So It's Come To This: Another Matt Selman Interview (Simpsons Showrunner)

<v Speaker 1>Four finger Discount.
<v Speaker 2>Dude, Hey, eybody, welcome to four Finger Discount with this
<v Speaker 2>is what. We were joined by the Grand Pooba, the
<v Speaker 2>head honcho of the Simpsons. It is Matt Salmon. How
<v Speaker 2>are you doing so?
<v Speaker 3>What's up? How you guys doing how? I can't see
<v Speaker 3>guy's feet? Hold on? This is hold on.
<v Speaker 1>It's because I'm continually sidelined by Dan, though he is
<v Speaker 1>holding the spotlight from day one.
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to take the opinion that I've never seen
<v Speaker 3>one episode of seasons one through eight.
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure that the news website will take that as
<v Speaker 2>actual news. That's what they tend to get. Walk a
<v Speaker 2>little quote from you and just run while with it,
<v Speaker 2>because now, what's the latest one? It was? Simpsons showrunner
<v Speaker 2>says the season the show will never have a finale.
<v Speaker 2>That was the latest one.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I do agree that it will hopefully will never
<v Speaker 3>have a probably I'll never a lane finale. Yeah that's all.
<v Speaker 3>I may or may not have a last episode, but
<v Speaker 3>I just doesn't have a lame finale that tries to
<v Speaker 3>sum everything up. And you know I'm on the record
<v Speaker 3>about that. But also, all of a sudden will be
<v Speaker 3>someone else's decision. So that's also their problem. Maybe they
<v Speaker 3>could do every they could do all they could have
<v Speaker 3>it be Bart graduates fourth grade and Turns eleven and
<v Speaker 3>Milhouse all that stuff. Everyone gets to be better but themselves.
<v Speaker 2>What a good shipe.
<v Speaker 1>Finales. As far as the O consent, do you do
<v Speaker 1>you have any of that sort of leap out? It
<v Speaker 1>was like, oh, they stuck the landing on that one.
<v Speaker 3>I can't remember any shows.
<v Speaker 2>What is television?
<v Speaker 3>I don't think the Cheers one was that good. I
<v Speaker 3>just don't think TV shows are supposed to end, so
<v Speaker 3>like idea that you're doing an unnatural The end is
<v Speaker 3>not natural because they're especially like classic TV shows are
<v Speaker 3>supposed to go on forever and make everyone print money forever,
<v Speaker 3>like the Simpsons, like a giant ATM. So then all
<v Speaker 3>of a sudden, you're doing a different kind of storytelling
<v Speaker 3>for this last episode about the premise of the SHO
<v Speaker 3>show has shifted to a new and that everyone is
<v Speaker 3>the reason they see each other no longer exists. It's unnatural.
<v Speaker 1>I think in the two thousands and maybe in the
<v Speaker 1>twenty tens, you know, you got this whole presstage TV
<v Speaker 1>thing going on, and you had a lot of critics
<v Speaker 1>and pundits going. You know, TV shows are the new novels,
<v Speaker 1>and you had a lot of people thinking, oh, well,
<v Speaker 1>I'm creating a work of art here, and I need
<v Speaker 1>to put a full stop on it if I may,
<v Speaker 1>if I am doing a final episode, and I reckon.
<v Speaker 1>There are some shows that actually did that pretty well.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, you're right in that. Yeah, television is generally
<v Speaker 1>a thing that just keep going, keeps going and keeps going.
<v Speaker 3>Like dramas. I mean, dramas are their own thing, But
<v Speaker 3>for like half hour comedies, I don't think there are
<v Speaker 3>any good last episodes. And I say that not being
<v Speaker 3>able to think of any that ever happened. So with
<v Speaker 3>a sample size of zero in my memory, there are
<v Speaker 3>no good last episodes of any half hour comedy because
<v Speaker 3>they all do the thing the show wasn't supposed to do,
<v Speaker 3>which is end the show. Because they always to say
<v Speaker 3>we're gonna end the show rather than just a good episode,
<v Speaker 3>it is the last episode, and Nick, you never know
<v Speaker 3>what happens. Then this is a new theory I just
<v Speaker 3>thought of in the moment. So I don't know if
<v Speaker 3>I believe.
<v Speaker 2>It, but hell, the job of selling.
<v Speaker 3>It, I don't think any half hour finale has ever
<v Speaker 3>been good that tried to fundamentally shift the premise of
<v Speaker 3>the show, And I can't think of any examples to
<v Speaker 3>prove or disprove my theory.
<v Speaker 2>Well, one thing I always fall back on is the
<v Speaker 2>Raymond finale. I really enjoyed because it was just essentially
<v Speaker 2>another episode and and with them just sitting around the
<v Speaker 2>dinner table having family dinner.
<v Speaker 3>That's a great finale. That there you go, that one.
<v Speaker 3>Any of the ones that, like, you close the bar,
<v Speaker 3>you left Korea, those are the two. That's the only two.
<v Speaker 3>I've only seen two shows in my life, Cheers and
<v Speaker 3>Mash Murphy Brown Dies by murder suicide. Like all those
<v Speaker 3>finalees are, they're not good. I mean, I guess the
<v Speaker 3>Mash one makes sense historically, but I don't know was Mash.
<v Speaker 2>No.
<v Speaker 3>One listening to this knows what mashes.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I know it mashes. It's one of my
<v Speaker 2>favorite shows, but I'm sure there are a lot of
<v Speaker 2>people that don't really talk about Mash anymore.
<v Speaker 3>You're right, yeah, yeah, anyway, I'm starting off with a bang.
<v Speaker 1>No, but sure you count and spicy and hot. It's fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to recently have the eight hundred episode. That's
<v Speaker 2>that's another thing not many shows do is eight hundred episodes.
<v Speaker 2>So you get the launch party? Is it the Fonder theater?
<v Speaker 2>Fonder the theater named after?
<v Speaker 3>Refinder? It was as a Bridget funder Actually don't know
<v Speaker 3>that his granddaughter.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think that's a take that's going to resonate
<v Speaker 1>with the younger warning? Is they going to go, who
<v Speaker 1>the hell's Bridget funds.
<v Speaker 2>For us singles?
<v Speaker 1>And Jackie Brown fans? That really hurts. But at the
<v Speaker 1>same time.
<v Speaker 3>Any all the finders, it's hard to grow up and
<v Speaker 3>show biz, right, guys? You know you can do that?
<v Speaker 2>Do you guys? Get to lay your like just relax
<v Speaker 2>and just sort of hang out outside of work. Very
<v Speaker 2>often the entire crew like that or is that just
<v Speaker 2>is that something only comes on a rare occasion not.
<v Speaker 3>That often because the animators are live far away and
<v Speaker 3>are only semi Sometimes they come to work. Sometimes they
<v Speaker 3>work at home, but they they don't come in all
<v Speaker 3>the time, and when they do, they're in office that's
<v Speaker 3>an hour from my office. I think those parties are great.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, for me, the main goal of those parties
<v Speaker 3>is to talk to as many of the crew as possible,
<v Speaker 3>like tell them they're doing an awesome job, which they are.
<v Speaker 3>So like people who I've never met, or the people
<v Speaker 3>who I rarely meet or I see on zooms to like,
<v Speaker 3>you know, say you know, I know this is a
<v Speaker 3>hard job and you're really doing excellent work, which they are.
<v Speaker 1>Is there kind of a secret handshake among people who
<v Speaker 1>work on the sensors or have worked on the sensors
<v Speaker 1>or is it kind of a hierarchical thing where it's
<v Speaker 1>you know, you're coming in like mister Burns and saying
<v Speaker 1>well done everyone, as opposed to just like, hey, whirlling
<v Speaker 1>this together. Well, I don't mean that as a gotcha question, Matt.
<v Speaker 3>They probably think I'm like mister Burns. I think we wait,
<v Speaker 3>we're all in this together. But hey, you laugh at
<v Speaker 3>all my jokes. I must be so funny. Oh wait,
<v Speaker 3>mister Burns.
<v Speaker 2>What's it like now being that you have the Soul showruner?
<v Speaker 2>They're correct, you've finally taken that mantle. How has your
<v Speaker 2>job changed, if at all, in the last season.
<v Speaker 3>But more delegation, more trusting the people under me to
<v Speaker 3>be great, which they are, more like letting them, you know,
<v Speaker 3>come to me with ideas or make big decisions, and
<v Speaker 3>me saying, hey, if you feel strongly about that, you're
<v Speaker 3>just as talented or smart as I am, if not
<v Speaker 3>more so. So I don't have to be the arbiter
<v Speaker 3>of every decision like why am I smarter or better?
