October 24, 2017 • 50 mins
For our 999th and 1,000th episodes, we go down the rabbit hole on a TV show that quite literally altered popular culture as we know it. The Simpsons has been around since Josh and Chuck were in grade school, and is still cranking out episodes today. Join us for two very special episodes as we pay tribute to The Simpsons, and celebrate a milestone of our own - numbers 999 and 1,000!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
dot com. M Hey, and welcome to The Simpsons, I
(00:32):
mean the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant,
there's Jerry over there, and this is Chuck episode. Yeah. Well,
you know how I think of this. I think of
it as one thousand, just a big fat one thousand
that had to leak on to two days. It actually
(00:55):
leaked back in time. How amazing is that? Yeah, because
we have to do a two parter because upon looking
at this research and this topic, very special topic for
us for the show, we realized it had to be
a two parter and rather than do one thousand and
one thousand one, what kind of person would do that?
An unwholesome person. Yeah, yeah, okay, so this is episode
(01:18):
in your view, it's it's really just part of episode
one thousand. I'm with you on that. Yes, can you
believe that? I, you know what Chuck up until today?
I could totally believe it. But the fact that we're
doing The Simpsons for our thousandth episode, it just it
drove everything home, Like all the gear teeth fell right
(01:38):
into place, and now the gears are spinning in sync
and I can feel it and I'm amazed. Yeah. So, uh,
we just wanted to acknowledge the one thousand here up front,
and I think frankly, we're doing that because we're both
so excited about doing this. I think I should tell
people what you emailed earlier. We were furiously sending links
(01:59):
back fourth this week and you said, Uh, I don't
even want to record, I just want to keep researching
the Simpsons forever. It's true. Man. Last night, Chuck, I
was sitting there watching Simpsons episodes and I thought, well,
this is the pinnacle of my career. I am literally
being paid to watch the Simpsons. Yeah, and we just
(02:25):
had to stop, Like Eveen, we could have done this
for weeks and researched, and this could be uh an
entire podcast and into itself with a thousand episodes. Well
maybe not a thousand, close to it, but at some
point we had to stop. So just know, if we
didn't cover your favorite thing from the show that's been
(02:47):
on for thirty years, or or if we're not referring
to episodes under their specific naming convention, yeah, calm down, Yeah,
it's just impossible. So we're gonna do our best here
to talk about some of our favorite stuff and a
little bit about how the show works. But here we go, right, Oh, man,
(03:07):
let's do it. This is like an actual intro. Yes,
that was an actual response, So Chuck, yes, have you
ever seen the Simpsons? I have, sir, you caught it
back from the beginning, like that was right in our wheelhouse,
(03:29):
maybe even yours a little more than mine. Yeah, And uh,
I mean, let's we should go ahead and just talk
for a moment about episode one because I have a
very distinct memory, which is I'm in high school. It's
my senior year. Chris Bouten, my friend and future roommate
in college, calls me Boots Bouten, and he says, dude,
(03:51):
have you and I have to admit I did not
see the Tracy Almond shorts, So let's get that out
of the way right now. They were bizarre. Yeah, and
this is that's where the show began. As most people know,
is a little short animated bits in the Tracy Ellman Show.
But Chris Bootin calls me episodes Man, I'm coming over.
I'm meeting you in the basement, opened the back door.
I have a VHS of this show called The Simpsons
(04:14):
you gotta see it, and he met me over there.
It was winter, it was December. Well it aired on
the seventeenth, but I have a feeling this was the
next day probably, and Booting came over and we watched
the very first episode, which was Santa's Little Helper, and
(04:34):
we cried tears of joy and laughter, and my life
went on a different course. Yeah, I Boots did not
visit my house personally with the video. We didn't call
him Boots by the video because well I'm calling him
Boots nickname Boots. That's classic Boots by the way to
show up in the basement. Um. But he, uh, he
(04:57):
did not come to my house. But I did see
that one, and I think Guy saw it when it
aired actually, and I remember watching the Tracy Ullman shorts
too and just being like, what the hell is this.
But then by the time I think the Tracy Ullman
Show and we'll get a little more into it, that
one started in seven, um and the actual show started
in eighty nine. So between those two points they really
(05:19):
like it really started to come together to where that
first episode where Homer finds out he's not getting a
Christmas bonus, so he gets a job secretly as a
mall Santa and ends up taking his check to the
dog track and betting it all and losing it all
on Santa's a Little Helper, which was the dog right,
But then he ends up with Santa a Little Helper,
so he gets what he was after all along, which
(05:42):
is a great Christmas present for his family. What a
beautiful episode, right, Yeah, And interestingly that first episode was
really the eighth one to be made, but they ran
that one first, so uh, there were there were some
weird differences like the show. Actually, originally I think Matt
Gray thought it would be redrawn a little more slickly,
(06:04):
but they just traced over his original drawing. So the
animation was fairly crude in this episode. And then you'll
notice an episode two it actually looks a little bit better. Um,
and you know, the Simpson still looks like the Simpsons,
but that early episode and kind of the whole first
season was a little more crude in drawing and voice. Uh.
(06:24):
And the pilot was the only episode missing that very
famous opening sequence, which we'll talk about a little bit later.
Oh yeah, it wasn't it like a cold opening or
something like that. I can't remember exactly how, but it
didn't feature the iconic opening that we all know and
love today. Um So, where shall we start, Chuck? I mean,
I guess we kind of just did start. Yeah, and
(06:45):
I think I already made a mistake about what well
Sante's Little Hope would In the name of the episode,
it was Simpsons roasting on an open fire. Yeah, so
I mean, come on, that's the one that you were
you were talking about, you know, yeah, but I'm just
I know that like probably thousand people just slam their
laptot shut. But that's what I'm saying, Everybody, chill out.
That's not what this episode is about. We're not trying
(07:07):
to show you how little you know. That's right. Ed
the Grabster Grabanowski wrote this article. Actually this one was
written by Unedd Grabanowski. If you ask me, why did
you say that? Because it was it wasn't like five
times as long as it should have been. No, I
can't remember who who calls himself that for every Treehouse
(07:28):
of Horror, but there's a D and they call themselves uned,
so I thought that was probably I'm really surprised he
didn't actually get that as his byline for this it's
a nice estery there, my friend. Yeah. Uh, and then
we did just I mean, so much supplementary information. It's
sort of ridiculous. Yeah, but this is like a special
request from us, wasn't it. Oh yeah, we said, go forth,
(07:49):
grabster and write the well right the oh okay, right there,
Well there were two ease in that the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I should have noticed by the flourish of your hand
what you were saying. All right, So let's go back
to uh Simpsons creator one Mr Matt Greening, and we
have actually met him, and we will talk about that
(08:10):
in a little bit. Life highlight for sure. But he
had a comic strip called Life and Hell, and I
think the original conceit to pitch to producer James L. Brooks.
Seven was a cartoon version of that. Ed writes in
here he thought it would be a failure, but I
read that he wasn't too keen on signing away sort
(08:32):
of the thing he had worked on all his life.
So he changed his mind at the last minute and thought,
of the Simpsons. That's awesome. That sounds the second one
sounds much more like Matt Graining for sure. Yeah, And
he had he had no idea that would make him
a super rich gazillion are either. But if you if
you um know that story. The fact that the Simpsons
started out on Tracy Ullman makes sense because James Brooks,
(08:55):
who himself is a pretty like bona fide cool guy
right here the married Tyler Moore shown directed terms of endearment. Um,
he produced Bottle Rocket. Um. Yeah, you could say he
has an eye for amazing things for sure. So he
had come across this life and How strip and and
wanted to basically turn it into animated shorts for the
(09:16):
Tracy Woman Show, but then Graining swapped it out at
the at the pitch meeting and said let's do this instead.
But I think either way, he came up with the
characters and the idea fairly on the fly, right Yeah,
I mean obviously wasn't like while he was waiting outside
of the pitch meeting, but h what he came up with.
And if you haven't seen the Simpsons, maybe you should
go watch an episode or two. Crawl up from under
(09:38):
the rock that you're and go watch one. But obviously
we should at least say what it is. And it
is a sort of a traditional sitcom about um, and
follows the sitcom conventions in many ways of a family, uh,
living together under a roof who encounter fun hijinks along
(09:58):
the way. Yeah, and um, that's kind of the subtext
for the whole or the pretext I should say, for
the whole series. Right, it's like it's a sitcom, it's
a family sitcom. But there's a couple of big differences
with it right there. Um, it's animated, which is huge
because it's a it was a price. It became in
nine a primetime animated series, and it was the first
(10:21):
one since I think nineteen seventy two where Wait Till
You're nineteen seventy four where Wait Till Your Father Gets
Home went off the air. Did you ever see that show?
It was like a proto family Guy basically, um, from
the early seventies, and it was actually super entertaining. And
then before that, of course, there was The flint Stones,
but those were like the two big primetime animated series
(10:44):
before the Simpsons. But there's a good, you know, twentysomething
thirties something year lull in between those and the Simpsons.
So that was a big difference in and of itself. Well,
it's easy to take for granted. Now with the advent
of like Cartoon Network in Adult Swim and Family Guy
in Futurama, which also from graining. Yeah, I mean, there's
(11:05):
just an explosion of animation. Right. You've got you know,
starting back with Beavis and butt Head that was a
descendant of The Simpsons, and then of course you've got
King of the Hill, uh South Park. Um, today you've
got Rick and Morty. Have you seen Rick and Morty?
I haven't yet. Everyone I'm remiss. Everyone said it's the greatest.
(11:28):
It is, it's the greatest, and man, it's one of
those it's under the same thing that The Simpsons was
initially taken for where you know, there's a lot of belching,
so people are like, this is low brown. It's like, no,
look past it to what they're actually doing. It's insanely
smart and and really entertaining too. Like it's, um, it's
laugh out loud funny in a lot of parts. I
think we've kind of proven that we can be smart
(11:50):
and still make part jokes. Sure, and and Rick and
Morty is doing the same thing. And by the way, um,
you know they listened to us, right Rick and Morty, Yeah,
I remember they sent us that aunt's book and it
had that was the Rick and Morty people. Yeah, so
thanks again for that, guys. That's a treasured possession. Well
I'm definitely watching now. Yeah, all the adult quote unquote
(12:13):
uh cartoons that we see. But it was revolutionary at
the time. I mean Flint Stone's aside, Like you said,
it had been a long time and it was quite
literally leveled the TV industry because it was such a
smash hit right out of the gate. That's right, Yeah,
I know, it was huge, right, um, and a lot
of things came together for it. Um the fact that
(12:36):
that James L. Brooks got in touch with the man Craning.
