Last Exit To Springfield (with Jay Kogen)

<v Speaker 1>Four Finger Discounted.
<v Speaker 2>Hey everybody, welcome to four Finger Discount. With this week,
<v Speaker 2>we're very lucky to be joined by a man who
<v Speaker 2>wrote the episode. We're going to be discussing it's Last
<v Speaker 2>Exit the Springfield. You may know his podcasts. Don't be Alone,
<v Speaker 2>it's Jay Cogan. Don't be alone with Jay Cogan. How
<v Speaker 2>are you going, sir?
<v Speaker 1>May be with Jack Cogan.
<v Speaker 2>Hat there you go.
<v Speaker 1>It's all about the merch guys. Do you have the
<v Speaker 1>four Finger Discount merch?
<v Speaker 2>Now we've been doing this podcast for ten you still
<v Speaker 2>know merch. We need to get merged merch. The thing is,
<v Speaker 2>we used the Simpsons font with our logo back. We
<v Speaker 2>know before people care about things and now looking I go,
<v Speaker 2>if we do this, Disney going to be angry.
<v Speaker 1>It's all a big last suit.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's just we need to create a new logo.
<v Speaker 2>But then it's like we've had this logo for ten years,
<v Speaker 2>all right.
<v Speaker 1>People don't like change, they don't.
<v Speaker 3>They certainly do not.
<v Speaker 2>I'm one of those people. I don't like it.
<v Speaker 1>Well, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
<v Speaker 1>I'm usually on my podcast Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan,
<v Speaker 1>and we normally discussed. We've discussed a lot of Simpson
<v Speaker 1>things on my podcast, but never, we never, We're not
<v Speaker 1>dedicated to the Simpsons. So this is fascinating. And of
<v Speaker 1>course last exit to Springfield has been a People seem
<v Speaker 1>to love this episode, so I'm glad they do, and
<v Speaker 1>I like it okay, But but everybody else seems to love.
<v Speaker 3>It absolutely the case. By the way, a little bit
<v Speaker 3>of self deprecation to begin, because it's always a tasty spice.
<v Speaker 3>But I saw the title of your podcast, Don't be
<v Speaker 3>Alone with Jay Cogan. I thought that is heartwarming and sweet.
<v Speaker 3>This is a message that everybody needs. Don't be alone,
<v Speaker 3>you know, create, you know, nourishing, nurturing social circles. Then
<v Speaker 3>I re read it's like, oh yeah, don't be alone
<v Speaker 3>with Jake Cogan exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Both, It's both.
<v Speaker 3>It works on so many levels.
<v Speaker 1>You're it's like a Simpsons joke. You look at it
<v Speaker 1>and then you look at it again. Oh, I get
<v Speaker 1>the other one.
<v Speaker 2>Who's the first per in the site I'd be alone
<v Speaker 2>with Jack Kagan?
<v Speaker 3>Was it Wally Woollodowski?
<v Speaker 1>Wow, don't belong with Jack Cogan. It may be my
<v Speaker 1>first babysitter. I'm not sure. But now Wallywalladerski is not afraid,
<v Speaker 1>clearly after all these years, not afraid to be alone
<v Speaker 1>with Jack Cogin. That's not that is not a problem
<v Speaker 1>for him.
<v Speaker 2>Were you guys a team when you were on because
<v Speaker 2>you were both pas for Gary Shanling's show. When did
<v Speaker 2>it become the duo that we now know in love?
<v Speaker 1>Well, Wally and I were very good friends in high
<v Speaker 1>school and we used to get each other jobs for
<v Speaker 1>when we were over the summer. So if I was
<v Speaker 1>working at a movie theater, he'd go work with me
<v Speaker 1>at a movie theater. A record warehouse, he'd go work
<v Speaker 1>with me at a record warehouse. And uh, I got
<v Speaker 1>a job as a production assistant on its Scary Shaling show.
<v Speaker 1>And then there was an opening and I called him
<v Speaker 1>and said he had just graduated from college. And I
<v Speaker 1>called him and said, you know what, there's a job
<v Speaker 1>over here, and he is being completely and constantly out
<v Speaker 1>of work. Said okay, I'll come do that, and he
<v Speaker 1>worked as a production assistant on the show with me,
<v Speaker 1>And while we were there, he said, you know what,
<v Speaker 1>let's take a chance at trying to write one of
<v Speaker 1>these episodes, a spec version of the show, and then
<v Speaker 1>we did, and they loved it, but they refused to
<v Speaker 1>buy it. They said, okay, well we'll have you write one.
<v Speaker 1>Oh man, we'll have to be assigned a script that
<v Speaker 1>they'll like. Well, they never did that, so then we
<v Speaker 1>wrote another script and then they like that even better
<v Speaker 1>than the first one, but also didn't buy it. But
<v Speaker 1>that's the script that I showed a producer who was
<v Speaker 1>on the Tracy Ollman Show. It was on the Gary
<v Speaker 1>Shaling Show. Was also on the Tracy Ollmen Show. And
<v Speaker 1>he said, ah, I think I can get you a
<v Speaker 1>writing audition with the executive producers of the show.
<v Speaker 3>And we did.
<v Speaker 1>We pitched a bunch of sketches. They picked one.
<v Speaker 3>We wrote one.
<v Speaker 1>They liked it enough and said we're willing to hire
<v Speaker 1>you at the minimum amount of money that the show
<v Speaker 1>business pays anyone.
<v Speaker 2>Never change. And you said we'll take it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we'll peg itt. So we did that. But so
<v Speaker 1>why and I his name at the time was Mark Wallace.
<v Speaker 1>He changed his name to Wally Walladerski when he became
<v Speaker 1>a professional writer. And so we've been buddies since we
<v Speaker 1>were fourteen years old.
<v Speaker 3>Can I talk about the logic or maybe like thereof
<v Speaker 3>of change your name from Mark Wallace to Wallace Wiladoski. Mely,
<v Speaker 3>Wally Wiladowski does have a ring to it, but kind
<v Speaker 3>of it. I'm thinking of the olden Knights of Hollywood,
<v Speaker 3>when Bernie Schwartz had to become Tony Curtis.
<v Speaker 1>Well, it's interesting you say that, because his father, Irv
<v Speaker 1>Waladererski had to change his name to Irv Wallace to
<v Speaker 1>get work in show business as as an assistant director.
<v Speaker 1>So he went from the you know, the old country
<v Speaker 1>name to the americanized name, and Mark, being sort of
<v Speaker 1>a good liberal boy, said I'm changing it back reclamation,
<v Speaker 1>so that he went back with his name legally became
<v Speaker 1>Mark Wallace Waladarski. It was always Mark Wallace. Now it's
<v Speaker 1>Mark Wallace, Waladarski and Waladwallerski alliteration. Oh yeah, memorable, Mark
<v Speaker 1>Wallace kind of boring.
<v Speaker 2>Have you ever told him that?
<v Speaker 1>Oh? He knew.
<v Speaker 3>I'd like to ask you about the process of writing
<v Speaker 3>with a working partner. I mean, how similar and dissimilar
<v Speaker 3>you have to be in your strengths, in your weak spots,
<v Speaker 3>and your preferences and your tastes. I mean, is it
<v Speaker 3>like two people lifting the same couch. Is it one's
<v Speaker 3>driving ones navigating?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>How do you discover you work well together?
<v Speaker 1>Like two people licking the same catch?
<v Speaker 3>What'd you say looking the same cat? That's exactly what
<v Speaker 3>I said. This is a common Australian metaphor. We do thing,
<v Speaker 3>it's differently down here lifting the same couch?
<v Speaker 1>Shall we lift in the same couch? It is? I
<v Speaker 1>would say, it's not like lifting the same couch. It's
<v Speaker 1>like any it's it's like figuring out where you want
<v Speaker 1>to go for dinner. You know, it's like some people
<v Speaker 1>are easy going and want to go where you go,
<v Speaker 1>some people don't. Sometimes you're in the mood for Chinese.
<v Speaker 1>So here's what happens. The very best version of this
<v Speaker 1>is you like each other okay, and then you appreciate
<v Speaker 1>each other's taste, and you think each other everybody the
<v Speaker 1>other person's funny, and you're willing to listen when they
<v Speaker 1>tell you, I don't think what you just said is
<v Speaker 1>very good. In fact, I think it's not very good
<v Speaker 1>at all. And you have to go like, okay, that's
<v Speaker 1>fine and not be hurt. So if you know, basically
<v Speaker 1>Walawadski knows I love.
<v Speaker 2>Him, is that Wally Colling you Van Yah.
<v Speaker 1>Now it's my dad, my dad. But wallywas knows that
<v Speaker 1>I love him very much. And you know, we've been
<v Speaker 1>buddies' best friends for years and it was the best
<v Speaker 1>man of my wedd So when I say to him
<v Speaker 1>that sucks, he knows it's coming from somebody who actually
<v Speaker 1>thinks he's funny most of the time and and and
<v Speaker 1>cares about him. And when I hear Jay, that's the
<v Speaker 1>worst piece of shit you've ever thought of, it's also
<v Speaker 1>coming from love with a.
<v Speaker 3>Little sprinkly of something else on top.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe when partnerships go sour, it's usually like a marriage
<v Speaker 1>is going, so you don't think the underlining respect is there,
<v Speaker 1>and so things can go haywire at a certain point,
<v Speaker 1>and they often do. But the other good thing about
<v Speaker 1>partnerships is you don't want anyone in the room who
<v Speaker 1>thinks exactly like you do. You want somebody who think
<v Speaker 1>a little bit differently, so that you have two minds
<v Speaker 1>conquering the same problem from slightly different points of view,
<v Speaker 1>and you're apt to get something interesting going on. You
<v Speaker 1>want paint about it and chocolate right, and that way
<v Speaker 1>we both lock the same cat. You know teams in Hollywood,
<v Speaker 1>they proliferate mainly because you get two writers for the
<v Speaker 1>price of one, and Hollywood loves a bargain, so their chance.
<v Speaker 1>The fact that Wally and I were a team, I
<v Speaker 1>think is one of the reasons we got hired on
<v Speaker 1>The Tracy Owens Show because we have got two bodies
<v Speaker 1>for the price of one, and so two writers in
<v Speaker 1>a writer's room, we're basically doing the work of we're
<v Speaker 1>not the two of us aren't doing the work of
<v Speaker 1>one writer. When we're in a rear room, we're doing
<v Speaker 1>a work of two writers. But they get to pay
<v Speaker 1>us half as much money.
<v Speaker 2>So you paid a single income for the two of you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah wow, okay, so you're hired as a team.
<v Speaker 1>Or hired as a team. We split our salary right
<v Speaker 1>down the middle and that so it's a big bargain
<v Speaker 1>for them, and we got to leap frog off for
<v Speaker 1>other really much more talented people who were much more expensive.
<v Speaker 2>So do you think of raising that doesn't exist? Or exist?
<v Speaker 2>It didn't exist as much as it probably should have,
<v Speaker 2>just the grade on the person's behalf because they didn't
<v Speaker 2>want to split their money, or is it? How does
<v Speaker 2>it work?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, when you get to a certain point in
<v Speaker 1>your life where in your career where you're commanding more
<v Speaker 1>money and you're a team, and you're commanding more money
<v Speaker 1>than you're not you're splitting. You're not splitting the minimum.
<v Speaker 1>You're getting as much as any individual writer, and then
<v Speaker 1>sometimes more. And then the line of writers lighting teams
<v Speaker 1>do split up eventually because they want A they want
<v Speaker 1>creative autonomy and B they want the full salary. So
<v Speaker 1>that happens a lot. And when Wally decided to split
<v Speaker 1>off from writing television with me, I was very sad
<v Speaker 1>that he didn't want to do that anymore, didn't want
<v Speaker 1>to work on TV. But I was happy to think, well,
<v Speaker 1>if I ever get hired again, I'll get the full price.
<v Speaker 2>What point did that happen was that after you left
<v Speaker 2>the Simpsons? Correct?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, we got a development deal after we left the Simpsons,
<v Speaker 1>and we worked for Universal for a while, and that
<v Speaker 1>development process really took a lot of joy out of
<v Speaker 1>both of us. But Wally sort of decided I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to be He always wanted to bake movies, and so
<v Speaker 1>he says, I'm going to be exclusively movies, and I
<v Speaker 1>want to do my own thing. And there was like,
<v Speaker 1>I of course said what but then then right after
<v Speaker 1>that I said, I for do what you need to do,
<v Speaker 1>of course.
<v Speaker 2>But I think it was similar with with Michael reson
<v Speaker 2>Nolo Jean. Right, they left to do the critic and
<v Speaker 2>then they just sort of they realized that it wasn't
<v Speaker 2>as much fun as the Simpsons.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Also, Mike wanted to stop and Al never wanted
<v Speaker 1>to stop. Yeah, so that's just a life choice, you know.
<v Speaker 1>It's like Mike likes to travel with his wife. He
<v Speaker 1>likes to do stuff. Al does not workhorse. He just
<v Speaker 1>likes to work and work and work and work.
<v Speaker 2>And he didn't stop until this year. Last year.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, Al is the guest and this week's Don't
<v Speaker 1>Be Alone with Jay Coogan, Al Jean is my is
<v Speaker 1>my is my guest on this week's episode. Yeah no,
<v Speaker 1>I mean you can ask Al any question you want.
<v Speaker 1>Is uh, he'll be very nice about it. I'm I'm
<v Speaker 1>much more likely to say bad shit about people, but
<v Speaker 1>Al will not. But the thing about it is, uh, yes,
<v Speaker 1>we people. People burn out, People get tired. Al Jean
<v Speaker 1>worked on the Simpsons for thirty years, I mean, an
<v Speaker 1>unbelievable amount of time. On one show. Uh and and
<v Speaker 1>and I think most writers, if they said, hey, you
<v Speaker 1>could work on one show, even as a show as
<v Speaker 1>good as The Simpsons for thirty years, a lot of
<v Speaker 1>writers go, I don't know, I'd like to try to
<v Speaker 1>do other things.
<v Speaker 3>I was bad to say. I mean, given the sort
<v Speaker 3>of the spectrum of material that you've worked on of
<v Speaker 3>the course of your career, I mean, does that feel
<v Speaker 3>more like a full body creative workout as opposed to
<v Speaker 3>just working one muscle as he might be doing on
<v Speaker 3>The Simpsons, even though the Simpsons would probably offer you
<v Speaker 3>a fair bit of scope creatively speaking.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you could do a lot of things on
<v Speaker 1>the Simpsons, because it's a cartoon, and you can parody
<v Speaker 1>things and do a lot of fantasy things and all
<v Speaker 1>kinds of stuff. But I liked working in live action.
<v Speaker 1>I liked working in single camera. I liked working in movies.
<v Speaker 1>I like working into a lot of things. So animation
<v Speaker 1>is just one of many things that I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>try in my career. So I was interested in working
<v Speaker 1>in animation and also in many other things. I got
<v Speaker 1>the opportunity when I got the chance to leave the Simpsons.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't try to make more anime shows. I tried
<v Speaker 1>to make more live action shows, single camera live action
<v Speaker 1>shows and multi camera live action shows. And I've worked
<v Speaker 1>on movies, live action movies, some animated movies, and some
<v Speaker 1>sketch shows, some award shows, like anything. A lot of
<v Speaker 1>different choices.
<v Speaker 3>But predominantly in comedy. You're right, Jay, I mean, I'm
<v Speaker 3>looking out of it.
<v Speaker 1>You know you'll see Vogca comedy, all comedy. I've tried
<v Speaker 1>to write drama and that winds up. I can't resist
<v Speaker 1>putting jokes in.
<v Speaker 3>So it's something I was curious about because, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>your dad was a famous, well well regarded comedy rodit
<v Speaker 3>Righte a mad magazine calling me yes, And it's a
<v Speaker 3>very it's a very serendipitous segue that we're talking about
<v Speaker 3>your dad. But was I mean, was it always sort
<v Speaker 3>of on the CODs view that you'd be doing comedy
<v Speaker 3>for a living.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe, I mean, I love comedy and I grew up
<v Speaker 1>with comedy, and my ability to make my father laugh
<v Speaker 1>was like my my connective tissue father son connective tissues,
<v Speaker 1>so like he was sort of raising me to do that,
<v Speaker 1>So maybe it was always going to be comedy. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know he ever really thought it was going to
<v Speaker 1>be writing. I really didn't think I was going to
<v Speaker 1>be a writer. It looked horrible when my dad did it.
<v Speaker 1>It looked lonely and sad and you know, pulling your
<v Speaker 1>hair out and frustrating and all that other kind of stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So that's the one thing I didn't want to be.
<v Speaker 1>I was trying to be an actor and a comedian
<v Speaker 1>and director, and I did special effects. I did a
<v Speaker 1>lot of things, and then eventually failed at all those
<v Speaker 1>things and eventually became a writer.
<v Speaker 2>When you were a kid, you dad obviously could write
<v Speaker 2>very funny jokes. Did you see him as a funny person.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he's a silly guy. He did a lot of
<v Speaker 1>jokes all day long. But you know, sometimes when he
<v Speaker 1>had to be a dad, he was able to do that.