<v Speaker 3>I'm not, So it's just either to me. Again, this
<v Speaker 3>is my distorted perspective. It's more delegation, more trust, more
<v Speaker 3>empowerment of the great writing staff and producing staff and
<v Speaker 3>animating staff. But maybe they think it is No, he's
<v Speaker 3>an obnoxious, multi obnoxious, micromanaging nutcase. We have to tender
<v Speaker 3>to think all these ideas are good. So one of
<v Speaker 3>those two things.
<v Speaker 1>Did that transition into the delegator the micromanager?
<v Speaker 2>Your words up mine? Did that come? Do you?
<v Speaker 1>Did you feel like a noticeable shift in the oh
<v Speaker 1>this is what I do now or this is part
<v Speaker 1>of my job now? Or did this sort of happen
<v Speaker 1>so gradually, you know, did you become a hardcore networks
<v Speaker 1>gradually that you didn't even notice?
<v Speaker 3>Ah, good reference, It happened over time, but there definitely
<v Speaker 3>when there was probably one point at which I was
<v Speaker 3>doing I went from going like to doing like half
<v Speaker 3>the shows to a bigger chunk of the shows where
<v Speaker 3>I really had to institute a system of hierarchical delegation
<v Speaker 3>that was different than what had come before. And that
<v Speaker 3>was where we kind of promoted Rob Leazebnik, Tim Long,
<v Speaker 3>Mike Price, Caroinomine, Brian Kelly. Tim Long I already said
<v Speaker 3>and says our mesaiegos in different capacities to really, you know,
<v Speaker 3>be in charge of episodes under the umbrella of me.
<v Speaker 3>So when that happened, you know, that was like a
<v Speaker 3>big shift for sure, where like I, you know, I'm
<v Speaker 3>heavily involved with every show, but I can't be as
<v Speaker 3>heavily involved as I was before I had to. And
<v Speaker 3>those people we call the co runners, which I think
<v Speaker 3>is a great term. You guys aren't like from Hollywood
<v Speaker 3>that much. So in Hollywood people are loath to share credit.
<v Speaker 3>I personally don't need any credit. Credit is credit isn't
<v Speaker 3>really worth anything. So I like to give it away
<v Speaker 3>to people who deserve it, because they do deserve it.
<v Speaker 3>So people say to me, don't use the term co runner.
<v Speaker 3>People will think you don't do everything. I'm like, I
<v Speaker 3>don't do everything, ridiculous. I go home at night, see
<v Speaker 3>my wife, my kids like my father. Here's a little backstory,
<v Speaker 3>guys at emotional backstore that's unpacked this. My father was
<v Speaker 3>a professor of early childhood and human development for fifty
<v Speaker 3>years at a little school called Harvard University Community College,
<v Speaker 3>right community college. And growing up in the academic world
<v Speaker 3>where there's very little money for anything, there's massive fights
<v Speaker 3>and arguments and political stuff over who gets credit, who
<v Speaker 3>gets credit for the papers, whose name is on the grants,
<v Speaker 3>whose name is on the book, you know who? You know,
<v Speaker 3>which associates and which grad students, And huge fights and
<v Speaker 3>schisms and political ego wars over who gets the credit
<v Speaker 3>for the for the academic work, right, And my dad
<v Speaker 3>was always like, who cares? Everyone put everyone whose name
<v Speaker 3>on there, who worked on it, We all worked on
<v Speaker 3>it together, Like doesn't hurt me. I'm I'm in a
<v Speaker 3>retirement home now, No one one way or the other.
<v Speaker 3>No one cared if my name had other names with
<v Speaker 3>it for these books and papers and grants and proposals
<v Speaker 3>and you know, academic research that I did. Like, just
<v Speaker 3>we all worked on it together. Let's let the world though,
<v Speaker 3>there's no downside. And so I took that to heart
<v Speaker 3>at this Simpsons, so I try to be ultra transparent
<v Speaker 3>about the degree to which this is a super collaboration.
<v Speaker 2>Before you were the show runner, did you feel that
<v Speaker 2>that was the mantra always at the Simpsons, that whoever's
<v Speaker 2>in charge is always willing to sort of share the credit.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know who's to say that, love is saying volumes, man,
<v Speaker 3>I just I don't. I think Al was great with you. No,
<v Speaker 3>I think Al was terrific about that. It's just I
<v Speaker 3>really I'm like ultra crazy about being ultra transparent. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>Al did an amazing job for so many years, making
<v Speaker 3>so many great episodes, and he always would give us credit,
<v Speaker 3>like if you know, he'll also I would think role
<v Speaker 3>modeled positive credit sharing a one hundred percent that to.
<v Speaker 2>The best of your experience.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, even just having the Simpsons on your resume,
<v Speaker 1>on your save a, even if it didn't have like
<v Speaker 1>an official title next to it, would that's still give
<v Speaker 1>you a bit of clout if you were sort of
<v Speaker 1>like going for other jobs, or if you were just
<v Speaker 1>saying to people, hey, I work on the Simpsons or yeah,
<v Speaker 1>even even if it's not I'm a showrunner or I'm
<v Speaker 1>a producer, or whatever. I mean, just having having the
<v Speaker 1>title on your as part of your body of work.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, does that like holy shit? That Matt Selman?
<v Speaker 2>Wow?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. I think it looks okay. I mean
<v Speaker 3>TV is so in a shrunken, desiccated state in that
<v Speaker 3>there's more qualified applicants for every writing job than there
<v Speaker 3>are writing jobs that I don't think there's any credit
<v Speaker 3>that gets you hired just the credit. It really has
<v Speaker 3>to be outstanding material, outstanding recommendations, extending personal experience with
<v Speaker 3>that writer, and probably five other things that are to
<v Speaker 3>get you that writing job. So am I holding my
<v Speaker 3>breath for future writing jobs after the Simpsons end? I
<v Speaker 3>am not. And you know what, I've had a great run,
<v Speaker 3>so I'm not super stressed about it at the moment,
<v Speaker 3>but I mean a little bit. It's also such an
<v Speaker 3>old show. Simpsons writers are somewhat of an an unknown
<v Speaker 3>quantity in the rest of regular television. But we're a
<v Speaker 3>little bit like off on our own crazy Galapagos island,
<v Speaker 3>and we have operated with our own evolutionary system, and
<v Speaker 3>we have our own strange animals and different plants and
<v Speaker 3>floras and faunas that you know, we're not part of
<v Speaker 3>kind of traditional TV where you jump from job to
<v Speaker 3>job and you write pilots, and you know a lot
<v Speaker 3>of executives, and you pitch a lot of shows and
<v Speaker 3>some of them you write a script, and some of
<v Speaker 3>them are a pilot, and some of them are a show,
<v Speaker 3>and so then maybe you're successful and you have a
<v Speaker 3>kind of an overall deal. Like words, we really just
<v Speaker 3>do this one thing on the Homer's Galopagas Island. So
<v Speaker 3>I'm not sure what the rest of showbiz thinks of
<v Speaker 3>us the show as a credit in terms of future jobs.
<v Speaker 3>Sometimes I think it might be like they think we
<v Speaker 3>worked on Sesame Street because it was something from their childhoods.
<v Speaker 3>So like the executives are now, let's say the executives
<v Speaker 3>are thirty. So if I say I worked on the Simpsons,
<v Speaker 3>They're like, oh, you worked on Powerpuff Girls right from
<v Speaker 3>when they were kids.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't that show starting black and White? Yeah, it was
<v Speaker 1>something like that.
<v Speaker 3>Never count on anything. That would be my advice to
<v Speaker 3>all your listeners. Always assume this is your last job.
<v Speaker 3>I always assume every job is the last time anyone
<v Speaker 3>will ever pay.
<v Speaker 2>What's the turnover? Like with the writer's room these days,
<v Speaker 2>zero turnover. Yes, do mayb people leave the Simpsons once
<v Speaker 2>they joined the Simpsons.
<v Speaker 3>Nobody leaves. Everyone who left regrets it, every single one
<v Speaker 3>of them except for Greg Daniels and Cod and O'Brien.
<v Speaker 2>Well, we had Josh once once staying on the show racially,
<v Speaker 2>and he said he regrets leaving the show because he
<v Speaker 2>just expected. I mean, that was twenty plus years ago now,
<v Speaker 2>but he thought, well, I've been I've run the Simpsons
<v Speaker 2>onto bigger and better things. Now I can take on
<v Speaker 2>the world. And he said, once he left the Simpsons,
<v Speaker 2>he realized, Oh, the Simpsons, as you said, it is
<v Speaker 2>on its own island, in its own bubble. Once you're there,
<v Speaker 2>never get off it. You should just stay there forever.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I know that was a that was a mistake.
<v Speaker 3>Like it worked out for me.
<v Speaker 2>It did.
<v Speaker 3>Indeed everyone else made worked out for me.