That was a bit of a fluke because he got
in touch with them for a different reason, but also
because it was a show on Fox and Fox was
just starting out as a network and they were looking
to make waves. So at the time you had basically here,
So here's what the Simpsons were up against in family
(12:56):
sitcom wise. You ready for this? Um My two Dads,
Major Dad, Mr Belvedere, who's the Boss, Hogan, Family Family Matters,
Growing Pains, The Cosby Show, Full House, and like that
was what family sitcoms or TV sitcoms in general were
(13:18):
at the time, and you had Roseanne. Roseanne had been
on for a couple of years already, and it had
shaken things up some for sure, but for the most part,
like this was America was this um, clean and tidy,
wholesome place where everything was just peachy keen and all
the problems that a family encounter were about as superficial
(13:39):
as you could possibly come across. And this was the
other big thing about The Simpsons, and it actually went
really well, at least superficially with married with Children, which
was that family wholesome sitcom spawn onto its very gritty,
dirty underbelly. Right. Uh. The Pons was initially compared to
(14:01):
that same kind of thing because they were both on
Fox and they both like kind of took the family
sitcom and turned it on its head. But it took
a minute but not too long for people to start noticing,
oh wait, actually this is really subversive satire. And that
was the big thing that I think initially gave the Simpsons.
(14:21):
It's it's it's base for to keep going for thirty seasons. Yeah,
I mean, I remember when Fox first came out and
it was like that, what, there's a fourth TV channel.
I know it was a big deal. It was a
big deal. And their thing from the beginning was, you know,
we're gonna be edgy, We're gonna be different. This is
this is not your mom and Dad's TV. And like
you said, Mary with Children and the Simpsons firmly put
(14:44):
them on a different track. Uh. And it was funny
when you were just going through all the shows like
they they were no more edgy than since TV's inception,
and it might it might as well have been, well
maybe a little more edgy than like be Re Cleaver
and Sean Harriet, but not too far off. For the
most part. TV was kind of the same for decades
(15:06):
when it came to family sitcoms. Yeah, so the Simpsons
was just this is not overstating it. It was a
cultural revolution in every way. It definitely was. And it
it took up like this already kind of nascent revolution
and from Roseanne and from Mary with Children, but it
was different, man, it was like it was it was
its own thing and still is today. And again, like
(15:30):
you were saying, it's easy to look back and be like, well, yeah,
i mean animated, really smart, subversive satirical shows like they're
they're a diamond dozen is a weird way to put it,
but it's true, like they're all over the place. Now,
that's because the Simpsons came along. It's as simple as that. Yeah.
So the early episodes um in the In the first
(15:51):
couple of seasons, Bart Simpson, uh was sort of the
star of the show as far as pop culture goes.
I mean, he was front and enter, he was on
every T shirt. Every kid was saying eat my shorts,
every kid was talking back to their teachers more, and
it created quite a ruckuss in schools. I know that
some of the T shirts were banned in certain school districts. Yeah.
(16:15):
The Underachiever and proud of It man, Yeah, that one
was banned and I think I'm Bart Simpson, who the
hell are you? Yeah, But it wasn't long before it
became pretty clear that it was an ensemble show for
one and sort of Homer's show, let's be honest. Yeah,
(16:36):
ultimately ended up that way in large part. He he
became the central character, didn't he. Yeah, I would say easily.
But then, I mean, we'll go through a lot of
these characters, if not all of them, because we don't
have time to read like five people's names, right, but
it ended up being like a memorial or something. I know.
But the Simpsons side characters and the guest characters have
become just as beloved as uh as the fane of
(17:00):
of course, Homer and Marge and Lisa and Bart and
little Maggie. Absolutely. Do you want to take our first break? Yeah? Yeah,
let's we're so excited. Let's go ahead and take a
break real quick and calm down. All right, we're back.
(17:34):
So the earliest clips of the Simpsons were animated by
a different studio than they used now and have used
for many years. It's called class Key Suppo or Cupo
zupo c s u p oh. I'm not sure how
they pronounced it, but they were all, of course based
on Matt Greening's original sketches that had these yellow skinned characters,
(17:55):
very bright primary color palette. Uh. And it became a
little more refined over the year, SUPs, we said, but
it's um it never approached like a slick looking animation
by any means. No, No, the earliest stuff definitely not.
And they were with I think it's class Key Zupo,
I'm not sure, but they were with them for two
years and and despite this stuff being really rough and
(18:18):
like kind of hard to watch even if you if
you look at it now. Um, they gave the Simpsons
like their yellow skin, Marge's blue hair, and supposedly Matt
graening Um when he saw the yellow skin tone palette
for the Simpsons skin colors, he was like, that is perfect.
Like when somebody's like clicking through the channels real quick,
(18:40):
their eyes going to is gonna catch that and they're
gonna stop because the Simpsons are on and they're gonna
watch it. So apparently that's where the yellow came from.
It was kind of a fluke, but they went with
it just because it was so catchy. That's great idea.
But then after I think two years, they moved over
to something called film Roman or film Roman. I've never
heard it actually really set out loud, but they they
(19:02):
were the ones who, starting in and think season two
or three, really gave the Simpsons it's defined look that
stayed for years and years and years. Yeah. I remember
Homer's voice early on sounded a little bit different too. Yeah,
you know, I mean the same guy. It was Dan Castlenetta,
but just uh was not the same Homer's voice that
we know and love today. No, it was much gruffer.
(19:24):
Plus his dialogue two was way more I mean it
really was much more about Bart and Homer was way
angrier and like he strangled barred it like the drop
of a hat. That was like a go to gag.
So this the show is still really smart compared to
Who's the Boss, But compared to you know, later seasons
(19:45):
of The Simpsons, it was really just it's rough by comparison,
for sure. Don't not go boss too much though, I
mean it's fine, too fine show. But man, it wasn't
smart satire. You put it, you put it Who's the
Boss episode up against like a season seven episode of
The Simpsons. Mr. The Boss is not going to win
that one. Yeah, they're not the Boss. I mean, like
even Tony Danes. It will tell you that. So let's
(20:09):
talk a little bit about the main cast and the crew. Uh.
In those early years, Um, of course, Matt Graining was
around from the beginning, and James L. Brooks of course.
Then there was a man, uh, the dearly departed Sam Simon,
who was an EP on the show from the early days. Uh,
and the great Al Jean has been the show runner
since the thirteenth season. Um, but I'm pretty sure he
(20:32):
was around before that, right, I didn't exactly look at
when he joined up. I believe he was an early
producer as well, Okay, but eventually rose to showrunner. Bill Oakley.
Josh Weinstein and Mike Scully ran the show previous to
that during the first twelve seasons. We cannot list all
the writers. It would be impossible, No, but some some
made some pretty huge contributions. Yeah, like George Meyer and
(20:56):
John Schwartzwelder are generally given credit to kind of defining
who these characters were from the early days. Yeah, the worldview,
the jokes they would make, the fact that and this
is another huge thing that we take for granted today
that The Simpsons really established was referential humor, like making
(21:16):
making fun of, um, you know, film literature, trends, whatever,
not necessarily part of the plot, but just part of
a joke maybe or something like that, or in addition,
a little layer just to make the whole, the whole
idea that was being put across that much more palatable.
They really kind of blew that out, and that was
thanks to that early brain trust you just mentioned of
(21:37):
people who established the show for for what it's what
it was, Yeah, I mean it was a blueprint and
everyone that that came along afterward sort of had their
show Bible thanks to these people. Yes, you know which
if you look up show Bible, there's this there's one
episode that just screws up any Google search for that.
(21:57):
There was the Simpsons Bible Stories episode, which was a
stinker anyway, but it sucks because now you can't find
any examples of this show Bible must exist somewhere. I
don't know if you could find that online. You can
find the style Guide examples online though, Yeah, for sure. Uh.
And of course we got to mention Conan O'Brien because
he very famously worked for a couple of years on
The Simpsons. I think it's credited with four or five episodes, uh,
(22:21):
including one of the all time classics, Marge versus the Monorail,
which Conan has still talks about that being one of
his great career achievements is writing that episode. I can imagine,
because not only was a great episode, but you got
to write and then Phil Hartman brought your stuff to
life man like that was a big one. All right. Well,
speaking of Phil Hartman, let's start talking about the cast,
(22:43):
because this is gonna this is gonna take a little while.
Are you ready. So, so, there's hundreds of characters in
the Simpsons universe, but really a lot of them, a
lot of them boil down to the voices of just
six people. Yeah, so, um, two of them focus almost
(23:04):
exclusively on just one character each. Julie Kavner does Marge,
but then she also obviously does Marge's sisters Patty and
Selma and her mom Jacqueline in one episode, Yeah, the
Bouvier's yea. And then you'rd Lee Smith does just Lisa
for the for the show. Yeah, and she's the only
one that does a single voice. Um, Dan casting Lenetta
(23:25):
obviously does Homer. He also does Grandpa Abe. It's hard
to not laugh just thinking of each one of these characters.
I know, you know, I kept laughing out loud researching
this stuff, at the very least, chuckling to myself, you know, yeah,
strickling in the office today was like I gotta ask
what the heck is going on over there? And it's
like we're doing an episode in Simpson's leaving Alan. He
was like, what castle Lena also does Barney Gumble Krusty
(23:49):
the Clown, Groundskeeper, Willie Mayor Quimby Man so great Hans Moleman, Sideshow,
mel Itchy, kdoskil Pucci, Uh, the Squeaky Boys Team Mr Burns, Lawyer,
Krusty's Monkey, Mr Teeney, and he did Bill Clinton, Great
Bill Clinton Team Real no fooling Pigs. What about Nancy
(24:13):
cart Right, the Great Nancy cart Right. So she does
bart that's what she's best known for, but she does
some other voices of um, some other prepubescent uh characters
like Ralph Wiggham one of the great all time voices ever,
Um Todd Flanders, Nelson Months has a great one. Kearney
the bald headed or shaved headed bully, and um Database.
(24:39):
I don't know who Database was. I think Database is
more recent. And this is probably where I should say
that I haven't seen the Simpsons in a few years.
I dabbled a little bit a couple of years ago
and I was like, this is this is not bad?
