Latest / Four Finger Discount (Simpsons Podcast) / A Lifetime with The Simpsons | Mike Reiss Interview

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A Lifetime with The Simpsons | Mike Reiss Interview · Four Finger Discount (Simpsons Podcast)

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Four finger discount, dude.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Hey everybody, welcome to a very special episode of Four
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Finger Discount, where this week we're not going to be
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: reviewing a Simpsons episode, but we will be talking to
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: somebody that has written plenty of them. It's Mike Rees.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: How are you doing, sir?
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: How are you doing? A pleasure to be here. Do
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: you keep track who's written the most? For years, it
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: was always John Swartzwelder. He wrote 59, but I get
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: the feeling over time, people are closing in on him.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Joel Coen's and People like that.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Do you still consult with the show at all? Are
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: you still a part of the team, essentially?
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: No, I ceased working for them just about two years ago.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Did you leave the similar time that Al left? Because
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I know he still sort of consults, but he's not
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: a showrunner anymore.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: He is not a showrunner. Yes, there were major shakeups
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: about two or three years ago as Matt Selman took
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: over the show. And I was part of that. I
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: was shaken out.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: All hail our Salmon overlords.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Was that by choice? Did you want to leave the show?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Because it seems like a gig for the Simpsons, you're
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: never ever going to give that up, you would think.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Well, I'm going to give you the longer story here,
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: which was, so I was consulting one day a week.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: I would go in every Wednesday. And so I moved
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: to New York. The show's in LA. And I would
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: fly back and forth every Wednesday. And It was killing me,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: but I love New York and I love the job.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: And then a miracle happened, which was COVID. COVID hit
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: and the show went on Zoom and it worked perfectly.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: And it went on Zoom and then stayed on Zoom
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: for four years. And I loved it. I could go
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: anywhere I wanted in the world and just Zoom in
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: on Wednesdays. And then two or three years ago, Selma
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: and said, no, we want you all back in the
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: office again. It had been working perfectly. And yet still,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: he wanted us back in the office. And I tried
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: that for a year. And I just couldn't do it anymore.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: And I kept telling my wife, I'm going to quit.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I'm going to quit. And she said, oh, don't quit.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: She was like olive oil. Oh, no, Popeye, don't quit
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: the job. And And then they called and said, well,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: you're fired. And the technical term is they eliminated my position.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: There were five. This is how I should have started
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: the story. There were five consultants at the show. A
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: different one of us would come in every day. And
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: one of the executive producers hated that. He just hated
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: having consultants. And he was firing us one at a time.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: And it was like an Agatha Christie mystery. We're like,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: who's going to go next? And I won't say who,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: me and this other fellow hung into the bitter end.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: We were the last two. And then they called and
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: fired us both one day. Or again, the term is
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: they eliminated the position. They were just getting rid of consultants.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: So that day, they fired two guys with a combined...
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: 68 years experience on The Simpsons.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And then there were none. Oh my goodness. Mike, tell
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: us about what your consultancy role actually entailed when you
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: got there for the day.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Yes. I would just walk in. You know, The Simpsons
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: is just an assembly line. Except that some Thursdays they
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: have reading days where we bring the cast in. Every
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: single day is exactly the same. It's just people sitting
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: around a table rewriting scripts or occasionally getting together to
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: screen an animatic, a halfway finished episode, or a full-color episode.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: But there's no days, and in fact, there's no seasons.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: You never know what month it is there. So I
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: would go in on Wednesdays, and it seems like my
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: specific job was to let people know it's Wednesday, They
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: would see me and go, oh, it must be Wednesday.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: If it's Mike, it must be Wednesday.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: That's it, exactly. So I thought when they did that
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: show Wednesday that I was set alock for the lead.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: So I would just go in and I'd go, what
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: are we doing today? And they would generally hand me
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: the script we were going to rewrite or tell me, oh,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: we're going to screen a color episode at 2 o'clock.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: But I would do whatever was going on.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: It sounds silly, but were you relieved to be eliminated
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: from your role?
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: It is not silly. The moment they said, you're not
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: working here anymore, I felt a physical weight come off
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: of me. I literally, you know, not just metaphorical, I
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: felt this weight leave my shoulders. And I realized, oh,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: I'd spent the past 36 years looking for material all
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: the time, just looking around, can I use that? Would
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: that be good on The Simpsons? So, yeah, I could
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: not be happier. Again, I love the show. I love
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: working there. I love the people who work there. But
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I could not be happier not working there.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Does that comic instinct remain, however? I mean, is it
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: sort of hard to wean yourself off looking around some...
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: not necessarily looking actively for material or inspiration but it
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: just sort of coming to you regardless just by sort
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: of uh by reflex.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Yes yeah it does you're always keeping your eyes open
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: for funny things that even if it's only going to
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: turn into a tweet or something like that but uh
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: yeah it's always on you it must i i've reached
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: a rate an age though where It's a bad thing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: You go, oh, I don't want to have a new idea.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: You know, the worst thing in the world is going, oh,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: this would make a good screenplay. Oh, I don't want
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: to write a screenplay. And yet you don't write it down.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: You hope you forget about it.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: These are what we call champagne problems.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I must sound like the biggest ass.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Doing this a long time.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: You're probably doing that longer than you weren't doing that yes.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah i mean i've been a professional writer comedy writer
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: for 45 years good going yeah and even you know
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: longer than that because i was i was doing it
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: professionally while i was in college too so yeah i
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: had about 20 years of non-comedy writing and even i
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: got well enough of this guy you know let's Let's
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: find some nice young people to do the job.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Did you still enjoy being in the office though on
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the Wednesday?
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: I really did. I loved it. I love those guys.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's, it's one of the secrets of Simpson
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: success is the idea. It's such a nice place to work.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: The people are so kind, you know, there've been so
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: few jerks who work there over 37 years. It's just
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: a little miracle.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: When you say you were a professional at college, were
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you pitching stories to publications? Were you coming up with
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: ideas for TV shows? How did that work?