<v Speaker 2>The next milestone is that because you guys obviously see
<v Speaker 2>milestones yet, but the four to fiftieth episode, the seven
<v Speaker 2>hundred to eight hundred is the next one. The movie
<v Speaker 2>is that the next milestone we're taking off? Yes, eventually.
<v Speaker 3>Milestone or perhaps forgive this wordplay milestone or perhaps millstone
<v Speaker 3>will see Yes, how.
<v Speaker 2>Have you guys learned to balance the workload from the
<v Speaker 2>first one, if you've learned anything at all.
<v Speaker 3>It's just like, well, I can only work when I'm awake,
<v Speaker 3>so I don't feel bad for not working more hours
<v Speaker 3>than i'm a week.
<v Speaker 2>Is it stressful? Do you find it? You're more just
<v Speaker 2>the team in general, just sort of can you feel
<v Speaker 2>that there's a movie being made at the same time
<v Speaker 2>At the moment.
<v Speaker 3>I think it feels good. I think it feels really fun.
<v Speaker 3>Everyone knows the movie is going to be terrific and
<v Speaker 3>that it's going to kind of give the show a boost.
<v Speaker 3>I think we have a good balance right now. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and assuming the Millstone effect does not drowned me in
<v Speaker 3>a sea of craziness?
<v Speaker 2>Was a pushback due to scheduling conflicts? Was a pushback
<v Speaker 2>to give you guys all time?
<v Speaker 3>What pushback? Where's the pushback?
<v Speaker 2>Is there a pushback?
<v Speaker 3>What do you know? What have you heard?
<v Speaker 2>I've heard many things now, so originally July in now September,
<v Speaker 2>so it's only three months delay.
<v Speaker 3>But well, you know, I just corporations have their chess
<v Speaker 3>games that I don't second guess those moves all this.
<v Speaker 3>They have their ways, They they know what's best. Corporations
<v Speaker 3>knows what's best. I just I just work on the
<v Speaker 3>stories and the Fortnite collaborations. You go on that you
<v Speaker 3>I gently supervised it, But Jeff Westbrook and Ryan Coe
<v Speaker 3>did all the did all of the creative on our side,
<v Speaker 3>and but also the Fortnite people did a ton of
<v Speaker 3>great creative on their side. It was a really they
<v Speaker 3>really went above and beyond the call of duty. Hopefully
<v Speaker 3>there will not be a Simpson's call of duty level that.
<v Speaker 2>It got made to actually find out what Fortnite actually was.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't even know what Fortnite was, and I downloaded
<v Speaker 2>and played it and I enjoyed it. So did you
<v Speaker 2>play it at all?
<v Speaker 3>I dipped my toe? Yeah, But as a fifty four
<v Speaker 3>year old man being sniped by a thirteen year old
<v Speaker 3>and not knowing what the hell just happened, it gets
<v Speaker 3>old pretty fast. So the frustration factor is maybe the
<v Speaker 3>Simpsons next collab should be with the New New York
<v Speaker 3>Times crossword puzzle excuse me, scrabble ripoff called cross play
<v Speaker 3>that maybe I could hold my own at. It's like,
<v Speaker 3>you know, the New York Times is main revenue source
<v Speaker 3>these days is games so they have this game called
<v Speaker 3>cross play that's like a it's like a scrabble ripoff.
<v Speaker 2>I'm sure, So do you in Price have a game
<v Speaker 2>going at the moment?
<v Speaker 3>Or Price and I have played, Although then I feel
<v Speaker 3>like bad that I'm distracting him from work and he's
<v Speaker 3>distracting me from work. So I just if Rando's challenge me,
<v Speaker 3>I will, I will fight them.
<v Speaker 2>Is there time for the you say distractions? But is
<v Speaker 2>there time for just general knucking around? At the Simpsons?
<v Speaker 3>You can't make a show without mucking around. If you
<v Speaker 3>don't muck, it's like a It's like a machine with
<v Speaker 3>no oil. The gears grind and everything sparks and the
<v Speaker 3>whole engine collapses. Everyone involved in a creative enterprise knows
<v Speaker 3>that mucking is a muck is a crucial lubricant for
<v Speaker 3>creativity and collaboration.
<v Speaker 1>Having said that, I mean, is there a time when
<v Speaker 1>you're like, that's too much muck?
<v Speaker 2>Guys?
<v Speaker 1>We need to uh, you know, the machine's running smoothly.
<v Speaker 1>Now let's let's make some widgets.
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to overmuck the machine, but like it's animation,
<v Speaker 3>we're not building sets tomorrow another and then shooting it
<v Speaker 3>and then that's it. You get a lot of bites
<v Speaker 3>at the apple or swings at the cricket bat. And
<v Speaker 3>do you guys play cricket?
<v Speaker 2>We do?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right, talk you call them swings? What do
<v Speaker 3>you call them? Pitches?
<v Speaker 2>Swing? Swing the bat on the cricket pitch, Yes, but.
<v Speaker 3>The pitches like the grass is the field?
<v Speaker 2>Yes, what do you call that?
<v Speaker 3>What do you call when they throw the underhound ball?
<v Speaker 2>That's a ball? So you bowl the ball down the
<v Speaker 2>pitch which is the rectangle bit in the middle of
<v Speaker 2>the field.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, should we had a lot of balls at the back.
<v Speaker 2>Did you learn about cricket because of the Bluey episode?
<v Speaker 3>No, but we do have a we have a cricket
<v Speaker 3>thing in an upcoming Simpsons episode.
<v Speaker 2>We were gonna just because we discussed this on a
<v Speaker 2>podcast about six months ago. We said the Simpsons need
<v Speaker 2>to do a cricket episode. So finally cricket episode. But
<v Speaker 2>there's a cricket gag.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, for sure, there's a cricket scene.
<v Speaker 2>Because we're talking about obviously this is not going to happen,
<v Speaker 2>but we were talking about I think it was with
<v Speaker 2>with We'll maybe Bill Oakley or one of the guests
<v Speaker 2>and he was talking about how we can bring back
<v Speaker 2>a poop if a poop was ever going to be
<v Speaker 2>brought back, And cricket is essentially the sport of India,
<v Speaker 2>so we thought a cricket tie in with India could
<v Speaker 2>be a waye fun way to bring a poop back
<v Speaker 2>for a guest appearance or whatnot.
<v Speaker 3>It could be interesting.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but we'll see it happen. But with the Simpsons,
<v Speaker 2>obviously we're not going to get any datails. I'm not
<v Speaker 2>going to ask for daytiles that that's just silliness. But
<v Speaker 2>unless you want to give this data. But my question
<v Speaker 2>is that surely, well, how will it differ at all
<v Speaker 2>from the first one? Will it be structure? Tone? What
<v Speaker 2>are you able to discuss that at all? Or is
<v Speaker 2>it just no?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know. It just has to be funny and
<v Speaker 3>emotional and exciting, and it has to deliver something that
<v Speaker 3>you can't get watching at home, right, because that's the challenge.
<v Speaker 3>One of the advantages you have in a movie like
<v Speaker 3>this is that most of your audience will know and
<v Speaker 3>care about the character, the main characters at least, which
<v Speaker 3>is for a new movie, to make people know who
<v Speaker 3>the characters are and care about what the characters want
<v Speaker 3>and suffer when the characters are suffering. That's hard to
<v Speaker 3>do because you're starting from nothing. We are not starting
<v Speaker 3>from nothing, so that's an advantage we have. A disadvantage
<v Speaker 3>we have is what are we delivering that is supremely
<v Speaker 3>above and beyond the twenty one minute movie that we
<v Speaker 3>put on TV every week. So I guess it's the
<v Speaker 3>same challenge as the first and we'll see you guys
<v Speaker 3>can decide when you see it. If do you guys
<v Speaker 3>celebrate Labor Day, Well.
<v Speaker 2>We have our in version of labor day. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>think every country has a labor day just to day
<v Speaker 2>don't have to go to work. But what what do
<v Speaker 2>you think audiences, cinema movie audiences want now compared to
<v Speaker 2>what they wanted back in two thousand and seven.