And then you know, it was kind of hit or miss,
definitely compared to two years ago. But I'm not gonna
hate on anything that's going on today. It's still the
(24:59):
Simpson you know, of course, Uh, the great, great, great
great Hankers area. Uh. One of the fantastic additional cast members. Uh.
While I say additional because he's not one of the Simpsons,
but he's a primary cast member. Uh. He voices a Pooh.
Do you want to try and say, who's last name
a poo Nahasa Pima pedal on Uh. And by the way,
(25:21):
we should mention a Pooh is taking a lot of
heat in recent years for the very least being an
ethnic stereotype and some say straight up racist. Uh. And
there is a documentary airing Believe on True TV next
month called The Problem with a Pooh from uh comedian
I really love Hari Kondabolou. And you know you should
(25:44):
watch it and sort of think of a Pooh a
little bit through uh, through Harry's lens or the lens
of an Indian person. So, um, well, you know, this
is not the first time that the Simpsons have been
called the task for offending a group, sure, an entire
group or race or country like It's it's definitely happened
over the course of this the thirty seasons that's been
(26:06):
going on. Um. Sometimes they apologize, sometimes they acknowledge it.
Other times they're just like whatever for sure, um so
going on with hankas area. Besides the poo, mostes lack
one the great characters, Chief Wigham. I mean, these are
all great comic book guy who, by the way, has
a real name, Jeff Albertson, never knew that. I can't
(26:29):
remember where that one came from, but yeah, Carl a
beloved beloved friend of Homer's from the bar. Uh Dr
Nick Hi for rolls and body. Remember he went to
the Tijuana Upstairs Medical. That's where he graduated from uh
Captain McAllister, uh Superintendent Chalmers. And of course when I
(26:53):
think of Chalmers, all I can think of is uh.
I can't remember the episode title, but the one with
with Skinner and the I think that was like the
twenty two episodes about Springfield. One. Oh man, that's such
a great one short films. I was never into that one.
I loved it and I had no idea. But apparently
it's a reference to there was a documentary or okay,
(27:15):
a movie twenty two short films about Glenn Gould. Love
that movie. Okay, I've never even heard of it. And
this raises a really good point that I'd like to
make her chuck if you'll indulge me for a second.
One of the things that The Simpsons did for me,
and I suspected for a lot of other people, is
that it pointed me in the direction of culture, like
(27:37):
it cultured me in culturated me. I'm not sure what
the word is. The Simpsons never taught me, but the
the the just the little signposts that they they point
to through the references they make that you don't get,
but then you find out about later what they were
actually talking about. It might lead you to go see
that movie or read that book, or just have a
(27:57):
better understanding of the world than you did four It's
like backwards reference. Yeah, I mean some of them are
so subtle to like, there isn't a human alive that
picks up on all the culture references that the Simpsons
throws out week the week. You know, whether it's uh
something like you were just talking about, or whether it's
just simply like in a show title like don't have
(28:18):
to Live like a referee, little things like that. They're
just nuggets all over the place. Uh. Continuing of Mr Zaria,
Professor Frank Cleadas, the slack jall yokel who will get
to a little bit more some of those his children's names. Uh,
we have some good stuff coming up, so I love
so get off the dang roof bumblebee man snake. Uh.
(28:44):
Kirk van Houghton man that that divorce episode was one
of the best. Yeah, can I borrow a Drederick Tatum
and Piro also known as Chase that was from that
episode two? I think it wasn't that the American Ideator
that that Millhouse's mom dates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot
(29:05):
about that. Oh man, Well, that's that's it. I think
these may not be complete list from Harry Shear Um, No,
I'm sorry for my area. But Harry Shears next, do
you want to tackle some of these? He does Mr
Burns and Mr Smithers, which is that's great to to
basically take those two halves of a hole and be
(29:25):
able to fill them out like that. Yeah, and by
the way, Burns was in the very first episode and
Smithers is heard over the intercom but not seen in
that episode one. That's a bit of trivia. But he
can put in their pipe and smoke. Ned Flanders principal Skinner,
Reverend love Joys, great Dr Hibbert. That laugh, he's got
(29:46):
a laugh that almost rivals, yours joke in awesomeness, Kent Brockman,
great Scratchy. I don't know who does itchy, do you?
I don't know. I kind of figured he did both,
you'd think so. But yeah, somebody all right in to
let us know Otto the bus driver, Ottoman, Jasper Abes,
friend with the long beard who can't feel them a beard.
(30:10):
Then Lenny Homer and Carl's other friends. Yeah, anybody else? Yeah,
wolf Castle and McBain. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. And
there's here's another old tidbit I can't even wait on
from our our Easter egg section later on, is apparently
if you take out all the wolf Castle pieces throughout
(30:32):
the years, there's a little coherent story that you can
actually follow that is masterful. Yeah. And I'm not sure
if someone has I'm sure someone has pulled that. Um.
I didn't get a chance to watch, but that's pretty amazing. Yeah, Uh, Herman,
George Bush, Judge Schneider, Eddie Renier, some of the other
(30:52):
Shearer characters. Do you remember who Eddie Renier was? No?
I don't. I don't either. Maybe we got some digging
to do, man, some some in bigg and digging. Uh,
we have to mention the great Pamela Hayden. She does Millhouse,
Rod Flanders, Janie Powell, Jimbo Jones, Malibu Stacy, Sarah Wigham
(31:16):
uh and a couple of dearly departed cast members occasional
cast members. Marsha Wallace, the great Marsha Wallace from The
Bob Newhart Show passed away in two thousand thirteen. She
was Mrs Crabapple. I mean, what a beloved character and
as in so many ways they describe her in this article,
is sarcastic and sexy. That whole that whole um subplot
(31:40):
that went through multiple episodes where she was dating Um Yeah,
Seymour Skinner and then later on Mary's ned Flanders. No
one saw that coming, but the fact that this show
could take steps like that and then would would commit
itself to to continuing it as long as as could
be and and keeping it up, you know what I mean,
(32:01):
rather than just being like, oh, forget about that, it
doesn't matter that that was another hallmark of the show
as well, that it could had the chops to to
make big leaps like that and then keep it going
without as seeming tried or tired or anything. Absolutely Marsha
Wallace won an Emmy for her voice work. Uh, and
they paid a tribute to her um in the episode
(32:22):
for Regrettings and a Funeral. Barts Chalkboard Gag at the
beginning said we'll really miss you, mrs Ka so sad
so sad. Uh. And the Man who grew too much,
Ned Flanders wears a black armband. Two more Edna, who
of course took the place of his departed wife. And
Maud Flanders. Yeah he's a widower twice over. Yeah. Man,
(32:44):
that one where Maud died. That was really just a
great episode. Yeah, I mean that. That's the thing about
The Simpsons is as silly as it was, they managed
to pull the heartstrings every now and then. It was
always they didn't do too much of it, but it
was always just well timed, you know, for sure, and
like they could take on some thing like death and
grief and do it like with heart but also without
(33:04):
making a very special episode of it. Always felt like
the Simpsons. Yeah, exactly. Uh. And of course Phil Hartman,
who left us way too soon. He did a couple
of classic classic characters in Lionel Huts and Troy McLure. Uh.
And I had to get a few of my favorite
Troy McClure lines in here. Um, and he was very famous.
(33:26):
If you don't know the Simpsons, Toroy McClure was uh,
former semi famous actor who would pop up every now
and then in uh kind of like school films and
stuff like that, sure or um an infomercial. Yeah. He
was just like a former pretty boy actor basically. Yeah.
And his his running gag was I'm Troy McClure. You
(33:48):
might remember me dot dot dot right, So here's here's
a few of my favorites. I'm Troy McClure. You might
remember me from some self help videos as Smoke Yourself
then and get comf and Stupid. Here's another one. You
might remember me from such driver's ed films as Alice's
(34:09):
Adventures through the Windshield Glass and the Decapitation of lead
Larry Leadfoot, And then this one. You may remember me
from such educational films as to minus three equals Negative
fun and by a Crackers The Silent Killer so good,
and Attorney Lama Huts was just great too, was good?
(34:32):
And then which one did he date? He dated Patty
or Selma? I can't remember which one. You're just I'm mortified. Well,
they're so interchangeable to me, Well, they are. One of
them came out as gay, actually, and one of the
recent seasons was not that one, right, um I I
(34:52):
think it was Selma. No, it would have been Patty
because Patty is the one who was engaged to Principal Skinner.
That's right, um So, I guess he was dating Patty.
I just remember in that episode when he he went
out with her one night and then showed up the
next day and said, you might remember me from certain
dates as last nights. Right. One of my favorite lines
(35:14):
from that episode is, um, there in like a nice
restaurant and um, Selma, No, Patty lights up a cigarette
and everybody's like, oh my gosh, she's smoking smoking. Somebody
goes waiter, I ordered a zeema, not emphysema. What a
great line, man, Yeah. Um So. Guest stars over the years,
(35:36):
um they have. There have been some very beloved people
playing other people, and then many people playing themselves. Uh.
And I made a list of my favorite people playing
other people. Martin Sheen played Sergeant Seymour Skinner a k a.
The real Seymour Skinner. Oh that was Martin Sheen. Wasn't it. Okay?
(35:59):
The Great Albert Brooks played Hank Scorpio. Nice. Yeah, that
was a great character. Glenn Close played Homer's mom and
just such a great episode that that one. And I
think also the one where he goes and um tries
to find what his middle his the j stand name.
Yeah yeah yeah. I don't know if she was in that,
(36:19):
but like she she's like a she's like an off
camera character because he meets like some of her old
friends from back when he was such a sweet episode
and then they all end up on um Payote I
think in truth sim since fashion. Patrick Stewart played Number
one in the stone Cutters episode. Meryl Street played Jessica
(36:41):
Lovejoy Bart's love interest brief love interest. The late great
Johnny Cash played Homer Spirit Coyote. Yeah remember that. Remember
Rodney Dangerfield is Larry Burns. I get no esteem, noverre
god either. Ron Taylor played a bleeding gums Murphy Lee,
his sort of mentor on the saxophone who played him
(37:03):
got named Ron Taylor. Okay, give him his due, and
arties If was played by John Lovitt Sure and John
Lovitts played Jay Sherman, the critic in one of the
more hated episodes of all times. Yeah, the crossover episode
where they throw a film festival in Springfield and Jay
Sherman shows up to to lead the jury for the
(37:26):
film festival. Well, it was. It was basically a vehicle
to introduce America to the critic, which was now going
to be on Fox after The Simpsons. And did you
ever see that show? The critic? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
saw that. It was a little smallsey, but I mean
it had its charms here there. It wasn't like the
worst thing anyone's ever put on TV. It certainly wasn't
(37:47):
Simpsons caliber. But supposedly Matt Graining was so upset about
this that he made them take his name off of
the opening credits on the TV screen. He was that
mad about this crawl sover that had been like shoved
down his throat by Fox executives. As the legend goes,
good for him, sure, um, And then you know, they've
(38:08):
had some legends that played themselves before Bob Hope passed away.