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I tried a little of that, thinking of TV shows.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Al Jean and I would do that. But mostly we,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: Al and I both, were writing for National Lampoon magazine,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: which was in America the... At the time, it was
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: the only outlet for adult humor in America. I mean,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: it was a humor magazine, and it was a huge success.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, these are the people who made Animal House
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: and did that, but just a cultural phenomenon. And as
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: I was growing up, I said, gee, someday I'm going
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: to get a job at National Lampoon. That's as far
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: as I ever wanted to go. And then I got
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: the job right out of college, and then it was like, well,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: now what?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Is it a sort of a natural pipeline from the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Harvard Lampoon to the National Lampoon?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: It started out that way. The National Lampoon was started
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: by three alumni of the Harvard Lampoon, and it's funny,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: it's a little like the Simpsons in that its early
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: staff was a bunch of Harvard Lampoon guys and then
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: when someone else took over, he purged all the Harvard people,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: and the magazine went about seven or eight years with
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: no Harvard people on it, and then a guy named
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Brian McCormick got a job there from Harvard, brilliant guy
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: from Harvard, got in there, and he kind of opened
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: the door a crack, and Al Jean and myself got in,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: and after us, Kevin Curran, another future Simpsons writer, got
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: in there.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I want to ask just a little bit about the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Harvard Lampoon, if you don't mind, because I mean, did
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: earning the position of being president of the Lampoon, did
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: that confirm to you that you were legitimately funny? I mean,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: or that you could be professionally funny?
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: It was nice.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: It was, except it was, there was, the politics at
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: the Harvard Lampoon were so dirty and chaotic, you know,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: sort of like American politics where, Every year there was
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: a guy that definitely you were sure was going to
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: win the presidency.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: He was the funniest guy, and he worked hard, and
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: everyone liked him, and then he wouldn't win. And often
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: it would be some guy who never hung around or
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: came in. It was some weird kink in the system
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: that the best man never won. And so I came in.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I kind of thought I would win, I thought. And
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: then it wound up. I almost lost, and then it
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: wound up being a tie, and I wound up being
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: co-president with John Vitti, who I wound up working with
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: at Simpsons a few years later.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just picturing a Dewey beats Truman kind of thing.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It was really, it got ugly, and it got surreal,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: and there were a lot of hard feelings, and we
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: had an impeachment once. It's It's like the joke they
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: make about academia where I think it gets so very
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: vicious because there is so little at stake. And that
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: was it. Once I became president, I just hated the job.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: It just was a lot of work. And, you know,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: going to the Harvard Lampoon used to be just this
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: fun activity every day. And suddenly it became my place
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: of work.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Was it similar when you became showrunner with Al?
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, those were terrible days. Again, I'll tell
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: you a funny story. When I became a consultant again
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: at the show.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: What season was this?
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Maybe 10, something like that. Yeah, I had been gone
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: for a couple of years and I came back and
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: I had it in my contract that Everybody was my boss.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to be the boss of anything. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: didn't want to be put in charge of anything. I
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: just wanted to come in and be funny. So I
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: came in my first day, and the only guy there
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: was Matt Warburton, who had just been hired. He'd been
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: on the job for three days. He was 22 years old.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: I said to him, hi, boss. What are we doing today?
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: How did Matt react to that?
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: He was a little nonplussed.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Was that about the Simpson Tide era? Was that when
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: you made Simpson Tide?
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: It was probably after that. I think, yeah, we did
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Simpson Tide, which might have been kind of the last
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: thing we did. You know, still clinging in where we,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: you know, we were there sort of continuously. And then
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: for two years, we, I guess Al had gone back
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: full time and I said, I'm going to be an artist.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I will do other things. And nothing worked out. And
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: then it was, I think it was Mike Scully, who
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I didn't even know, just asked me to come back
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: to the show.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I was going to ask, did you ask to come
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: back or did they ask you?
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: They asked me. They asked me. And I wasn't sure.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: And I don't know how many days I was consulting.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: It might have been even three days a week. That's
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the funny thing about getting fired was... we never, we
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: were slowly getting fired for about 25 years. Cause we
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: used to, I used to consult three days a week
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and then they cut it to two days a week
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: and they kept chipping away at our salaries. And, uh,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: then it was one day every other week. And then
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I was, I always thought, okay, why don't you just say,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: come in every solar eclipse.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So I might do this. I, Can Mike Reese take
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: a hint?
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: That was it. Nobody would ever quit the job. You know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: it was funny. Pamela Hayden, who plays Milhouse on the show,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: just retired recently. She, a couple of years ago, said,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not doing Milhouse anymore. And I literally think she's
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: the first person in the history of The Simpsons to
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: just walk away, just to leave. It was so... And
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I wrote to her, I said, Pam, you know, our
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: voice actors only leave when they die. But she, that
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: was it. I never knew why she left. Again, with
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: somebody we just loved having around and was such a
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: nice job.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on that, on the fact that the
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: voice cast, I mean, they don't sound the same anymore.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I still, you know, I enjoy the show.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: I watch it with my kids now and they often
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: point out, they go, why does Marge sound different? It's
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: just because the voice actress is a bit older, but
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: it's the same person. They go, okay, fair enough, and
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: they just go with it. But what are your thoughts?
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: What happens when The Simpsons comes to a point where
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the voice cast just can't do it anymore? What do
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: you think is the future for it then?
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Well, they'll recast. They will definitely recast.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: It's a paradox. Our Simpsons fans especially say, don't change anything,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: and this got bad when you changed it, and they
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: keep it the way it was, but then they'll hear
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: certain of our actors and go, well, get rid of them.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: They've been there forever, but they don't sound right anymore.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: It'll be tough. I don't know. I will say, again,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: tied up with my own termination, The Simpsons can be
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: very unsentimental. And again, I'm not sure even who's firing people,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: but You know, the way they got rid of Alf
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Clausen after 28 years. They just decided, okay, his work
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: is not up to par anymore.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: What was their justification for that? I know it's easy
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: to say the work wasn't up to par, but in
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: my opinion, it was.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Yes. I don't know. I'm not going to, because I
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: wasn't there for it, but For whatever reason, they just
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: said he's not doing the work he used to do.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: What was the justification they gave you for eliminating your job?
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It's easy to say we're just eliminating him, but why
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: did they do that?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Did they have to give calls?