<v Speaker 1>He put on the dad hat every now and then,
<v Speaker 1>especially when I was in trouble. But my dad traditionally
<v Speaker 1>did funny things, and he fell into rooms and put
<v Speaker 1>whip cream on his face at award shows and like
<v Speaker 1>he was a weird, oh silly, really silly guy. One
<v Speaker 1>time he sent out a Christmas card for our family.
<v Speaker 1>It was me, my sister, my dad, and this blonde
<v Speaker 1>lady who had nothing to do with my nothing like
<v Speaker 1>my mom. And he just sent it out to everybody
<v Speaker 1>we knew and said, Mary, you know, happy holidays from
<v Speaker 1>the Kogans and my my father's friends. Most of them
<v Speaker 1>thought it was a joke and laughed, but there were
<v Speaker 1>a few people called up my mom and said, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know what happened, but we're on your side. He
<v Speaker 1>did me many practical jokes his whole life, and when
<v Speaker 1>I was born, he sent out a birth announcement announcement
<v Speaker 1>with his my father's height and weight on it and uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know there's a plank. Yeah, yeah, it was. It
<v Speaker 1>was and continues to this day. He loves a good joke.
<v Speaker 1>He's very funny. And I grew up in the shadow
<v Speaker 1>of that buddy.
<v Speaker 2>What did he think of your Simpsons work?
<v Speaker 1>Uh, it's good quote. I think he liked it. I
<v Speaker 1>don't think the Simpsons was his. It certainly wasn't his preference.
<v Speaker 1>When I told him I'm gonna leave this Emmy Award
<v Speaker 1>winning sketch show to go work on a cartoon live,
<v Speaker 1>you know, a prime time cartoon, he said, you're ruining
<v Speaker 1>your career. Don't do it, you know, that's a big, huge,
<v Speaker 1>huge mistake, and I had to go against my father's advice.
<v Speaker 3>It's interesting because the people that we've spoken to have
<v Speaker 3>worked on The Simpsons, there seems to be real connective
<v Speaker 3>tissue between Mad Magazine and the show. They seem to
<v Speaker 3>be a bit of a connective through line or a
<v Speaker 3>bit of a two and pray between the two.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, absolutely, because I mean I think they're both They
<v Speaker 1>are both in their era touchstones of comedy for different generations,
<v Speaker 1>and so the Mad Magazine sat it out Live Money
<v Speaker 1>Python the Simpsons. I mean, there's certain shows and things
<v Speaker 1>that have sort of identified what comedy is in a
<v Speaker 1>particular era, and The Simpsons, certainly in the nineties, was
<v Speaker 1>that thing. So yeah, I mean there's a touchdown and
<v Speaker 1>a lot of the people on my writing staff when
<v Speaker 1>I worked at the beginning since loved Mad Magazine and
<v Speaker 1>we're heavily influenced by Magnet Magazine. And when I was
<v Speaker 1>able to get all our pictures in Mad Magazine because
<v Speaker 1>my dad's connection, they I was a hero for a
<v Speaker 1>brief moment before they went back to calling me an idiot.
<v Speaker 2>How many of the of the original Simpsons writing stuff
<v Speaker 2>did you know when you joined that first season. How
<v Speaker 2>many did you know beforehand?
<v Speaker 1>Well? I knew Sam Simon and Matt Groening, and.
<v Speaker 2>So you didn't know Ali didn't know Mike. He didn't
<v Speaker 2>know all those guys.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, no, hey, we do do. Alan Mike had worked
<v Speaker 1>on the Gary Shandling Show, so I knew them for
<v Speaker 1>one season of that. I think maybe I'm trying to
<v Speaker 1>think maybe John Veedy also worked in the Gary Shanling Show. Briefly,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not I don't really remember. But there were a
<v Speaker 1>few people who worked on It's on the Gary Shanling Show.
<v Speaker 1>Not many, but George Meyer I had not known before this,
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Martin and I hadn't known before this. I'm trying
<v Speaker 1>to think of John Schwartzwelder. I certainly didn't know. So
<v Speaker 1>a lot of these guys were brand new to me
<v Speaker 1>when we showed up.
<v Speaker 2>Did it feel like you'd been picked or somewhat of
<v Speaker 2>a super team by James L. Brooks and Sam Simon.
<v Speaker 1>No, well, it didn't feel like we were just a
<v Speaker 1>super team. I like that idea, though. It felt like
<v Speaker 1>we were, yeah, much more close to the underdog. We
<v Speaker 1>were going to experiment with this strange little show. That
<v Speaker 1>is doomed to failure but could be really funny. And
<v Speaker 1>that's what we proceeded to make. We thought James L.
<v Speaker 1>Brooks got us thirteen episodes, not a pilot thirteen episodes,
<v Speaker 1>so we have thirteen episodes to fail, and that's what
<v Speaker 1>we thought we'd do. We just make ourselves laugh and
<v Speaker 1>make it as silly and as crazy and as fun
<v Speaker 1>as we wanted to be while also trying to tell
<v Speaker 1>a story and have emotional resonance because our boss, James L.
<v Speaker 1>Brooks insists on it. But I mean, we're just, you know,
<v Speaker 1>twenty something idiots and we emotional residents. You know, we're
<v Speaker 1>too spectro me to care about emotional resonance. But we
<v Speaker 1>exceed to his wishes and made sure that there is
<v Speaker 1>emotional resonance to the show. And that's why I think
<v Speaker 1>the show is actually pretty good, because it matters. Jeah.
<v Speaker 3>I'd like to veer a wife from the Sims just quickly,
<v Speaker 3>but I'd like to ask about what you learned at
<v Speaker 3>at Groundlings, which is this legendary comedy troupe I guess
<v Speaker 3>you'd call it, But was working with those guys a
<v Speaker 3>being part of that organization, was it like comedy one.
<v Speaker 3>I won in terms of fundamentals and technique.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, it's comedy school and it's writing school. Yeah, because
<v Speaker 1>you have to write sketches. It's a sketch troop. It's
<v Speaker 1>like Second City or you know a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>from drownings go to Saturn Alive and it's the perfect
<v Speaker 1>It's the perfect place for people who work on certa
<v Speaker 1>a live because you write sketches, you do characters. You
<v Speaker 1>you know, try to figure out what's funny. You keep
<v Speaker 1>editing and editing and editing, you fix things. You have
<v Speaker 1>to agree in the moment, and if you learn an improvisation,
<v Speaker 1>you have to be quickly in a scene and saying
<v Speaker 1>things that make sense within the scene. So those are
<v Speaker 1>all great things for comedy writers. So if you're going
<v Speaker 1>to a scene write a show, it's good to be
<v Speaker 1>able to think in the voice of one character, then
<v Speaker 1>suddenly think in the voice of another character, and go
<v Speaker 1>back and forth and be consistent. If you're in a
<v Speaker 1>rewrite room with a lot of other writers, it's good
<v Speaker 1>to be able to say yes to what the showrunner
<v Speaker 1>wants and agree and then offered eight nine twelve suggestions
<v Speaker 1>on what the joke or the moment could be. So
<v Speaker 1>you're looking at story, you're looking at character. Growling is
<v Speaker 1>a very big on character, and you're looking at comedy.
<v Speaker 1>And it's all being taught to you and forcing you
<v Speaker 1>by doing, by making comedy and learning how to fail,
<v Speaker 1>learning how to go on stage and not be funny
<v Speaker 1>or not get a lab when you thought it would,
<v Speaker 1>and hone your craft. So Growlings was very essential to
<v Speaker 1>my development and the development of so many others. Like
<v Speaker 1>I think half of everybody in comedy at least came
<v Speaker 1>at least half came from the Growlings, the other half
<v Speaker 1>from Upfront Gate or Second City or something as else.
<v Speaker 1>But but to stand up comedy, but ours, the Groundings
<v Speaker 1>is a very good school.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it was the ink be audit for people like
<v Speaker 3>Will Ferrell, Christen wig Elvira because Andrew paid some even
<v Speaker 3>the Simpsons on Trust mcnail. Yeah, I mean, does a
<v Speaker 3>ground leak recognize another groundling out in the wild, you
<v Speaker 3>know if you're.
<v Speaker 1>By reputation, Okay, by reputation. So I kind of keep
<v Speaker 1>track of who who came through the school, and I
<v Speaker 1>went there when I was a kid. I started when
<v Speaker 1>I was seventeen and eighteen sou But I keep track
<v Speaker 1>of people, and i know people from the Groundings, and
<v Speaker 1>I'm still friendly with people who I didn't wasn't in
<v Speaker 1>the Groundings, they weren't in my era, but I still
<v Speaker 1>keep up with those those people too. So yeah, the
<v Speaker 1>Groundings still very cool functioning place.
<v Speaker 2>I've seen interviews where you've said some of the best
<v Speaker 2>advice you can give comedy udors to when you join
<v Speaker 2>a team is to just shut up and just listen
<v Speaker 2>and just take it all in.
<v Speaker 1>When you join a writing staff, Yeah, not a team.
<v Speaker 1>When you draining a writing staff, that's a weird and
<v Speaker 1>there's only two of you and one of your shuts up,
<v Speaker 1>that's not a good team.
<v Speaker 3>But you just described the full finger discun done exactly right, exactly.
<v Speaker 2>So what were the first things that you learned when
<v Speaker 2>you went to that Simpsons writers room yet that what
<v Speaker 2>caught you off?
<v Speaker 1>Guys, Well, that was my first room. My first room
<v Speaker 1>was the Tracy Oman room, and I'm there with James L. Brooks,
<v Speaker 1>a guy named Jerry Belsons, very famous comedy writer. Heidi
<v Speaker 1>Perlman from Cheers, one of the executi producers of Cheers,
<v Speaker 1>Sam Simon, one of the executivecers of Cheers and Taxi
<v Speaker 1>and ken Aston. So I'm with these giants of comedy
<v Speaker 1>and Wiley and I are just these two little peons
<v Speaker 1>who have been hired because we work really cheap. So
<v Speaker 1>the idea is be quiet and listen. First of all,
<v Speaker 1>if you're quiet enough, you'll figure out who's in charge,
<v Speaker 1>so you can figure out who's the boss and who
<v Speaker 1>do you want to please. Second of all, every show
<v Speaker 1>has a tone, so you have to really. You can
<v Speaker 1>watch the TV and the TV show and still not
<v Speaker 1>get the tone they're going for. Listening to what people
<v Speaker 1>are doing in the moment gives you the tone. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And then after a few days you start talking suggestions.
<v Speaker 1>Something something you say gets in fantastic, something you say
<v Speaker 1>doesn't get in. You're still hustling and working, but don't interfere.
<v Speaker 1>Don't slow them down. You know you're the slow man
<v Speaker 1>in the photopol be a lot of people who just
<v Speaker 1>start out want to prove themselves and say and at
<v Speaker 1>the gate they just start pitching ideas, but they're slowing
<v Speaker 1>the room down. Let the big boys handle a lot
<v Speaker 1>of it. And then when you have a moment, try
<v Speaker 1>to try to pitch a golden a little golden idea
<v Speaker 1>and see if it gets in.
<v Speaker 2>But when did you ever feel like one of the
<v Speaker 2>big boys at the citizens?
<v Speaker 1>Oh? I felt like the big boy at the sentences
<v Speaker 1>right away. Wally and I were first on board, so
<v Speaker 1>like it. It was Matt Groening, Sam Simon and me
<v Speaker 1>and Wally so like everybody else was like you came later,
<v Speaker 1>guys like we felt. We felt very warm and welcome
<v Speaker 1>and and and part of it right away. I wasn't
<v Speaker 1>worried about that. And and the Simpsons. The tone of
<v Speaker 1>The Simpsons was being thought of by all of us
<v Speaker 1>as we were starting figuring out what the show was,
<v Speaker 1>and it was growing exponentially with every idea and uh,
<v Speaker 1>all the premises that were laying down and all the
<v Speaker 1>characters that we were developing. And the very first script
<v Speaker 1>that we wrote while and I wrote it was called
<v Speaker 1>Homer's Odyssey, and it was the very first script that
<v Speaker 1>existed for The Simpsons. It was not there was no
<v Speaker 1>pilot script.
<v Speaker 2>It was just like we're running a season.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, one of many in the pipeline, but ours was
<v Speaker 1>the first and our first script. I think Homer was
<v Speaker 1>called Homer, but Marge's called Juliette really because she didn't
<v Speaker 1>have a name. Yeah, it was Homer and Juliette because
<v Speaker 1>we were we were trying to be cute.
<v Speaker 2>So they hadn't named the characters. But that's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Now mother, father, brother, sister, baby, I think that they were.
<v Speaker 1>They were.
<v Speaker 2>So the story of when, uh you know, Matt says
<v Speaker 2>that when I went into pitch the idea to Fox
<v Speaker 2>and You, I had to quickly think of the names
<v Speaker 2>of the of the characters and quickly write them down.
<v Speaker 2>I went in and I pitched the idea.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't happen, right, He may he may have had those
<v Speaker 1>and then that, but you didn't tell us. Yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>when we're doing the shorts on the Tracy owned show,
<v Speaker 1>they didn't. Really. Bart may have had a name. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>a lot of characters didn't have names, including Marge, so
<v Speaker 1>we just made one up. But that's not the one
<v Speaker 1>that stuck. Turns out Matt wanted to honor his family,
<v Speaker 1>so he did.
<v Speaker 3>You were the big men on campus in the Simpsons
<v Speaker 3>his room. But is there a reset when you move
<v Speaker 3>on to different projects, or if you gathered enough sort
<v Speaker 3>of clout and credibility when you move on to say
<v Speaker 3>something like Fraser.
<v Speaker 1>Every time you go to a grand new show, you're
<v Speaker 1>the logo. It's the same thing. You clam up and
<v Speaker 1>you figure out how does this room work?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>And who is the person that you really have to
<v Speaker 1>pitch to? And who are the assholes? Who're the nice people?
<v Speaker 1>And who are my friends? And who are going to
<v Speaker 1>be the people I'm not gonna like? And like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>what's what's the tone going to be? So and especially
<v Speaker 1>on a show that's been on for a couple of years.
<v Speaker 1>I and I've got on a Frasier. It had been
<v Speaker 1>on for many years. So I'm walking into a Emmy
<v Speaker 1>winning TV show that people's going All I can do
<v Speaker 1>when I show up is ruin it. That's the only
<v Speaker 1>thing I could do to change things. So you want
<v Speaker 1>to be very careful, listen to what the show is,
<v Speaker 1>but then do your best to join in and give
<v Speaker 1>them what they need. But you still think it's funny.
<v Speaker 1>You know, be true to yourself, give your own ideas,
<v Speaker 1>but you know, learn the layer of the land before
<v Speaker 1>you start making big suggestions.
<v Speaker 2>And trouble did you find as times evolve, comedy evolves?
<v Speaker 2>But do you find that writer's rooms tend to sort
<v Speaker 2>of stay the same when it comes to the structure
<v Speaker 2>and vibe or does every show in every year have
<v Speaker 2>its own sort of different vibe in the room.
<v Speaker 1>Every show, every show sort of has its own vibe,
<v Speaker 1>and it's usually set by the showrunner. So since showrunners
<v Speaker 1>are all different people, they're going to have different vibes.
<v Speaker 1>The christ Lloyd, Christopher Lloyd, not the actor, the writer
<v Speaker 1>who run who ran the Frasier Writer's Room, has a
<v Speaker 1>much different vibe than Sam Simon had at the at
<v Speaker 1>The Simpsons who had a much different, more different different
<v Speaker 1>vibe than Thenard Boomer had at Malcolm in the Middle
<v Speaker 1>and uh Bruce Helford had at The Low Pet Show
<v Speaker 1>or something like that. They the showrunner sets the tone
<v Speaker 1>of the humor, but also just the vibe of what
<v Speaker 1>kind of workplaces is. I think everybody who works at
<v Speaker 1>any workplace, their bosses set the tone for them. If
<v Speaker 1>their boss is a grouch who is you know, hates
<v Speaker 1>his life, he's gonna make sure you hate your life.
<v Speaker 1>And if their boss is a sort of Fezziwigs style
<v Speaker 1>lovely man, then your life will be much more lovely too.
<v Speaker 1>So you hope when you get a job that you
<v Speaker 1>find the fezziwigs of the world.
<v Speaker 2>What what best described Sam Simon's vibe?
<v Speaker 1>Uh? Wow, that's a great question. I mean, Samsung is genius,
<v Speaker 1>so really funny, but also just a little bit angry.
<v Speaker 1>So uh uh and by I say this as someone
<v Speaker 1>who loved him dearly, I love Samsung like a brother.
<v Speaker 1>But he he could be really angry. He could scream
<v Speaker 1>at you at the top of his lungs. It was
<v Speaker 1>he was not shy about overreacting to a million things.
<v Speaker 1>But he's also really smart and really funny, and he
<v Speaker 1>could be as ferocious as he could be. He could
<v Speaker 1>also be like a lamb at times. But so it
<v Speaker 1>was kind of the vibe is mercurial. What's the weather
<v Speaker 1>like when you watch into Sam? Is he is he
<v Speaker 1>good Sam? Or is he not good Sam? Uh? And
<v Speaker 1>so that's that's the kind of you're walking on eggshells
<v Speaker 1>a little bit when you're dealing with him.
<v Speaker 2>I think that's a difference between angry and angry for
<v Speaker 2>the right raisins.
