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By
Suzanne
Interview with Matt Selman of "The
Simpsons" on FOX 1/13/17
Final Transcript FBC PUBLICITY: Conference Call with Matt
Selman of The Simpsons January 13, 2017/1:00 p.m. PST
SPEAKERS Michael Roach – Host Matt Selman – The
Simpsons
PRESENTATION
Moderator Ladies and
gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the
conference call with Matt Selman of The Simpsons. At this
time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we
will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions
will be given at that time. [Operator instructions]. As a
reminder, the conference is being recorded.
I would
now like to turn the conference over to our host, Mr.
Michael Roach. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Michael Hello, and thanks for participating in today’s
conference call with The Simpsons Executive Producer, Matt
Selman, on behalf of the milestone one hour episode entitled
“The Great Phatsby,” which airs this Sunday, January 15th,
at 8/7 Central on Fox. As you probably all know, the
episodes features guest star voice appearances by Taraji P.
Henson, Keegan-Michael Key, Snoop Dogg, Common, RZA, and
Charles Barkley. And it’s posted on the Fox screening room
right now and you guys can take a look at it in advance of
posting your stories.
And I guess that’s about it,
so without further ado, we’re ready to begin the call.
Moderator [Operator instructions]. First, we’re going to
the line of Suzanne Lanoue. Your line is open.
Suzanne Hi.
Matt Hi there.
Suzanne How are
you?
Matt I’m great. How are you?
Suzanne
Pretty good. I watched the episode today and I enjoyed it.
Matt Thank you.
Suzanne It was pretty funny. I
chuckled all the way through. I was in the library trying
not to laugh too loud.
Matt We encourage children to
watch the show in the library wherever possible.
Suzanne I was in a college library.
Matt Okay.
Suzanne So, it was really funny. I was just curious, I
know that Family Guy, which I also watch, had a Great Gatsby
episode this season. Was that on purpose, or just total
coincidence?
Matt It was by complete accident. I had
forgotten they did it, you just reminded me, but we didn’t
see it.
Suzanne Oh.
Matt What was theirs?
Theirs was like a straight up parody of Baz Luhrmann’s Great
Gatsby, right?
Suzanne Well, I haven’t seen the Baz
Luhrmann one, so I didn’t know that that was what it was.
Matt Okay.
Suzanne I just know it had something
to do with The Great Gatsby.
Matt I think it was a
super straight movie parody, where ours borrows from the
themes and ideas of the book.
Suzanne Right.
Matt If you want to take any inference as to how Family
Guy does things and how we do it, you may.
Suzanne
Oh, okay. Well, I saw that it was a great satire of both The
Great Gatsby and Empire, sort of a blending of the two, and
then fitting it into The Simpsons universe. How do they come
up with these ideas?
Matt Well, we really wanted to
do a show set in the world of hip hop that was a crossover
with Empire that took advantage of this huge cultural
phenomenon. Empire is a great show, it’s funny, it’s sad,
it’s dramatic, it’s over-the-top, we love it, and we really
wanted to do a show that had that flavor, so that was our
start off point.
The next point was, what’s our way
in? Well, Mr. Burns actually would have more in common with
a hip hop mogul than you would think, in that they both seek
power and are ruthless. And they both also love the style of
the 1920s, of the over-the-top millionaires of that age, of
Rockefeller, and Jay Z’s company is Roc-a-Fella, so both
old-timey white guys and super, awesome, cool hip hop moguls
have that in common, of the embracing of the over-the-top
glamorous style of an earlier age.
Suzanne And did
any of your guest star actors have any input into the way it
was done, or did they just come in and do their lines and
that was it, or the singing?
Matt Well, they all
bring their own voice to it. It’s very collaborative. Taraji
P. Henson adlibbed a lot of her lines and put in her catch
phrase, what is it, “Boo Boo Kitty.”
Suzanne Oh,
right.
Matt She put that in there. And Keegan-Michael
Key is an improviser and he worked with the dialogue with
us, and Snoop, and Common and RZA, they all made the lyrics
their own and crafted them to their own style. So, it really
was a collaboration with all of them. I would say Charles
Barkley just said the lines, but he did a great job. Thank
you, Charles. You’re a busy guy.
Suzanne That was
cool. Thank you.
Matt Okay. Great question.
Moderator Thank you. And next we’re going to the line of Art
Shrian, My New York Eye. Please go ahead.
Art Hi,
Matt. Thank you for taking the time.