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Boy, I realized they didn't tell me.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: They never gave me a reason.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know if they thought, well, it's self-evident. You're
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: old and you suck.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: You're probably too busy thinking, thank God.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Because it's probably one of those things where you've probably
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: felt like, I would never leave this show because it's
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: The Simpsons. I'm never going to leave it. Even though
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I want to be gone, I'm not going to be
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: willing to do that.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Right. That was it. It would be crazy to walk
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: away from such a nice job. But as I say,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: it was really getting very hard. The other thing, if any,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I'm sure I've lost everybody by now. My stories are
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: dull and I'm completely unsympathetic. But during those four years
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: we were on Zoom, I developed a whole new career.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: This is what I do now is I am a
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: lecturer on cruise ships. I get on a cruise ship
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: and I'll give six to ten different lectures on about comedy,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: about TV, about writing. One is all about The Simpsons.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: And I love this job. I mean, I am on
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: cruise ships 47 weeks a year. And that became great.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: And then when Selman said, oh, we need you back
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: in the office, I had to give all that up.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: That was it. It was a real... And that... That
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: was the reason I didn't want to go back to
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: appearing in person. I wasn't putting in that much time
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: at the Simpsons, but I was doing enough that I
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: couldn't speak on cruise ships anymore.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: I'm just visioning you on a Disney cruise with little
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Mickey Mouse ears on doing a lecture.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: They do not want me there, but I would love
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: to do that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: You've got that captive audience as well. I mean, yeah,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: what are they going to do? Go to the Lido deck? No,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: they'll stick around and listen to Mike.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: They come, yes.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Can we rewind a little, Mike, and maybe go back
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to when you and Al were given the reins of
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the show, essentially. I guess I wanted to find out
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: how you guys wanted to improve is maybe not the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: right word, but enhance the show or maybe put your
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: stamp on it. I mean, what did you view as
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: your sort of mission statement?
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: We had no mission statement. I mean, Al is very
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: famous for saying we were scared to death. We had
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: just never run anything. You know, we'd never run a show.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: We'd never even run a rewrite room. And they're putting
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: us in charge of the show that had instantly become
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: A worldwide institution.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Biggest show on TV. Yeah.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Biggest show on TV. And they're putting a couple of
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: neophytes in charge of it. We were scared to death.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: And so we just worked as hard as we could.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, there was just... not a moment's relaxation uh
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: for for a couple of years i mean and we
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: had no vision we just wanted to keep it going
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: and keep it good we wound up i know Just
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: changing the show a little. It got a little sillier
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: in season four. For some reason, there was always an
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: animal in an episode. That was something we wound up doing.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You know, there would be a moose eating out of
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: the Simpsons trash can, something like that. I think it
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: got a little sillier, a little cuttier. It was sort
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: of our style of... that gave way to what we
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: would wind up doing on The Critic, and then Seth
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: MacFarlane would be appropriating for Family Guy.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Did you grow tired of it, of working for the show,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: or did you grow bored of it, would you say?
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, I never grew bored. No, I mean, you have
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: to believe me, it was two years of solid pressure
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: and constant work. I mean, I gained 70 pounds during
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: those two years. I was just always working. We would work,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: you know, the writing day was about 10 to 8
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: o'clock every day, and our writers grumbled about that, 10
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: to 8 o'clock. A lot of them had come from
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: a show like Letterman where the day ends when you
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: record the show. And so they're working 10 to 8,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: and none of them really knew that Al and I
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: would come in at 8 a.m., and we'd be editing
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: and doing administration all morning. And then at 10 o'clock,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: we'd write. We'd write until 8 o'clock at night. And
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: then Al and I would go off and do more
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: editing and administrative stuff until 1 or 2 in the morning.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: And that was our schedule, day in, day out. Really,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: 8 in the morning until 1 or 2 in the morning.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: And then we'd get the weekends off, but work would
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: come to our homes on the weekend. They'd bring storyboards,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: and we had to do that too.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: But we, the fans, were the benefit of your hard work, though.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: The fact that you guys were working these long hours
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: resulted in what is considered a classic Simpsons.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I know. And in fact, I was just thinking the
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: other day, like, I wanted everyone to be happy. And
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: you'd think, well, that's important. Keep the staff happy. But
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: every once in a while, it would be 11 o'clock
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: at night, and we're writing a joke, and I would
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: just say, okay, that joke is good enough. And it
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: was because I wanted the writers to go home and
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: be able to see their wives or their families. And
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: in hindsight, I go, that was the wrong move, being
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: a nice person, because I made these six people happy.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: but 10 million viewers at home were getting a second-rate joke.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: And you would think, well, what does one joke matter?
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Except you see it on Twitter. You see it on
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: social media all the time where there's some line that
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: we just kind of threw in there. It's like, all right,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: this will do. And the fans are still discussing it
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: 30 years later. What does this line mean? Why is
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: it there?
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, how are you to know in 1991 that
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: this show would still be so culturally significant?
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: It's unbelievable. No, nobody, nobody ever saw this coming. I mean,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I've told the story too much that nobody thought the
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: show was going to last more than six weeks. We
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: had made 13 episodes that first season, but it was
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: an era back in the 80s. If you tried something
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: different on TV... They would cancel you after six weeks.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: This show is brought to you by the Four Finger
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Discount Patreon, where for as little as just $ 1 per month,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: you can support the channel as well as get access
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: to over 150 hours of exclusive podcasts and videos. Plus,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: you get early and ad-free access to every show we
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: do on the network. So go ahead and support your
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: pals Guy and Dando today at patreon.com slash fourfingerdiscount. Was
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: the idea of working for or writing for an animation
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: actually an enticing prospect in 1989? Were you excited to
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: work for The Simpsons? Like, how was it pitched to you?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: And were you excited for the role or were you
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: somewhat just sort of, why not?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: No. I mean, famously, nobody wanted to work on the show,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: you know, and I've always pointed out the original Simpsons
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: writing team, the people who created that world, created all
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: the characters and that way of storytelling, except for Al
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Jean and myself, none of them had ever written a
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: TV script before. They'd written jokes. They'd written sketches. One
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: guy was a sports writer. One guy worked in advertising.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: It was, they could not get real writers to work
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: on that show. I mean, the world was full of
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: sitcom writers at the time, and none of them worked
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: on The Simpsons. And it's very hard to remember in
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: 1988 what the state of animation was, which was.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: It was none, really. It was kid shows, basically, wasn't it?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It was Saturday morning.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: It was Saturday... You had that in Australia, too, eh?
