten, right, yeah, as well as the kindergarten. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I just remember this Throughout the whole episode, I was just
like, this is my life right now. And as a result of watching
this episode though and hearing your thought process going into about the whole ten year
old thing, It's changed how I've parented I now am. I feel like
I was always made the most of, you know, being a parent,
but now I'm making the most of every second I can. You know,
hey, mate, let's just sit there, Let's go go outside and kick
the ball, or let's just go do something together, you know, yeah,
you know. I remember my neighbor on my side, she's an older
woman, and I remember when my son was really small, rainieces all the
time, and like the house was a mess. It was all these little
toys, and she came over and I was like, I'm so sorry the
house is such a mess, and she said, no, no, my
house is so neat, and it was so and I remember at that moment
thinking like I want to really make sure I don't I don't want to be
because sometimes you can get so much in life where you're like when you're in
the middle of the mess, going oh, I wish this house was neat,
and then when it's gone, well, I wish I had the mess,
and I'm like, I wanna I want to switch that and really enjoy
the mess while it's here, because there's gonna come a time when it's gonna
be gone, and maybe then I'll be like, well, good, I'm
glad it's neat. I don't know if I will, but it does make
you realize, Like I think that, like anything like when your kids are
really little and then they're having trouble potty training, or they're waking up in
the middle of the night, or there are any of those little annoying things
that they do, you know, the thing is like, okay, but
it's enjoy them very Yeah. Everything is temporary and you're gonna miss that one
day when that thing goes away. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
I just think that the way that you captured that feeling with just the holding
hands, like when he grabbed her hand at the end, I grabbed my
chest. Oh, it was just yeah, it was so sweet, and
it reminded me because I've always thought that, you know, Maggie's had her
sweet ending with and Maggie makes three, right, Bart has this sweet ending,
so at least that's a sweet ending with Lisa's wedding whether she's walking off
with home at the fair. This is, to me is the sweet ending
that Bart's always needed, you know, with the parent because he has March
being not proud where they have this sort of the sweet embrace that he gets
the photo. But there's a joke at the end, but this one doesn't
end with it ends with the theater and joke, but it's essentially ending with
that walking off into the sunset. Such as sweet ending and Barts never really
to my recollection, had one of those kind of moments and you gave him
that, you know, I mean I really did, you know. It
was like there's there's these things where you have this idea of something that you
want to do, Like I like when when Yardley had asked me that question,
I had for a long time in thinking like I wanted to sort of
capture somehow I just because my you know, I have one kid and he's
a boy, and I wanted to capture the mother son thing. And yeah,
and also that like's not he's not bad in this episode at all,
Like it's never like because you know he often is. You know, he
I really wanted like even in that moment when he's telling her that he wants
he doesn't want to do the thumbs up. You know, I really wanted
that to feel like, you know, we get into these really emotional arguments
parents and children, because it is that you're going to have these arguments about
I want to grow up and I want you to stay the same for you
know, and I wanted that like that. Bart Is is being very kind
in that tip to March. He is trying to say this as gently as
possible to her. And I do think, like deep down, bart is
a good kid and he does really love her, and so even on some
level as a little kid, he might not know this like the way an
adult would know it, but he does know that this is hard for her
and I have to gently tell it that I can't thumbs up. But and
she sort of embraced what he did instead and acknowledged, Okay, this is
just the new this is what we're doing going forward. And she accepted that
and he held her hand. It's just the beautiful yeah, I And uh,
Julie is so good. And you know, at that at this time
when we did this episode, she was going through a really hard time,
you know, her her husband passed away sort of around that time, and
they were each other's love of their lives, like they were just but Julie
is always, you know, always wants to give her best and and just
she's just the sweetest, kindest and just always just the best work ethic.
And you know, there's a hard episode to do because it was so much
lines for her, and so it was a long recording session and you know,
these are the things that you only really get in one really good recording
set. We do a bunch of pickups and stuff. So when you when
I have an episode like this, you're like okay, Like I tell myself
like, okay, well it's gonna be okay. But like going in and
I'm like, oh, she's good today, you know, like you really
and she was just so good and so I don't always do this, but
I did write to her and I and I said, do you I just
want to let you know you were just amazing today and it really I can't
thank you enough. It was just really really good. And she actually called
me as she was all cheery and she's like it means so much to me.