He was on the show. Ernest borg Nine, Robert Goulay,
Steve Allen, Robert Gooley swings his hello. He's sitting there,
he's doing the treehouse at Bart's Treehouse, he's doing a show.
I don't know how he got booked there. I think
Nelson maybe was his agent, and like he's swinging his
(38:31):
microphone and the quarters are so close in the treehouse.
He smacks like I think millhouses glasses right off his face,
like oh sorry kid, uh And then they I think
there've been more than like seventy musicians and bands through
the years. They've always loved featuring bands. So at the time,
all the Living Beatles before George Harrison passed, and the
(38:52):
Ramons and the Who and Metallica and R E. M
and You Too and Aerosmith, Tom Petty, the late Great
Tom Petty, Lenny Krab. It's like the list goes on
and on. But they've always had great musical guests. And
that YouTube episode that was the garbage Man episode, right,
I think so so one of the great There's like
this is a great illustration of just a throwaway joke
(39:13):
on The Simpsons that just made it that much smarter
that show. Right, So, like Homer is trying to sneak backstage,
so he dresses up like Irish potato delivery man, like
there is such a thing, right, So, so the joke
is that this is what Homer thinks is going to
get him backstage. But then the added bonus to the
(39:33):
joke is that it actually works, Like when he shows up,
the security guards like, where in the devil have you been?
Like they've been waiting for the guy who delivers raw
potatoes backstage at a YouTube concert? Like that's just the thing, right,
I love that show so much. Uh. And finally, as
far as guest voices, we would be we would be
(39:56):
remiss without mentioning the great Kelsey Grammar at side show
Bob prominent prominent character. And then they ended up getting
David Hyde pierced to play Cecil, his brother, and then
John Mahoney all from Frazier to play his father, Dr
Robert to Willoker. Nice, so good, it's so so good, Chuck. Alright,
(40:17):
let's take another break and we're gonna come back and
talk a little bit about these episodes and how they
are put together. Josh, Okay, Chuck, we're back, and you
(40:43):
promised that we were going to talk more about the Simpsons,
so go all right, well we should talk a little
bit about I mean, we can sit here and quote
lines all day long. I know, I hope this isn't
getting annoying for anybody. Hopefully everybody's having as much fun
as we are. No, I mean this one was bound
to get super wonky. But we should talk a little
bit technically about how the show is made. Hey, uh,
(41:06):
so here's how it starts, and the Grabs are did
a good job of kind of breaking this down, I think. Yeah.
And also also I want to give a shout out
to an article on the Verge called how uh Simpsons
episode is made. It goes into even greater detail. It's
it's nuts what they do. Alright. So, like most shows,
or I would say probably every show, uh, it begins
(41:28):
in the writer's room. Writer's gonna pitch ideas to each
other and the producers. An episode will get a green light,
and then a single writer usually sometimes they work in pairs,
will go off and create a draft in a couple
of weeks. But that is not the end of the
writing process. No, no, no, no no. Supposedly, the writing
process is one of the most um uh shape shifting
(41:55):
parts of the entire process of making an episode. There's
a lot of people pokey at it. You've got the
show runner, who in this capacity serves as the um
script editor and the head writer. Um, you've got the
actual writers, you've got the writing team, you've got the
writing assistance, You've got producers who are thinking about it.
You've got all these people who are thinking of the
(42:16):
script and rewriting it and editing it. That is supposedly
a script goes through rewrites um for like four to
six weeks or something like that. Yeah, and like most
shows operate this way, there's a lot, especially comedies, a
lot of rewriting that goes on to just I mean,
they'll come down and debate a word for a couple
of hours to make sure they're getting the funniest stuff
(42:39):
they can get right. Um, then what comes next is
the table read. And brother, you and I got really
really lucky. When was this four or five years ago?
I think it was two thousand, thirteen or fourteen. So
here's how it went down. We had a listener, uh
named Jesse write us and say she did worked for
(43:00):
the Simpsons, but she was in somehow. I think she
had a friend. She was friends I think with Tom Gamble,
the producer, one of the users of the Simpsons. Yeah,
and she said, you know, dudes, whenever you want to
come out to l A and go to a table read,
and then we were basically at the airport about an
hour later. So I don't know. We had a trip
booked for some reason or another, and we went out
there and uh we met at the Fox lot and
(43:23):
the building little bungalow outside the Simpsons. First of all
is just so exciting because they have topiaries of Simpsons
characters and of itself. And then the table read is
a bit of a public thing, like it's not a
hundred people, but they were probably besides the cast in
writing staff an additional what people in there, like tourists
(43:48):
like us. Yeah, yeah, I would say something like that
like friends, family members, um, just special invitees, the ambassador
of from Spain, like just just people were there and
and they were like you shut up, all of you.
Don't make a sound, turn off your cell phones, will
kill your whole family if you if you say anything,
because this is serious business. Yeah. So there's they're all
(44:10):
the people who work on the show. We're sitting at
this big, huge, long conference table. And then the room
is lined all along the outside on four walls with
chairs for people to just sit there quietly and uh,
sit at the altar in reverence of what they're about
to see and we so the one we were there
um was a script read for the episode that became
(44:32):
the Wreck of the Relationship, right. I think Nick Offerman
guest starred in it as a sea captain. But basically
Bart and Homer go off on this um father's son
bonding tour like aboard a ship, and uh. The b
subplot was that while they were gone, Marge had to
um pick Homer's fantasy football team, and she decided that
(44:56):
she should pick all place kickers and turns out that
she she was right. Um like, she ended up winning,
but in between picking them and not knowing what she
was doing and winning the whole thing, um, she ends
up like trash talking with Mo and Lenny and Carl
um And it's a pretty good be subplot. Actually, yeah,
(45:17):
And I would love to say that, um, all of
the voice actors are in the room together. That is
not the case because everyone is busy and doing other stuff.
And they got it down to a science now so
they don't have to rub elbows. But they're you know,
calling it on the phone and they're doing the voices
and stuff either be a phone or in person, and uh,
Matt Graining was there though, Uh, Dan Castelenetta was there
(45:38):
in the room, Julie Kavner was there. Julie Kavner was there,
Udly Smith yep Beudy Smith and um, Pamela Hayden was there,
but we got no as Aria or Shearer, right, but
they were on the phone, so like we were sitting
there listening to them do the voices. Yeah, so they
basically read through the script. They'll stop every now and
then and make suggestions or something on a different line
(45:59):
reading and in the writers and producers are all furiously
scribbling and making notes and stuff like that. Uh. And
then afterward they they finished it up and we very
like a couple of six year old sheepishly grabbed our
scripts that we get to take with us because everyone
gets a script to read along and uh and met
(46:21):
Matt Greening and it was surreal. It was um yeah.
What was I think even more surreal was that he
was like super nice, the nicest dude you could imagine,
Like he was like really nice, like Dan cast Lenetta
like didn't ever look up when like Umi was there,
and she took a picture of me with Dan castle
Lenetta and I'm saying they're giving a thumbs up, and
(46:43):
he's like looking down, like signing my script. Yeah, it's
not like he wasn't a nice guy, but he just
wasn't quite as personable in person as I'm at Graining.
But I think like Matt Greening like stood up and
shook hands and was like, hey, great to meet you,
and he didn't know who I was from Adam. He
was just this surprisingly friendly guy. Yeah, we remember telling
him that we uh you mean was just laughing the
(47:03):
whole time. She was like, you guys are just hysterical. Yeah,
we really were like a couple of six year olds.
I was surprised at both of us actually, just how
quickly we were like kids. Yeah. I don't get superstar
struck anymore, and and this one just had me like
I was super super nervous. But I remember I think
I told him Mr. Graining that, you know, we have
a podcast and we talked about the Simpsons so much,
(47:25):
it's almost like an additional character on our show. And
he asked what the name of it was, wrote it
down stuff you should know on his script, and then
ate that piece of paper in front of you, and
then he signed our script and he scribbles out a
quick drawing he drew bart On my script I got
Homer and it says your pal Matt Graining. Yeah, so
nice man. That script is like under plexiglass, under lock
(47:49):
and key trained Momo to kill anybody who comes anywhere
near it. It's just like comprised possession. Now. Oh yeah,
for sure. We got Dan Castle Lenetta to sign it, uh,
Julie Kabner to sign and I think those are the
only three autographs I got. But it was neat so
to us, we were just losing our minds. It was
so amazing to them, like it was straight up work, right,
(48:11):
Like this is work to them, and it was nicely
like they're they're fine, like seeing people that they're friends with,
who they invited or whatever. But um, I read an
interview with al Jean and al Jean said that he
hates will Reads more than anything because it is real work,
but it's it's in this weird kind of in between state,
like letting people come wat. Yeah, I wonder whose idea
(48:32):
that was. I don't know, but apparently a customed that
they've been keeping up this whole time, despite at the
very least one of the high powered executives in charge
of the show hating it interesting. Yeah, I think there's
lots of distractions and stuff like that, but apparently they
muddled through every Thursday. Yeah, and it's I just can't
say enough it was. This is not hyperbole. It is
(48:54):
a genuine all time life highlight. You know. It was
just amazing, agree, Chuck. Alright, so I think we've reached
the end of part one of episode one thousand, technically
episode that's a cliffhanger too, it is. Man, I'm pretty
I'm pretty psyched. Like this is not planned, Chuck. This
is a genuine cliffhanger. Yeah, right in the middle of
(49:14):
the production process, people are gonna be like, I have
to know how they make these shows. Well, just cool out, everybody,
cool out. You can wait until what Thursday? Right, Yes,
for our actual official episode one thousand, And in the meantime,
you can get in touch with us on Twitter. I'm
at josh um Clark and what the official handle is
s y s K podcast. Charles Chuck is at Facebook
(49:37):
dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's also I'm
on there somewhere you can try to find me Um
And then there's also an official stuff you Should Know
one on Facebook. Two. You can send us all an email,
including Jerry to stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot
com and as always, hang out with us at our
home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(50:01):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
a howstof works dot com
Welcome to stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
dot com. M Hey, and welcome to The Simpsons, I
(00:32):
mean the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant,
there's Jerry over there, and this is Chuck episode. Yeah. Well,
you know how I think of this. I think of
it as one thousand, just a big fat one thousand
that had to leak on to two days. It actually
(00:55):
leaked back in time. How amazing is that? Yeah, because
we have to do a two parter because upon looking
at this research and this topic, very special topic for
us for the show, we realized it had to be
a two parter and rather than do one thousand and
one thousand one, what kind of person would do that?