<v Speaker 1>Though Okay, no, he was not angry for the right reasons.
<v Speaker 2>He wasn't.
<v Speaker 1>No, No, I mean sometimes he was, but sometimes he wasn't.
<v Speaker 1>I don't you know, he had he you know, every
<v Speaker 1>we're all products of our childhood, so in his childhood
<v Speaker 1>he learned to be quick to anger and then but
<v Speaker 1>he's also really, really smart and funny, So I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it was a bad to ask him. Would there
<v Speaker 3>be times when you feel like I shouldn't be taking
<v Speaker 3>this personally? I know it's office hours here, but I'm
<v Speaker 3>kind of taking this personally.
<v Speaker 1>I think the trick to surviving a show like that
<v Speaker 1>is not taking things personally. Sure, So, like he's just saying, like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, Sam's in a bad mood, doesn't mean I'm horrible.
<v Speaker 1>If there he's screaming at you for writing the shittiest
<v Speaker 1>script in the world. It's hard not to hear that
<v Speaker 1>as a writer and go like, oh, is it really
<v Speaker 1>the shittiest script of the world. But and sometimes he's right.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe sometimes you've written something bad, But most of the
<v Speaker 1>time he's just engaging you in the way he likes
<v Speaker 1>to engage.
<v Speaker 2>When you say angry, then do you mean angry because
<v Speaker 2>you haven't written a joke the way he wanted? Or
<v Speaker 2>is he just in a bad mood because something happened
<v Speaker 2>now out of work and he brought it with him
<v Speaker 2>to the office.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, he could lash out it for you for anything,
<v Speaker 1>any reason at all. So like I remember walking down
<v Speaker 1>with Sam down the twentieth century Fox Walkway and then
<v Speaker 1>guy ran into him said hey Sam, and then and
<v Speaker 1>Sam just started screaming at him. I was like, Hey Sam,
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna say hey Sam to me? And then and
<v Speaker 1>then he walked. They had this little tiff, and then
<v Speaker 1>they walked along and then Sam said, you see what
<v Speaker 1>he said to me? I said, Sam, he said nothing
<v Speaker 1>to you. The guy just said, hello, you heard you
<v Speaker 1>heard something else you heard I'm going to kill you.
<v Speaker 1>But what he said was have a nice day. And
<v Speaker 1>you know, I don't know why you react the way
<v Speaker 1>you did, But they said, really I did, Like he
<v Speaker 1>really had had a messed up sense of who was
<v Speaker 1>coming at him and who was not coming at it.
<v Speaker 2>I find that this so interesting because you never hear
<v Speaker 2>these stories best Sam, obviously because he's passed and if
<v Speaker 2>they want to talk positively of him. But I think
<v Speaker 2>it's interesting to hear that there's a reason he was
<v Speaker 2>so successful because he I guess, he got shit done
<v Speaker 2>and he wanted things done his way. And you gotta
<v Speaker 2>have a bit of mongol you, I guess.
<v Speaker 1>He absolutely want to get shit done and want to
<v Speaker 1>get shit done his way. He's also and this can't
<v Speaker 1>be this is not a small thing. One of the
<v Speaker 1>great audiences of the world. So, like he knew who
<v Speaker 1>is funny. He loved to laugh. When somebody wrote something,
<v Speaker 1>he would like laugh hysterically. So he loved people, good
<v Speaker 1>people and good things. When when they hit him right,
<v Speaker 1>he was fantastic. So he found all the writers of
<v Speaker 1>the Simpsons. He found all his people and appreciated them.
<v Speaker 1>And so if that was one of the great writing
<v Speaker 1>staffs of all time, which some people claim it was,
<v Speaker 1>it's cause Sam found those people.
<v Speaker 3>I don't mean this to be a leading question, Jay,
<v Speaker 3>but I mean it seems like the kind of behavior
<v Speaker 3>that you're talking about with Sam there is becoming less
<v Speaker 3>and less tolerated in show business. Is the work diminished
<v Speaker 3>as a result? Bet does better work get created if
<v Speaker 3>some heads getting kicked? Metaphorically speaking, I mean I would
<v Speaker 3>say no, I don't. I run shows before it, and
<v Speaker 3>I don't kick in people's heads.
<v Speaker 1>I try to. I try to give a very warm, welcoming,
<v Speaker 1>kind loving environment for people to feel safe to pitch
<v Speaker 1>their best work. You know, satun Lahib is a pretty
<v Speaker 1>rough and tumble place and people manage to survive that.
<v Speaker 1>It's a very light, cutthroat, you know, pit people against
<v Speaker 1>each other kind of place. So some great work gets
<v Speaker 1>done there. But my favorite kind of work is when
<v Speaker 1>everyone helps everybody. When when somebody writes something, everybody else
<v Speaker 1>chips in to make that better, and then the cast
<v Speaker 1>chips in to make that better, and everybody tries to
<v Speaker 1>make everybody look good. That's that's magic. That's I had
<v Speaker 1>that at certain places. It was like that. At Frasier
<v Speaker 1>it was like that, and and honestly it was like that.
<v Speaker 1>It's The Simpsons. You know, all the writers really put
<v Speaker 1>in great jokes in everybody's script. So when you know,
<v Speaker 1>you talk about Last Exit to Springfield, that's something that
<v Speaker 1>was written by me and Wally, but also written by
<v Speaker 1>ten other people.
<v Speaker 3>It's probably difficult to review your own work in terms
<v Speaker 3>of ideas and themes and that. But when it comes
<v Speaker 3>to The Simpsons, were there certain things that you found
<v Speaker 3>you and Wally came back to like you wanted to explore.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, these could be like big overriding ideas about
<v Speaker 3>community in society or just about family dynamics and character
<v Speaker 3>interaction to mean.
<v Speaker 1>We were just trying to mind our childhoods for things
<v Speaker 1>that we thought were fun and interesting. Also, we were
<v Speaker 1>just trying to sell. The way you got an episode
<v Speaker 1>is you pitched an idea to Sam or Matt or
<v Speaker 1>Jim Brooks, and so you would think about, like, I'm
<v Speaker 1>want to write two to three episodes this season, and
<v Speaker 1>then we had we had we had sort of weeks
<v Speaker 1>where we would a few several few days where this
<v Speaker 1>we do a story conference out off lot. We go
<v Speaker 1>to a hotel room and we just pitched stories. And
<v Speaker 1>so at that point we sort of had ideas. I
<v Speaker 1>had a bunch of ideas from that are written down,
<v Speaker 1>while he had some ideas written down, and I would
<v Speaker 1>pitch it to Sam, and Sam go, oh, that's the
<v Speaker 1>shittiest idea in the world. And then I will I
<v Speaker 1>turned to Jim Brooks during lunch and said, oh, do
<v Speaker 1>you think this one, Jim? And if he liked it,
<v Speaker 1>I sold it. Sam had it do it, and so
<v Speaker 1>I was able to push the things. So it's the
<v Speaker 1>idea like the jazz singer, we ripped off the jazz
<v Speaker 1>singer and made Krusty for Krusty gets busted. I guess
<v Speaker 1>it was a U and I was like father, like
<v Speaker 1>cloud and and that was an idea that Sam hated,
<v Speaker 1>Matt hated. But then I went to Jim and Jim liked.
<v Speaker 1>I said, we gotta do it, so you know, and
<v Speaker 1>that idea why I don't want to do that, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. I just thought it's funny to do a
<v Speaker 1>weird show busy story with the weird cloud. So it
<v Speaker 1>it's things that made me laugh or I thought was interesting.
<v Speaker 1>Barta Daredelvill came about because we used to see these
<v Speaker 1>ads for truck Asaurus. There is this giant truck that
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't figure out why people were going to see
<v Speaker 1>it in the stadium, this monster robot truck, but people
<v Speaker 1>loved it, and so we, uh, we just made fun
<v Speaker 1>of that. And Evil Knievel was a big thing in
<v Speaker 1>our childhood too, so we made a fake Evil can Eevil.
<v Speaker 1>I don't even know when we were doing the nineteen nineties.
<v Speaker 1>Evil Canel probably didn't wasn't doing anything, and kids that
<v Speaker 1>era probably have no idea. There wasn't Evil can Eevil.
<v Speaker 1>But that's the guy that we were. We were making fun.
<v Speaker 2>We'd heard the name. We probably didn't know who he was,
<v Speaker 2>but he'd become a point with if you did something silly,
<v Speaker 2>you mom and dad would say, who you think you are? Evil?
<v Speaker 3>It's just right.
<v Speaker 2>It was a brand by that point.
<v Speaker 1>Sure, So I mean crazy lunatic, mostly drunk guy I
<v Speaker 1>don't even know, but I was like, we he jumped
<v Speaker 1>over things on his motorcycle. That seemed like if you're
<v Speaker 1>if you're nine years old, that seems like a really
<v Speaker 1>cool job. So you're very interested in jumping over things
<v Speaker 1>on your bike, and that was that was fun for us,
<v Speaker 1>So we mind that, we mind other things. We also
<v Speaker 1>knew that if we had a good Lisa episode or
<v Speaker 1>a March episode, a lot of the other riders, who
<v Speaker 1>were let's say say very spectromy who not great with
<v Speaker 1>email relationships, didn't want to touch the women characters metaphorically
<v Speaker 1>and not possibly physically, that we weren't servicing those characters.
<v Speaker 1>So if we had a good Lisa story or March story,
<v Speaker 1>we knew that's a sale. We could get that then,
<v Speaker 1>you know, so we would we would, we would think
<v Speaker 1>about that too. Those were fund for us ride.
<v Speaker 2>I know MEMI wrote the part what became the part
<v Speaker 2>of the Simincess Open Fire. Why do you think there
<v Speaker 2>was a real lack of female voice in that writer's
<v Speaker 2>room in the beginning.
<v Speaker 1>There a couple of reasons. One is, you know, it's misogyny, honestly.
<v Speaker 1>I mean in nineteen ninety there were a few women writers,
<v Speaker 1>but there weren't a lot of men. Weren't seeking out
<v Speaker 1>the voice of women for these things. It was boys club,
<v Speaker 1>mostly white guys. You know, it's like there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of there was no there was no diversity being sought after,
<v Speaker 1>so it was so there was definitely misogyny. The pool
<v Speaker 1>of writers that Sam was looking for was a very
<v Speaker 1>limited pool. Was like this, there was a magazine called
<v Speaker 1>Army Man that was being self made, and more than
<v Speaker 1>half the writers in that Simpsons room came from Army Man.
<v Speaker 1>And there were mostly guys except for like Merrion Marco
<v Speaker 1>who didn't want to work in the Simpsons. So like
<v Speaker 1>there's like mostly guys. So that that's the main reason
<v Speaker 1>was the limited view of the pool of writers and
<v Speaker 1>the lack of wanting to make a diverse staff was
<v Speaker 1>why there weren't a lot of women writers then.
<v Speaker 2>So you said you were good at writing. March at
<v Speaker 2>least the stories you guys to those because the others didn't.
<v Speaker 2>When you didn't have that female voice in the writer's room,
<v Speaker 2>did you ever seek did you ever run and buy
<v Speaker 2>a female friend of yours whatever and say, hey, what
<v Speaker 2>do you think of this idea? Did you have a
<v Speaker 2>chancetick advice from female associates of yours to see whether
<v Speaker 2>you were getting that female voice right in your script?
<v Speaker 1>No? No, I mean I don't know. I mean I
<v Speaker 1>didn't run. I didn't run mister Burns's lines by an
<v Speaker 1>evil man either, like I didn't. It's it's being a
<v Speaker 1>writer means that that you imagine in your head what
<v Speaker 1>the characters are like. And accuracy isn't really the goal.
<v Speaker 1>The goal is entertainment and and and the feeling of legitimacy.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, I don't I'm I'm I'm against the
<v Speaker 1>way things are right now. To sell a show, you
<v Speaker 1>just have to say it was my authentic experience, this
<v Speaker 1>happened to me. And that goes against everything I believe
<v Speaker 1>as a writer. As a writer, you have created freedom
<v Speaker 1>to write anything. I should be able to write spy
<v Speaker 1>novels and I should be able to write romance novels,
<v Speaker 1>and I should be able to write a show about
<v Speaker 1>a teenage girl who's also falls in love with alien.
<v Speaker 1>And none of those things happened to me, but as
<v Speaker 1>a writer, I get to write them, and so uh
<v Speaker 1>and and I don't think that a female writer needs
<v Speaker 1>to check with me to write a male character. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that's what we do. We have to
<v Speaker 1>we have experience. I have experience of females in my life,
<v Speaker 1>and I have experiences of evil people in my life.
<v Speaker 1>And I have experience of moments when I felt like
<v Speaker 1>I was an evil genius even though I wasn't doing
<v Speaker 1>mister Burns style evil. But like, we all know what
<v Speaker 1>it's like to be angry but not angry enough to murder,
<v Speaker 1>or angry or fall in love but not fall in
<v Speaker 1>love like Romeo and Juliet. We can. We know these
<v Speaker 1>emotions and we tap into them for our writing, and
<v Speaker 1>writing is for making things that are even more interesting
<v Speaker 1>and fabulous than your real life. So the fact that
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't necessarily specifically be authentic, I don't buy that.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, don't think you watched those first seasons of The
<v Speaker 2>Simpsons and think there was a lack of female of
<v Speaker 2>what you don't. It doesn't feel like it's coming across
<v Speaker 2>poorly by any means.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. No, And if there was something that you're like
<v Speaker 1>really doing the cultural episode about Jewish people or something else,
<v Speaker 1>then we like we did while and I we did,
<v Speaker 1>like fatherlike land about a rabbi. I went and talked
<v Speaker 1>to rabbis and I said, is this real? Would this happen?
<v Speaker 1>What are some things that I could use that are
<v Speaker 1>real from the culture, And so you do research from that,
<v Speaker 1>or you do research about Italians, or you do research
<v Speaker 1>about any other culture, and you try and you know,
<v Speaker 1>be as accurate as you can and bring forth things
<v Speaker 1>that people like. And it does help these days if
<v Speaker 1>you are doing something about someone from a certain culture
<v Speaker 1>that that person of that culture is on the writing staff,
<v Speaker 1>I think people feel better about it. But I don't
<v Speaker 1>think it's necessarily the only way to do it. I
<v Speaker 1>would recommend a diverse writing staff. But if you want,
<v Speaker 1>if I wanted to make a show about Inoit people,
<v Speaker 1>I still can do that. If I can't find an
<v Speaker 1>Inoit writer available to me who's really funny to hire
<v Speaker 1>on staff, I might be able to still do enough
<v Speaker 1>research to do them proud to make something that's true
<v Speaker 1>to into it.
<v Speaker 3>Write what you know is very reductive, but you've got
<v Speaker 3>to add write what you want to know as well.
<v Speaker 1>Well. The worst thing every starting out writer rates is
<v Speaker 1>it's about a play, right, trying to figure out how
<v Speaker 1>to write a play, and like, I want to shoot
<v Speaker 1>myself every time I read that first draft the writer's
<v Speaker 1>first thing, and it's very authentic to who they are.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, it's just boring and and cliche. So, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>what give me something more interesting?
<v Speaker 2>You're talking about the success of The Simpsons sort of
<v Speaker 2>was a part of the fact that you guys had
<v Speaker 2>this underdog mentality of what desn't to fail? When you
<v Speaker 2>realize that you weren't going to fail that this is
<v Speaker 2>arguably the biggest show on television. Did the mentality shift
<v Speaker 2>in the writer's room? Did the vibe change? What was
<v Speaker 2>it like?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, we were shocked, we were thrilled and shocked.
<v Speaker 1>We were having fun, so it meant, oh, we'll get
<v Speaker 1>to make more. This is fantastic. We get to make
<v Speaker 1>more fantastic. And further, people were liking the jokes, were like,
<v Speaker 1>what was making us laugh must be making some other
<v Speaker 1>people laugh. So that's very life affirming to us. So
<v Speaker 1>that was great. So we wanted to continue making really
<v Speaker 1>funny shows that people would like. I'll tell you about
<v Speaker 1>the end of the first year or season two, we
<v Speaker 1>got a polling some data from Fox who said, you know,
<v Speaker 1>because we thought people love our our insightful wit and
<v Speaker 1>all the detailed jokes and the references to Kirker Guard
<v Speaker 1>and to you know, Citizen Kane or whatever and all this,
<v Speaker 1>and Fox gave us data that suggested that the reason
<v Speaker 1>people liked The Simpsons was the pretty colors and that
<v Speaker 1>people fall down. It was like, fuck, you like that,
<v Speaker 1>that's it, and it's true. Then the pretty colors and
<v Speaker 1>people fall down is happening while we're making fun of Kirkerguard.
<v Speaker 1>So it's okay, but it was very frustrating to think,
<v Speaker 1>oh no, We're spending all this time to think of
<v Speaker 1>the greatest references and use all these things from pop
<v Speaker 1>culture and it doesn't matter. But I guess it does
<v Speaker 1>ultimately matter. It did. I think the reason the show
<v Speaker 1>survived for that long is it mattered. And those other
<v Speaker 1>cartoons do the same thing. If a family guys all
<v Speaker 1>references and South Park is all pop references, So I
<v Speaker 1>think we're not alone.