Yeah. So so I do think that that that really infused a lot
of it too, just she she was just really phenomenal. Yeah, I
love that you put so much thought into Bat's emotional state and trying to explain
it to Mauch too, because, as I've said with the podcast, we
go through cological with the season eighteen, it feels like sort of around this
point, there's almost like an apathy with the character. There's lots of Margin
Homer splitting up storylines, and but and Lisa don't seem to really be bothered
that Margin and Homer aren' getting along anymore. And it feels like in recent
seasons there's been a real switch and a more focus on taking it back to
its roots, where Homer isn't the dim wit that he sort of become in
later seasons, and he's sort of gone back to being the respectful husband.
Sure he has these moments, but it feels more like you guys have focused
on the emotional side of the characters again, is has there been a focus
on that? I mean, for me, like that was part of why,
because I just never really like the splitting up stories. Always just say
like, look, I'm a big fan, like I can only ever look
at like where do I look at as a fan myself? And I'm like
I love like I love Bob's Burgers. I don't want to see I don't
want see bobble Land a break up. You know. I was like,
I was a big fan of Blackish, and I mean I love what they
did. I mean I respected it. You know, I don't know if
you watch just like they because I think it's so based on Kenya Barris's life.
There comes a certain point where they split up and I was like,
no, it happened because it just it just I don't know to me,
I and so I this was my I have felt since this time when just
I can't really again, you know, it's like I can't speak for everybody,
just for me. What I wanted to do is to me like that
that moment when in the way we was, you know when Homer says,
look, I don't know so much. I just know that I love you
and and I'm just gonna keep on loving you. And like I just thought
in my mind, like my head canon, like as I say, like
Marge realizes then that like, look, he's not the smartest or whatever,
but he loves me so much. And that is a rare thing to see
a love that's so pure and real. Indeed, and it we As long
as we have that, everything else is gonna fall into place. And to
me, I thought, so that's what I did really want for the first
episode, that I was gonna be in charge of that. As for pixelated
phrame was I wanted to first and foremost reinforce that the rock of the center
of this whole show is that Margin Homer love each other like crazy, and
that is that's like everything else can happen because of that. They can they
can be crazy, and you know, I mean, Homer can be dumb.
Johnsh Warswalld used to always say, like, like the level of dumb
is that Homer should always know at least as much as the dog knows.
So yeah, so he knows his name. But to me, I even
feel like sometimes I could even there's sometimes even even when we're doing non canon
things, I don't like it when the like when our or main characters,
I don't like even when we're doing no non candidates, I don't like it
with if Homer does something that would not be something at heart what a good
person would do, you know, like they have to have a certain goodness
that is deep and from Marge as well. So that's just the way I
feel about which is what I think is being very evident in the last say,
three to four years. It's just it's the show feels different. It's
hard to really pinpoint exactly why, but I think it's just more they don't
they feel like they love each other again, and for a while it felt
like, well, they didn't love each other, but they didn't show it
enough, you know, because I always feel like, like I remember in
general, like I remember Scully telling you this once. He said, if
if Homer doesn't give a shit, none of the jokes land, Like,
if you don't feel like Homer cares about the outcome of this story because it's
gonna affect his families, gonna affect this is going to affect whatever, none
of the jokes land, and none of you don't get pulled forward through the
narrative because if he doesn't care, then nobody cared. Then the audience isn't
going to care. It's just going to be a series of gags and and
so you need to I just have that feeling at the center, like that
that they all kind of care, and we always know that with Lisa and
Marge. But I do think that like Bart too, though, Like I
like when we get to those moments that sort of exposed where Bart has to
kind of expose that, Like, no, that doesn't make me sad,
and I do feel bad about it. Yeah, now, I know we've
gone long tonight, but it's one more thing I want to touch before let
you go. That's okay, because I'd regret if I didn't. It's Halloween
of Horror. It's one of my favorite episodes ever. And you watched a
couple of days ago with my kids because they love watching it as well.
My three was like, it's scary, and I was like, yeah,
it's scary, but it is genuinely scary at times. But what was your
What was the inspiration for that one? Because we touched on your inspiration with
you some for the previous episode for this one here? What how did How
had it been so long without doing a canon Halloween episode? Was it just
something never discussed or was that a deliberate choice to not interfere with tresfr We
had never I mean that was so that the idea to do a canon Halloween
episode was was Salmon's idea? I love Halloween, you know, like,
like I've said, my neighborhood is very Halloween and I have this crazy Halloween
party and I just I love Halloween. So yeah, that and that was
my first because you know, Satt was Selman had started doing where he would
do four episodes and he's just a little bit more collaborative than I was.