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: It was Saturday morning, cheap animation... you know, cheaply produced,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: quickly written for kids. And there was one animation studio, Disney,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: that was putting out, you know, the worst material they
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: had ever done. They're doing Treasure Planet and stuff like that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. It's pre-Disney animation renaissance as well.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: This is pre-Little Mermaid, pre-Aladdin as well. Yeah, so they're
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: kind of in the doldrums. And here you are, you've
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: been writing for Carson or you've been, you know, you've
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: been writing for showbiz mainstays like Carson, or you've been
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: running for, you know, up and coming geniuses like Shandling.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I imagine that, yeah, working on something like The Simpsons
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: would maybe not feel like a step down, but like a,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: just a step in some weird direction, like into the abyss.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: And unknown. Yeah.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: It was definitely, I don't know. It was fun. The
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: challenge of it was fun, but yeah, I thought I
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: had hit rock bottom and it was, it was just
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: the summer job. That's all it was supposed to be.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I was working at the Shandling Show, which was the
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: next to the lowest rated show on American TV. It
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: was number 99. And the only thing below us was
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: the Tracy Oldman show. But that was it. To go
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: over and write animation, I didn't tell anyone what I
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: was doing. And I was getting married right around that time.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: And I apologized to my wife. I said, look, this is,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: The only job I can get is working on The Simpsons,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: and I'll try to do better in the future. Yeah,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, just nobody saw it coming. But the harder
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: thing is to remember just what a bad reputation animation
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: had at the time.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Do you recall then a particular moment, like when the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: script got flipped? It was like, honey, I'm sorry, I'm
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: working on The Simpsons, as opposed to, honey, I'm working
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: on The Simpsons.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it happened so dramatically. Again, forgive me, I'll bet
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: four years ago when I was on your podcast, I
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: told this story before. This is the story, which was
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: we spent a summer making The Simpsons, didn't think anything
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: of it. We had fun. It was a very fun time.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: I think partly because the pressure was so low. We
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: just thought we were making junk nobody would see. And
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: then we had our premiere party, and it was at
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: a bowling alley, which shows you how little faith Fox
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: had in the show. You know, we didn't have a
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: red carpet premiere. They just showed it at a bowling
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: alley when it aired on TV.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: It's kind of punk rock, though.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: And that was the moment. Yeah, it was very appropriate
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: for a Springfield show and Homer's a bowler. Let's say... Yes,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: it looked okay, but I think their main motivation was
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: cheapness and disrespect. So anyway, we're in the bowling alley,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: and 8 p.m., they just show the Simpsons, and they
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: show it on those screens where you would be seeing
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: your bowling score. And you see, everybody's watching it going,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: this is really good. That was the moment at the
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: premiere party when the show came on, when America discovered it.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: We were all watching it going, oh, this is so
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: much better than we thought. And then our promotions person
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: came in with faxes because these are fax days. And
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: there were reviews from all over America saying, this is
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: something great and special. And then the next day we
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: go into work and found out, The show had premiered
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: to the highest ratings in the history of the Fox network.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: So everything happened all at once. It went from nobody
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: saw it coming to we were just the head of
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: the land. And within two weeks, I think we were
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: the number three show on television.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Was there much promo in the lead up to the premiere?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Can you remember the build up to it?
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they probably did a pretty good job
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: getting the commercials out there. I don't know about print
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: media or anything, but Fox, I think partly because nobody
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: wanted to advertise on them. would do a lot of
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: self-promotion and promote their own shows.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Do you still have your jacket from that evening? Was
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: it red and black jackets? Is that what they were?
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: You know, I kept it for a long time and
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: then I sold it to a collector, a guy who
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: collects show jackets. And then I said, hey, I have
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: a critic jacket. Do you want that? And he said,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: no thanks.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: We had Al on the show a couple of months
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: ago now. And he revealed there that the critics now
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: are going to be getting a reboot. He seemed pretty
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: confident it was going to happen. Has there been any
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: more steps forward with that?
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You know, you can want to reboot a show, but
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: then you have to get everybody on board and you
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: have to figure out all the deals. If it comes back,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: what does John Lovitz get paid? What does James L.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Brooks get paid? So that took a long time. And
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I think the final deal, including mine, has been made,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: and Al is going out shopping. He's now taking the
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: package of the revamped Critic out to buyers, and I
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: think mostly streamers. So he's out there, and I'm with him.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I feel pretty confident it will sell just because every
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: reboot sells. I've never heard of somebody trying to reboot
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: something that didn't get the go-ahead.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Mike, when you and I were creating The Critic, what
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: creative itch did it scratch for you? And coming up
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: with this new version or new iteration of it, I mean,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: what does it scratch now?
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Yes. To do it the first time, it was more
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: the kind of show Al and I like to do. Now,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I'm always on record saying I wish the critic had
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: more heart. I wish the characters were more rounded. It
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: plays like a sketch show. And, you know, we made
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: the show, and then I didn't watch it for 25 years.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: And I finally came back to it. I thought, wow,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: it's really funny, and it's really smart. And I didn't
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: appreciate that. I mean, there's ways it's not The Simpsons.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: But we liked doing the parodies. We liked doing the cutaways.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: We did an awful lot of that on The Simpsons.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: And then with The Critic, we made a whole show
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: about it. We always knew we loved the idea that, oh,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: he'd be a film critic so we can do six
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: movie parodies every week.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: It feels like it's a show that's designed for today's audience, though. Short,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: sharp bits that can be shared on social media and
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: things like that. All the cutaways are perfect for how
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: people consume their media now.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, that's why we're out shopping it is,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: you know, it was so not a success when it
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: came on the air. Then we brought it. It was
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: on ABC and a real dud, you know, for a
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: national audience. Then it went to Fox and that was troubled.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: But now we think it's of the time. Now we think, yes,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: this is the kind of show people want to see.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: And it's been 30 years of people saying, we love
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: that show. We really loved it. And especially John Lovett,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: who was reluctant to do it in the first place,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: all his fans just tell him, we love the critic.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: And so he was the big motivator. I think he
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: was the one that got the ball rolling. rolling again
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: to reboot the show.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: It kind of feels like the little show that could, too.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I think, like, a lot of fans just want to
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: see it succeed, so it probably will now.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Well, I hope so. I hope so. I hope it succeeds.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: It's a challenge. It's a challenge rebooting it because, you know,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: there are no film critics. It was built of an
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: era when film critics were celebrities and had a lot
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: of power. And obviously, that's a lot of what the show,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: the reboot will be, is this guy finding himself adrift. And,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: you know, he's a master of a profession nobody is
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: interested in anymore.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: As a former film critic, I can say that Jay
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Sherman is painfully relatable and incredibly accurate. By Michael Jordan,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: I took it personally. What can I tell you?
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: There were an awful lot of film critics who would
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: tell us, you really nailed it. You must have done
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: your research. And Al and I would go, we did
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: no research whatsoever.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Was it based on any particular film critic? Or was
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: it just film critics in general?
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Just film critics in general. I mean, again, we loved
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Siskel and Ebert. We were big fans of that show.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: But Al and I loved movies. And we read a
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: lot of film criticism. And the critic himself was designed
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: by committee, and there were a lot of people saying,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: do this and put this in. His design really was
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: the work of four or five people. And then once
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: it came out, people said, oh, he looks like James Wolcott.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: It turned out there was a real film critic that
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: our critic looks exactly like. And the funny thing is,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: He's impossible to find a photo of, you know, in
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: my book, Springfield Confidential, I tell the story. He looked
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: exactly like James Wolcott. And I could not get a
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: photo of this man to put in my book. It's
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: easier to get a picture of Muhammad. Wolcott was the, uh,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: the Vanity Fair guy, right?