<v Speaker 2>Who were you writing it for. We're running it for
<v Speaker 2>the younger audience or the older audience. You yourself are
<v Speaker 2>for ourselves.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we didn't think young people or actually kids should
<v Speaker 1>be watching the show. It was definitely not made for kids,
<v Speaker 1>so we asked kids not to watch it. Of course
<v Speaker 1>that fell on on deaf ears because it's a cartoon.
<v Speaker 1>What of course kids are going to watch it. So
<v Speaker 1>we kept doing things as if kids weren't watching it,
<v Speaker 1>and eventually we had to realize kids are watching it,
<v Speaker 1>and we have to watch what we say and what
<v Speaker 1>we do. But we were literally exclusively writing it for ourselves.
<v Speaker 2>But there were some dark themes in that first season,
<v Speaker 2>Like you said, Homers Odyssey, Homa is going to commit suicide.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and we were trying to we were something dark.
<v Speaker 2>That's one of the darkest episodes in the history of
<v Speaker 2>the show.
<v Speaker 1>I agree. We just we just started out to go
<v Speaker 1>and start start with a.
<v Speaker 2>Bang, yes.
<v Speaker 1>Uh, and go from there.
<v Speaker 3>Having said that, Jay, I mean, I personally just wanted
<v Speaker 3>to give you a shout out for Old Money, an
<v Speaker 3>episode that you that you and Wally right, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>dignity on dignity on me, is one of my favorite
<v Speaker 3>lines from any movie or TV episode. Ever, as far as.
<v Speaker 2>I'm concerned, he's not bullshiting. He mentions it on the
<v Speaker 2>podcast all the time.
<v Speaker 1>I have no idea if I wrote it or somebody
<v Speaker 1>else wrote it, but I thank you on behalf of
<v Speaker 1>the many people who could have written it.
<v Speaker 3>And it's not necessarily aimed at a youthful audience one moment, our.
<v Speaker 1>Shows weren't aimed. It aimed at anybody but ourselves for
<v Speaker 1>the most words. And so, but aging isn't It is
<v Speaker 1>a real thing, and dying is a real thing. And
<v Speaker 1>you know all that. It's it's uh, gambling is a
<v Speaker 1>real thing. Uh, it's all, it's all, It's all there.
<v Speaker 2>When it came to the pop culture references you would
<v Speaker 2>be making, though, was there a quite of how popular
<v Speaker 2>it had to be or was it just something you
<v Speaker 2>knew You didn't care, you were writing the show for you.
<v Speaker 2>It's going in if you thought it was funny, and
<v Speaker 2>James thought it was funny.
<v Speaker 3>We.
<v Speaker 1>Uh, it had to pass the muster of the room,
<v Speaker 1>like we thought enough enough of our audience would know
<v Speaker 1>it should that should be the rule. Not nobody knows
<v Speaker 1>it shouldn't be so niche that only John Ved knows it.
<v Speaker 1>It should be. It should be enough that enough people
<v Speaker 1>understand either the context through context or the specific to
<v Speaker 1>get the joke. So yeah, it couldn't be just anything.
<v Speaker 1>And it had to make a room full of nerdy
<v Speaker 1>you know, I don't know how many there were anytime.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe start out with seven of us and grew to
<v Speaker 1>be twelve or something, but it had to make most
<v Speaker 1>of us laugh.
<v Speaker 3>Well, that's the thing. Even if you're not one hundred
<v Speaker 3>percent familiar with The Godfather Part two or Yellow Submarine,
<v Speaker 3>you know, the Beetles, you know enough about American cinema,
<v Speaker 3>enough people know about these kinds of things that these
<v Speaker 3>gags in last aeg. Of Springfield are gonna land. They're
<v Speaker 3>gonna hit to some degree or to bearing degrees with
<v Speaker 3>bearing members.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I felt pretty safe with Godfather references. This
<v Speaker 1>is one of the most seen movies of all time,
<v Speaker 1>and certainly back then, maybe less so now.
<v Speaker 3>But getting him as granular as making him like Don Ferucci,
<v Speaker 3>and you know, he's sort of grabbing stuff off there,
<v Speaker 3>heaus off cards and all things, and well the band
<v Speaker 3>all that's kind of stuff.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>In saying that, though, I grew up in the nineties.
<v Speaker 2>I was born in eighty eight, so as a kid,
<v Speaker 2>I literally had no idea what was going on here.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't know who the Godfather. I didn't know. I
<v Speaker 2>didn't get the Batman reference with the mirror, right, I
<v Speaker 2>didn't get any of this stuff. It's too young, right,
<v Speaker 2>but you knew but it was funny enough you knew
<v Speaker 2>it was something.
<v Speaker 1>It's like what kids do when they do six seven now.
<v Speaker 1>It's like they're laughing at something but they don't know
<v Speaker 1>what it is. Yea, And that's fine, But that's not
<v Speaker 1>as satisfying to me as a writer as people laughing
<v Speaker 1>at something that they know what it is. So I
<v Speaker 1>would rather they recognize Don Ferucci and think that's really
<v Speaker 1>funny that that's what we're doing, rather than just say
<v Speaker 1>it's something. Now. When I grew up, I read now
<v Speaker 1>magazine parodies of movies I'd never seen, and at least
<v Speaker 1>i'd read them all. I saw Looney Tune cartoons, Warner
<v Speaker 1>Brothers cartoons, also talking about movies. Henry Bargat movies The
<v Speaker 1>Petrified Forest or something I also never seen, and so
<v Speaker 1>I understood what humor could be from context. But when
<v Speaker 1>I got older and knew the reference, they were better,
<v Speaker 1>So I think I think they're better when you know.
<v Speaker 2>But I think the Simpsons My point was sort of
<v Speaker 2>more that I think the Simpsons introduced a whole generation
<v Speaker 2>of us in the nineties to these pop cultural icons.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but I'm the point is the same for the
<v Speaker 1>for the World Looney Tunes, and for Mad Magazine. Like
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to go see Lawrence of Arabia because I
<v Speaker 1>read it in Mad Magazine and okay, what that movie
<v Speaker 1>came out in nine sixty three. I was not alive.
<v Speaker 1>So it's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna see that because
<v Speaker 1>I read the parody and I'm going to try and
<v Speaker 1>figure out what that song is that Frank Jacobs is
<v Speaker 1>doing a parody of. I'm reading it, so I like,
<v Speaker 1>what's that? What's the real song? So it inspires me
<v Speaker 1>to go look for better references in my.
<v Speaker 2>Life with Last Exit the Springfield. So the idea I've read,
<v Speaker 2>I've read that that of the plant going a strike
<v Speaker 2>came from Mike Reese. Is that that's correct? Uh?
<v Speaker 1>Well, Mike said, so I don't I don't know that
<v Speaker 1>that's true, but okay.
<v Speaker 2>But what were your thoughts when you were first pitched
<v Speaker 2>this idea or was it was it an idea that
<v Speaker 2>you and Wally came up with, Like, how how did
<v Speaker 2>this come about? This, this particular story.
<v Speaker 1>I mean I think they they may have said we
<v Speaker 1>want to do a strike episode. Yeah, that may have.
<v Speaker 1>That may have been discussed first. So, I mean, I
<v Speaker 1>have no reason to doubt Mike Grease. I mean, he's
<v Speaker 1>a goddamn liar about everything else.
<v Speaker 2>But that's one thing you never went on. That submarine
<v Speaker 2>never happened exactly.
<v Speaker 1>No, No, I mean it could be, but that that
<v Speaker 1>that seems like a very reasonable story. Like Homer's Odyssey
<v Speaker 1>is basically very almost a strike like an episode. It's
<v Speaker 1>the Homer Homer almost takes down the plant because he's
<v Speaker 1>a safety inspector. So it's similar to that.
<v Speaker 2>It's almost like an origin story that episode for Homer,
<v Speaker 2>isn't it. Yeah, how he comes to safety inspector? Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Right. But also there's a you know, we had been
<v Speaker 1>on strike, the writers. I had been at least one
<v Speaker 1>strike by the time we're doing the last exit episode,
<v Speaker 1>and my father had been on strike many times. So
<v Speaker 1>I was very aware. We're very pro union family, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I was Writers Guild WGA member before I was born,
<v Speaker 1>and so it's like, you know, I'm a member. I'm
<v Speaker 1>literally a member of now five or six unions. So
<v Speaker 1>like I'm a big mean union guy, whether I want
<v Speaker 1>to be or not. And so we're we're we're fans
<v Speaker 1>of unions.
<v Speaker 2>It's not necessarily a funny concept, though, though the plant
<v Speaker 2>goes on strike and how do you approach this and go,
<v Speaker 2>how do we make this funnier?
<v Speaker 1>I would say that anything that's a dramatic subject is
<v Speaker 1>also a comedy subject. There's no subject that couldn't be funny,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't care what it is. It's anything. If
<v Speaker 1>it's like somebody's somebody's diagnosed with a deadly disease, if
<v Speaker 1>somebody is is trying to hunt for the murderer of
<v Speaker 1>his father. You can make anything funny if you choose
<v Speaker 1>to find the humor in any particular situation of the
<v Speaker 1>absurdity or the weirdness or all those things. But you
<v Speaker 1>do need a good story no matter what, And a
<v Speaker 1>good story means there's going to be real conflict and
<v Speaker 1>real drama at the heart of every story. When Homer
<v Speaker 1>invites the Daredevil, when Homer's afraid his kid is going
<v Speaker 1>to kill himself on a skateboard. That's not funny. You know,
<v Speaker 1>it's not funny. It's real. It's like you're worried that
<v Speaker 1>your kid is he is getting the wrong message from
<v Speaker 1>daredevils and putting his life in danger. There's nothing funny
<v Speaker 1>about that. However, we could make it funny by pointing
<v Speaker 1>up the absurd level of things and how kids don't
<v Speaker 1>really understand things that are dangerous, and the idea that
<v Speaker 1>there's a popular guy who jumps over things is ridiculous too.
<v Speaker 1>So like if you just highlight put a spotlight on
<v Speaker 1>the stupid of America or culture in general, you'll find
<v Speaker 1>what's funny. And there's plenty to put a stoplight to
<v Speaker 1>put a spotlight on. Well.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, this is the story of Framed. In another way,
<v Speaker 3>it's a bolshie union organizer versus a capitalist big wig.
<v Speaker 3>These two butting heads. They've both got very different drives,
<v Speaker 3>different desires, except guy one of them's absolute dumbass, right, So.
<v Speaker 1>Like an idiot, an idiot and an evil guy fighting
<v Speaker 1>with each other couldn't be funny because you're extreme characters,
<v Speaker 1>even though the situation you know, healthcare, salary, dignity at
<v Speaker 1>your work. Those are all not necessarily funny things, but
<v Speaker 1>that's not the center of the center of the story
<v Speaker 1>is the conflict between characters. And if those characters funny
<v Speaker 1>and they have funny motivations and they do funny things,
<v Speaker 1>then it can be very funny.
<v Speaker 2>We're also talking on the emotion as well, and the
<v Speaker 2>drive for Homer to do this in the first place
<v Speaker 2>is because he wants best for his daughter. That's why
<v Speaker 2>he's doing all of this. So and he's sort of
<v Speaker 2>all he's doing is big thing, but he's oblivious to
<v Speaker 2>it all. And I like the fact that you have
<v Speaker 2>the scene just to set up the fact that Burns
<v Speaker 2>doesn't remember who he is, so you can have all
<v Speaker 2>those moments where Burns is oblivious to the fact that
<v Speaker 2>Homer's just a blue idiot as well.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I you know, at a certain point
<v Speaker 1>it got so stupid for us, even when it says,
<v Speaker 1>like Homer Simpson, who is he like? Good? That that joke.
<v Speaker 1>We never got tired of that joke, even though it
<v Speaker 1>was ridiculous. So I don't know, Yeah, he should be Homer, Marge,
<v Speaker 1>the Simpsons family should be on the forefront of mister
<v Speaker 1>Burns's mind because he's dealt with them so many times.
<v Speaker 1>But in our little universe, he doesn't care about the
<v Speaker 1>little Man, so he doesn't.
<v Speaker 2>Whenever we talk to Matt Salmon, he always says that
<v Speaker 2>each episode should be viewed in its own vacuum, that
<v Speaker 2>you shouldn't worry about what comes before. But I think
<v Speaker 2>that there has to be some sort of element of continuity,
<v Speaker 2>like you're saying, there where Burns probably at this point
<v Speaker 2>should know who Himer is.
<v Speaker 1>Matt Matt. Matt needs to work in a vacuum. Matt
<v Speaker 1>is required. You can't do eight hundred episodes and be
<v Speaker 1>really worried about the seven hundred and ninety nine that
<v Speaker 1>came before you. Yes, we were on the episodes twenty yeah, forty,
<v Speaker 1>very reasonable number than not to be aware of what
<v Speaker 1>the universe was for that show. Then it gets into
<v Speaker 1>the hundreds, forget about it.
<v Speaker 2>When The Simpsons became a success, did you feel off
<v Speaker 2>the success yourself?
<v Speaker 1>I mean yeah, I mean I've Here's the thing. Everybody,
<v Speaker 1>every writer, every actor, everybody I know, we all feel
<v Speaker 1>like impostors anyway. We all feel like we don't deserve
<v Speaker 1>the success. That we the success that happens to us
<v Speaker 1>is dumb luck. And you know, the really good stuff
<v Speaker 1>was written by other people or other actors, and there
<v Speaker 1>are many more talented people who aren't working and all
<v Speaker 1>that stuff is all true. So when you wander through
<v Speaker 1>the world knowing that you're just a dumb idiot who
<v Speaker 1>got lucky, then when something you're working on is very successful,
<v Speaker 1>you go, yes, I got lucky. This is fantastic. And
<v Speaker 1>then I don't know if you think, boy, it's because
<v Speaker 1>of my genius. I think you just think I'm working
<v Speaker 1>with really funny, smart peace people and I should just
<v Speaker 1>shut up and let everybody make my work look better.
<v Speaker 1>And and I think that's true of most writers and
<v Speaker 1>most creative people. It's part of us that thinks were
<v Speaker 1>fantastic and a part of us that thinks we're just
<v Speaker 1>you know, playing playing game here and hoping that no
<v Speaker 1>one discovers us. So when the Simpsons became popular, I
<v Speaker 1>was all all in on enjoying the ride. I knew
<v Speaker 1>that there was not going to be things like this
<v Speaker 1>don't happen. I knew that I've been grown up in
<v Speaker 1>show business. I knew things like this don't just happen.
<v Speaker 1>You don't get on the show that people are selling
<v Speaker 1>T shirts on side of the road, bootleg T shirts.
<v Speaker 1>Just it's like I had seen Star Wars happen. That
<v Speaker 1>was like Star Wars. Everybody knew who Star Wars, everybody
<v Speaker 1>knew what The Simpsons was at that moment, and it
<v Speaker 1>was crazy to be in the center of it. But
<v Speaker 1>I enjoyed it.
<v Speaker 2>Did James and Matt and Sam. Did they let you
<v Speaker 2>guys the rotting stuff, let you guys know how important
<v Speaker 2>you were to the cog, to the system, or do
<v Speaker 2>they want you to sort of feel like you should
<v Speaker 2>be thankful to be here, or do they make you
<v Speaker 2>feel like you are part of this You're you're part
<v Speaker 2>of the reason.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, they constantly said that we're knuckleheads who are lucky
<v Speaker 1>to be there, and then every now and then said
<v Speaker 1>we couldn't do the show without the great writers. So
<v Speaker 1>like it would, they would go back and forth all
<v Speaker 1>this stuff and what they You know, Jim, Jim believes
<v Speaker 1>in writers and writing for sure, Sam does too, Matt
<v Speaker 1>does too. I mean, everybody believes in it. But at
<v Speaker 1>the same time, it's just like we're just all knuckleheads anyway.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, we really were dumb kids. I mean nerdy,
<v Speaker 1>smart kids, but idiots in our own way. And so
<v Speaker 1>it was a very motley crue. At the very least.
<v Speaker 2>We've asked this question to several of the key writing
<v Speaker 2>staff of The Simpsons, But did you yourself? Have you
<v Speaker 2>ever reflected on and gone I kind of wish I
<v Speaker 2>didn't leave.
<v Speaker 1>Now I'm really glad I left. I was tired. I
<v Speaker 1>was working for five years, no real vacations, nos, NonStop.
<v Speaker 1>I'm mining childhood stories after childhood stories. It's starting to
<v Speaker 1>get feel the same. And I got a chance to
<v Speaker 1>go work for something else and get paid a shit
<v Speaker 1>ton of money, So like, all right, well and go
<v Speaker 1>on the next adventure. Like part of the thing about
<v Speaker 1>being an artist is and again I say the word
<v Speaker 1>artists knowing that I'm an idiot, but that's fine. Like
<v Speaker 1>part of the journey of trying to lead a creative
<v Speaker 1>light is to experience new things and to try new
<v Speaker 1>things and put yourself in world of change. And at
<v Speaker 1>least that is for me. And that was exciting to
<v Speaker 1>try and do that and make our own show. That
<v Speaker 1>was an opportunity to make our own show. We spent
<v Speaker 1>three years trying to make our own show. We were unsuccessful,
<v Speaker 1>but that was fun to try and do too. We
<v Speaker 1>learned lessons on how to do it well and some
<v Speaker 1>things we didn't want to repeat, and I wanted the
<v Speaker 1>opportunity to do it myself. And I've eventually got those opportunities.