An unwholesome person. Yeah, yeah, okay, so this is episode
(01:18):
in your view, it's it's really just part of episode
one thousand. I'm with you on that. Yes, can you
believe that? I, you know what Chuck up until today?
I could totally believe it. But the fact that we're
doing The Simpsons for our thousandth episode, it just it
drove everything home, Like all the gear teeth fell right
(01:38):
into place, and now the gears are spinning in sync
and I can feel it and I'm amazed. Yeah. So, uh,
we just wanted to acknowledge the one thousand here up front,
and I think frankly, we're doing that because we're both
so excited about doing this. I think I should tell
people what you emailed earlier. We were furiously sending links
(01:59):
back fourth this week and you said, Uh, I don't
even want to record, I just want to keep researching
the Simpsons forever. It's true. Man. Last night, Chuck, I
was sitting there watching Simpsons episodes and I thought, well,
this is the pinnacle of my career. I am literally
being paid to watch the Simpsons. Yeah, and we just
(02:25):
had to stop, Like Eveen, we could have done this
for weeks and researched, and this could be uh an
entire podcast and into itself with a thousand episodes. Well
maybe not a thousand, close to it, but at some
point we had to stop. So just know, if we
didn't cover your favorite thing from the show that's been
(02:47):
on for thirty years, or or if we're not referring
to episodes under their specific naming convention, yeah, calm down, Yeah,
it's just impossible. So we're gonna do our best here
to talk about some of our favorite stuff and a
little bit about how the show works. But here we go, right, Oh, man,
(03:07):
let's do it. This is like an actual intro. Yes,
that was an actual response, So Chuck, yes, have you
ever seen the Simpsons? I have, sir, you caught it
back from the beginning, like that was right in our wheelhouse,
(03:29):
maybe even yours a little more than mine. Yeah, And uh,
I mean, let's we should go ahead and just talk
for a moment about episode one because I have a
very distinct memory, which is I'm in high school. It's
my senior year. Chris Bouten, my friend and future roommate
in college, calls me Boots Bouten, and he says, dude,
(03:51):
have you and I have to admit I did not
see the Tracy Almond shorts, So let's get that out
of the way right now. They were bizarre. Yeah, and
this is that's where the show began. As most people know,
is a little short animated bits in the Tracy Ellman Show.
But Chris Bootin calls me episodes Man, I'm coming over.
I'm meeting you in the basement, opened the back door.
I have a VHS of this show called The Simpsons
(04:14):
you gotta see it, and he met me over there.
It was winter, it was December. Well it aired on
the seventeenth, but I have a feeling this was the
next day probably, and Booting came over and we watched
the very first episode, which was Santa's Little Helper, and
(04:34):
we cried tears of joy and laughter, and my life
went on a different course. Yeah, I Boots did not
visit my house personally with the video. We didn't call
him Boots by the video because well I'm calling him
Boots nickname Boots. That's classic Boots by the way to
show up in the basement. Um. But he, uh, he
(04:57):
did not come to my house. But I did see
that one, and I think Guy saw it when it
aired actually, and I remember watching the Tracy Ullman shorts
too and just being like, what the hell is this.
But then by the time I think the Tracy Ullman
Show and we'll get a little more into it, that
one started in seven, um and the actual show started
in eighty nine. So between those two points they really
(05:19):
like it really started to come together to where that
first episode where Homer finds out he's not getting a
Christmas bonus, so he gets a job secretly as a
mall Santa and ends up taking his check to the
dog track and betting it all and losing it all
on Santa's a Little Helper, which was the dog right,
But then he ends up with Santa a Little Helper,
so he gets what he was after all along, which
(05:42):
is a great Christmas present for his family. What a
beautiful episode, right, Yeah, And interestingly that first episode was
really the eighth one to be made, but they ran
that one first, so uh, there were there were some
weird differences like the show. Actually, originally I think Matt
Gray thought it would be redrawn a little more slickly,
(06:04):
but they just traced over his original drawing. So the
animation was fairly crude in this episode. And then you'll
notice an episode two it actually looks a little bit better. Um,
and you know, the Simpson still looks like the Simpsons,
but that early episode and kind of the whole first
season was a little more crude in drawing and voice. Uh.
(06:24):
And the pilot was the only episode missing that very
famous opening sequence, which we'll talk about a little bit later.
Oh yeah, it wasn't it like a cold opening or
something like that. I can't remember exactly how, but it
didn't feature the iconic opening that we all know and
love today. Um So, where shall we start, Chuck? I mean,
I guess we kind of just did start. Yeah, and
(06:45):
I think I already made a mistake about what well
Sante's Little Hope would In the name of the episode,
it was Simpsons roasting on an open fire. Yeah, so
I mean, come on, that's the one that you were
you were talking about, you know, yeah, but I'm just
I know that like probably thousand people just slam their
laptot shut. But that's what I'm saying, Everybody, chill out.
That's not what this episode is about. We're not trying
(07:07):
to show you how little you know. That's right. Ed
the Grabster Grabanowski wrote this article. Actually this one was
written by Unedd Grabanowski. If you ask me, why did
you say that? Because it was it wasn't like five
times as long as it should have been. No, I
can't remember who who calls himself that for every Treehouse
(07:28):
of Horror, but there's a D and they call themselves uned,
so I thought that was probably I'm really surprised he
didn't actually get that as his byline for this it's
a nice estery there, my friend. Yeah. Uh, and then
we did just I mean, so much supplementary information. It's
sort of ridiculous. Yeah, but this is like a special
request from us, wasn't it. Oh yeah, we said, go forth,
(07:49):
grabster and write the well right the oh okay, right there,
Well there were two ease in that the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I should have noticed by the flourish of your hand
what you were saying. All right, So let's go back
to uh Simpsons creator one Mr Matt Greening, and we
have actually met him, and we will talk about that
(08:10):
in a little bit. Life highlight for sure. But he
had a comic strip called Life and Hell, and I
think the original conceit to pitch to producer James L. Brooks.
Seven was a cartoon version of that. Ed writes in
here he thought it would be a failure, but I
read that he wasn't too keen on signing away sort
(08:32):
of the thing he had worked on all his life.
So he changed his mind at the last minute and thought,
of the Simpsons. That's awesome. That sounds the second one
sounds much more like Matt Graining for sure. Yeah, And
he had he had no idea that would make him
a super rich gazillion are either. But if you if
you um know that story. The fact that the Simpsons
started out on Tracy Ullman makes sense because James Brooks,
(08:55):
who himself is a pretty like bona fide cool guy
right here the married Tyler Moore shown directed terms of endearment. Um,
he produced Bottle Rocket. Um. Yeah, you could say he
has an eye for amazing things for sure. So he
had come across this life and How strip and and
wanted to basically turn it into animated shorts for the
(09:16):
Tracy Woman Show, but then Graining swapped it out at
the at the pitch meeting and said let's do this instead.
But I think either way, he came up with the
characters and the idea fairly on the fly, right Yeah,
I mean obviously wasn't like while he was waiting outside
of the pitch meeting, but h what he came up with.
And if you haven't seen the Simpsons, maybe you should
go watch an episode or two. Crawl up from under
(09:38):
the rock that you're and go watch one. But obviously
we should at least say what it is. And it
is a sort of a traditional sitcom about um, and
follows the sitcom conventions in many ways of a family, uh,
living together under a roof who encounter fun hijinks along
(09:58):
the way. Yeah, and um, that's kind of the subtext
for the whole or the pretext I should say, for
the whole series. Right, it's like it's a sitcom, it's
a family sitcom. But there's a couple of big differences
with it right there. Um, it's animated, which is huge
because it's a it was a price. It became in
nine a primetime animated series, and it was the first
(10:21):
one since I think nineteen seventy two where Wait Till
You're nineteen seventy four where Wait Till Your Father Gets
Home went off the air. Did you ever see that show?
It was like a proto family Guy basically, um, from
the early seventies, and it was actually super entertaining. And
then before that, of course, there was The flint Stones,
but those were like the two big primetime animated series
(10:44):
before the Simpsons. But there's a good, you know, twentysomething
thirties something year lull in between those and the Simpsons.
So that was a big difference in and of itself. Well,
it's easy to take for granted. Now with the advent
of like Cartoon Network in Adult Swim and Family Guy
in Futurama, which also from graining. Yeah, I mean, there's
(11:05):
just an explosion of animation. Right. You've got you know,
starting back with Beavis and butt Head that was a
descendant of The Simpsons, and then of course you've got
King of the Hill, uh South Park. Um, today you've
got Rick and Morty. Have you seen Rick and Morty?
I haven't yet. Everyone I'm remiss. Everyone said it's the greatest.
(11:28):
It is, it's the greatest, and man, it's one of
those it's under the same thing that The Simpsons was
initially taken for where you know, there's a lot of belching,
so people are like, this is low brown. It's like, no,
look past it to what they're actually doing. It's insanely
smart and and really entertaining too. Like it's, um, it's
laugh out loud funny in a lot of parts. I
think we've kind of proven that we can be smart
(11:50):
and still make part jokes. Sure, and and Rick and
Morty is doing the same thing. And by the way, um,
you know they listened to us, right Rick and Morty, Yeah,
I remember they sent us that aunt's book and it
had that was the Rick and Morty people. Yeah, so
thanks again for that, guys. That's a treasured possession. Well
I'm definitely watching now. Yeah, all the adult quote unquote
(12:13):
uh cartoons that we see. But it was revolutionary at
the time. I mean Flint Stone's aside, Like you said,
it had been a long time and it was quite
literally leveled the TV industry because it was such a
smash hit right out of the gate. That's right, Yeah,
I know, it was huge, right, um, and a lot
of things came together for it. Um the fact that
(12:36):
that James L. Brooks got in touch with the man Craning.