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, it might've been Vanity Fair.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Uh, I think it was like New Republic. It was
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: some very intellectual magazine in America.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: I'd love to get into, so Jay Sherman, he appeared
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: on The Simpsons once. And I'm not going to lie,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid, I had absolutely zero clue
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: what was going on. I'm like, who is this man?
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I just assumed he was a film critic in the
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: universe of The Simpsons. I didn't realize he was doing
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: a crossover. I would have been probably eight when that
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: episode aired, maybe even younger. I look back now and
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: I absolutely adore that episode. But that episode came with
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: lots of controversy behind the scenes. Are you willing to
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: sort of talk about that now or do you sort
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: of just prefer to forget all about it?
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: No, I'll tell it. I mean, my hesitation is only
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: it's a well-told story. I mean, I thought most Simpsons
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: fans seemed to know the story partly because... It's the
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: only thing that ever happened at the Simpsons. It's such
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: a nice, quiet, dull place that we've only had one
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: or two controversies in all these decades, and that was
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: one of them. And even that one, I don't know,
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: it was like three bad days, and yet here we are,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: we're still talking about it now.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Were you surprised when there was resistance to it? Or
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: did you just assume, of course this is going to
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: go through, but we busted our asses for years working
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: for this show. Why is there resistance here?
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, I have to say I was absolutely gobsmacked. And
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: if I thought about it, I would still be mad
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: at the people who did it, at the people who
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: were resisting, just because it wasn't the powers that be.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: It wasn't Dave Merkin who was running the show. It
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: was junior writers. They had just come on staff. They'd
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: only been there a couple of months or three months.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: They're saying they didn't want to do this. And then
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: there was a handful of the resistors who were writers
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: I had hired. I, you know, I gave them this career. And,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: you know, within months into their job, they're trying to
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: keep me from doing this crossover show.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Did they tell you why?
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: They, you know, everybody, you know, their interests were only
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: for the good. They just thought, It was a commercial.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: They thought it cheap in The Simpsons. You know, it
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: was still early enough, let's say, within the first hundred
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: episodes of The Simpsons that, you know, they thought every
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: episode should be special and every episode should have integrity.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was it. But they had integrity to
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: that point. But once it became clear, and I'll tell
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: it again that There was all this resistance, and we
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: go to James L. Brooks, and I told him, I said, Jim,
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: the current staff at The Simpsons doesn't want us to
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: do this episode, this crossover with the critic. And Jim goes,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: when did this become a democracy?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, I like that Jim Brooks.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: What a great line. And it was so funny. So
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: we went ahead and did it and said to the guys,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: the people who were objecting, we said, all right, you
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: won't have to do any work on this. but contractually,
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: you have to get paid for every episode. Do you
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: want to be paid on this show? Yes. Every one
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: of them took a paycheck. And then we said, and contractually,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: you have to be credited on every show. This show
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: you hated and didn't want to happen, Do you want
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: to have a credit? Yes. Every one of them took credit.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: So if you watch the show, the credits just go
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: on forever. And I wish it had said, you know, producer,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: executive producer, backstabbing creep. In great. So that was it.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: And the only good that came out of it was
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: there was so much resistance that in the writing room,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: and the writing was all handled by the critic writers.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: The Simpsons writers had zero input on that episode. We said,
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: we better make this really good. And somehow we worked
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: extra hard on it. And it really came out a
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: classic episode and full of memes and memorable lines.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: George sees Scott getting hit by a football in the groin.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Indeed. His second finest moment after Patton, one might say.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I find it really interesting, though, that you had some
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: of these newbies regarding themselves as maintaining the purity of
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the show when they're not viewing that this could be
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a great chocolate and peanut butter kind of situation. It
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: could be two great tastes, tasting great together.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: It could have been that, yeah, they did not see
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: it coming. It's a very strange thing in that when
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: I was a kid, all right, back in the 60s,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of crossover episodes. That used to
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: be a TV institution.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Flintstones and Jetsons, yeah.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Flintstones, there were shows, Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres and
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Petticoat Junctions. You know, just like our crossover, it was
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: a production company made three shows, and they would all
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: go visit each other. And as a kid, you loved it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: You loved it. You're like, wow, they all live in
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: the same world. So it used to be an institution,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: and then it wasn't anymore. And that was it. It
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: was strange to see this resistance. to something, the kind
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: of thing people used to love.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: And how do you not want more Lovetts in your life?
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And of course now they're going crazy with,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: The Simpsons has now crossed over with everything, with Futurama
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: and X-Files.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Family Guy.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Family Guy. And then Futurama just did, it's probably a secret,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: Futurama did a crossover with Disenchantment.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: It's been announced, yeah, yeah.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Was there a crossover with Archer a few
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: years ago? Or am I making that up?
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: With The Simpsons? I think so.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, it was Bob Burgers.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Bob Burgers, yeah.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Bob Burgers.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Strike that from the record. Sorry.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: It was just a triast of horror that someone wrote
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: where it was The Simpsons end up in the Bob's
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Burgers universe, yeah.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Yeah.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Do you still look back, though, on that script? Are
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: you proud of that episode, the way it came out?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: It's really funny. I really like it, and The fact, yeah,
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: the fact that there, I have to say, it's a
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: little kind of spiteful on my part that, yes, there
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: was so much resistance to it and it came out
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: so memorable. And, you know, that's the episode that had
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: the line, I said the quiet part loud. You know,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: that's entered the lexicon. I see that. in editorials all
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: the time. And I go, I'll bet you don't even
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: remember where this came from.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Give that man the $ 10, 000 is a meme that gets
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: shared nearly every day.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yep.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: And I'll take 10 is something that I say quite frequently.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: That one and Boo Werns.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Boo Werns. Exactly. All came from that show.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: The thing is though, the critic, you know, it seems
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: like it's going to be getting the reboot and going ahead.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: What are the chances of them coming to you now
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: and saying, hey, you want to do a crossover with
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: The Simpsons?
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Ah, interesting. I don't know.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Take advantage of that leverage.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: This show is brought to you by the Four Finger
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Discount Patreon, where for as little as just $ 1 per month,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: you can support the channel as well as get access
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: to over 150 hours of exclusive podcasts and videos. Plus,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: you get early and ad-free access to every show we
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: do on the network. You also wrote Stark Raving Dad.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Did you have a say in the fact that it
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: was sort of essentially stricken from the record when it
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: comes to Disney Plus and things like that?