<v Speaker 3>You know, it's it's interesting. It's a good question because,
<v Speaker 3>you know, the comedy as a cinematic in theater form
<v Speaker 3>is not exactly thriving. Although movies like jed Pool and
<v Speaker 3>Wolverine and Barbie and a lot of the you know
<v Speaker 3>and say you know, Zootopia and those types of big
<v Speaker 3>franchise movies are comedies with great jokes and producers thinking
<v Speaker 3>about it as comedies throughout the whole movie, Like, is
<v Speaker 3>this funny? Is the audience laughing? Right? But the number
<v Speaker 3>of comedies that are just comedies like Jeth Green and
<v Speaker 3>Jack open a mushroom shop together and get in Trouble
<v Speaker 3>with the Mob or whatever like they used to make,
<v Speaker 3>they don't make a lot of those. They're just so
<v Speaker 3>it's kind of and it's a concern that the younger
<v Speaker 3>audience that doesn't even value communal laughter as an experience, right.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, they tried to reboot Naked Gun and I
<v Speaker 3>thought it was pretty good, and I saw it with
<v Speaker 3>an audience and we were all laughing pretty good, and
<v Speaker 3>there was a good experience, But you know, it's not
<v Speaker 3>part of the sociological experiment known as cinema anymore, right,
<v Speaker 3>or the large part. I mean, it's a bummer, A
<v Speaker 3>lot of bummers these days anyway. So hopefully, you know,
<v Speaker 3>our challenge is to like break through that and be like,
<v Speaker 3>this is a big animated comedy that is full of
<v Speaker 3>funny characters and who you care about, with visual and emotional, satirical, slapstick,
<v Speaker 3>absurdist comedy throughout, and that you the audience, are enjoying
<v Speaker 3>laughing with other Simpsons fans or Simpson's non fans who
<v Speaker 3>accidentally went to this movie thinking it was Bluey and whatever.
<v Speaker 3>So like, that's the challenge.
<v Speaker 1>Challenge accepted, man, I push back against the communal comedy
<v Speaker 1>aspect that you're just talking about.
<v Speaker 2>Although I think it's shifted. I think I'm wrong.
<v Speaker 3>Please let me be wrong.
<v Speaker 1>Not wrong so much as you just need to adjust
<v Speaker 1>your way of thinking. Now, comedy still exists in the
<v Speaker 1>form of like say, tiktoks or reels or something like that.
<v Speaker 1>And when it's and it's shared, you know, via meme
<v Speaker 1>culture or whatever, and that's kind of like the communal
<v Speaker 1>thing as opposed to we're all sitting in the same
<v Speaker 1>dark room and laughing at the same jokes. The jokes
<v Speaker 1>just move at the speed of a clique. Essentially.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, what I'm really lamenting is a change in the
<v Speaker 3>way people consume comedy, not that comedy doesn't exist. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>now everyone in the world is a semi professional comedian
<v Speaker 3>with their funny instagrams and their funny social stuff and
<v Speaker 3>their funny tiktoks, And where young people consume it is
<v Speaker 3>through sharing and forwarding and liking. And but that's still
<v Speaker 3>we're still losing the feeling of laughing, Like when I
<v Speaker 3>want to see bor At with an audience in two thousand,
<v Speaker 3>I don't know whatever, nineteen oh five when I went
<v Speaker 3>to go see bor At and like there was that
<v Speaker 3>big crazy nude wrestling scene with his ass in the
<v Speaker 3>other guy's face, like, and the audience is losing their mind.
<v Speaker 3>Like as any young person under the age of twenty
<v Speaker 3>ever had that experience, do they care? I mean, they
<v Speaker 3>still have it for horror movies, right, they all like
<v Speaker 3>to be scared together. That still exists, and they like
<v Speaker 3>to be scared in the theater in addition to being
<v Speaker 3>scared at home. But the laughing and the laughter building
<v Speaker 3>and like feeling that other people laughing with this is
<v Speaker 3>is what's lost. But yeah, no, comedy still exists. Oh
<v Speaker 3>it's it's everywhere. Everyone, I mean everyone's everyone is. Everyone
<v Speaker 3>does it and he usually makes it for free.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm wondering with that, do you not just you personally,
<v Speaker 1>but the people that you work with or the comedy
<v Speaker 1>community in general, the professional comedy community, do you sort
<v Speaker 1>of have to just your approach or your way of
<v Speaker 1>thinking as a result.
<v Speaker 3>Well, you know, I guess we could release the movie
<v Speaker 3>as a micro drama vertical microdrama in like thirty second chunks.
<v Speaker 3>Wouldn't be surprised if somebody say, bus said, we're doing
<v Speaker 3>the next this is a micro drama now, so we're
<v Speaker 3>just doing it in a ninety five chapters if five
<v Speaker 3>one minute chapters vertical forgive me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm not talking about the sensits so much when
<v Speaker 1>I say this, but I mean you will see that.
<v Speaker 1>You know, certain shows are made and even the way
<v Speaker 1>they shot, like, oh, you've shot this with everything in
<v Speaker 1>the center of the frame, so it can be easily
<v Speaker 1>clipped and turned into a TikTok with something like that.
<v Speaker 3>Also a very smart quay. I don't know the answer
<v Speaker 3>to that question. I'm sure people that are in the
<v Speaker 3>real world of trying to create new things as opposed
<v Speaker 3>to trying to sustain old things, which is what I do,
<v Speaker 3>deal with that question every day. And similar to Lily,
<v Speaker 3>the question is if you know the product you're making
<v Speaker 3>is most likely being consumed while someone is also looking
<v Speaker 3>at their phone in their house, how do you have
<v Speaker 3>to do? How is the storytelling adjusted, how is the
<v Speaker 3>comedy different? How is anything different? I mean, I tell
<v Speaker 3>my kids. Watching TV with your phone in a different
<v Speaker 3>room is like reading now, Like, oh, look, I'm so
<v Speaker 3>proud of my kids. They're watching TV with their phones
<v Speaker 3>in a different room. That's so good for their brains,
<v Speaker 3>as opposed to I'm so proud of them they're reading books.
<v Speaker 3>It's good for their brains.
<v Speaker 2>Because originally when the show went wide scream, when the
<v Speaker 2>movie started, when it went wid scream, it was a
<v Speaker 2>big deal, right, and it was it felt like for
<v Speaker 2>a good while then, and you're still doing it. You
<v Speaker 2>were trying to fill the screen with as many gags
<v Speaker 2>as possible. But now is it a mindset of like
<v Speaker 2>you said, you know, you're not really sure, but do
<v Speaker 2>you try and keep everything as cent a frame as possible?
<v Speaker 2>Because the United that's what's n.
<v Speaker 3>We don't think about that. I mean, we just put
<v Speaker 3>as many gags in as we think. Are we have
<v Speaker 3>energy to think of or are or are organic to
<v Speaker 3>the scene. To go back to your earlier question of
<v Speaker 3>like how the job is different now that I'm the showrunner.
<v Speaker 3>In those earlier days, when I was producing fewer episodes
<v Speaker 3>on my own, I had I could really have the
<v Speaker 3>energy just think about background jokes and details and oh,
<v Speaker 3>what are the twenty funny drinks on this menu? You
<v Speaker 3>see for one second that kind of stuff. Now I
<v Speaker 3>have to just hope other people bring that passion as well,
<v Speaker 3>because I don't have the bandwidth to think about, you know,
<v Speaker 3>making sure there's a menu with forty hilarious stupid cocktails
<v Speaker 3>you would never drink on it. But like there's a here, guys,
<v Speaker 3>let's talk about the Simpsons. There's an episode coming up
<v Speaker 3>that I think airs. Oh I'm wrong, I apologize. I
<v Speaker 3>think it airs April nineteenth, which.
<v Speaker 2>Is well Simpson's Day, guys, is it really?
<v Speaker 3>Ah?
<v Speaker 2>But obvious thing is to say we do it on
<v Speaker 2>the twentieth because we're day ahead. So yeah, so that's
<v Speaker 2>so that's going to be celebrating Wilson's Day in some
<v Speaker 2>way or is it just the case.
<v Speaker 3>Of if I'm wrong, I apologize to the Disney marketing
<v Speaker 3>team in advance. But I believe we are dropping a
<v Speaker 3>Disney Plus exclusive episode on that day that is a
<v Speaker 3>an other double episode. Is we did remember that Christmas
<v Speaker 3>one that Carowin produced and wrote I'll come, Oh, come
<v Speaker 3>on all faithful? That our first Disney Plus exclusive. So
<v Speaker 3>this is our fifth and sixth Disney Plus Exclusive. There's
<v Speaker 3>four on the Disney Plus app right now, so this
<v Speaker 3>will be number five and six. But it's a double.
<v Speaker 3>But what's really cool about it, and we've never done before,
<v Speaker 3>is that it's a trilogy, right like Halloween or we
<v Speaker 3>did other themed trilogies, Bible, Thanksgiving, Oracle Thanksgivings, Valentine's Day, Christmas,
<v Speaker 3>Christmas again. Revenge was one. You know, there's a lot
<v Speaker 3>of themes trilogies, but usually those are so it's really
<v Speaker 3>hard to fit. We did one with then art related ones.