That was a bit of a fluke because he got
in touch with them for a different reason, but also
because it was a show on Fox and Fox was
just starting out as a network and they were looking
to make waves. So at the time you had basically here,
So here's what the Simpsons were up against in family
(12:56):
sitcom wise. You ready for this? Um My two Dads,
Major Dad, Mr Belvedere, who's the Boss, Hogan, Family Family Matters,
Growing Pains, The Cosby Show, Full House, and like that
was what family sitcoms or TV sitcoms in general were
(13:18):
at the time, and you had Roseanne. Roseanne had been
on for a couple of years already, and it had
shaken things up some for sure, but for the most part,
like this was America was this um, clean and tidy,
wholesome place where everything was just peachy keen and all
the problems that a family encounter were about as superficial
(13:39):
as you could possibly come across. And this was the
other big thing about The Simpsons, and it actually went
really well, at least superficially with married with Children, which
was that family wholesome sitcom spawn onto its very gritty,
dirty underbelly. Right. Uh. The Pons was initially compared to
(14:01):
that same kind of thing because they were both on
Fox and they both like kind of took the family
sitcom and turned it on its head. But it took
a minute but not too long for people to start noticing,
oh wait, actually this is really subversive satire. And that
was the big thing that I think initially gave the Simpsons.
(14:21):
It's it's it's base for to keep going for thirty seasons. Yeah,
I mean, I remember when Fox first came out and
it was like that, what, there's a fourth TV channel.
I know it was a big deal. It was a
big deal. And their thing from the beginning was, you know,
we're gonna be edgy, We're gonna be different. This is
this is not your mom and Dad's TV. And like
you said, Mary with Children and the Simpsons firmly put
(14:44):
them on a different track. Uh. And it was funny
when you were just going through all the shows like
they they were no more edgy than since TV's inception,
and it might it might as well have been, well
maybe a little more edgy than like be Re Cleaver
and Sean Harriet, but not too far off. For the
most part. TV was kind of the same for decades
(15:06):
when it came to family sitcoms. Yeah, so the Simpsons
was just this is not overstating it. It was a
cultural revolution in every way. It definitely was. And it
it took up like this already kind of nascent revolution
and from Roseanne and from Mary with Children, but it
was different, man, it was like it was it was
its own thing and still is today. And again, like
(15:30):
you were saying, it's easy to look back and be like, well, yeah,
i mean animated, really smart, subversive satirical shows like they're
they're a diamond dozen is a weird way to put it,
but it's true, like they're all over the place. Now,
that's because the Simpsons came along. It's as simple as that. Yeah.
So the early episodes um in the In the first
(15:51):
couple of seasons, Bart Simpson, uh was sort of the
star of the show as far as pop culture goes.
I mean, he was front and enter, he was on
every T shirt. Every kid was saying eat my shorts,
every kid was talking back to their teachers more, and
it created quite a ruckuss in schools. I know that
some of the T shirts were banned in certain school districts. Yeah.
(16:15):
The Underachiever and proud of It man, Yeah, that one
was banned and I think I'm Bart Simpson, who the
hell are you? Yeah, But it wasn't long before it
became pretty clear that it was an ensemble show for
one and sort of Homer's show, let's be honest. Yeah,
(16:36):
ultimately ended up that way in large part. He he
became the central character, didn't he. Yeah, I would say easily.
But then, I mean, we'll go through a lot of
these characters, if not all of them, because we don't
have time to read like five people's names, right, but
it ended up being like a memorial or something. I know.
But the Simpsons side characters and the guest characters have
become just as beloved as uh as the fane of
(17:00):
of course, Homer and Marge and Lisa and Bart and
little Maggie. Absolutely. Do you want to take our first break? Yeah? Yeah,
let's we're so excited. Let's go ahead and take a
break real quick and calm down. All right, we're back.
(17:34):
So the earliest clips of the Simpsons were animated by
a different studio than they used now and have used
for many years. It's called class Key Suppo or Cupo
zupo c s u p oh. I'm not sure how
they pronounced it, but they were all, of course based
on Matt Greening's original sketches that had these yellow skinned characters,
(17:55):
very bright primary color palette. Uh. And it became a
little more refined over the year, SUPs, we said, but
it's um it never approached like a slick looking animation
by any means. No, No, the earliest stuff definitely not.
And they were with I think it's class Key Zupo,
I'm not sure, but they were with them for two
years and and despite this stuff being really rough and
(18:18):
like kind of hard to watch even if you if
you look at it now. Um, they gave the Simpsons
like their yellow skin, Marge's blue hair, and supposedly Matt
graening Um when he saw the yellow skin tone palette
for the Simpsons skin colors, he was like, that is perfect.
Like when somebody's like clicking through the channels real quick,
(18:40):
their eyes going to is gonna catch that and they're
gonna stop because the Simpsons are on and they're gonna
watch it. So apparently that's where the yellow came from.
It was kind of a fluke, but they went with
it just because it was so catchy. That's great idea.
But then after I think two years, they moved over
to something called film Roman or film Roman. I've never
heard it actually really set out loud, but they they
(19:02):
were the ones who, starting in and think season two
or three, really gave the Simpsons it's defined look that
stayed for years and years and years. Yeah. I remember
Homer's voice early on sounded a little bit different too. Yeah,
you know, I mean the same guy. It was Dan Castlenetta,
but just uh was not the same Homer's voice that
we know and love today. No, it was much gruffer.
(19:24):
Plus his dialogue two was way more I mean it
really was much more about Bart and Homer was way
angrier and like he strangled barred it like the drop
of a hat. That was like a go to gag.
So this the show is still really smart compared to
Who's the Boss, But compared to you know, later seasons
(19:45):
of The Simpsons, it was really just it's rough by comparison,
for sure. Don't not go boss too much though, I
mean it's fine, too fine show. But man, it wasn't
smart satire. You put it, you put it Who's the
Boss episode up against like a season seven episode of
The Simpsons. Mr. The Boss is not going to win
that one. Yeah, they're not the Boss. I mean, like
even Tony Danes. It will tell you that. So let's
(20:09):
talk a little bit about the main cast and the crew. Uh.
In those early years, Um, of course, Matt Graining was
around from the beginning, and James L. Brooks of course.
Then there was a man, uh, the dearly departed Sam Simon,
who was an EP on the show from the early days. Uh,
and the great Al Jean has been the show runner
since the thirteenth season. Um, but I'm pretty sure he
(20:32):
was around before that, right, I didn't exactly look at
when he joined up. I believe he was an early
producer as well, Okay, but eventually rose to showrunner. Bill Oakley.
Josh Weinstein and Mike Scully ran the show previous to
that during the first twelve seasons. We cannot list all
the writers. It would be impossible, No, but some some
made some pretty huge contributions. Yeah, like George Meyer and
(20:56):
John Schwartzwelder are generally given credit to kind of defining
who these characters were from the early days. Yeah, the worldview,
the jokes they would make, the fact that and this
is another huge thing that we take for granted today
that The Simpsons really established was referential humor, like making
(21:16):
making fun of, um, you know, film literature, trends, whatever,
not necessarily part of the plot, but just part of
a joke maybe or something like that, or in addition,
a little layer just to make the whole, the whole
idea that was being put across that much more palatable.
They really kind of blew that out, and that was
thanks to that early brain trust you just mentioned of
(21:37):
people who established the show for for what it's what
it was, Yeah, I mean it was a blueprint and
everyone that that came along afterward sort of had their
show Bible thanks to these people. Yes, you know which
if you look up show Bible, there's this there's one
episode that just screws up any Google search for that.
(21:57):
There was the Simpsons Bible Stories episode, which was a
stinker anyway, but it sucks because now you can't find
any examples of this show Bible must exist somewhere. I
don't know if you could find that online. You can
find the style Guide examples online though, Yeah, for sure. Uh.
And of course we got to mention Conan O'Brien because
he very famously worked for a couple of years on
The Simpsons. I think it's credited with four or five episodes, uh,
(22:21):
including one of the all time classics, Marge versus the Monorail,
which Conan has still talks about that being one of
his great career achievements is writing that episode. I can imagine,
because not only was a great episode, but you got
to write and then Phil Hartman brought your stuff to
life man like that was a big one. All right. Well,
speaking of Phil Hartman, let's start talking about the cast,
(22:43):
because this is gonna this is gonna take a little while.
Are you ready. So, so, there's hundreds of characters in
the Simpsons universe, but really a lot of them, a
lot of them boil down to the voices of just
six people. Yeah, so, um, two of them focus almost
(23:04):
exclusively on just one character each. Julie Kavner does Marge,
but then she also obviously does Marge's sisters Patty and
Selma and her mom Jacqueline in one episode, Yeah, the
Bouvier's yea. And then you'rd Lee Smith does just Lisa
for the for the show. Yeah, and she's the only
one that does a single voice. Um, Dan casting Lenetta
(23:25):
obviously does Homer. He also does Grandpa Abe. It's hard
to not laugh just thinking of each one of these characters.
I know, you know, I kept laughing out loud researching
this stuff, at the very least, chuckling to myself, you know, yeah,
strickling in the office today was like I gotta ask
what the heck is going on over there? And it's
like we're doing an episode in Simpson's leaving Alan. He
was like, what castle Lena also does Barney Gumble Krusty
(23:49):
the Clown, Groundskeeper, Willie Mayor Quimby Man so great Hans Moleman, Sideshow,
mel Itchy, kdoskil Pucci, Uh, the Squeaky Boys Team Mr Burns, Lawyer,
Krusty's Monkey, Mr Teeney, and he did Bill Clinton, Great
Bill Clinton Team Real no fooling Pigs. What about Nancy
(24:13):
cart Right, the Great Nancy cart Right. So she does
bart that's what she's best known for, but she does
some other voices of um, some other prepubescent uh characters
like Ralph Wiggham one of the great all time voices ever,
Um Todd Flanders, Nelson Months has a great one. Kearney
the bald headed or shaved headed bully, and um Database.
(24:39):
I don't know who Database was. I think Database is
more recent. And this is probably where I should say
that I haven't seen the Simpsons in a few years.
I dabbled a little bit a couple of years ago
and I was like, this is this is not bad?
And then you know, it was kind of hit or miss,
definitely compared to two years ago. But I'm not gonna
hate on anything that's going on today. It's still the
(24:59):
Simpson you know, of course, Uh, the great, great, great
great Hankers area. Uh. One of the fantastic additional cast members. Uh.