<v Speaker 1>But it takes branching out and trying new things.
<v Speaker 2>Do you think it's important as an artist to never
<v Speaker 2>be comfortable.
<v Speaker 1>Financially, artistically comfortable.
<v Speaker 2>How comfortable in a sense of you know you've got
<v Speaker 2>this gig, you don't have to leave, they're not getting
<v Speaker 2>it rid of you.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, even if you work forever, if you're Al Jean
<v Speaker 1>or Matt Sellman and you work on this show and
<v Speaker 1>you know you're not going anywhere, it's one of the things.
<v Speaker 1>You're still uncomfortable because every episode is tough, and every
<v Speaker 1>story breaking is uncomfortable, and there's always going to be
<v Speaker 1>days where you're spending like staring at each other saying
<v Speaker 1>we can't break the story and this joke doesn't work.
<v Speaker 1>Discomfort comes with the process, So I don't think we
<v Speaker 1>have the manufactured discomfort to be a good artist. It's
<v Speaker 1>part of the process.
<v Speaker 3>Figuring me if this sounds like an absolute rookie question, Jay,
<v Speaker 3>which it is. But I mean, I'm always curious about
<v Speaker 3>the term breaking the story. What exactly do you mean
<v Speaker 3>by it?
<v Speaker 1>So breaking the story is a term for coming up
<v Speaker 1>with a good story. So you come up with an idea,
<v Speaker 1>and maybe the idea is that the plant goes on strike,
<v Speaker 1>but that's just an idea. That's not the story. The story.
<v Speaker 1>Why does the plant go on strike? And why does
<v Speaker 1>and how is Homer involved? And what does Homer do
<v Speaker 1>to make it work and make it worse? And what
<v Speaker 1>happens when that gets is worse? And what are the
<v Speaker 1>what are the details of the story to make it worthwhile?
<v Speaker 1>And those details are called breaking the story. And they
<v Speaker 1>called it sounds violent because it is kind of violent.
<v Speaker 1>Breaking it is really sort of figuring out, like breaking
<v Speaker 1>out a pony, Like we're gonna we're gonna tame it
<v Speaker 1>and make it into something that we liked, that's understandable
<v Speaker 1>and that makes sense, and it's surprising and it's interesting
<v Speaker 1>and all those things. And to be all those things
<v Speaker 1>is really hard, and it takes a lot of really
<v Speaker 1>creative minds to make good ones, and you it's easy
<v Speaker 1>to make bad ones. Actually it's not easy to make it.
<v Speaker 1>It's still hard to make bad ones, but it's hard.
<v Speaker 1>The whole process is hard. So that's why I bring
<v Speaker 1>and story is the hardest part of the whole job.
<v Speaker 1>Every everybody will tell you that jokes are easy. Story
<v Speaker 1>is hard. And figuring out what the story is going
<v Speaker 1>to be and making it one that you haven't seen
<v Speaker 1>before and one that you don't know exactly where it's going,
<v Speaker 1>and one that's having fun interesting stops along the way.
<v Speaker 1>That's a hard thing and that's what you have to
<v Speaker 1>choose to really dedicate yourself to do. And that's what
<v Speaker 1>you know. Really great shows are based on having really
<v Speaker 1>good storytellers.
<v Speaker 2>Did you know this was going to be your last
<v Speaker 2>episode last day at Springfield when you were writing it?
<v Speaker 1>H I think so. I think we knew that it
<v Speaker 1>was going to be our last episode because we had
<v Speaker 1>signed a deal of some kind, although there was always
<v Speaker 1>an opportunity to come back and write another one at
<v Speaker 1>some other point in time. But no one has ever
<v Speaker 1>asked us.
<v Speaker 2>So you went part of the Simpsons movie or anything
<v Speaker 2>like that.
<v Speaker 1>No, the people who were on the Simpsons movie were
<v Speaker 1>people who were working on the show at the time.
<v Speaker 2>I thought they brought some of the original Rode back
<v Speaker 2>for that.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I mean that George was still there
<v Speaker 1>and I was there, Mike was there, still consulting capacity,
<v Speaker 1>like all those people were kind of still in the orbit.
<v Speaker 1>But maybe they just hate us.
<v Speaker 2>Possibly could be they just said you're but uh, the
<v Speaker 2>thing is because I'm watching this knowing it was your
<v Speaker 2>last episode, and rewatching it for the for this, and
<v Speaker 2>it's it feels like there's just so many jokes cranny.
<v Speaker 2>Obviously that was just how The Simpsons worked. But I
<v Speaker 2>just didn't know whether it was the idea of We're
<v Speaker 2>just gonna cram in as many ideas as we had,
<v Speaker 2>because it was like a last Hurrah kind of mentality.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that's it. I just think that's what
<v Speaker 1>the Simpsons was. Like, We're just jamming ideas and jokes
<v Speaker 1>and ideas and jokes and ideas and jokes and having
<v Speaker 1>some sort of heart in the center of it that
<v Speaker 1>that makes sense, and some some you know, father daughter
<v Speaker 1>loving situation going on, and you know, and and Lisa's
<v Speaker 1>idealism going on. Like we had some legitimate things in
<v Speaker 1>the episode, but mostly it was just like how many jokes.
<v Speaker 1>Can we tell what can we make if it's funny? Uh,
<v Speaker 1>and let's be as funny as we possibly can. But
<v Speaker 1>that was every episode of the Simpsons we ever made. Was
<v Speaker 1>that was trying to be?
<v Speaker 2>That was it? Did you have sort of a time
<v Speaker 2>limit of how long was too long? With add a
<v Speaker 2>gag of some kind?
<v Speaker 1>Uh, it's to taste. So like, for example, the joke
<v Speaker 1>where Lisa needs.
<v Speaker 2>Uh, dental plan Lisa needs brices.
<v Speaker 1>Right, dental plan Lisa needs braces. It just goes back
<v Speaker 1>and forth a lot of times what we wrote, what
<v Speaker 1>I wrote this, that particular joke I wrote. I think
<v Speaker 1>I did it on four pages long, maybe five, just
<v Speaker 1>back and forth of that that joke. I thought that
<v Speaker 1>joke Coo would stand forever, like I found. I felt
<v Speaker 1>there was a joke that would go laugh at first,
<v Speaker 1>then it's like why does it keep going? And then
<v Speaker 1>laugh again? Oh my god, it's keep going, and then
<v Speaker 1>laugh again. And I thought it could stand a really
<v Speaker 1>long time, and it wound up being thirty seconds maybe,
<v Speaker 1>But I my original thought was two minutes.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it was always just dental plan lace and
<v Speaker 2>these prices or is there other No?
<v Speaker 1>I think that was it. I just Devil Brown lacing
<v Speaker 1>these braces. Maybe one other thought in the middle, but
<v Speaker 1>I don't think so. It was really just that back
<v Speaker 1>and forth, back and forth, back and forth, simple back
<v Speaker 1>and forth, showing basically how stupid Homer is.
<v Speaker 2>Is that why you break it up with the pencil
<v Speaker 2>down the butt crack, just to sort of separate it
<v Speaker 2>a bit, because you thought more will the audience be
<v Speaker 2>able to stick it out this long?
<v Speaker 1>Or I don't remember. I think maybe the butt the
<v Speaker 1>pencil and the butt crack wasn't mine. I think maybe
<v Speaker 1>that's something that you'd l add it in. But I
<v Speaker 1>just thought it was really funny to just be stuck
<v Speaker 1>in that moment.
<v Speaker 2>Because the Simpsons hadn't really done that up to this point.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think we're just dragged and dragged and dragged.
<v Speaker 1>No, that it's funny. It's new, it's a new thing,
<v Speaker 1>but it's where it's not new that Homer is an idiot.
<v Speaker 1>That's not new. It's what new ways can we show
<v Speaker 1>his idea?
<v Speaker 3>I must admit watching that scene, I was just before
<v Speaker 3>the pencil went into the butt crack, I was like,
<v Speaker 3>the stretch this out. I can feel it's not reaching
<v Speaker 3>breaking point, but I really got some stretch on it now, right,
<v Speaker 3>And then yeah, there was that break and then it resumed.
<v Speaker 3>So yeah, how.
<v Speaker 1>Long How long should a joke go? It depends, like
<v Speaker 1>you do. You make it, and then you see it
<v Speaker 1>and then you edit it, and then you see it again,
<v Speaker 1>and then you edit it and then you see it again.
<v Speaker 1>And sometimes it works, and sometimes it's it's too long,
<v Speaker 1>like when when Homer fell down the cliff in bark
<v Speaker 1>the level. How long how long should he go? You know,
<v Speaker 1>long enough long?
<v Speaker 2>And then go and then do it straight away again. Able.
<v Speaker 1>My favorite jokes of all time is the if any
<v Speaker 1>joke I've ever written in my whole life, it's that
<v Speaker 1>whole sequence is my favorite thing I think I've ever written.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, just that the ambulance hit in the tree that's
<v Speaker 2>right in front of it.
<v Speaker 1>It's daisily stolen. It's buster keating jokes stolen. But you
<v Speaker 1>know what steal from the grates.
<v Speaker 2>That's right? Yeah. Well, this episode here last Sex's springfield
<v Speaker 2>like dental plan Lese and these braces. It spawns so
<v Speaker 2>many icon now Simpson's memes, so many moments have turned
<v Speaker 2>into memes. You've got where's my burrito an onion into
<v Speaker 2>my belt. You know, the Big Book of British Smiles.
<v Speaker 2>How does it feel for you when you say an
<v Speaker 2>idea that you and Whally wrote thirty plus years ago
<v Speaker 2>get a new lace on life through the main culture.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'm an old man, so memes mean nothing
<v Speaker 1>to me. What do I care about? Me?
<v Speaker 2>Means everything to us?
<v Speaker 1>Right, that's everything to you guys. But I like that
<v Speaker 1>jokes are in the culture. Those jokes will fade away
<v Speaker 1>from the culture. I've seen. I've seen people be very
<v Speaker 1>famous and then very unfamous things that were in the
<v Speaker 1>culture in the nineteen seventies when I was growing up.
<v Speaker 1>Now people have no idea about vice versa. Things will
<v Speaker 1>fade away. It's okay, it's fun that it's there. The
<v Speaker 1>Big Book of British Smiles is wal you wat erski joke.
<v Speaker 1>It's fantastic and I'm glad that it resonates because I
<v Speaker 1>don't know that that. I wasn't sure that all of
<v Speaker 1>the world knew how horrible British teeth.
<v Speaker 3>Were, but.
<v Speaker 2>That was that just sort of the stereotapt that it
<v Speaker 2>was mentality in the states of British people have terrible teeth.
<v Speaker 1>It's not just stereotype. It's true. At one time with
<v Speaker 1>the advent of sugar, when sugar was brought into England
<v Speaker 1>was colonizing everything they brought over sugar, and sugar started
<v Speaker 1>destroying English people's teeth in a horrible way. I think
<v Speaker 1>there was Terry Jones, one of the Python guys, talked
<v Speaker 1>about it that before sugar they dug up the remains
<v Speaker 1>of British people and their teeth were fine, and then
<v Speaker 1>after the advent of sugar, sugar started destroying people's teeth
<v Speaker 1>very quickly. So it's there was a period of time
<v Speaker 1>when just devil care was not great and people, British
<v Speaker 1>people's teeth were particularly awful. But I think that's true.
<v Speaker 3>It feels like you walked so Austin Powers could run.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly well Austin Powers. I mean, if you're a fan
<v Speaker 1>of Elvis Costello, as I was, he did have great
<v Speaker 1>teeth for a while, and then he had great teeth
<v Speaker 1>after he got some money. So like, I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>it happens.
<v Speaker 3>Speaking of Austin Powers, I just want to sidetrack for
<v Speaker 3>a little bit. But script doctoring it seems like one
<v Speaker 3>of the coolest jobs in the world. And you seem
<v Speaker 3>to have got your fair share of credits or not
<v Speaker 3>credits in that regard, including the Austin Powers movies. I'm
<v Speaker 3>just wondering how you got into it, how it works,
<v Speaker 3>and maybe the punch up that you're most proud of.
<v Speaker 1>Wow. I mean, I really enjoyed working on The Nightti
<v Speaker 1>Professor with Eddie Murphy because I got a chance to
<v Speaker 1>work with him. That was really cool, and they were
<v Speaker 1>filming it while we're writing it, and that was really fun. Really,
<v Speaker 1>so that when you write a joke and they actually
<v Speaker 1>film it, is that, Oh, that's fantastic. Because I've done
<v Speaker 1>so many rewrites where you write a million jokes and
<v Speaker 1>then nobody it never sees the light of day. It's
<v Speaker 1>just script pages that go nowhere. The Austin Powers movies,
<v Speaker 1>I am. I can not take credit for Austin Powers.
<v Speaker 1>Austin Powers is Mike Myers. He's a genius. He's fantastic
<v Speaker 1>and if you whisper something to him and he like,
<v Speaker 1>then you know, you feel like a hero. But it's
<v Speaker 1>all Mike Myers and Mike smeers brilliance and and but
<v Speaker 1>I love working with him on on things and I
<v Speaker 1>respect his genius immensely. I like working on the Shrek movies.
<v Speaker 2>You big on You're big on building connections. Did did
<v Speaker 2>you get the Shrek gig? Because he built that connection
<v Speaker 2>through Austin Palace?
<v Speaker 1>I got the Shrek gig because I'm I'm yeah, knew
<v Speaker 1>Mike Myers. Yeah yeah, So like, yeah, I think some
<v Speaker 1>of it's too you know, guys, I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>say that it's not a meritocracy. It is a lot
<v Speaker 1>of it is having a dad who's a writer. Didn't
<v Speaker 1>hurt and uh get me. That got me the job
<v Speaker 1>at Gary Shanling show. That got me the gig. So
<v Speaker 1>connections matter, uh, and then you know, it helps if
<v Speaker 1>you can deliver once you get the opportunity. But you're
<v Speaker 1>gonna get more opportunities more people, you know. So I
<v Speaker 1>worked to developed relationships with people and sometimes they worked.
<v Speaker 1>They they they turned into jobs. Uh, sometimes they didn't.
<v Speaker 1>But that's all right. I like I like people in general,
<v Speaker 1>so it's it's all good.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, look at look at the guest list for
<v Speaker 2>your podcast. She was on the biggest Names in entertainment.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's incredible.
<v Speaker 1>The biggest names in entertainment, name the biggest Robert de Niro.
<v Speaker 1>I got him.
<v Speaker 2>But that means a lot of a lot.
<v Speaker 1>Of a lot of really good people come to my podcast.
<v Speaker 1>You've got the mine's called the Jake Cogan Experience. What's
<v Speaker 1>it's called? No, don't be alone with Jake Cogan? Yeah, no,
<v Speaker 1>if Brian Cranston comes out. But guy, these are people
<v Speaker 1>I work with. Mostly. There's a few people I didn't
<v Speaker 1>know came on the show that I love.
<v Speaker 2>That.
<v Speaker 1>Tony Shaloub I had never met and I always wanted
<v Speaker 1>to meet him. And I asked a friend or a friend,
<v Speaker 1>will you ask Tony Shaloub to be on the show,
<v Speaker 1>And they said yes, I loved it.
<v Speaker 3>You had the pad of guys on them. Sorry, this
<v Speaker 3>is probably gonna be cut out of the the interview,
<v Speaker 3>but I mean, uh, you had Shane Black and Fred
<v Speaker 3>Decker And I was like, oh my god. I was
<v Speaker 3>actually speaking to uh to Dano about Fred Deckert the
<v Speaker 3>other day and then all of a sudden his name
<v Speaker 3>comes up on your podcast. Oh I'm putting this aside
<v Speaker 3>to listen to you later on a loop.
<v Speaker 2>We're big love for We're big love for Ricochet the film.
<v Speaker 1>They're great, But what I really like about them is
<v Speaker 1>their friendship. So like that they they're true friends, and
<v Speaker 1>they're movie friends, but they're real friends and they talk
<v Speaker 1>to each other in a real way. And it's kind
<v Speaker 1>of cool to come up with people who all dream
<v Speaker 1>of being in the movie business and they all were
<v Speaker 1>in the movie business.
<v Speaker 2>It's a particular favorite moments of mine from this episode
<v Speaker 2>Last Sex at Springfield, where like Grandpa's rambling story, so
<v Speaker 2>that spawned the obvious time on into my belt. So
<v Speaker 2>when you're writting one of these scenes, how do you
<v Speaker 2>know when enough is enough? When it comes to Grandpa's rambling?
<v Speaker 1>You don't. You write it and then you edit it later,
<v Speaker 1>but you just go you go along. I mean, there's
<v Speaker 1>no the scripts. When we wrote a Stimpson script, we
<v Speaker 1>would generally write a seventy page long script and then
<v Speaker 1>the scripts would be cut down to a unreasonable forty pages.
<v Speaker 1>So like it still and forty pages is still crazy
<v Speaker 1>long for a show that size, but a lot of
<v Speaker 1>its stage directions and visual jokes and all kinds of stuff.