<v Speaker 3>They're all pretty fun, and this is a trillo, but
<v Speaker 3>it has room to breathe. So each of the three
<v Speaker 3>segments is like eight minutes long, and the wrap around
<v Speaker 3>is like a real story, like a real episode story
<v Speaker 3>in and of itself. So there's like eight minutes of show,
<v Speaker 3>then an eight minute segment, then more show, you know,
<v Speaker 3>eight longer seven minute segment, show segment, show, so that,
<v Speaker 3>you know, but I think the whole thing's probably like
<v Speaker 3>it's even longer than two episodes because it's on streaming,
<v Speaker 3>so we're not really locked into.
<v Speaker 2>That commercial constraint.
<v Speaker 3>Personal constraint of like thirty or twenty forty or twenty
<v Speaker 3>one thirty depending how you look at it.
<v Speaker 2>So sounds like a mini movie.
<v Speaker 3>Let me see it is. Honestly, there is stuff in
<v Speaker 3>this that I was watching and I was like, could
<v Speaker 3>we just make this the movie? Like the file I
<v Speaker 3>have right here is forty five fifty six and.
<v Speaker 2>That that's the full episode and nothing cut from that. All.
<v Speaker 3>It might be slightly different, but it's it's almost forty
<v Speaker 3>six minutes.
<v Speaker 2>Do you find less picky when it comes to the
<v Speaker 2>editing side of things for the Disney Plus exclusive because
<v Speaker 2>you don't.
<v Speaker 3>Have to, Oh my god, the editing is a breeze.
<v Speaker 3>What we do is we go in when we're editing
<v Speaker 3>for Fox, we're cutting, we're editing for Disney Plus, we're extending.
<v Speaker 3>Let's pause on this, Let's create a moment. Let's let's
<v Speaker 3>hold to create comi comedy or tension or emotion or
<v Speaker 3>drama or whatever the scene demands. So yeah, so this
<v Speaker 3>is like very long. So it's one of our it's
<v Speaker 3>a trilogy with big pop cultural Simpson mashups. Oh there's
<v Speaker 3>mash ups. But it also is a legit a story
<v Speaker 3>with a wrap around about the family and then you
<v Speaker 3>know each of the three chunks is pretty long. We
<v Speaker 3>didn't have to like chop them up like we do
<v Speaker 3>with Halloween where they're so abbreviated. But the reason I'm
<v Speaker 3>even got on this tangent is there's a big pan
<v Speaker 3>across a kind of retro arcade, like a kind of
<v Speaker 3>nostalg arcade of and there's lots of funny video games
<v Speaker 3>that are full of Easter eggs and the kind of
<v Speaker 3>visual gags you guys were asking about before I went
<v Speaker 3>on this long winded digression. It's not only digression if
<v Speaker 3>it's about the topic of the podcast, which is the
<v Speaker 3>same as but but like, yeah, so we that was fun.
<v Speaker 3>And there's like some of like the old classic video
<v Speaker 3>games you know from the show, and then some new jokes,
<v Speaker 3>and then there's one this one writer's unbelievably funny, silly
<v Speaker 3>guy named John Frank, who's been on the show for
<v Speaker 3>twenty five thirty years. You always pitched this episode that
<v Speaker 3>was a very wild, kind of an Indiana Jones kind
<v Speaker 3>of show about called Nephertidi's Ale, about Moe locating some
<v Speaker 3>kind of lost magic beer called Nefertiti's Ale. And I
<v Speaker 3>don't remember many of the details, although I think it
<v Speaker 3>involved tattoos coming alive on your skin. And so there's
<v Speaker 3>a video game in this in this arcade called Nefertiti's Ale,
<v Speaker 3>So like, you know, we're having fun with with Easter
<v Speaker 3>eggs and actually this thing airs almost I don't know
<v Speaker 3>what Easter is, it's always different, but probably Easter adjacent. Right,
<v Speaker 3>April April's the easterreeest month, right, guys it.
<v Speaker 2>Is, It's the chocolate field month.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, March is just you know, long and bleak and depressing,
<v Speaker 1>and then you get to April.
<v Speaker 3>April is the eastest month. We can all agree. Then
<v Speaker 3>May in maybe March distant, third October not in the running.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, so you got the Simpsons Day special, we
<v Speaker 2>got the Frank story with the video arcade. But I
<v Speaker 2>was gonna ask you, so, do you find yourself just
<v Speaker 2>getting more excited for these Disney specials in the regular
<v Speaker 2>show sometimes because you just don't have these restraints of TV.
<v Speaker 3>You know, there's just a different kind of excitement. I
<v Speaker 3>mean there's a little more concern that you're, like, you
<v Speaker 3>want to make sure people find it because if it's
<v Speaker 3>only on streaming, and we only if it's not part
<v Speaker 3>of like the Beautiful post football American Football ratings hammock
<v Speaker 3>that we're in for like the rest of our network
<v Speaker 3>experience in America. There's these America that's he's think called
<v Speaker 3>TV networks. There's this guy named Rupert Murdoch. Maybe you've
<v Speaker 3>heard of him. Anyway, He's got this great network called
<v Speaker 3>Fox and we're on it.
<v Speaker 2>And how great does gift to the world?
<v Speaker 3>And I don't know, he's had a great run.
<v Speaker 2>And that little scrapa has a sense of.
<v Speaker 3>Humor, that's for sure. So yeah, so it's for these
<v Speaker 3>ones I really want there. They are special, They are
<v Speaker 3>a little more creatively. We think of them as slightly
<v Speaker 3>more parodies of like streaming, if you will, so like
<v Speaker 3>there are maybe less kind of regular episodes about the family.
<v Speaker 3>So the the ones we've dropped so far were the
<v Speaker 3>hour long Christmas one, which also me felt like a
<v Speaker 3>short movie and had a, you know, a kind of
<v Speaker 3>an epic feel. Then we did a one that was
<v Speaker 3>like a parody of the Animal Planet Blue Planet type
<v Speaker 3>documentaries that was obviously something you could see on streaming.
<v Speaker 3>We did kind of us more science fiction e one
<v Speaker 3>time traveling one with Lisa and mister.
<v Speaker 2>Burns, Joseph Gordon Levitt, right, that's Gordon.
<v Speaker 3>Have it exactly, and that like some of these even
<v Speaker 3>have little fake streamer graphics at the beginning to kind
<v Speaker 3>of say this is a parody of the kind of
<v Speaker 3>more weirder, artistic, ear strange, indulgent storytelling you would see
<v Speaker 3>on a streamer network rather than other stuff.
<v Speaker 2>But the thing is so with these with these specials though,
<v Speaker 2>So you're saying this one's forty five minutes long?
<v Speaker 3>It's forty five?
<v Speaker 2>Is there a month? Is there a mindset though of well,
<v Speaker 2>we can't go too long though, because you don't people
<v Speaker 2>to confuse this for the movie, because the movie is
<v Speaker 2>what what ninety minutes plus? I'm assuming, So it's like,
<v Speaker 2>we can't go Is there a month of we can't
<v Speaker 2>go over an hour? What's the what's the sort of
<v Speaker 2>the limit? Do you think, Well, we.
<v Speaker 3>Don't have the budget, we don't have any Our animation
<v Speaker 3>budget isn't any different. So it's really forty five would
<v Speaker 3>be the most we could ever get out of two,
<v Speaker 3>you know what I mean? It can't we can't spend
<v Speaker 3>infinite money. So there's there's there's there's a time budget,
<v Speaker 3>and there's like a money budget and can only afford
<v Speaker 3>to animate so much color animation. So this this this
<v Speaker 3>double trilogy or supersized trilogy, Homer size, it's called Homer
<v Speaker 3>size trilogy. I can't see one getting much longer than
<v Speaker 3>this sort of forty six minute.
<v Speaker 2>And I define if people want it to really I
<v Speaker 2>think that's probably enough, right.
<v Speaker 3>Probably not? And then the other two summer specials Disney
<v Speaker 3>Plus specials, those are just either of those are regular
<v Speaker 3>They're all regular size?
<v Speaker 2>Is that the plan going forward? Now? Less TV episodes
<v Speaker 2>and more specials? So to make the are they considered
<v Speaker 2>part of the season or is the season just shorter
<v Speaker 2>with specials? Now?
<v Speaker 3>Well, do we do seventeen new episodes a year, which
<v Speaker 3>is part of the production season? Fifteen of those airon
<v Speaker 3>Fox in the fall and two air on Disney Plus.
<v Speaker 3>Moving forward, so the four we have this summer are
<v Speaker 3>the leftover ones from season thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight,
<v Speaker 3>thirty nine, forty fifteen new ones on Fox in the fall.
<v Speaker 3>That's our season. Again. I'm not sure how it works
<v Speaker 3>in Australia, but probably similar and then are so then
<v Speaker 3>we'll next summer we'll have two specials in the spring
<v Speaker 3>and summer when there's no new Simpsons on Fox TV
<v Speaker 3>on Disney.