While I say additional because he's not one of the Simpsons,
but he's a primary cast member. Uh. He voices a Pooh.
Do you want to try and say, who's last name
a poo Nahasa Pima pedal on Uh. And by the way,
(25:21):
we should mention a Pooh is taking a lot of
heat in recent years for the very least being an
ethnic stereotype and some say straight up racist. Uh. And
there is a documentary airing Believe on True TV next
month called The Problem with a Pooh from uh comedian
I really love Hari Kondabolou. And you know you should
(25:44):
watch it and sort of think of a Pooh a
little bit through uh, through Harry's lens or the lens
of an Indian person. So, um, well, you know, this
is not the first time that the Simpsons have been
called the task for offending a group, sure, an entire
group or race or country like It's it's definitely happened
over the course of this the thirty seasons that's been
(26:06):
going on. Um. Sometimes they apologize, sometimes they acknowledge it.
Other times they're just like whatever for sure, um so
going on with hankas area. Besides the poo, mostes lack
one the great characters, Chief Wigham. I mean, these are
all great comic book guy who, by the way, has
a real name, Jeff Albertson, never knew that. I can't
(26:29):
remember where that one came from, but yeah, Carl a
beloved beloved friend of Homer's from the bar. Uh Dr
Nick Hi for rolls and body. Remember he went to
the Tijuana Upstairs Medical. That's where he graduated from uh
Captain McAllister, uh Superintendent Chalmers. And of course when I
(26:53):
think of Chalmers, all I can think of is uh.
I can't remember the episode title, but the one with
with Skinner and the I think that was like the
twenty two episodes about Springfield. One. Oh man, that's such
a great one short films. I was never into that one.
I loved it and I had no idea. But apparently
it's a reference to there was a documentary or okay,
(27:15):
a movie twenty two short films about Glenn Gould. Love
that movie. Okay, I've never even heard of it. And
this raises a really good point that I'd like to
make her chuck if you'll indulge me for a second.
One of the things that The Simpsons did for me,
and I suspected for a lot of other people, is
that it pointed me in the direction of culture, like
(27:37):
it cultured me in culturated me. I'm not sure what
the word is. The Simpsons never taught me, but the
the the just the little signposts that they they point
to through the references they make that you don't get,
but then you find out about later what they were
actually talking about. It might lead you to go see
that movie or read that book, or just have a
(27:57):
better understanding of the world than you did four It's
like backwards reference. Yeah, I mean some of them are
so subtle to like, there isn't a human alive that
picks up on all the culture references that the Simpsons
throws out week the week. You know, whether it's uh
something like you were just talking about, or whether it's
just simply like in a show title like don't have
(28:18):
to Live like a referee, little things like that. They're
just nuggets all over the place. Uh. Continuing of Mr Zaria,
Professor Frank Cleadas, the slack jall yokel who will get
to a little bit more some of those his children's names. Uh,
we have some good stuff coming up, so I love
so get off the dang roof bumblebee man snake. Uh.
(28:44):
Kirk van Houghton man that that divorce episode was one
of the best. Yeah, can I borrow a Drederick Tatum
and Piro also known as Chase that was from that
episode two? I think it wasn't that the American Ideator
that that Millhouse's mom dates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot
(29:05):
about that. Oh man, Well, that's that's it. I think
these may not be complete list from Harry Shear Um, No,
I'm sorry for my area. But Harry Shears next, do
you want to tackle some of these? He does Mr
Burns and Mr Smithers, which is that's great to to
basically take those two halves of a hole and be
(29:25):
able to fill them out like that. Yeah, and by
the way, Burns was in the very first episode and
Smithers is heard over the intercom but not seen in
that episode one. That's a bit of trivia. But he
can put in their pipe and smoke. Ned Flanders principal Skinner,
Reverend love Joys, great Dr Hibbert. That laugh, he's got
(29:46):
a laugh that almost rivals, yours joke in awesomeness, Kent Brockman,
great Scratchy. I don't know who does itchy, do you?
I don't know. I kind of figured he did both,
you'd think so. But yeah, somebody all right in to
let us know Otto the bus driver, Ottoman, Jasper Abes,
friend with the long beard who can't feel them a beard.
(30:10):
Then Lenny Homer and Carl's other friends. Yeah, anybody else? Yeah,
wolf Castle and McBain. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. And
there's here's another old tidbit I can't even wait on
from our our Easter egg section later on, is apparently
if you take out all the wolf Castle pieces throughout
(30:32):
the years, there's a little coherent story that you can
actually follow that is masterful. Yeah. And I'm not sure
if someone has I'm sure someone has pulled that. Um.
I didn't get a chance to watch, but that's pretty amazing. Yeah, Uh, Herman,
George Bush, Judge Schneider, Eddie Renier, some of the other
(30:52):
Shearer characters. Do you remember who Eddie Renier was? No?
I don't. I don't either. Maybe we got some digging
to do, man, some some in bigg and digging. Uh,
we have to mention the great Pamela Hayden. She does Millhouse,
Rod Flanders, Janie Powell, Jimbo Jones, Malibu Stacy, Sarah Wigham
(31:16):
uh and a couple of dearly departed cast members occasional
cast members. Marsha Wallace, the great Marsha Wallace from The
Bob Newhart Show passed away in two thousand thirteen. She
was Mrs Crabapple. I mean, what a beloved character and
as in so many ways they describe her in this article,
is sarcastic and sexy. That whole that whole um subplot
(31:40):
that went through multiple episodes where she was dating Um Yeah,
Seymour Skinner and then later on Mary's ned Flanders. No
one saw that coming, but the fact that this show
could take steps like that and then would would commit
itself to to continuing it as long as as could
be and and keeping it up, you know what I mean,
(32:01):
rather than just being like, oh, forget about that, it
doesn't matter that that was another hallmark of the show
as well, that it could had the chops to to
make big leaps like that and then keep it going
without as seeming tried or tired or anything. Absolutely Marsha
Wallace won an Emmy for her voice work. Uh, and
they paid a tribute to her um in the episode
(32:22):
for Regrettings and a Funeral. Barts Chalkboard Gag at the
beginning said we'll really miss you, mrs Ka so sad
so sad. Uh. And the Man who grew too much,
Ned Flanders wears a black armband. Two more Edna, who
of course took the place of his departed wife. And
Maud Flanders. Yeah he's a widower twice over. Yeah. Man,
(32:44):
that one where Maud died. That was really just a
great episode. Yeah, I mean that. That's the thing about
The Simpsons is as silly as it was, they managed
to pull the heartstrings every now and then. It was
always they didn't do too much of it, but it
was always just well timed, you know, for sure, and
like they could take on some thing like death and
grief and do it like with heart but also without
(33:04):
making a very special episode of it. Always felt like
the Simpsons. Yeah, exactly. Uh. And of course Phil Hartman,
who left us way too soon. He did a couple
of classic classic characters in Lionel Huts and Troy McLure. Uh.
And I had to get a few of my favorite
Troy McClure lines in here. Um, and he was very famous.
(33:26):
If you don't know the Simpsons, Toroy McClure was uh,
former semi famous actor who would pop up every now
and then in uh kind of like school films and
stuff like that, sure or um an infomercial. Yeah. He
was just like a former pretty boy actor basically. Yeah.
And his his running gag was I'm Troy McClure. You
(33:48):
might remember me dot dot dot right, So here's here's
a few of my favorites. I'm Troy McClure. You might
remember me from some self help videos as Smoke Yourself
then and get comf and Stupid. Here's another one. You
might remember me from such driver's ed films as Alice's
(34:09):
Adventures through the Windshield Glass and the Decapitation of lead
Larry Leadfoot, And then this one. You may remember me
from such educational films as to minus three equals Negative
fun and by a Crackers The Silent Killer so good,
and Attorney Lama Huts was just great too, was good?
(34:32):
And then which one did he date? He dated Patty
or Selma? I can't remember which one. You're just I'm mortified. Well,
they're so interchangeable to me, Well, they are. One of
them came out as gay, actually, and one of the
recent seasons was not that one, right, um I I
(34:52):
think it was Selma. No, it would have been Patty
because Patty is the one who was engaged to Principal Skinner.
That's right, um So, I guess he was dating Patty.
I just remember in that episode when he he went
out with her one night and then showed up the
next day and said, you might remember me from certain
dates as last nights. Right. One of my favorite lines
(35:14):
from that episode is, um, there in like a nice
restaurant and um, Selma, No, Patty lights up a cigarette
and everybody's like, oh my gosh, she's smoking smoking. Somebody
goes waiter, I ordered a zeema, not emphysema. What a
great line, man, Yeah. Um So. Guest stars over the years,
(35:36):
um they have. There have been some very beloved people
playing other people, and then many people playing themselves. Uh.
And I made a list of my favorite people playing
other people. Martin Sheen played Sergeant Seymour Skinner a k a.
The real Seymour Skinner. Oh that was Martin Sheen. Wasn't it. Okay?
(35:59):
The Great Albert Brooks played Hank Scorpio. Nice. Yeah, that
was a great character. Glenn Close played Homer's mom and
just such a great episode that that one. And I
think also the one where he goes and um tries
to find what his middle his the j stand name.
Yeah yeah yeah. I don't know if she was in that,
(36:19):
but like she she's like a she's like an off
camera character because he meets like some of her old
friends from back when he was such a sweet episode
and then they all end up on um Payote I
think in truth sim since fashion. Patrick Stewart played Number
one in the stone Cutters episode. Meryl Street played Jessica
(36:41):
Lovejoy Bart's love interest brief love interest. The late great
Johnny Cash played Homer Spirit Coyote. Yeah remember that. Remember
Rodney Dangerfield is Larry Burns. I get no esteem, noverre
god either. Ron Taylor played a bleeding gums Murphy Lee,
his sort of mentor on the saxophone who played him
(37:03):
got named Ron Taylor. Okay, give him his due, and
arties If was played by John Lovitt Sure and John
Lovitts played Jay Sherman, the critic in one of the
more hated episodes of all times. Yeah, the crossover episode
where they throw a film festival in Springfield and Jay
Sherman shows up to to lead the jury for the
(37:26):
film festival. Well, it was. It was basically a vehicle
to introduce America to the critic, which was now going
to be on Fox after The Simpsons. And did you
ever see that show? The critic? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
saw that. It was a little smallsey, but I mean
it had its charms here there. It wasn't like the
worst thing anyone's ever put on TV. It certainly wasn't
(37:47):
Simpsons caliber. But supposedly Matt Graining was so upset about
this that he made them take his name off of
the opening credits on the TV screen. He was that
mad about this crawl sover that had been like shoved
down his throat by Fox executives. As the legend goes,
good for him, sure, um, And then you know, they've
(38:08):
had some legends that played themselves before Bob Hope passed away.