And and that was really the first time where I felt like I was and
I felt like even more so with that because at that point Selman he had
done a couple of years, so he was getting a little bit behind too.
So there were many times when people just sort of let me go off
like they were all every time. Mike Anderson, who did a wonderful job
directing it, he would go, we need more costume ideas, and then
I just write these lists and like like you know, Missus Skinner Amy Whitehouse,
I just you know, come up with all these things. But for
me, I had some definite things that I wanted. I wanted it to
be. I wanted it to be actually scary, and so I thought,
and this, but this also gonna be real. And to me, like
the things the scariest things movies are those home invasion type movies, they like
Strangers Checked the Children. Yeah, yeah, because those are all the ones
that you know could actually happen or you know, it feels really like it.
So yeah, I wanted there to be a moment where you felt really
really worried, and then I did also want and then then there was so
many things that were just because it was the only time we the first time
we had done Cannon Halloween, it really became like really all of us love
Halloween. So everybody had just these moments of like, and then there's this
like we we all had several experiences with either being a child and going to
a haunted house that was too much, or taking your child haunted house that
was too much this year and regretted it at the very end, that's for
sure. Like Skelly was actually because he tied and it was even his girls
were older, but he said he'd taken him to like the Universal Halloween of
Horror, and like he said that he was like that, they were like,
we want to go, and they were like, oh, so expensive.
So we definitely sort of had that kind of Homer has that little like
it was really but you know even that I can remember being a little little
kid and going to a school carnival with like a babysitter, and like we
went into it just like it seemed like it was a classroom and there was
like somebody with a Frankenstein mask, and I can just remember screaming and then
having to be taken out, and I was like, I didn't sleep in
it that night, and you know so well. I feel like a bad
parent there because my daughter was two at the time. She hadn't even turned
three yet. My son was five. I go to buy the tickets necessarily
go we want to go, and I was like, are you sure you
want to go on here? It's going to be scared now we want we
want to go on there? Okay. Then I go to the ticket man.
I said, no one pops out and scares. It's just it's just
things on the walls, right He oh, yes, it's the kids one.
It'll be fine. So we get on there. We get on the
cart. The guys at the front front pool and leave it and let us
go in. Just before we go in, I said, no one pops
out to do that. He goes, yeah, three of them. As
we're going in. I'm like, oh no, oh no. I did
the same thing. I went to like a haunted pumpkin patch and my niece
was like seven, and she really she's really brave and she always wants she
wants to go and said there. But my son was like a year old,
and I was like, oh, but I couldn't. She didn't want
to go by herself. But it was just us three. I couldn't.
I couldn't leave a one year old outside. And I'm like, oh,
hey, here we go, and we go and I'm holding this and he's
like burying his face and like they it was. I didn't realize it was
full of these actors who were really good and they would not drop character.
And I was trying to like reason with them, like please, please do
the both of you, and then my niece is immediately fraid. She just
we're just trying to get out and I hard trying to walk with her grabbing
out of my legs and people are I'm just like, please just know,
we don't we don't want to do this. They would not dalk character.
They would not leave us alone. I was trying to get out of there.
One guy I doubled up on us because he saw how scared my kids
were, and I said to my son, I said, that's it.
That was the third one, I went, that's it, he's finished,
and he followed us at the end and chased us at the end and got
him again. I was like, oh no, and helped my daughters.
I'm so scared. But yeah, but yeah, Halloween of Horror, just
if I've always said since I've watched it, it is a season eight episode
in like season twenty seven or whenever it was twenty six. It's just it
felt like there was twenty years of jokes that hadn't been sitting there waiting to
be used in a canon Halloween that finally came out. I just I love
Halloween of Horror. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, we definitely there
definitely was like, uh, you tapped into something that we all had.
Everybody had stuff to say. Yeah, yeah, and the song's great as
well, and yeah yeah. And my nephew had this thing where he would
he had a little he did have a little tail. Then he used to
rub it. It was actually five hole the Mouse little stuff Bible, and
he would rub it against his face. So I do remember that moment were
like Salmon and I we went to watch the scoring with this big orchestra and
just that moment when when Lisa gives up Tailor, we were all like,
oh yeah, like, oh my god, yeah, real coming of a
story. It was great. I love it. Yeah, but Caroly,
it's been such a pleasure to talk to you, sir. It's been going
on, but I just want to take this chance because, yeah, your
favorite writer, and I wanted to ask as much questions like it. But
it's an absolute pleasure, absolute pleasure to talk to you. And yeah,
all the best of season thirty five and thirty six. Thank you very much.