<v Speaker 1>Plus, they sound like they're really hitting the sweet spot
<v Speaker 1>Matt in terms of given that not the Sandal generation
<v Speaker 1>X slash boomer, but you know, with short attention spans
<v Speaker 1>these days, a forty five minute special, a forty five
<v Speaker 1>minute sort of episode. As you're talking about it feels like,
<v Speaker 1>as you said, homicides feel like, Oh, I'm getting something
<v Speaker 1>special here, I'm really filling up. But at the same time,
<v Speaker 1>it's not so long. It's like, oh, this is a
<v Speaker 1>real drag on my time or a real time suck.
<v Speaker 3>I hope. So Plus, the one we have has it's
<v Speaker 3>like stories within stories, so it's not you don't have
<v Speaker 3>to you know, you generally don't have to track one
<v Speaker 3>story for forty five minutes. It's a it's a pretty
<v Speaker 3>basic family story that is the wrap around, but very
<v Speaker 3>sweet and the there's three very you'll know what we're
<v Speaker 3>making fun of. Let's just say that you're not You're
<v Speaker 3>not gonna have any what our targets are, one of
<v Speaker 3>which Family.
<v Speaker 2>Guy has already done pretty well.
<v Speaker 3>I love Family Guy. I mean the version was also
<v Speaker 3>very funny. Some of some of this exact same jokes,
<v Speaker 3>some different jokes.
<v Speaker 1>Did I read somewhere that you were considering or have
<v Speaker 1>even done like a rip off slash homage of the
<v Speaker 1>Netflix series Ripley, you know, which was old in that
<v Speaker 1>very Yeah, that stock black and white, which was yeah,
<v Speaker 1>which I really really enjoyed. It's like, oh, that's it.
<v Speaker 1>I want to say, it's a deep cut for you
<v Speaker 1>guys to do, but it's like, Oh, that's pretty. It's
<v Speaker 1>pretty interesting that you guys are tackling something like that.
<v Speaker 3>Well, I think you're gonna love it. That's another one
<v Speaker 3>of our summer specials this summer. It is cizarre. Maseriegos
<v Speaker 3>wrote and produced it, and it is a thing of beauty.
<v Speaker 3>It is so artistic. It is so the shots, the lighting,
<v Speaker 3>the camera work, the black and white, the art, the Europe,
<v Speaker 3>the dark, twisted humanity on display at its worst. It's
<v Speaker 3>so good. It's a really it's a deep homage to
<v Speaker 3>like the move, both the books, the movie and the
<v Speaker 3>other and the TV show of which I've consumed all so.
<v Speaker 3>I've read all the high Smith Ripley books, which are
<v Speaker 3>good books, fun books, although if there is one flaw
<v Speaker 3>in them, it just seems to be he just gets
<v Speaker 3>lucky and gets away with it every time, which if
<v Speaker 3>you're a writer and like, luck is the reason the
<v Speaker 3>ending of the thing happens. Not that Ripley doesn't work hard.
<v Speaker 3>He does. He makes his own luck, but a lot
<v Speaker 3>of a lot of times at the end he's like,
<v Speaker 3>I hope they don't catch me. Oh, luckily they didn't.
<v Speaker 3>In the movie of that with the or the nineties
<v Speaker 3>movie with Matt Damon and Jude Law, which is such
<v Speaker 3>a good movie. And if you're interested in the art
<v Speaker 3>of screenwriting, read the Talented Mister Ripley book and then
<v Speaker 3>watch that movie and see how they rebroke it. Rebroke
<v Speaker 3>the story, recrafted an ending, kept what the essence of it,
<v Speaker 3>but still added new characters, built new drama, and crafted
<v Speaker 3>a unbelievably tragic, heartbreaking ending in the movie that doesn't
<v Speaker 3>exist in the book, where the ending is I got lucky,
<v Speaker 3>they didn't catch me. The ending of the book is
<v Speaker 3>a true movie ending. It's a tragedy, it's it's heartbreaking,
<v Speaker 3>but it is a real ending. It's a real movie.
<v Speaker 3>Like a movie should tell one story the end, except
<v Speaker 3>the Simpsons the movies, which then should tell other movies
<v Speaker 3>down the Road. But then then the show, which I
<v Speaker 3>was inclined to be to pooh pooh, I did not
<v Speaker 3>poo poo it. I peep eat it. I'm sorry you
<v Speaker 3>give that to your stunt. He'll like that. That's four
<v Speaker 3>year old humor right there. Ah, the show is so good,
<v Speaker 3>it's so funny. It's the show is legit funny. Also,
<v Speaker 3>the Black White I believe Stephen Zalien did it, and
<v Speaker 3>the show was our main inspiration, although I would say
<v Speaker 3>our ending is more akin to that from the movie,
<v Speaker 3>but much more twisted and dark and tragic, and there's
<v Speaker 3>stuff in this people are not gonna like.
<v Speaker 2>That's for sure, it must be great.
<v Speaker 1>Then when the creative urge or it's just hits in
<v Speaker 1>that way when you when someone sees something that's in
<v Speaker 1>the culture or just in the world around there goes oh,
<v Speaker 1>we can we can take that to Springfield, or we
<v Speaker 1>can do that on the Simpsons, and we can transmute
<v Speaker 1>and turn into something that's genuinely us. I mean, when's
<v Speaker 1>the last time you sort of really felt like that,
<v Speaker 1>that's like, all this stuff going on and weak, it's
<v Speaker 1>such great clay for us to turn into something with this.
<v Speaker 3>I was like, hey, Cisarre you should watch this and
<v Speaker 3>do a thing about it. And he was like, Okay, well,
<v Speaker 3>you know it's a good it's really good feeling. I
<v Speaker 3>mean we haven't like hasn't been another streaming thing that
<v Speaker 3>we've been able to kind of super soak up their
<v Speaker 3>style of And we.
<v Speaker 2>Did the white Lotus in a best season ago, didn't you.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, white Lotus, low Lotus. Uh for sure, But like
<v Speaker 3>that's it still feels that it's still more. It's still
<v Speaker 3>like it's still have the Simpsons in their own reality,
<v Speaker 3>Like this thing is not, oh not in their reality?
<v Speaker 2>Is there a fit to when you're making these I
<v Speaker 2>say parodies, but you know what I mean in homage
<v Speaker 2>that the audience haven't seen the source material, so you
<v Speaker 2>have to sort of write in a way that is
<v Speaker 2>still entertaining if the audience hasn't seen it. Or do
<v Speaker 2>you just expect them to just go back and do
<v Speaker 2>their research and then enjoy it more. I guess you could.
<v Speaker 3>Say, whenever you're telling the story, it has to work
<v Speaker 3>regardless of the source material. But I'm not worried or
<v Speaker 3>I don't expect them to know what it is. Some
<v Speaker 3>people will know what it is. The ridiculously idealistic goal
<v Speaker 3>is that people who don't know what it is will
<v Speaker 3>then go watch the source material and open their minds
<v Speaker 3>to something they wouldn't have ordinarily seen. Like when I
<v Speaker 3>was young in the nineteen oh twenties or whatever, and
<v Speaker 3>I would read Mad Magazine and like, I don't know
<v Speaker 3>what Rosemary's Baby is that they're parodying, but that I would,
<v Speaker 3>you know, and go watch Rosemary's Baby here. So I
<v Speaker 3>don't know any young people have that type of curiosity anymore.
<v Speaker 3>With the phones in their faces.
<v Speaker 2>You would assume they would, though, Yeah, you think that
<v Speaker 2>was Researching should be easier now than ever, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, but I think that's what That's what the
<v Speaker 2>Simpsons did well in what people call the Golden Era
<v Speaker 2>was I was watching it as a kid, and you'd go,
<v Speaker 2>I know, I don't really quite know what this is,
<v Speaker 2>but I know it's something, and I'm going to go
<v Speaker 2>find out what it is.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, the Simpsons in the Golden Ere it did better
<v Speaker 3>than what we do is they would just do like
<v Speaker 3>a one minute scene that was a parody of say,
<v Speaker 3>Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
<v Speaker 2>Where they would just Indiana Jones or the Homer down
<v Speaker 2>the stairs.
<v Speaker 3>Now we don't have the luxury of the of the
<v Speaker 3>one minute parody. We have to do the full episode parody.
<v Speaker 3>Are deep into the eight hundreds, so we do a
<v Speaker 3>full you know, six minutes of Who's Afraid of Virginia
<v Speaker 3>Wolf for you know, twenty two minutes of Ripley.