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: No, I did not have a say in that. I'm
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: saying a lot of things. It's funny. I'm saying things
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: that would cost me my job. Oh, wait, I already
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: got fired. No, the powers that be came in and said,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: we're not going to show that anymore. And I said,
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: I wish you would. I do not agree with that decision.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: And in fact, when Michael, the Michael Jackson movie, literally
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: made a billion dollars, I wrote to the bosses and said, gee,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: maybe you want to air that episode, the Michael Jackson episode,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: in our regular time slot. I mean, it's summer had
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: already begun. But I said, air it in prime time again.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: because he's never been bigger than he is right now
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: and they said no so at least they're sticking to
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: their guns on that.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Because i my kids that they're obsessed with the simpsons
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: now i've got an eight-year-old and an almost six-year-old and
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: they're flicking through and i said oh have you guys
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: watched the michael jackson one yet and they went michael
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: jackson one and i went oh of course yeah it's
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: like this hidden gem so i pulled out my dvd
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: sets and it was like you know indiana jones with
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: these little holy grail thing i sort of put it
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: in they went whoa what's this It was like a
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: lost tape for them. They couldn't believe it, but they
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: loved the episode. They thought it was hilarious.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it came out. That one, again, I don't talk
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: up a lot of things I've worked on, but that
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: one came out really good. And in fact, a lot
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: of the people who buried that episode contributed beautiful and
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: brilliant things to it.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Did you get to work with Michael at all?
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: You did?
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. We did a reading of the script. Not everybody
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: thinks it was his house. It was his manager, Sandy
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Gallen's house. Sandy Gallen in the 90s represented Michael Jackson
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: and Barbara Streisand and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. He
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: may have been bigger than Michael Jackson. And he had
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: the biggest house I've ever seen. And he said, you know,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: I've been here 10 years. I haven't been to every
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: room in the house yet.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: What a flex.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Wow. And we did the reading of the script, and
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: Michael sat right next to me. And, you know, if
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: you know the episode, he sings. You know, he sings
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Ben and Thriller and Lisa, It's Your Birthday. And to
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: have him, you know, three feet away from me singing
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: those songs, Was just so amazing.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Did you write the song, Lisa's It's Your Birthday?
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: No, he wrote that.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, he wrote it himself. Wow.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: He wrote it himself. And, you know, Simpsons fans know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: you do not hear him singing on that episode.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Kip.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: He did all the acting, but Kip Lennon and his
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: authorized sound alike did the singing. But I think the
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: only thing I ever stole from The Simpsons is is
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: the cassette tape demo of It's Your Birthday, sung by
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: Michael Jackson.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: You've still got that?
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: I've got that somewhere, yeah.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: See, I've said this. We had Josh Weinstein on the show,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: and he's got a treasure trove of Simpsons things just
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: like that. And I'm thinking, you'd think in 2026 by now,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: there would be some sort of Simpsons museum somewhere where
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff is on display.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: I agree. You know, the Simpsons, which never misses a
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: trick to make money... There's certain big things it just
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: never does. It hasn't done Simpsons Con, and it hasn't
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: done the Broadway musical. I don't know why they do
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: something so well and other things, they don't go near them.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Well, it just feels like for so long that Fox
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: were hesitant to even do much merchandise that was outside
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: the norm. It was all the generic, you know, eat
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: my shorts, that kind of thing. Now, since Disney took
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: over it, it's almost like they've sort of opened up
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: the floodgates and there is so much niche Simpsons collectibles
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: you can get now. And as a fan, I think
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: it's fantastic. It's almost like Disney have gone, you do
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: realize how much money you were sitting on here that
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: you weren't actually making.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: It's almost like Disney knows a little thing or two
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: about merchandising.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Sure. Sure. Even in this modern era, they do it
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: so much better than anyone. I remember the story. I think, uh, A.A.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Milne estate sold out to Disney. And Disney went so
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: bananas so quickly selling stuff that A.A. Milne estate was going,
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: let's renegotiate. They didn't realize there were still billions to
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: be made from Winnie the Pooh.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Were you worried when Disney took over The Simpsons? or
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: took over Fox?
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. And they've been fine with the show.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: I hope it stays that way. That's all I can say.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: I don't like what they did to Star Wars or Marvel.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know how they messed up Indiana Jones because
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think they own them. but they still manage
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: to wreck that. So, yeah, I have real trepidation what
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: will happen in the future.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Being Indiana Jones was part of the Lucasfilm banner, so, yeah,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's, yeah, it was part and
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: parcel of the deal. Yeah, I don't think they really
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: should have done anything. They shouldn't have done Dial of Destiny.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: It was a bad, bad, bad move. Mike, we were
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: talking about music just a little while ago. I can't
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: help but notice what looks like a platinum album on
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the wall over your shoulder. Can you tell me a
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: little bit about it?
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, you can see that.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: And... Just to the left of that, you'll see there's
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: a white certificate. Yeah. That's from Pope Francis.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Holy moly. Papa Francesco, what's up?
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: I wrote jokes for Pope Francis, and he gave me
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: a certificate of thanks. He called me a missionary of joy. Wow. Yeah,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: but we don't want it. This is a Simpsons podcast.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about this.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. We want you to know you
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: can't start that story not finishing it.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Mark, I'm a Catholic. You've got to tell me more.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: It's not much of a story, but I met a priest,
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: a very smart, funny guy who had started a charity
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: for Pope Francis called Joke with the Pope. And every day,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: a different celebrity would tell a joke to Pope Francis.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: And I said, all right, good for you. That sounds
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: like fun. And then a couple of nights later, he
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: called me up. He said, Al Roker, an American weatherman,
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: is going to tell a joke to Pope Francis. And
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: we need a joke about the weather and Catholicism. And
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: it's got to be clean. I'll call you back in
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: an hour. And I wrote the joke. I was the
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: only comedy writer this priest had ever met. And then
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: he would just call me every night. We need a
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: joke for David Copperfield. And I'm writing these jokes for
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: a while. And then finally the joke with the Pope ended.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: It didn't work out or whatever. But a month after that,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: I got this certificate from Pope Francis. And it's the
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: greatest award I ever got in my life. The second
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: greatest is that album. That's Simpsons Sing the Blues. Oh, wow. Yeah, okay.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: That's the platinum album. And that album sold five million copies,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: I think. And I wrote the song, I Got a
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Braddy Brother, The Moaning Lisa Blues. Al and I wrote
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: that song.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. So the Simpsons CDs, the ones where it
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: was playing tracks from the show, so Songs in the
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Key of Springfield, just been released on vinyl actually, which
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I was a very big fan of. But we had
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: the composer of Bluey on the show a couple of
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: years ago. And he is a huge Simpsons fan. And
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: he said basically he was raised, he credits the Simpsons
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: for the fact that he's become a composer. And he
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: says he bases most of his Bluey music off of
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Songs in the Key of Springfield and the music from
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: the Simpsons.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe we should sue.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: That was not our intention in telling you that.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: No, that's great.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the Bluey is filled with Simpsons references. And
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: I think Bluey may be the first show to knock
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Simpsons off being the number one rated show on Disney +, maybe?