<v Speaker 1>But uh, we wrote long. We wrote long. I still
<v Speaker 1>to this day, I write long.
<v Speaker 2>It's probably just it's bet best to just wrote it
<v Speaker 2>out rather than just leaving and you want to write it,
<v Speaker 2>and they want to keep it, they can keep it, and.
<v Speaker 1>Then a lot of it's gonna be shitty, and so
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna cut the shitty parts. I always when I
<v Speaker 1>teach writings, you write stuff that is in your head.
<v Speaker 1>You go from this stuff that's good to this stuff
<v Speaker 1>that's good, and all the stuff in the middle is shitty.
<v Speaker 1>Just put them together, you know, it's like you can
<v Speaker 1>wrinkle in time.
<v Speaker 2>Do you think this ramble would have been lot three
<v Speaker 2>times as long then in the visual script?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was. And
<v Speaker 1>just like Homer's you know, dental plan Lisa in these
<v Speaker 1>Braces was more was twice as long as it was
<v Speaker 1>in the script as it was, and that you you
<v Speaker 1>just you write, what do you write? And then a
<v Speaker 1>wom full of really smart people go this is boring,
<v Speaker 1>or I don't like this, or let's this is the
<v Speaker 1>best part, or let's stuff you wrote. I have something
<v Speaker 1>even better, let's put that in, and then you do
<v Speaker 1>thank them very much, thank you, it's good, it's better.
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad it has my name on it, even though
<v Speaker 1>it's your joke. Thank you, And then you do the
<v Speaker 1>same for their scripts. But but that's that's just how
<v Speaker 1>it goes.
<v Speaker 3>It seems like so many funny people have the perverse
<v Speaker 3>urge to push a joke as far as it will go,
<v Speaker 3>almost push it into the realms of being unfunny, to
<v Speaker 3>see if they can do that circular loop of making
<v Speaker 3>it funny again.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I mean, that's a little bit of a comedy
<v Speaker 1>high wire act that who doesn't like it? If you're
<v Speaker 1>if you're a pro, you're gonna want to You're gonna
<v Speaker 1>want to push the joke, I think, and be willing
<v Speaker 1>to risk people scratching their head for a second before
<v Speaker 1>they laugh. That everybody hasn't know what's going on the
<v Speaker 1>whole time to ultimately get where you're going. It's good
<v Speaker 1>maybe if there's confused up until the point.
<v Speaker 3>I'm always reminded of uh, Norm McDonald at a roast for
<v Speaker 3>someone one. Yeah, he was basically just doing bits out
<v Speaker 3>of some how to do comedy from book from the
<v Speaker 3>ninety fifties or whatever the way. It's anodyne jokes ever,
<v Speaker 3>but delivering him in that inimitable Norm mcdng style, The
<v Speaker 3>audience just like absolutely baffled. They got no idea what's
<v Speaker 3>going on, and the comedians are just dying. They think
<v Speaker 3>it's the funniest thing they've ever heard in their life.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, listen, it's meta. It's a little bit meta,
<v Speaker 1>and that's that's funny too. So like you, if you're
<v Speaker 1>a student of comedy and somebody's doing playing with the form,
<v Speaker 1>you could appreciate that. You don't need to just like
<v Speaker 1>you don't need to know all the references to Godfather too,
<v Speaker 1>It's still okay to not know everything and learn it later.
<v Speaker 2>I think you want to bring up the Aristocrats too.
<v Speaker 3>On that note, I did, actually, yeah, I mean I've
<v Speaker 3>recently tried to explain the concept that the Aristocrats to Dando,
<v Speaker 3>but I may have messed it up. So as someone
<v Speaker 3>who was in the documentary the same name, what can
<v Speaker 3>you explain it? And what is the notion of the
<v Speaker 3>aristocrats joke? What does it mean to comedians?
<v Speaker 1>That is the ariscrats is just a joke. It's a
<v Speaker 1>dirty joke, really filthy joke that gives an opportunity for
<v Speaker 1>a anybody who's telling it to do their own version
<v Speaker 1>of the joke. So basically, it's like jazz, you have
<v Speaker 1>a template of something, but then you go off into
<v Speaker 1>your own solos and your own so it's it's the
<v Speaker 1>artistry of it is how you tell the joke and
<v Speaker 1>what you put into it, and how you make it
<v Speaker 1>your own, and how you make it specialized. And that's
<v Speaker 1>the beauty of that joke. That joke is not a
<v Speaker 1>great joke in and of itself. It's a it's a form.
<v Speaker 1>It's a joke form that a lot of people know
<v Speaker 1>that the best of the best can make brilliant just
<v Speaker 1>by how they play it.
<v Speaker 3>What's the best or the worst version of the Aristocrats
<v Speaker 3>that you've heard or who told it?
<v Speaker 1>Ah, the best or the worst version, I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>The worst version is probably whatever I said. But the best,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, Gilbert Godfried is pretty funny. Bob Saggot's pretty funny.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, their version, everybody version of the joke, so
<v Speaker 1>she's pretty intense. But the intensity the one the people
<v Speaker 1>go crazy in it. I'm very interested in it because
<v Speaker 1>it's not about the specifics of the joke and everybody
<v Speaker 1>getting a joke. It's the weird strange act. So they're
<v Speaker 1>they're describing a family that does a vaudeville act, a
<v Speaker 1>nightclub act, and the act is both morally repellent, disgusting,
<v Speaker 1>sexually deviant. Is everything that you could do in it
<v Speaker 1>that's weird. So it's what are you willing to talk
<v Speaker 1>about and say and describe? How gross are you willing
<v Speaker 1>to get? How you know? Are you willing are you
<v Speaker 1>willing to say the words exactly? Do you dance around
<v Speaker 1>the words? Do you what do you do to make
<v Speaker 1>your audience intrigued? So that's what it is. So, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>every every comedian has their own version of it, and
<v Speaker 1>it's the movie's worth seeing just for that.
<v Speaker 3>It's a good documentary. It's like a comedy rorschock test
<v Speaker 3>though the Aristocrats, isn't it?
<v Speaker 1>I guess so for some people. I find that most
<v Speaker 1>people don't storm out in a huff and go, oh,
<v Speaker 1>what's that? They get pretty quickly they get it's not
<v Speaker 1>it's not the gross stuff. It's we're watching comedians, you know,
<v Speaker 1>riff Is.
<v Speaker 2>It one of those stories and one of those gags
<v Speaker 2>where you start telling it with that and nets and
<v Speaker 2>you're gonna start telling it and if you know, you know,
<v Speaker 2>But if you don't know, you're like, what what the
<v Speaker 2>fuck's going on here?
<v Speaker 1>I suppose? I mean that's a lot of jokes to me.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that's not My favorite jokes are not direct
<v Speaker 1>line jokes. My favorite joke, like my favorite joke. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not great at jokes, but my favorite joke that
<v Speaker 1>I ever tell is a guy goes out on his porch,
<v Speaker 1>sees a snail on his door doorframe, and he takes
<v Speaker 1>a snail and he throws it away and then goes
<v Speaker 1>back inside. Cut to six years later, there's a knock
<v Speaker 1>on the door. He opens the door, doesn't see anybody,
<v Speaker 1>looks down there's the snail and says, what the fuck
<v Speaker 1>was that about? So it's not nobody expecting the snail
<v Speaker 1>to talk. The guy didn't have any attitude when he
<v Speaker 1>threw the snail away, but it's like it's coming out
<v Speaker 1>of nowhere. But of course now suddenly you're seeing the
<v Speaker 1>snails point of view and.
<v Speaker 3>You're enjoying it.
<v Speaker 1>So like, why that's kind of a surprise you're seeing
<v Speaker 1>the snails point of view.
<v Speaker 2>Well, another favorite mode of mine from Last Eggs it
<v Speaker 2>was that the Hired goons right Crusher and Blow. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know why for some people everyone seems to love
<v Speaker 2>the hired Goons. Was it a joke that you guys
<v Speaker 2>wrote in there, or was that something was added later
<v Speaker 2>on the hired Goons?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, I don't remember, I imagine I can.
<v Speaker 1>We love the phrase hired goons is just like henchman. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>also greed great phrase, no reason hired goons and henchmen.
<v Speaker 1>But we love it. They're old fashioned, old timey fashion
<v Speaker 1>things that we like.
<v Speaker 2>Also think it's one of those gags where it's not
<v Speaker 2>necessarily funny on paper, but it's the way Dan delivers
<v Speaker 2>hired goons. Did you ever write jokes that you thought,
<v Speaker 2>you know, we're writing because we know Dan c is
<v Speaker 2>going to be saying this. We know he'll make this work.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, no, just knew that they would make it
<v Speaker 1>work anyway. But so we did that wasn't It wasn't like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>well we have Dan Castlena or we have Harry Sheer.
<v Speaker 1>It's just like, is this gonna be funny? And then
<v Speaker 1>oftentimes those guys made it funnier. Yeah, So it's unlike,
<v Speaker 1>it's not like this is dependent on this person's read
<v Speaker 1>of this thing. It's sort of we're hearing a voice
<v Speaker 1>in our head. They often come up with a funnier voice.
<v Speaker 3>Having said that, talking about funny voices, I'd like to
<v Speaker 3>ask about the Let's get him tells a character m
<v Speaker 3>VP of this episode. One might say, uh, can you
<v Speaker 3>tell us about the I guess the shout out that
<v Speaker 3>that that that character is. Is it a tribute to
<v Speaker 3>uh anarcomic tripes of years past?
<v Speaker 1>Is it Droopy Dog Dog?
<v Speaker 2>Dropy Dog is the voice?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's get it Phil, that's the one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it was him.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's Droopy Dog. But it's a Pana Bibarra character.
<v Speaker 2>He's so memorable. But he says about eight words and
<v Speaker 2>his entire existence. But you know every Simpsons fan and
<v Speaker 2>I know that guy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, uh no, I never did any voices
<v Speaker 1>on the Simpsons, but I was. I'm a big fan
<v Speaker 1>of all those guys. And when we did, when we
<v Speaker 1>pitched in the room, we pitched the voices of the characters.
<v Speaker 1>We tried. We pitched like mister Burns, we pitched Homer,
<v Speaker 1>and we pitched part We we modulated voices to to
<v Speaker 1>to activate the characters as best we can to give it,
<v Speaker 1>give the jokes their best.
<v Speaker 2>Shot, which Rody did the best Burns.
<v Speaker 1>Everybody had their own version of it. But I guess
<v Speaker 1>Sam's I think Sam Simon had the best Burns.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, okay, And if we are talking about favorite moments
<v Speaker 3>and we're gonna give a shout out to Quigly cross
<v Speaker 3>quickly sorry Quigly, I thought that was great. And also
<v Speaker 3>the Rimple of Monkeys with the thousand time rid Us,
<v Speaker 3>best of times, blurst of times, poor monkey getting slapped
<v Speaker 3>across the head and just going primal as a result. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that's a bit of a bit of a meme as well.
<v Speaker 1>I don't believe that was our joke, but maybe it was,
<v Speaker 1>I think, but it was a that's a great joke.
<v Speaker 2>You watched this though, and yes, it's a great story
<v Speaker 2>behind it. But it also does feel like there's a
<v Speaker 2>bunch of gags that these guys could exist in really
<v Speaker 2>any episode. They all work so well together here.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I mean, we're in Burns's mansion. We're in like
<v Speaker 1>we're in we're in his world. We get to do
<v Speaker 1>funny things about that, and and uh, you know, lots
<v Speaker 1>of episodes are in Burns's mansion, and certainly many many
<v Speaker 1>more have been since we did that episode, So I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, it's it's filled with Simpson law Simpson jokes. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>And again the audiences have voted that show as the best.
<v Speaker 1>It's not my favorite show, but I think it's really funny.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's great, and it's funny because I was
<v Speaker 2>telling Guy before we started recording Forgive Me. When I
<v Speaker 2>was a kid, this wasn't, by no means one of
<v Speaker 2>my favorite episodes. The older I got, the more I appreciate.
<v Speaker 2>But as a kid I was, this wasn't one that
<v Speaker 2>I gravitated towards.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, me neither. I didn't dislike it, but I was.
<v Speaker 1>It was one of those things we were just like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, all right. I thought it got a little sentimental,
<v Speaker 1>and I thought that the song it got bogged down
<v Speaker 1>by the song a little bit.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, for what reasons? You thought it sort of
<v Speaker 2>took away from the comedy or.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just gotta get gets little quiet and serious around
<v Speaker 1>the song when she sings the song.
<v Speaker 2>So it's a very unseerious episode up to that point,
<v Speaker 2>isn't it. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I wrote a Bob Dylan protest song for her to
<v Speaker 1>sing and wound getting trimmed down to that.
<v Speaker 2>Oh so you've still got the full song like you could?
<v Speaker 2>You could play it for somebody.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure I could. I mean, I haven't haven't been
<v Speaker 1>asked to in thirty years, but I'm taking fine, we're
<v Speaker 1>asking you now.
<v Speaker 2>So there is So there's a union Simpsons union song
<v Speaker 2>out there incomplete? Is that what you're saying?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, in the style of Dylan.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, see, this is.
<v Speaker 2>What we talked a lot, Josh Weinstein and whatnot. There's
<v Speaker 2>got to be a Simpsons museum, this kind of stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Simpsons fans want to say this ship do they?
<v Speaker 1>They do.
<v Speaker 2>I don't even know if you would never have said that.
<v Speaker 2>I've got the full song. We cut it back to
<v Speaker 2>like one verse, but you wrote a full song. People
<v Speaker 2>want to hear that.
<v Speaker 1>I guess. So, I mean it's it's you know, what's
<v Speaker 1>better is what the what the show was. I think
<v Speaker 1>what people really want to see is the show they like.
<v Speaker 1>They're they're the anciliary stuff around the show, Like I don't.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to see the cars that weren't the
<v Speaker 1>Aston Martin, the James Bond cars that the prototypes of
<v Speaker 1>the cars that weren't as cool as the Aston Martin.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I'm going with what we saw.
<v Speaker 2>I disagree. I think I grew up in the era
<v Speaker 2>where you know, you had your behind the scenes documentaries,
<v Speaker 2>you had your audio commentaries. We want to know how
<v Speaker 2>these things were made. We've seen the show, we love
<v Speaker 2>the show, we'll watch it every day, but we want
<v Speaker 2>to see how it came together.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm assuring enough people read the version I ra said,
<v Speaker 1>this is not as good.
<v Speaker 2>All right, But did you ever have jokes that you
<v Speaker 2>feel easily could have made the show?
<v Speaker 1>But it was just all the time, got jokes that
<v Speaker 1>are that made the show, that that made this from
<v Speaker 1>the script all the way to recording, all the way
<v Speaker 1>in and still get cut out. But dah, you know
<v Speaker 1>you want your jokes to stay. But you know, either
<v Speaker 1>they get there, they get cut for time, or they
<v Speaker 1>get cut because they're ruining the character, or they're not
<v Speaker 1>part of they're not accurate for the story or what
<v Speaker 1>we're trying to mat No, that's fine. You know, as
<v Speaker 1>I got older, I was less precious with jokes and
<v Speaker 1>more with what the whole story says.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, not the team thing. Well, there's a Rather than
<v Speaker 2>go through the entire episodes, a few key things I
<v Speaker 2>wanted to point out. So this episode kicks off with
<v Speaker 2>a clip from the McBain movie right with Mendoza unleashing
<v Speaker 2>the swank, you know, ten times more pout, more addictive
<v Speaker 2>than marijuana. Was that in your original script?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think we had we had a McBain show.
<v Speaker 2>Did you guys, did you guys know the writers, Did
<v Speaker 2>you guys know that you were putting together essentially a
<v Speaker 2>McBain mini movie if you splice all those clips together, Like,
<v Speaker 2>was there a case of what did what happened in
<v Speaker 2>the last McBain scene? No, we had to carry over
<v Speaker 2>from that or is it just you're just writing your.
<v Speaker 1>Own No, they were just they were just parody movies
<v Speaker 1>at the moment.
<v Speaker 2>And it just conveniently worked out to be a mini movie.
<v Speaker 1>I guess so. I mean, I imagine if you put
<v Speaker 1>all the itching scratches together, you can make a mini
<v Speaker 1>movie too, But maybe there would be a boring movie.
<v Speaker 1>But it was like, I don't know, it's there. It's
<v Speaker 1>it's a parody of a type of thing that's real,
<v Speaker 1>and and uh, they they shouldn't. I don't think they're
<v Speaker 1>they're purposely connected. But I'm glad it's able to do.
<v Speaker 2>It because there's there's a home, there's a whole McBain
<v Speaker 2>law out there now where, like even McBain and Mendoza
<v Speaker 2>got their own line of action figures as a result recently.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Well, McBain there was an actual move a detective
<v Speaker 1>series called mc bain. There was like a movie. I
<v Speaker 1>used to work in a bookstore and they would sell
<v Speaker 1>McBain books. Uh so I think, uh we we owe
<v Speaker 1>that author some money.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the rotter at McBain absolutely, and there was a
<v Speaker 3>crystopal walking action movie called McBain exactly.