<v Speaker 2>One thing I found with season thirty seven is it
<v Speaker 2>actually feels like a new version of the show. It
<v Speaker 2>feels fresh, it feels new. And that's not just like
<v Speaker 2>the writing or anything. I'm talking about just the way
<v Speaker 2>it's structured. So I've noticed a few tweaks besides the
<v Speaker 2>eight hundred episode. You seem to have just removed the
<v Speaker 2>intro and the couch gag they're gone, and with the
<v Speaker 2>closing credits there's always a scene over the credits now
<v Speaker 2>as opposed to just the theme song. Were these tweaks
<v Speaker 2>that you had in mind for a long time to
<v Speaker 2>implement once you became showrunner or what was the mindset
<v Speaker 2>behind that? Was just to bring more Simpsons because you
<v Speaker 2>know you're cutting back the one minute intro. It's just
<v Speaker 2>getting more story time into the show.
<v Speaker 3>Well, you asked too smart, too smart observations. I was
<v Speaker 3>rising one few, very few couch gags. I wish we
<v Speaker 3>could have a time for a funny couch gag every episode,
<v Speaker 3>but I'm not going to cut the storytelling short to
<v Speaker 3>do so. So to me, the episode is a thousand
<v Speaker 3>times more important than this flight of fancy at the beginning.
<v Speaker 3>Sometimes the show is short and we have a couch gag,
<v Speaker 3>but usually it's just I want to tell the best
<v Speaker 3>story we can, and you work to do that. We're
<v Speaker 3>going to need twenty minutes and forty seconds. The Disney
<v Speaker 3>Plus double that I just mentioned, the trilogy called the
<v Speaker 3>title of which is Extreme Makeover Homer Edition, there is
<v Speaker 3>a mega couchgag on that. Okay, that is very cool
<v Speaker 3>and is a collaboration. I can't say who we collaborate with.
<v Speaker 3>We collaborate with very special team of artists to make that. Also,
<v Speaker 3>for the eight hundredth we said we said to ourselves, oh,
<v Speaker 3>this is the eight hundredth we need a couch gag.
<v Speaker 3>So we did do a big, dark, weird couch gag.
<v Speaker 3>Then we realize, oh, no, we don't have time for this.
<v Speaker 3>We can either cut the episode to pieces, but then
<v Speaker 3>when the show drops on a different kind of streaming
<v Speaker 3>probably it's already dropped already. Now the couch gag is
<v Speaker 3>on the streaming will be on the streaming version. And
<v Speaker 3>also it was kind of cool that in other countries
<v Speaker 3>there weren't the same time constraints, so they kind of
<v Speaker 3>leaked that immediately and people were like, oh, this is
<v Speaker 3>like a bonus secret, hidden thing.
<v Speaker 2>I was so confused, right because we watched the we
<v Speaker 2>watched the division, we watched the visional version, right, we're
<v Speaker 2>doing a review of the entre of the episode, and
<v Speaker 2>then on the wikipag just says, here's the catch gag,
<v Speaker 2>and I went, did I miss something here? What is
<v Speaker 2>going on? And then on the Disney Plus version there
<v Speaker 2>it was, and I was like, ah, did I just
<v Speaker 2>forget to put it into the episode? But that explains
<v Speaker 2>it yet yet, because it was quite a lone one.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, every streaming service has our own bit of
<v Speaker 3>rules of how data and ratings are analyzed. But like
<v Speaker 3>in America, we can put the longer version on seven
<v Speaker 3>days after the original airing, So the longer version went
<v Speaker 3>on after seven days. So for these little tags, these
<v Speaker 3>little tag things, Fox came to us and they're you know,
<v Speaker 3>they're smart. Fox is smart and they're trying to keep
<v Speaker 3>network TV alive and they're doing a great job, so
<v Speaker 3>they're like, you know, it really helps the next show
<v Speaker 3>if instead of having the credits over black, there was
<v Speaker 3>a little bit of animation there kind of keep people's
<v Speaker 3>interests peaked, right, And sometimes we would we would do
<v Speaker 3>tags on about half the episodes anyway, with a little
<v Speaker 3>if there was like a little funny bit of extra
<v Speaker 3>animation or a fun idea, or like just some funny
<v Speaker 3>stills with a song or something or so, but now
<v Speaker 3>we should have said to Fox, Okay, this is a
<v Speaker 3>good idea, let's put color animation over the end of
<v Speaker 3>every show. But we can't always afford to do, or
<v Speaker 3>rarely afford to do forty seconds of new animation. So
<v Speaker 3>we will find creative ways to kind of create these
<v Speaker 3>little extra comedy sequences. And it's actually kind of fun
<v Speaker 3>to think of them. It's kind of creatively, it can
<v Speaker 3>be quite fun to craft bits of comedy with no budget.
<v Speaker 3>You know, you have no budget, so what can you
<v Speaker 3>do with editing and music and stills and existing stuff
<v Speaker 3>or leftover stuff, as opposed to the blank canvas of
<v Speaker 3>do whatever you want for forty seconds.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, for me personally, as a lifelong fan, it
<v Speaker 2>felt like, oh, there's no more topboard gags. Ah, there's
<v Speaker 2>no more catch gags. It felt like they were part
<v Speaker 2>of the show. But realistically, in twenty twenty six, we're
<v Speaker 2>living the world of the skip intro button, and you
<v Speaker 2>can guarantee that most people watching the show are just
<v Speaker 2>skipping that intro. I'm missing that cauch gig anyway, So
<v Speaker 2>it's probably good thing that you just ripped that band
<v Speaker 2>aid off and went look, well, saving for the specials,
<v Speaker 2>But do we really need them anymore? Probably not right.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, if I had infinite money, I would put
<v Speaker 3>a cash gag on every episode that would just pop
<v Speaker 3>up on streaming and you'd be surprised by it. But
<v Speaker 3>we have to put our money into what's on the
<v Speaker 3>main product first. But that skip intro phenomenon you mentioned,
<v Speaker 3>we have a joke about that. Simpson's predicted it. We
<v Speaker 3>have a joke about that also in that Extreme Double episode,
<v Speaker 3>Extreme Makeover Homer Edition episode. So you you're thinking the
<v Speaker 3>way we're thinking.
<v Speaker 1>I'm shocked to learn you don't have inputite money.
<v Speaker 2>Matt.
<v Speaker 1>You mentioned the collaboration that's on the Extreme makeo of
<v Speaker 1>a Homer edition.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I'm wondering.
<v Speaker 1>About guest stars and collaborations and working with other people.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, how often are you sort of revising your
<v Speaker 1>wish list in that regard and how sort of I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, how often are you approaching people, you know,
<v Speaker 1>whether it's guest starts to do voices, whether it's bands
<v Speaker 1>to add music, whether it's artists who are adding their
<v Speaker 1>own particular style and flavor to the show. How receptive
<v Speaker 1>are they? How receptive are they designing? Yeah, I'd love
<v Speaker 1>to be a part of it.
<v Speaker 3>You know, people are usually very into it. It's a
<v Speaker 3>kind of a luxury item that we don't usually have
<v Speaker 3>time or money for. But it's sort of those things
<v Speaker 3>that you rarely have time that to sit down and think, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>who's the cool who's the Banksy of twenty twenty seven
<v Speaker 3>who we could collab with? Right? And they of course
<v Speaker 3>thrilled to do it the way Banksy was. You know,
<v Speaker 3>It's it's rare to think and then do we have
<v Speaker 3>the bandwidth to make it great? I mean, Banksy made
<v Speaker 3>it great, and the one coming up also made it
<v Speaker 3>really great. I mean, I wish I don't know when
<v Speaker 3>we're going to announce it, but very pleased with it.
<v Speaker 2>Now. I know you hate the word timeline, right, I've
<v Speaker 2>just just just bear with me. Right. So in the
<v Speaker 2>season pilot we reviewed on the PODO, both really enjoyed it.
<v Speaker 2>Fell it c classic people say classic Simpsons. It was
<v Speaker 2>thrifty Waist to Save your Mother. It was the one
<v Speaker 2>where it felt like you reset the timelines that Marge
<v Speaker 2>and Homer were young in the nineties with March pulling
<v Speaker 2>out the David decollection of Dawson's Creek and whatnot. But
<v Speaker 2>I'm watching this going There's been other episodes like that,
<v Speaker 2>like that nineties show and one where Homer works in
<v Speaker 2>the pizza parlor where it feels like they were sort
<v Speaker 2>of in their own bubble. This one felt like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>if canon could exist, it felt like it was canon.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm watching this going my child who was seven,
<v Speaker 2>my my daughter was five watching this their parents are me,
<v Speaker 2>myself and my wife where Homer and Marge's age now
<v Speaker 2>and we grew up in the nineties. So I'm thinking,
<v Speaker 2>do they now have the mindset of kids watching the
<v Speaker 2>show now? Because the show is made for kids, So
<v Speaker 2>do we want to make it, so it feels more
<v Speaker 2>relatable for kids watching that their parents who are Homer
<v Speaker 2>in Marger's age are now in the nineties. Is that
<v Speaker 2>a mancher going forward or was that just specifically for
<v Speaker 2>that episode.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's for that episode. I don't think we're
<v Speaker 3>really ever seeing anything as permanent, or anything is sticky,
<v Speaker 3>or any cannon is one is better than another. And
<v Speaker 3>I don't really one hundred percent think the show is
<v Speaker 3>for written for kids. I think it's in a dream world.