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Because I know Disney bought the streaming rights in the States.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: I had no idea. I've never seen Bluey.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: It's now on the Bluey. We're talking about the Simpsons.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I just don't know anything about it. But,
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: you know, I kind of wish I could get, I
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: could escape The Simpsons sometimes. I just saw the new
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Aardman movie. It's a Shaun the Sheep movie. Five minutes in,
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: you see a sheep recede into a hedge like Homer did.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: And I think that same reference is in Toy Story 5.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: And it's like, geez... Enough with the Simpsons already.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Well, if Dan doesn't mind, I might try and pivot
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: in another direction. I mean, you've worked in TV, you've
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: worked in movies, you've worked in theatre, you've written books.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: What are the virtues of each? I mean, is there
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: any form that you prefer, and why is that the case,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: if so?
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: No, I like them all. I'll tell a story. I
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: was on a panel once with Dan Graney, another great
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Simpsons writer, and... They introduced me and they said, next
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: up we have Mike Reese, a true renaissance man. Dan
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: Graney started laughing and he goes, renaissance man, him? And
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: he points to me and they said, well, yes, he's
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: written books and movies and TVs and stage plays. And
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: he goes, he's just a lonely guy sitting at a computer.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: And I thought, well, he nailed it there. That's what
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: writing is, is just being able to sit sit at
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: your computer all day and think of stuff. And that's
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: how I feel. I've done all these different things, but
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: it's always just the same kind of writing in different packages.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Kind of smart and silly and stupid all at once.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Do you still enjoy writing comedy?
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know. As I say, I
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: like it. I like it. You know, I write a
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: sub stack. I write a weekly column. Although by the
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: time this airs, the sub stack will be at an
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: end because once again, I made no money doing it. So, uh,
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: I did that as a weekly column for a year
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: and a half and I enjoyed it. Or I'll say,
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: I'll just say it's what I do. This is what
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: I do. I write comedy and, uh, but I mean,
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: I write comedy the way a horse pulls a plow.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: You don't say to the horse, you must love it.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: You do it every day, but it's just what I do.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: There was, I'll tell you a funny, horrible story, which
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: was a few years ago in LA, a crazy, a
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: literal madman escaped from the loony bin and he broke
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: into a man's house and And it was a 91-year-old
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: man sitting at his kitchen table, and the lunatic cut
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: the guy's head off.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: And it turned, yeah. So, okay, that's the funny part.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: So he cut the guy's head off, and the guy
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: turned out to be a famous screenwriter from Hollywood's past, right?
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: He had written these classic 1940s movies. But what got
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: to me is the 91-year-old man, when he had his
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: head cut off, was sitting at his kitchen table writing
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: a screenplay. And I said, oh, I don't want to
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: be that guy. If you see me at my kitchen
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: table when I'm 91 writing a screenplay, please cut off
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: my head.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: I did love the fact that you still refer to
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: it as the loony bin.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, I read your sub stack. The
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: one I read just before was the one from a
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: few years ago where your trip on the Titan, right? Yes.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: And you somehow turned such a, what sounded like an
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: absolutely horrific experience into an enjoyable read.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, a lot of funny things happened on the
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: way to that. And, you know, my experience was nothing
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: but pleasant. I mean, it ended tragically, but... Up until then,
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: it was a pretty good time.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: You almost had a whole new career resurgence after that.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Former Simpsons writer, the guy that wrote the submarine episode.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Can you believe it?
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very, yeah. I've got to say, I know
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: it'll be in my obituary and that's what I'm known for.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: And I mean, what is, I'm just a man who
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: didn't die on a submarine. There's 8 billion people on
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: earth who didn't die on a submarine. I'm just one
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: more of them.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Did that inspire you to start travelling? Or was it
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: comments like from Dan where he said he's just a
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: lonely guy that sits at a laptop? Did that inspire
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: you to say, I'm getting away from this computer, I'm
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: getting off this chair, and I'm going to travel the
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: world whilst I sit at my laptop and write comedy?
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And also, screw you, Dan.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: No. No, I was trying... Obviously, the fact that I've
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: taken a submarine to the Titanic means I was already
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: a pretty... jaded traveler looking for new thrills. When I
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: stopped working full-time at the Simpsons, which was 29 years ago,
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: when I stopped putting in full 100-hour weeks there, I
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: started traveling and it It's all my wife's doing. She
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: loves to travel. And if I want to hang out
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: with my wife, I have to go to North Korea
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: to do it. So that's it. So we've been to
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: this 148 countries. And I said, you know, if there's
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: a funny story that comes out of it, I write
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: And it's turned into Bad Trips. A Simpsons writer takes
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: you through 52 weeks of weird travel.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, that is my new book, Bad Trips. uh by
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: the way the cover of the book is taken in
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: darwin australia you see my my wife and i about
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: to be eaten by the second largest shark in captivity.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I noticed she was no longer around yeah yeah so.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: So that's it. I hope people, if you like me,
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: if you like The Simpsons, buy my book, Bad Trips.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: It's 52 funny, horrendous travel stories with amazing photos.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Can we do a quick lightning round then, Mike? I mean,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: maybe three destinations of choice.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, all right.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: That you would recommend to travelers and three tips for
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: travelers as well.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Okay. All right. Um, I'm never good at this lightning stuff.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: Of the exotic places I've been, I recommend the North Pole,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: the nation of Myanmar, which used to be Burma. Beautiful country.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: And I recommend Iran. Maybe not this week, but hopefully
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: in a month or two. Iran is an absolutely wonderful,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: beautiful country. And they love the Simpsons there.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Which place surprised you the most?