<v Speaker 1>So, I don't know it's it's it's really funny. I
<v Speaker 1>guess McBean's like Donald Schwarzenegger. And you know, any anything
<v Speaker 1>that's like a villain's like mcbern like and can have
<v Speaker 1>a cliche, a detective movie cliche. That's a McBain story.
<v Speaker 2>This this scene though, this one in particular, is really violent.
<v Speaker 2>I mean people are getting shot in the face and
<v Speaker 2>there's holes in their head. I watch this going how
<v Speaker 2>did this happen? How did this get through the.
<v Speaker 1>Hands of those movies? We watched those movies.
<v Speaker 2>I know, I'm I'm talking from Fox. How did Fox
<v Speaker 2>let this get through the television?
<v Speaker 1>It's cartoon cartoon.
<v Speaker 2>Some of the ship that I've heard that they wanted
<v Speaker 2>to not let you guys do and then this happens.
<v Speaker 3>Then a guy get shot in the head and drowns
<v Speaker 3>in the in the punch bowl. Holy Mullen.
<v Speaker 1>Violence was almost never the issue. It was usually sacks
<v Speaker 1>or language. Maybe then they one time they told us
<v Speaker 1>Homer can't say shove this license up your ass, but
<v Speaker 1>they said you could, We could say shove this license
<v Speaker 1>in your ass.
<v Speaker 3>And we said, okay, wow, romantics.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but then you had you had the James L.
<v Speaker 2>Brooks low though, right where they really they could comment,
<v Speaker 2>but they couldn't really stop you from doing stuff. Is
<v Speaker 2>that right?
<v Speaker 1>That's the center can stop us. The sensor could stop us. Now.
<v Speaker 1>That was the only notes we ever took with sensor
<v Speaker 1>notes executive. We didn't get story notes from executives, but
<v Speaker 1>the sensor was able to say, we don't do that.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, all right. Anything else in particularly eats the
<v Speaker 2>definitely some one that you want to sort of cover.
<v Speaker 3>This is very immature of me, but I'm a big
<v Speaker 3>fan of the double entendres in the conversation between Burns
<v Speaker 3>and Smiths where I'm sorry, we're we're between Burns and Homer,
<v Speaker 3>where Homer thinks that Burns is coming on to Hi'm sure,
<v Speaker 3>I'm flattered. Maybe I'm a little curious, but the answer
<v Speaker 3>is no. It's like, don't go in for these back
<v Speaker 3>door snannigans. I'm sorry. I just thought that was hilarious.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I do too. I think they're really funny. I'm
<v Speaker 1>that is again another opportunity to make a funny joke
<v Speaker 1>out of what's a normal you know, negotiation or interaction,
<v Speaker 1>and uh, how fun is that.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely, there's so many different degrees of humor throughout this episode, though.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, there's stuff that's kind of I won't say
<v Speaker 3>low brown, but I mean this stuff that is. But
<v Speaker 3>there's a lot of the stuff that's you know, nastly cynical,
<v Speaker 3>like and gets made the union delegates like, well, there's
<v Speaker 3>no jobs unpaid unless you have crooked woo. That's boblous.
<v Speaker 1>Again, I'm laughing at it. They're not my jokes. There's
<v Speaker 1>so many jokes. This show is filled with really funny
<v Speaker 1>things brought by so many different people, like, for example,
<v Speaker 1>the word onion around the belt, which was the fashion
<v Speaker 1>at the time. I don't think that's our joke. Who
<v Speaker 1>knows who Maybe George Meyer's joke. I have no idea,
<v Speaker 1>but it's really good and great. So we're we're the
<v Speaker 1>Wally and I are the beneficiaries of the genius minds
<v Speaker 1>of a lot of really funny people who worked on
<v Speaker 1>the show, and at that point was I guess Conan
<v Speaker 1>was there by then, and so it's Conan and David
<v Speaker 1>Stern and there's lots of other really funny writers who
<v Speaker 1>are working there at the time.
<v Speaker 2>You're great friends of kind of being on your podcast
<v Speaker 2>Bright episode one of my favorites. What was he like
<v Speaker 2>to work with? For you? Personally?
<v Speaker 1>I loved working with Conan. I was the loud, annoying
<v Speaker 1>guy at the Simpsons room until Conan showed up, and
<v Speaker 1>then he was the loud, annoying guy. So yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>was usurped by him and grateful that there's somebody even
<v Speaker 1>louder and more annoying than me. But he's an adorable guy,
<v Speaker 1>endless energy, super smart, super creative, and you can see
<v Speaker 1>how hard he works when you watch his shows or
<v Speaker 1>the Oscars or whatever. You know, he puts in maximum
<v Speaker 1>effort and it shows. It's not they doesn't hit all
<v Speaker 1>home runs, but you can see that he's really really trying.
<v Speaker 2>Was there ever a competitiveness in the Simpsons Wroders room.
<v Speaker 1>There's always a competitiveness in every writer's room because you
<v Speaker 1>want your joke to get in because you pitched it,
<v Speaker 1>not necessarily that guy's joke to get in, or that
<v Speaker 1>woman's joke to get in, if they ever led a
<v Speaker 1>woman in. But but you know, it's like you want
<v Speaker 1>yours to work because you want validation that your value
<v Speaker 1>and creative. But you also want the show to be funny.
<v Speaker 1>And so if somebody pitches something that's so much funny
<v Speaker 1>that we just pitched, you cannot help but just go
<v Speaker 1>laugh and go like that, that's great, that has to
<v Speaker 1>go in.
<v Speaker 3>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>But I've worked in writers' rooms where people try to
<v Speaker 1>sabotage each other, and people try to shit on people's
<v Speaker 1>jokes and and make sure that they don't get in
<v Speaker 1>and that kind of stuff, And that's it's so antithetical
<v Speaker 1>to the process that we're trying to do make the
<v Speaker 1>best show possible. And and there are jealousies, and there
<v Speaker 1>are favorites on every writer's room and every and the
<v Speaker 1>favorites can change from time to time, So whoever's running
<v Speaker 1>the room suddenly likes this person. You know, it's it's
<v Speaker 1>it's hard to argue. Sometimes George Meyer was the well
<v Speaker 1>respected I think lampoon guy, Harvard lampoon guy, that Mike
<v Speaker 1>and Al and all v D and all these guys
<v Speaker 1>looked up to George when we showed up. That was
<v Speaker 1>already the dynamic with them. I didn't know George all
<v Speaker 1>that well, so I didn't look up to him. I
<v Speaker 1>didn't go to Harvard, I didn't have that Harvard lampoon
<v Speaker 1>stuff going on, So to me, he was just another shmo.
<v Speaker 1>But what he would say things people would look on
<v Speaker 1>him as with reverence that I did not understand. So
<v Speaker 1>it's like, okay, but you know, not everything George said
<v Speaker 1>was hysterical, but a lot of his stuff would get
<v Speaker 1>in because he was the perceived favorite. Now that being said,
<v Speaker 1>George is hysterical and a lot of what he says
<v Speaker 1>is really really good. But I think it's it's interesting
<v Speaker 1>how the social dynamic can lift some some material, sometimes
<v Speaker 1>over over what it really is.
<v Speaker 2>Accepting that another RATA on the same team has a
<v Speaker 2>funnier joke or has made georgejoke funnier. Being able to
<v Speaker 2>accept that, is that something you have to learn or
<v Speaker 2>is that just part of who you are is it?
<v Speaker 2>Can you learn? Can you learn to accept that?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, yeah, you have to. I mean you have to.
<v Speaker 1>If you're the showrunner, you're begging for that. That's all
<v Speaker 1>you want is people to give top the other one.
<v Speaker 1>That's a funny joke. That's the funnier. That's funny. That's
<v Speaker 1>that's all you want. You want people to add and
<v Speaker 1>uh you build and add funding to it. So yes,
<v Speaker 1>if you're a writer and you're gonna be storm out
<v Speaker 1>of the room somebody else makes a funny joke, you're
<v Speaker 1>not gonna be very welcome there for very long. So
<v Speaker 1>you should learn, and you should appreciate it, and you
<v Speaker 1>should be grateful that person who wrote the funny joke
<v Speaker 1>that's going in the script is getting you home. You
<v Speaker 1>want to go home eventually, and that person is getting
<v Speaker 1>you home. So fantastic. I get to go home. I
<v Speaker 1>get to go you know, watch T watch TV at home.
<v Speaker 2>On the topic of George Mayer, there's a moment in
<v Speaker 2>this episode where they steal the diamond from Lenny's teeth
<v Speaker 2>and they say yoink. Now, apparently George Maya is the
<v Speaker 2>man who coined that phrase yoink, and no one seems
<v Speaker 2>to realize that that's a Simpson's word. Is that true?
<v Speaker 1>Was it, George? I mean, isn't this scooby Doo word?
<v Speaker 2>No, Apparently yoink was coined. That's that's the ship. That's
<v Speaker 2>that's the ship they called bullshit. Prevailing wisdom is that
<v Speaker 2>it's a Simpsons word. Yeah, you're everywhere online joints. I say,
<v Speaker 2>zoinks zoints.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, zoints. So zoinks and yoink don't get uh credit
<v Speaker 1>for each.
<v Speaker 2>Other because zoinks is sort of more like zoinks. I'm
<v Speaker 2>scared where yoink is to take something.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I think you guys are nuts. It's it's just
<v Speaker 1>a animal animal on a pia goofy word. It doesn't
<v Speaker 1>mean anything, and it's fun and I'm glad that it
<v Speaker 1>started on my on that episode fantastic. Great, but it's
<v Speaker 1>people look too closely sometimes at things and then and
<v Speaker 1>and they missed the forest for the trees. Yuick is
<v Speaker 1>a funny noise. Great, It doesn't mean much more than that.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's the same kind of thing where they Simpsons
<v Speaker 1>predicts the future like that, that kind of crazy bullshit.
<v Speaker 1>It is sort of like is missing the point is
<v Speaker 1>no Simpsons does not create predict the future. What happens
<v Speaker 1>is Simpsons has a lot of really funny jokes all
<v Speaker 1>over the place, and some of them weirdly come true.
<v Speaker 1>How aired is that? That's that's more amazing to me
<v Speaker 1>that if you did a million jokes and of the
<v Speaker 1>million jokes, forty of them came true. That's insane to me.
<v Speaker 1>That's crazy that the dumbest things you thought of at
<v Speaker 1>that time is actually what happens.
<v Speaker 2>That's what Salmon said. Salmon goes, we think of what's
<v Speaker 2>the craziest shit that could happen, and we'll be on
<v Speaker 2>tava long enough that have Unfortunately, some of it's not
<v Speaker 2>starting to come.
<v Speaker 1>True, right, And that's the perversity of fate. Fate chooses
<v Speaker 1>to extol the dumbest of our ideas and make it
<v Speaker 1>into reality.
<v Speaker 3>Let's talk about Dr Wolf real quickly. Clint Eastwood and
<v Speaker 3>Anthony Hopkins initially approached Anthony Perkins actually cost.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think I've also, oddly enough, I think we
<v Speaker 1>wanted Donald Schwartzenegger really, oh my gosh, because we had
<v Speaker 1>a German vibe to Doctor Wolf. But yeah, I mean
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people say no to the Simpsons all,
<v Speaker 1>at least back then said no to the Simpsons all
<v Speaker 1>the time, and probably now do too.
<v Speaker 2>But did I really even at that point when it
<v Speaker 2>was still so successful, they were turning it down. I
<v Speaker 2>know that Springsteen turned down the Well episode, but right already?
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, you know that story, right, I probably do,
<v Speaker 2>but please rate tell me all right.
<v Speaker 1>I think we were trying to get to hold of
<v Speaker 1>Bruce Springsteen to do the Well bid and sing the
<v Speaker 1>song Kid down the Well. And we can't get a
<v Speaker 1>hold of Springsteen, so we keep calling his manager, John Landau,
<v Speaker 1>who we now have seen famed in film Delivered Me
<v Speaker 1>from Nowhere. So we get a hold of him. He says,
<v Speaker 1>I can't get a hold of Bruce, like bullshit, all right, No,
<v Speaker 1>I think he'd like to do it. It's like you
<v Speaker 1>can tell us no, we have to move on, But no, no,
<v Speaker 1>I think he'd like to do It's well then, to
<v Speaker 1>find him and let us know because we have to
<v Speaker 1>move on. We're good recording this soon and okay, I'll
<v Speaker 1>do it. I'll do it anyway. That night, I go
<v Speaker 1>to the movies at a movie theater in Los Angeles
<v Speaker 1>said no longer exists, and guess who's at that movie theater.
<v Speaker 1>Bruce Springsteen and Patti Sciavola. They're at that movie theater
<v Speaker 1>and I see Bruce Springsteen across the hall, who we've
<v Speaker 1>been trying to reach for weeks. We can't reach him,
<v Speaker 1>and I go Bruce Springsteen joints and I uh, and
<v Speaker 1>I make a bee line for Bruce. And I'm wearing
<v Speaker 1>a Simpson's jacket. The Simpsons producer Jack you get it.
<v Speaker 1>There was a leather jacket, red, the red and black
<v Speaker 1>jacket that you got, producers. So I'm running up to him,
<v Speaker 1>to Bruce Springsteen, and then he sings. This fat guy
<v Speaker 1>running towards him and he's like, eyes mean, and he
<v Speaker 1>steps in front of Patty because he's a fucking hero, right,
<v Speaker 1>He does the one anything Heard.
<v Speaker 3>And then Clarence Clement stands in front of him.
<v Speaker 1>Well no, I stands in front and says, hey, man,
<v Speaker 1>it's like Bruce h I'm uh mister Springsteen, miss Springsteen.
<v Speaker 1>I'm so glad I caught you. My name is Jake Cogan,
<v Speaker 1>I'm a producer of the Simpsons. And I point to
<v Speaker 1>my jacket as if that's truly anything. We're selling T
<v Speaker 1>shirts on the freeway in storage and venice No one
<v Speaker 1>only a jacket means nothing. That the amount of merchandise
<v Speaker 1>come to the Simpsons is into the billions of dollars.
<v Speaker 1>So I said, we've been trying to get a hold
<v Speaker 1>of you. We can only reach your manager John about
<v Speaker 1>this thing that we're doing on the show. It's like
<v Speaker 1>doing a song for a girl in a well. It's
<v Speaker 1>really funny. And I was like, I just have to
<v Speaker 1>know if you would be interested, and he said, yeah, man,
<v Speaker 1>I really like to do it. I was like, he
<v Speaker 1>wanted to get the crazy fat guy away from him,
<v Speaker 1>so he said yeah, and he said no, and and
<v Speaker 1>then we never heard back from him or John Lenno ever,
<v Speaker 1>and then we just gave up and went to spring
<v Speaker 1>But I scared the shit out of Bruce Springsteen. I
<v Speaker 1>literally made Bruce Springsteen think he was going to have
<v Speaker 1>his sort of scary John Lennon moment. And you know,
<v Speaker 1>thankfully I don't carry a weapon, so that's good. But
<v Speaker 1>it's like, it's it's I'm I scared the boss.
<v Speaker 2>You'll lock on when Homer approaches the Oscaran truck when
<v Speaker 2>he's fat and he's got the moonmo and he's at
<v Speaker 2>the gossips and just take it all. I just take
<v Speaker 2>it all exactly.
<v Speaker 1>He just wanted to get me to get away. And
<v Speaker 1>I don't blame him. I don't blame in the least,
<v Speaker 1>but it was I just didn't not I'm so unaware
<v Speaker 1>of myself, and how would I would that I could
<v Speaker 1>be scary? The thought that I could be scary to
<v Speaker 1>anybody is shocking to me.
<v Speaker 3>What movie was it?
<v Speaker 1>By the way, God who cares? Movie theater doesn't exist.
<v Speaker 1>It was in a It's in Los Angeles. There was
<v Speaker 1>a place called the Century City entertained ABC Entertainment Center,
<v Speaker 1>and there was movie theaters and a Schubert Theater in there.
<v Speaker 1>It's all been knocked down. It doesn't exist anymore. So
<v Speaker 1>I can't imagine. I don't know what movie.
<v Speaker 3>Honestly, I'm picturing you Moore as Lenny, sort of a
<v Speaker 3>drunken Lenny, approaching the limousine and just giving the thumbs
<v Speaker 3>up to mister b.
<v Speaker 1>No. I was just like sweating, like I was acting
<v Speaker 1>like a producer, like I wanted him. I wanted the
<v Speaker 1>Springsteen to do it, and I was so excited.
<v Speaker 2>Let's be honest, though, I sting turned out to be
<v Speaker 2>a fantastic choice in the for that episode. He worked
<v Speaker 2>out perfectly.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not shitting on mister Sting. I mean it's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>He was great. He's fantastic, and he was great, and
<v Speaker 1>who's perfect for it and all the great And I
<v Speaker 1>bet I assume Springsteen has been on the show since then, So.
<v Speaker 2>No, he still hasn't.
<v Speaker 1>No, I'm not.
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to work with don't be alone with
<v Speaker 2>that guy. So he's like, and I don't, I don't
<v Speaker 2>want to work with that guy.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well then he doesn't have to be anymore. I'm
<v Speaker 1>not there, but he does have to be on my podcast.
<v Speaker 1>So that's all right, I'll get I'll get Springsteen for
<v Speaker 1>the podcast.