<v Speaker 3>It's written for kids and parents to watch together, where
<v Speaker 3>like the parents watched it when they were kids the
<v Speaker 3>way you did, so like there'll be some jokes for
<v Speaker 3>the parents and some jokes for the kids, but the
<v Speaker 3>jokes that only the parents like the kids won't ask
<v Speaker 3>what does that mean? And even then we don't even
<v Speaker 3>do that many of those anymore because we're also we're old,
<v Speaker 3>and that's kind of a Sneaking in dirty things is
<v Speaker 3>like kind of a young man's game, ah and woman
<v Speaker 3>young women's game. So it's not now, there's nothing conscious
<v Speaker 3>about it. There's nothing universal, there's no like official anything
<v Speaker 3>to me, like there's another one of our fantastic Disney
<v Speaker 3>Bus exclusives. Written and produced by the amazing Caroinomine has
<v Speaker 3>flashback material connected to the first flashback episode where the
<v Speaker 3>Homer and Margin high school in the seventies. So that's
<v Speaker 3>you know, I think all all timelines are happening at
<v Speaker 3>the same time, and there's no one or another that
<v Speaker 3>takes precedence. And I mean we have we still haven't
<v Speaker 3>done a flashback show set in the two thousands, but
<v Speaker 3>we could.
<v Speaker 2>Do you have an idea of when you're writing an episode,
<v Speaker 2>because obviously you said it's for adults and for kids,
<v Speaker 2>but now when you're writing it, do you have the
<v Speaker 2>menture of the adults watching grew up watching the show
<v Speaker 2>as well? So do you try to have sort of
<v Speaker 2>hidden references or back references or meta gags that go, hey,
<v Speaker 2>remember when this happened? Already trying to avoid that stuff.
<v Speaker 3>You know, sometimes if it feels playful and fun and
<v Speaker 3>not burdens them, like in the have you guys seen that.
<v Speaker 2>You've seen the eight hundredths, right, yeap, Yeah, we reviewed
<v Speaker 2>it last weight.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So like you know, in the beginning, you're cutting
<v Speaker 3>forward and Homer is wearing outfits.
<v Speaker 2>From stone cutters and stuff that, Yeah, you.
<v Speaker 3>Know, episodes over the thirty eight years, thirty seven years.
<v Speaker 3>You know, he's a stone cutter guy, and he's the
<v Speaker 3>pie man guy, and so I mean, you know, we're
<v Speaker 3>just sort of being playable with the idea that like
<v Speaker 3>all these stories, somehow magically happened in one year, which,
<v Speaker 3>of course that would be quite mad if that happened
<v Speaker 3>to one group of people, because it's just there's just
<v Speaker 3>too many. The paradoxes and impossibilities pile up at a
<v Speaker 3>startling rate, and more so every year. So just just
<v Speaker 3>be silly.
<v Speaker 2>But what is the Matt Salmon vision for the Simpsons?
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, you know, just to me what I
<v Speaker 3>alllo say when I watch shows that I'm associated with
<v Speaker 3>and I feel the storytelling is good, and by storytelling,
<v Speaker 3>I mean it brings up an interesting character journey. That
<v Speaker 3>journey is satisfyingly told with good with the character suffering
<v Speaker 3>and having setbacks and having it you know, things get
<v Speaker 3>worse and worse and harder and harder, you know, and
<v Speaker 3>it resolves in a way where the character has grown
<v Speaker 3>a little bit at least that week, and then next
<v Speaker 3>week it's all reset. I just to me, are the
<v Speaker 3>ones where I watch it and I feel like the
<v Speaker 3>storytelling is good classical storytelling of like like the way
<v Speaker 3>you would write a movie of like a three acts
<v Speaker 3>story where like I'll just say, for example, this episode
<v Speaker 3>I'm Super Proud of written by Ryan Coe that was
<v Speaker 3>called The Dad Feelings Limit that begins with the comparison
<v Speaker 3>of Homer in Marg's and Comic Book Guy and his
<v Speaker 3>wife Camiko's days and they're doing hipster fun things with
<v Speaker 3>no responsibilities and Homer and Margin and a nightmare end
<v Speaker 3>of birthday parties with kids stuff, and that's it seems
<v Speaker 3>just like a random set piece, but really that's the
<v Speaker 3>premise of the episode, like what is it to be
<v Speaker 3>a parent and what does that feel like? And Comic
<v Speaker 3>Book Guy doesn't want to be a parent, And then
<v Speaker 3>he briefly he watches a movie with Bart and Lisa
<v Speaker 3>and then feels that thing that you felt, you know,
<v Speaker 3>when you show Simpsons to your kids and there you're
<v Speaker 3>watching it again for the first time. Like that's that's
<v Speaker 3>that's a universal human experience in which to build an episode.
<v Speaker 3>So Comic Book Guy briefly changes his mind and is
<v Speaker 3>open having a kids, but then when Bart and Lisa
<v Speaker 3>then have emotional needs that they need to be you know, comforted.
<v Speaker 3>He can't do it. He's too closed off, he's not
<v Speaker 3>prepared for that. And then he runs to his family
<v Speaker 3>we've never met before, and we see the dysfunctional origin
<v Speaker 3>of his father with hell love using the toolkit of
<v Speaker 3>Wes Anderson movies and that ultra quirk tweenness. And then
<v Speaker 3>in order to like for comic book Guy to be
<v Speaker 3>open to having kids, his own father has to apologize
<v Speaker 3>for his own failings and you know, with emotionally, withholding
<v Speaker 3>energy of only caring about things and not caring about
<v Speaker 3>people and only caring about collecting. So you know, people
<v Speaker 3>think I'm a lunatic for liking my own material, of
<v Speaker 3>our own material, But that is like a beautifully told
<v Speaker 3>story with many great character moves and unexpected journeys, but
<v Speaker 3>it is all one super coherent story about a universal
<v Speaker 3>experience of deciding whether or not you want to be
<v Speaker 3>a parent or not.
<v Speaker 2>Matt.
<v Speaker 1>With that in mind, I'd like to ask about maybe
<v Speaker 1>your criteria for bringing new people on board, if you
<v Speaker 1>actually do that, because it things like no one leaves.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if I mean someone who wants to
<v Speaker 3>work on the show. I generally just try to get
<v Speaker 3>out of the conversation as fast as I can. I
<v Speaker 3>can't help them. I can't really help them or save them,
<v Speaker 3>And I you know, the universe is unfair and I cannot.
<v Speaker 3>I cannot change those unfairnesses. But I'm just trying. My
<v Speaker 3>main goal is to protect the jobs of all of
<v Speaker 3>our writers and producers and animators and musicians from the
<v Speaker 3>onslaught of technology and budgets and everything. So rather than
<v Speaker 3>bringing new people in, I'm really just trying to like
<v Speaker 3>allow the people who have worked here and made the
<v Speaker 3>show excellent to have a you know, a good safe
<v Speaker 3>life from everrom you know, everybody on them all the
<v Speaker 3>way up the ladder.
<v Speaker 2>Well.
<v Speaker 1>That leads into the second part of a two POC question.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't say it was a two poc question. How
<v Speaker 1>much of your job do you view as maintaining what
<v Speaker 1>the show is and how much of it is exploring
<v Speaker 1>it and creating what it can be.
<v Speaker 3>It's just how do we not waste the opportunity to
<v Speaker 3>keep this show original? Every day? So is it brave
<v Speaker 3>to do a show about Ripley where Homer is a
<v Speaker 3>very version of Homer? Some people are gonna think is
<v Speaker 3>pretty saucy or is it desperate? You know, is it
<v Speaker 3>courage or is it desperation? And there's you know, it's
<v Speaker 3>a great it's a great Brice Sprinting is a great musician,
<v Speaker 3>and he's a great poet. And it's just it's a
<v Speaker 3>line that I think about a lot. So the answer is,
<v Speaker 3>I can't tell my courage for my desperation. But you
<v Speaker 3>guys are awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Matt, You're awesome. We appreciate all of your time.
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna listen to this as soon as it comes
<v Speaker 3>out in a kind of narcissistic cycle of self love.
<v Speaker 3>So I'm looking forward to.
<v Speaker 2>That all the best. Thank you again, man,