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I got to say Iran. And Rick Steves, another
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: travel writer, started his story on Iran by saying, everything
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: you think about Iran is wrong. And that's a lovely, welcoming, sophisticated,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: cosmopolitan country full of people who love America and love
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: the West and are there, you know, really enjoy their lives.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: So what went wrong? You know, it's.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: Not them, it's their government. Just like America is probably
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: still a nice place despite their government.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Well, they looked at the window to make sure they
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: weren't watching first before you said that. See, I can
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: see you having your own travel show. Maybe that's something
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: you should be pitching. Have you ever thought about that idea?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, it has been pitched. A couple of different producers
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: have put together little packages. And, you know, it's funny,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: me traveling with my wife. If you ever see her
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: and she appears in the book, she's very beautiful and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: she dresses glamorously and she's always full of enthusiasm. And
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: then she's got this funny looking beard. Jewish husband who
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: doesn't want to be there.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Well, that's great. That's a sitcom unto itself.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: Right. I mean, that was it. People jumped at the idea.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: They thought it was promotable and they've just never been
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: able to sell it.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: It's like a traveling sitcom. I can say that. Yeah.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, at the same time they were trying
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: to sell it, there was a show, another travel show
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: that starred William Shatner and And Henry Winkler, The Fonz,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: and George Foreman. And nobody watched that. It's like, you know,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: I've learned this. I've written two travel books and a
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: travel podcast and travel subseq. Nobody is interested in your vacations.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Do you think the audience has changed now, though? Because
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like they would now. Because how long ago
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: was that show with Shatner?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I want to say maybe 10 years.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: 10 years ago. Yeah, I mean, a lot of them
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: are dead now. So.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: No, no, Shatner's just keeping on trucking that guy.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: Shatner will never die, yeah. Yeah, I just think at
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: the basis, nobody really wants to read funny, read or
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: see amusing travel. There's just something that, you know, any
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: writer that takes a trip goes, I'm going to write
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: about this because, hey, you're the writer, you took the trip.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean people want to read it.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: We will wage that anyone who picks up Bad Trips,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: a Simpsons writer, takes you through 52 weeks of weird travel,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: available where any good books are sold, will disagree.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. If you read it, you'll like it. And I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: really encourage people, buy it, read it, and then re-gift it.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: It won't be hurting my feelings.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: This show is brought to you by the Four Finger
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Discount Patreon, where for as little as just $ 1 per month,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: you can support the channel, as well as get access
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: to over 150 hours of exclusive podcasts and videos. Plus,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: you get early and ad-free access to every show we
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: do on the network. What are you reading and watching now?
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know, I have a friend who told me,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: she said, I'm old enough now, I can just read
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: movie star biographies if I want to. And then... I said,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: that's good advice. And then she died.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Left you with some good advice, though.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. And I really took that to heart.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: So I'm reading movie, just show business books. No other history.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: I'm reading the great Robin Williams biography right now. And
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: I just read a book about the gong show, if
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: you even know what that is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: read The Making of Sunset Boulevard. I'm just reading show
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: business books and they're all very interesting.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Have you read Tim Curry's Vagabond yet?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: No, I have not.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Those kinds of books are catnip to me. So yeah,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: more recommendations of titles, please, Mike.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, I worked with Tim Curry three times and just
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: a real gentleman on top of being such a talent,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: just literally a gentleman and a gentle man. He was
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: so Quiet and soft-spoken. I love that guy.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: You never would have imagined that from the gusto that
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: he brought to his performances.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: You would imagine that it sort of bled over into
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: his off-screen or off-stage life, but no, okay.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: No. Very quiet, sweet, just unthreatening man. That was it.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: I really liked him.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Well, Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: It's been an absolute pleasure to finally have you back
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: on after so many years. I've been wanting to make
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: this happen and we've finally made it happen. It's half
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: past 12 at night, but we've made it happen.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: Thank you. It was fun for me. I really enjoyed it.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: I've been jabbing Guy in the ribs to keep him
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: awake for the last 25 minutes.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: I've got those Homer Simpson glasses on.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: Well, continued success, guys. Who's a Do you have a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: big get you haven't gotten for the show in 10 years?
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Simpsons-wise?
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Well, we haven't really spoken to any cast members, have we?
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the cast members are the ones. So we'd love
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: to get the cast members on, or obviously Matt. But
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Matt doesn't do podcasts very often. He's done a couple now.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: He's done Conan and whatnot, but he's not going to
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: be doing our show. You know what I mean?
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Or possibly Jim Brooks.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: Jim Brooks. Did you get Swartz Welder?
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Has anybody got Swartz Welder?
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He's very strange in that.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: What's he like? As a person.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: When you meet him, you know, it's so funny. I've
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: never known him to do a podcast, but he would
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: be a great guest because once you get him talking,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: he loves to talk. He's very convivial. He's such a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: regular guy. He's such a normal guy. I always say
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: he reminds you of your father's friends. He seems to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: come from an older world. Uh, absolutely wonderful person, great correspondent, uh,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: and chatty, you know, but every once in a while
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: you see him emerging. Now he, on Twitter at least,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: he's suddenly releasing these tranches of photos he has from
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: old days.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: There was like an SNL one of like holding a
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: potato or something like that.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: What do you miss the most about working with people
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: like John?
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: Uh, I, I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed, you know,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: you don't, if you're not in a writer's room, you
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: never get that experience again of just being in a
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: room just solely populated by really sharp, funny people, you know,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: trying to please, you know, that's the job, come up
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: with stuff. I, and it's, it's funny, they can't capture
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: it on film. Over the years, They're always sending camera
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: crews in to film the Simpsons rewrite room and everybody
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: goes silent. It is unphotographable.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's something that Dan and I have found
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: in speaking with writers from the show over the last
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: maybe year, year and a half or so, is that
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: they're all so ebullient, they're all so eloquent, they're all
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: so quick-witted.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: I mean.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: We were fortunate enough to speak with David Merkin recently.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we budgeted an hour. We went
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: for two hours and change.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Two and a half hours, yeah.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And all of it was gold. And look, we're
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: so happy to add Mike Rees to that because this
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: has been a wonderful conversation as well.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, great. Good. I hope so.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: I just feel like there's so many stories that still
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: have been, I know there's so many stories have been told,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: but there must be so many that are still just
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: sitting in the memories of you all.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: It may be. There may be stuff to ferret out.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: Every story I had and everything I've said today, it's
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: in Springfield Confidential. It's in that book I wrote.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Which is on my shelf over there. I've
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: got it on the shelf.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Also available where good books can be sold.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: Indeed, yes. But as I said, Mike, thank you again
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. And all
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: the best with your show. with your book and everything
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: in the future thanks so much Mike.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: Thank you you guys are great and thank you for
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: accommodating me so many ways I appreciate
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: It no worries you have a great day Mike bye
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: bye