<v Speaker 2>But you did have one guest on this episode who
<v Speaker 2>mocked herself Joyce Brothers. Oh smart line and in and
<v Speaker 2>out real quick. Yeah, it wouldn't even really called a
<v Speaker 2>guest appear. This just a cameo of anything, right, I.
<v Speaker 1>Think we didn't write it for a guest. And and
<v Speaker 1>and I think she called and said, hey, would I could,
<v Speaker 1>is there ever a spot for me on the show?
<v Speaker 1>And sure, yeah, I mean she she was very nice,
<v Speaker 1>and I mean she was very good also very famously
<v Speaker 1>good at marketing herself and constantly trying to be re
<v Speaker 1>up her cred and I guess getting on The Simpsons
<v Speaker 1>maybe helped your credit a little bit. I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe she's just a fan of the show. Anyway, she
<v Speaker 1>was great, very gracious. People are willing to make fun
<v Speaker 1>of themselves, are fantastic. Tony Bennett fantastic. I mean Tom Jones,
<v Speaker 1>we did. We had so many great people who.
<v Speaker 2>Were all of the celebrities that came in and just
<v Speaker 2>blew you away because you just weren't expecting him to
<v Speaker 2>be so open and lovely.
<v Speaker 1>Well Tony Bennett, I remember being just I was so
<v Speaker 1>thrilled to hear him sing the Capital City song on
<v Speaker 1>that was so and he was so great. You know,
<v Speaker 1>Joe Montagne was fantastic. It came back many many times.
<v Speaker 2>So you would you have worked with Kelsey before Frasier then?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I worked with him because on the I created
<v Speaker 1>the character of side show Bob.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, crusty gets busted.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, and so but also we
<v Speaker 1>worked it was a guest on the Tracy Ollman Show
<v Speaker 1>even before.
<v Speaker 2>Then, so I actually didn't know that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So it was my job to roust him out
<v Speaker 1>of his trailer because he was so drunk and high
<v Speaker 1>or whatever he was that I had to sort of
<v Speaker 1>like shake him away and say it's time for a rehearsal. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>You know, he cleaned up his years later. But what's
<v Speaker 1>remarkable was as stoned as he was and whatever he
<v Speaker 1>was taking when he went on stage, he was fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Immediately great, snapped to it, did a scene perfect, line perfect,
<v Speaker 1>and then went back to his trailer and fell asleep.
<v Speaker 2>The ultimate professional.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so before we let you go though, So this
<v Speaker 2>is obviously a mister Burns episode. I love the animation
<v Speaker 2>of Burns at the end when he listened to them singing,
<v Speaker 2>he looks like the Grinch? And whatnot?
<v Speaker 1>Right?
<v Speaker 2>What was it? What was Burns's one of your favorite
<v Speaker 2>characters to write? Is such an enjoyable character to watch?
<v Speaker 2>Was he an enjoyable character?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 1>WHILEY and I get credit for creating mister Burns, we
<v Speaker 1>created mister Burns and Smithers.
<v Speaker 2>Really, I'm as honesty of course.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he's very nice script for it. So I have
<v Speaker 1>a special love for him. When what we wrote wasn't
<v Speaker 1>what tears. He was developed by everybody and by artists
<v Speaker 1>and by everything to become the excellent guy that he was.
<v Speaker 1>But our first version was just evil boss, but he
<v Speaker 1>became very evil and very funny. I love mister Burns
<v Speaker 1>and I loved the relationship with Smithers, you know, and
<v Speaker 1>we when we developed Smithers, we definitely wanted Smithers to
<v Speaker 1>love mister Burns in all the ways that he loves
<v Speaker 1>mister Burns.
<v Speaker 2>I need you to settle this for so, Yes, playing
<v Speaker 2>at home, did you write Smith's to Bean African American?
<v Speaker 1>Yes? Really he was black and gay?
<v Speaker 2>Yes, okay, then, but there we go, finally settled because
<v Speaker 2>the people always go, oh, it was an animation era,
<v Speaker 2>but no, he was, you know, he.
<v Speaker 1>Was black and gay. And they decided, we we all
<v Speaker 1>decided Jim Brooks and whoever was he couldn't be both.
<v Speaker 1>Why why make the one black character gay? Also because
<v Speaker 1>I can't choose choose the same thing with doctor Hibbert.
<v Speaker 1>Doctor Hibbert was a woman was Julia Hibbert, And they
<v Speaker 1>said why a woman an a black so diverse too much?
<v Speaker 1>And so I was named it after Julia Sweeney, the actress,
<v Speaker 1>the comedic actress, and her married name was Julia Hibbert,
<v Speaker 1>and I named the character after.
<v Speaker 2>That's where doctor Hibb comes from. There you go, we
<v Speaker 2>learned something every day.
<v Speaker 1>And Julius Hebert and then when we went up against
<v Speaker 1>Bill Carsby, it was perfect foil to make fun of
<v Speaker 1>Bill Carsby.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there we go. Well, and you also created Kanye
<v Speaker 2>and Cotis. You guys essentially are the reason we got
<v Speaker 2>Treos of Horror because I know Matt pitched the idea
<v Speaker 2>kids tell Us to Ghost Stories in the Treehouse, but
<v Speaker 2>you guys sort of went, that's a great concept. We
<v Speaker 2>can run with this.
<v Speaker 1>We supported the idea in a place when a lot
<v Speaker 1>of people didn't want to support it, but we supported
<v Speaker 1>it and we liked it. And yes, man Greening gets
<v Speaker 1>credit for that thing. We get credit for saying that's
<v Speaker 1>a good idea.
<v Speaker 2>But the thing is, though, that's arguably the episode that
<v Speaker 2>everyone really still looks forward to this day. It's the
<v Speaker 2>Halloween episodes. Say what you will at the Simpsons. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I still enjoy the Simpsons, My kids like watching the
<v Speaker 2>new episodes and put it on from Disney Plus has
<v Speaker 2>been a great thing for discovering the new episodes again,
<v Speaker 2>particularly for the younger audiences. But you know, even if
<v Speaker 2>someone doesn't necessarily watch the Simpsons anymore, they'll still keep
<v Speaker 2>up with the Halloween ones that's been the mainstay.
<v Speaker 1>Think they're fun. I think it's so much fun. It's
<v Speaker 1>also you know, they're standalone. They're fantastic. Usually it's a
<v Speaker 1>parody of something that's cool that's happening at the moment.
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's I agree, they're a lot of fun,
<v Speaker 1>and they're fun to write. They're really fun to write
<v Speaker 1>because they're a little ten minute cartoons. You know, it's
<v Speaker 1>it's uh, yeah, everybody wins, we all want we loved it,
<v Speaker 1>they love it. It's all good. They've been a few
<v Speaker 1>shitty ones, but mostly they're pretty good.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, sometimes the parodies aren't great. But when you're doing
<v Speaker 2>those first Treas of Horror episodes, things like the Raven,
<v Speaker 2>did you think the kids would have any idea what's
<v Speaker 2>going on there? Or did you just not care?
<v Speaker 1>No? And I think that's one of the bad ones.
<v Speaker 1>Like I honestly no, I don't think it's any good
<v Speaker 1>at all. Sam. The only reason we did Trias of Horror,
<v Speaker 1>the reason the reason we got Sam Simon to agree
<v Speaker 1>is that we told him you could do the Raven.
<v Speaker 1>They went oh. He hated the idea up until he
<v Speaker 1>heard we could do the Raven. And then he did
<v Speaker 1>his version of The Raven, which is fine. It's Edgar
<v Speaker 1>and Poe, it's it's educating. I feel like it's more educational.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like it's something that that and then and
<v Speaker 1>that bums me out because I don't need education in
<v Speaker 1>my Simpsons cartoons. But we had James old Jones fantastic
<v Speaker 1>reading it, and uh I got to meet him and
<v Speaker 1>that was fun when we we did it before he
<v Speaker 1>did his his The Raven, you know, giant plate of
<v Speaker 1>chocolate chip cookies. It's like, what are you doing? Don't
<v Speaker 1>you have to have a clear throat to do? What
<v Speaker 1>do you do? Is no, And he was chomping down
<v Speaker 1>and chopped the two cookies, and then he started doing
<v Speaker 1>the Raven.
<v Speaker 3>Just passing a box of chips. A hoy, what.
<v Speaker 1>What's going on? But uh, I think to me, the
<v Speaker 1>the the tanging codos, you know, to feed Man parody.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's not just because we wrote it. I
<v Speaker 1>just think it's much funnier and it's that's better. And
<v Speaker 1>I and and there's Frankenstein one that's good. That is
<v Speaker 1>one of the Amityville Horror in that same episode. That's better.
<v Speaker 1>I just think they're better. But you know what, Sam
<v Speaker 1>Simon loved him. He wanted to educate the world and
<v Speaker 1>he did. And it has jokes in it. It does
<v Speaker 1>have jokes in it, It's just not immediately as funny
<v Speaker 1>as the other ones.
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes, like you said, you got to please the boss
<v Speaker 2>to get what you get to do what you want
<v Speaker 2>to do as well.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, you always have to please the boss.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, some guests.
<v Speaker 2>All right, finally, before we let you go, he's you
<v Speaker 2>want to ask more question?
<v Speaker 1>One more? All right?
<v Speaker 3>I'm taking the internet's word for this, which is a
<v Speaker 3>fool's errand. But apparently you were voted most likely to
<v Speaker 3>drop his pants on a dare in high school. It's
<v Speaker 3>raises the question, how are you responsible for the will
<v Speaker 3>drop pants for food? Gag? And Krussy got canceled.
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember being most likely to drop my pants
<v Speaker 1>in high school. I don't think that's true, although had
<v Speaker 1>somebody asked me to drop my pants, I would have
<v Speaker 1>for a dare or for for the comedy value of it.
<v Speaker 1>I used to do anything for a joke.
<v Speaker 2>Is that tiring after a while?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, there's a lot of energy. You've got to use
<v Speaker 1>a lot of energy being always on, being always on.
<v Speaker 1>But also I like it, and as I said, my
<v Speaker 1>dysfunction with my father made me want to really be
<v Speaker 1>funny all the time. So it's okay. But no, I
<v Speaker 1>don't think my ability or willingness to drop my pants
<v Speaker 1>has anything to do with that joke of the show. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I think that's just funny.
<v Speaker 2>The final question we always ask people, and I said,
<v Speaker 2>you said, you don't prepared anything, but you can do
<v Speaker 2>it because you are J Cogan. But the question is,
<v Speaker 2>it's nineteen ninety eight. Fox have asked you to put
<v Speaker 2>together a five episode Friday Night Simpsons marathon. Which episodees
<v Speaker 2>are you going with? And what are you starting with?
<v Speaker 2>In particular, I'm.
<v Speaker 1>Gonna start with the seventh episode, which was the Christmas episode,
<v Speaker 1>which became our pilot. I'm gonna start with that because
<v Speaker 1>it was so successful right out of the gate, people
<v Speaker 1>loved it, fantastic. I'm gonna follow that up with Like Father,
<v Speaker 1>Like Clown because and I'm gonna follow that up with
<v Speaker 1>Barth the Daredevil, and I'm gonna follow that up with
<v Speaker 1>Old Money, and I'm gonna follow that up with last
<v Speaker 1>exit to Springfield. And the reason why I pick all
<v Speaker 1>those other ones is because I get residuals, and so
<v Speaker 1>I want the money. Baby, They're all cod I want
<v Speaker 1>to ask you written not the best ones, but the
<v Speaker 1>ones I get paid for.
<v Speaker 2>So okay, the residual still exist with the Simpsons, you guys.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, we get money. We get money from the show
<v Speaker 1>is sold all over the world. It's also we get
<v Speaker 1>a fraction of a fraction of a penny when they
<v Speaker 1>played on Disney Plus, so we get some money.
<v Speaker 2>So do you just have like a three laptops going
<v Speaker 2>constantly on your episode.
<v Speaker 1>Kids Got to Eat Man Charlie Cogan. Charlie Cogan, who
<v Speaker 1>is a uh is a very funny musician, not funny talented, talented,
<v Speaker 1>talented musician, singer, songwriter. Charlie Cogan. He is a genius.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, I need I need to make some
<v Speaker 1>residuals to get more band members for him. And oh
<v Speaker 1>this is his sad this is music stage.
<v Speaker 2>Here before when you were talking about was that a
<v Speaker 2>band set up?
<v Speaker 1>That's yeah, this is my son's music recording studio and
<v Speaker 1>so h Charlie Cogan kog and listen to his music.
<v Speaker 1>Tell me if you like it, tell me if you
<v Speaker 1>don't like it. I want to hear because we're he's
<v Speaker 1>making about to make a new record, so I want
<v Speaker 1>to hear what people think about his music so he
<v Speaker 1>can adjust to the audience.
<v Speaker 2>We'll chuck the links in the description. We'll chut the
<v Speaker 2>links in the description of this podcast. But speaking of podcasts,
<v Speaker 2>plug yours one mole time before we let you guys
<v Speaker 2>there there it is.
<v Speaker 1>Don't okay Cogan, that's my podcast. I usually have a
<v Speaker 1>guest on and we talk about my problems and we
<v Speaker 1>can we can really get into solving my problems and
<v Speaker 1>learn about our guests. And often it's a comedian, it's
<v Speaker 1>a writer, it's an actor, it's an artist of some kind.
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes it's a grief specialist, but not always. It's always
<v Speaker 1>somebody who's interesting to me and hopefully interesting to you.
<v Speaker 1>But listen to don't be along with Ja Cogan. But
<v Speaker 1>more than listen to it, subscribe to itsri You never
<v Speaker 1>listen to it, just subscribe to it. Don't you the
<v Speaker 1>same thing on your show? Right? You need subscribe, like
<v Speaker 1>and subscribe, You not like and subscribe, but subscribe, Just subscribe.
<v Speaker 1>What does it cost? You nothing, just subscribe.
<v Speaker 2>The thing is and he's had Matt Groening on the show,
<v Speaker 2>a man who you know very rarely does podcast episodes.
<v Speaker 1>But you know it's only done too as far as
<v Speaker 1>I know, Mark Maron and me, that's.
<v Speaker 2>It because he gave us the Springsteain treatment. So you
<v Speaker 2>know he said, I love to be young. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he doesn't do it. He doesn't do it much.
<v Speaker 1>I just contacted him on Saint Patrick's Day. I uh,
<v Speaker 1>I called him to wish him a happy birthday, even
<v Speaker 1>though his birthday is Valentine's Day, but always Saint Patrick's
<v Speaker 1>Day reminds me that.
<v Speaker 2>I'll think you're getting Jay. It's been an absolutely hona.
<v Speaker 1>I really enjoyed it. Guys, and you're not you know
<v Speaker 1>you ossies. Aren't the dicks everybody say you are? You
<v Speaker 1>know what? You're sweet, nice, lovely people with a good heart.
<v Speaker 1>I like it. I want to go. I want to
<v Speaker 1>go to Australia. And where if I go to Australia,
<v Speaker 1>where should I go?
<v Speaker 2>It depends?
<v Speaker 3>Why are you coming?
<v Speaker 2>He's coming for touristy shet. Are you coming to enjoy Australia?
<v Speaker 1>I want to absorb the culture. I want to sort
<v Speaker 1>of figure out what's cool about the place. I want
<v Speaker 1>to be able to come back and say I want
<v Speaker 1>to go back there again.
<v Speaker 2>I recommend a little town called Jeloon. That's where I'm from,
<v Speaker 2>so Bally. For culture, i'd go to Melbourne, which is
<v Speaker 2>a capital city. You just want to do the touristy
<v Speaker 2>stuff like the opera house and the bridge and what
<v Speaker 2>everyone thinks is that's Sydney.
<v Speaker 1>I will fly over that stuff, I'll see it, but
<v Speaker 1>I want to know what, like the great food is,
<v Speaker 1>or the great music or the things that make it special.
<v Speaker 3>That's Melbourne. But if you want a unique astrayant experience,
<v Speaker 3>maybe head up north, go far north Queensland and the
<v Speaker 3>Northern Territory.
<v Speaker 2>To get your beaches and your outbacks and your whatnot.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yes, all right, and the animals that will kill you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm afraid of that.
<v Speaker 2>Plenty of those, We are lots of them. You get
<v Speaker 2>used to them, yeah, yeah, just be nice to them.
<v Speaker 2>They'll be nice back.
<v Speaker 1>Best way to protect yourself from a kangaroo.
<v Speaker 2>Well, don't try and act tougher than it, because they
<v Speaker 2>are always tougher than you.
<v Speaker 3>Right, the kangaroo will it will out out for you.
<v Speaker 1>The pouture of a kangaroo is disgusting.
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah, very very mucusy, Yeah, reportedly, so I go.
<v Speaker 2>And funny, I learned that from the Simpsons.
<v Speaker 1>I just learned get recently too, so I know maybe
<v Speaker 1>from the Simpsons, but just how discussed because you think
<v Speaker 1>it's so cute in there but it turns out no,
<v Speaker 1>it's disgusting.
<v Speaker 2>It's where babies live and that ship. Yeah no, good,
<v Speaker 2>Thank you again, Jock, Thanks a lot.
<v Speaker 1>This isn't a pleasure. I really enjoyed this. I hope
<v Speaker 1>you edited so that don't seem like moron