He was on the show. Ernest borg Nine, Robert Goulay,
Steve Allen, Robert Gooley swings his hello. He's sitting there,
he's doing the treehouse at Bart's Treehouse, he's doing a show.
I don't know how he got booked there. I think
Nelson maybe was his agent, and like he's swinging his
(38:31):
microphone and the quarters are so close in the treehouse.
He smacks like I think millhouses glasses right off his face,
like oh sorry kid, uh And then they I think
there've been more than like seventy musicians and bands through
the years. They've always loved featuring bands. So at the time,
all the Living Beatles before George Harrison passed, and the
(38:52):
Ramons and the Who and Metallica and R E. M
and You Too and Aerosmith, Tom Petty, the late Great
Tom Petty, Lenny Krab. It's like the list goes on
and on. But they've always had great musical guests. And
that YouTube episode that was the garbage Man episode, right,
I think so so one of the great There's like
this is a great illustration of just a throwaway joke
(39:13):
on The Simpsons that just made it that much smarter
that show. Right, So, like Homer is trying to sneak backstage,
so he dresses up like Irish potato delivery man, like
there is such a thing, right, So, so the joke
is that this is what Homer thinks is going to
get him backstage. But then the added bonus to the
(39:33):
joke is that it actually works, Like when he shows up,
the security guards like, where in the devil have you been?
Like they've been waiting for the guy who delivers raw
potatoes backstage at a YouTube concert? Like that's just the thing, right,
I love that show so much. Uh. And finally, as
far as guest voices, we would be we would be
(39:56):
remiss without mentioning the great Kelsey Grammar at side show
Bob prominent prominent character. And then they ended up getting
David Hyde pierced to play Cecil, his brother, and then
John Mahoney all from Frazier to play his father, Dr
Robert to Willoker. Nice, so good, it's so so good, Chuck. Alright,
(40:17):
let's take another break and we're gonna come back and
talk a little bit about these episodes and how they
are put together. Josh, Okay, Chuck, we're back, and you
(40:43):
promised that we were going to talk more about the Simpsons,
so go all right, well we should talk a little
bit about I mean, we can sit here and quote
lines all day long. I know, I hope this isn't
getting annoying for anybody. Hopefully everybody's having as much fun
as we are. No, I mean this one was bound
to get super wonky. But we should talk a little
bit technically about how the show is made. Hey, uh,
(41:06):
so here's how it starts, and the Grabs are did
a good job of kind of breaking this down, I think. Yeah.
And also also I want to give a shout out
to an article on the Verge called how uh Simpsons
episode is made. It goes into even greater detail. It's
it's nuts what they do. Alright. So, like most shows,
or I would say probably every show, uh, it begins
(41:28):
in the writer's room. Writer's gonna pitch ideas to each
other and the producers. An episode will get a green light,
and then a single writer usually sometimes they work in pairs,
will go off and create a draft in a couple
of weeks. But that is not the end of the
writing process. No, no, no, no no. Supposedly, the writing
process is one of the most um uh shape shifting
(41:55):
parts of the entire process of making an episode. There's
a lot of people pokey at it. You've got the
show runner, who in this capacity serves as the um
script editor and the head writer. Um, you've got the
actual writers, you've got the writing team, you've got the
writing assistance, You've got producers who are thinking about it.
You've got all these people who are thinking of the
(42:16):
script and rewriting it and editing it. That is supposedly
a script goes through rewrites um for like four to
six weeks or something like that. Yeah, and like most
shows operate this way, there's a lot, especially comedies, a
lot of rewriting that goes on to just I mean,
they'll come down and debate a word for a couple
of hours to make sure they're getting the funniest stuff
(42:39):
they can get right. Um, then what comes next is
the table read. And brother, you and I got really
really lucky. When was this four or five years ago?
I think it was two thousand, thirteen or fourteen. So
here's how it went down. We had a listener, uh
named Jesse write us and say she did worked for
(43:00):
the Simpsons, but she was in somehow. I think she
had a friend. She was friends I think with Tom Gamble,
the producer, one of the users of the Simpsons. Yeah,
and she said, you know, dudes, whenever you want to
come out to l A and go to a table read,
and then we were basically at the airport about an
hour later. So I don't know. We had a trip
booked for some reason or another, and we went out
there and uh we met at the Fox lot and
(43:23):
the building little bungalow outside the Simpsons. First of all
is just so exciting because they have topiaries of Simpsons
characters and of itself. And then the table read is
a bit of a public thing, like it's not a
hundred people, but they were probably besides the cast in
writing staff an additional what people in there, like tourists
(43:48):
like us. Yeah, yeah, I would say something like that
like friends, family members, um, just special invitees, the ambassador
of from Spain, like just just people were there and
and they were like you shut up, all of you.
Don't make a sound, turn off your cell phones, will
kill your whole family if you if you say anything,
because this is serious business. Yeah. So there's they're all
(44:10):
the people who work on the show. We're sitting at
this big, huge, long conference table. And then the room
is lined all along the outside on four walls with
chairs for people to just sit there quietly and uh,
sit at the altar in reverence of what they're about
to see and we so the one we were there
um was a script read for the episode that became
(44:32):
the Wreck of the Relationship, right. I think Nick Offerman
guest starred in it as a sea captain. But basically
Bart and Homer go off on this um father's son
bonding tour like aboard a ship, and uh. The b
subplot was that while they were gone, Marge had to
um pick Homer's fantasy football team, and she decided that
(44:56):
she should pick all place kickers and turns out that
she she was right. Um like, she ended up winning,
but in between picking them and not knowing what she
was doing and winning the whole thing, um, she ends
up like trash talking with Mo and Lenny and Carl
um And it's a pretty good be subplot. Actually, yeah,
(45:17):
And I would love to say that, um, all of
the voice actors are in the room together. That is
not the case because everyone is busy and doing other stuff.
And they got it down to a science now so
they don't have to rub elbows. But they're you know,
calling it on the phone and they're doing the voices
and stuff either be a phone or in person, and uh,
Matt Graining was there though, Uh, Dan Castelenetta was there
(45:38):
in the room, Julie Kavner was there. Julie Kavner was there,
Udly Smith yep Beudy Smith and um, Pamela Hayden was there,
but we got no as Aria or Shearer, right, but
they were on the phone, so like we were sitting
there listening to them do the voices. Yeah, so they
basically read through the script. They'll stop every now and
then and make suggestions or something on a different line
(45:59):
reading and in the writers and producers are all furiously
scribbling and making notes and stuff like that. Uh. And
then afterward they they finished it up and we very
like a couple of six year old sheepishly grabbed our
scripts that we get to take with us because everyone
gets a script to read along and uh and met
(46:21):
Matt Greening and it was surreal. It was um yeah.
What was I think even more surreal was that he
was like super nice, the nicest dude you could imagine,
Like he was like really nice, like Dan cast Lenetta
like didn't ever look up when like Umi was there,
and she took a picture of me with Dan castle
Lenetta and I'm saying they're giving a thumbs up, and
(46:43):
he's like looking down, like signing my script. Yeah, it's
not like he wasn't a nice guy, but he just
wasn't quite as personable in person as I'm at Graining.
But I think like Matt Greening like stood up and
shook hands and was like, hey, great to meet you,
and he didn't know who I was from Adam. He
was just this surprisingly friendly guy. Yeah, we remember telling
him that we uh you mean was just laughing the
(47:03):
whole time. She was like, you guys are just hysterical. Yeah,
we really were like a couple of six year olds.
I was surprised at both of us actually, just how
quickly we were like kids. Yeah. I don't get superstar
struck anymore, and and this one just had me like
I was super super nervous. But I remember I think
I told him Mr. Graining that, you know, we have
a podcast and we talked about the Simpsons so much,
(47:25):
it's almost like an additional character on our show. And
he asked what the name of it was, wrote it
down stuff you should know on his script, and then
ate that piece of paper in front of you, and
then he signed our script and he scribbles out a
quick drawing he drew bart On my script I got
Homer and it says your pal Matt Graining. Yeah, so
nice man. That script is like under plexiglass, under lock
(47:49):
and key trained Momo to kill anybody who comes anywhere
near it. It's just like comprised possession. Now. Oh yeah,
for sure. We got Dan Castle Lenetta to sign it, uh,
Julie Kabner to sign and I think those are the
only three autographs I got. But it was neat so
to us, we were just losing our minds. It was
so amazing to them, like it was straight up work, right,
(48:11):
Like this is work to them, and it was nicely
like they're they're fine, like seeing people that they're friends with,
who they invited or whatever. But um, I read an
interview with al Jean and al Jean said that he
hates will Reads more than anything because it is real work,
but it's it's in this weird kind of in between state,
like letting people come wat. Yeah, I wonder whose idea
(48:32):
that was. I don't know, but apparently a customed that
they've been keeping up this whole time, despite at the
very least one of the high powered executives in charge
of the show hating it interesting. Yeah, I think there's
lots of distractions and stuff like that, but apparently they
muddled through every Thursday. Yeah, and it's I just can't
say enough it was. This is not hyperbole. It is
(48:54):
a genuine all time life highlight. You know. It was
just amazing, agree, Chuck. Alright, so I think we've reached
the end of part one of episode one thousand, technically
episode that's a cliffhanger too, it is. Man, I'm pretty
I'm pretty psyched. Like this is not planned, Chuck. This
is a genuine cliffhanger. Yeah, right in the middle of
(49:14):
the production process, people are gonna be like, I have
to know how they make these shows. Well, just cool out, everybody,
cool out. You can wait until what Thursday? Right, Yes,
for our actual official episode one thousand, And in the meantime,
you can get in touch with us on Twitter. I'm
at josh um Clark and what the official handle is
s y s K podcast. Charles Chuck is at Facebook
(49:37):
dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's also I'm
on there somewhere you can try to find me Um
And then there's also an official stuff you Should Know
one on Facebook. Two. You can send us all an email,
including Jerry to stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot
com and as always, hang out with us at our
home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(50:01):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
a howstof works dot com
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