Matt Thank you,
guys.
Art I love your work, and “Trilogy of Error”
is one of my most favorite episodes of The Simpsons. I just
wanted to tell you that.
Matt Oh, great. Thank you so
much.
Art And my wife says “hello.” She’s from
Arlington and—
Matt Wow, that’s a real connection.
Art Yes. So, tell me, you guys have been doing a lot
of new things with the show, with the live show and now this
one hour episode. What was the inspiration behind doing a
one hour episode? It’s almost becoming like a movie, a long
form of storytelling. So, what inspired you to do a one hour
episode, and on top of that, is there a conscious effort to
do new things with the show because over such a long period—
Matt Sure. Well, we’re very competitive with all the
other 29-year-old television shows out there, and we just
want to make sure that we never get complacent and that
we’re always trying new things. We’ve been on TV longer than
most of the other shows out there, but we did The Simpsons
virtual reality couch gag, yes, we did the live thing with
Dan Castellaneta improv’ing Homer in real time, we did a CGI
Lego episode a couple years ago, and we did the live show at
the Hollywood Bowl. You just can’t rest on our laurels, you
need to be trying new things.
And the way this
episode came around was it was just a regular half hour
episode, and the table read went so well that our super
producer, James L. Brooks, said let’s double it, let’s
double down on this, let’s make it an hour. And we were
like, yes, that’s going to be a lot of work but you’ve got
to challenge yourself. I’ve been on the show for 20 years, a
mere 20, and when a new idea comes around it’s so rare we
just have to embrace it. And this was really hard, it was
tough to create a story that keeps your attention going for
a full hour, or 40 minutes with commercials.
Art
Right.
Matt But it’s a two-part structure and there
is a natural break in the middle if it’s ever broken up for
syndication, but it’s a Mr. Burns story, he’s the main
character in it really, more so than The Simpsons, and there
are so many new characters and the episode takes place and a
lot of it is not in Springfield. So, it’s really an artistic
departure for us to tell this, in my opinion, epic story of
the rise and fall of great men and the competitiveness that
comes with power, and the need for powerful people to
destroy their friends, and what that means, and why they
have that. So, I think there’s a literary quality which
sustains it.
And if we hadn’t doubled down on it we
wouldn’t have had the room to add all these great guest
stars and original rap songs and hip hop music. And there’s
more original music in this show than any other, well, I
don’t want to go out on a limb, but we brought in a
collaborator, this man, Jim Beanz, who wrote a lot and
produced a lot of the songs for Empire, and he’s a protégé
of Timbaland, and he was great, and he wrote so much rap,
and hip hop, and beat and R&B for us. The episode feels
different, it’s more energetic and it has more energy. The
scenes are scored with dramatic hip hop beats, where in a
regular episode they might not be because we just wanted to
embrace that hip hop Empire energy. And we really did, we
really went for it. It’s cool, the episode just feels
different. In addition to being twice as long, it’s also
twice as cool.
Art It sure is, it’s amazing. Thank
you. You keep making it more and more interesting every year
when you’re doing these wonderful things.
Matt Well,
if you have any ideas, I’ll do them.
Art I will.
I’ll reach out to the other channel. Congratulations. Thank
you so much.
Matt Thanks.
Moderator Thank you.
Next, we’re going to the line of Jim Colucci, freelance.
Matt Hi, Jim. Jim Hi, Matt. How are you?
Matt
I haven’t seen you for two days.
Jim I know it’s
great. I love that we’ve seen each other this week. I want
to build on that last question, you talked about ways that
you like to stretch and challenge yourself, and here you are
in Season 28. And not just creatively but also it’s amazing
that a show in its 28th season can continue to make
headlines the way The Simpsons does by being experimental
and trying different forms of the programming and stretching
outside the box.
And I wanted to ask you, now that
you’ve done all the, and you named more than I could name
off the top of my head, but the live episode, and the
virtual reality, all the experiments you’ve tried, what
frontiers are left in terms of keeping the show at the top
of the headlines by trying something really groundbreaking,
and what might be next for you guys?
Matt Oh my gosh,
Jim, I wish I knew. I wish I knew. I don’t know, we never
rest on our laurels, we need to keep searching for those
things that keep us excited, because if we’re excited the
viewers are going to be excited. I would love to do a three
hour episode, that’s what’s next, it’s twice as long as a
movie but it’s still on TV and it lasts the whole night.
Jim Will we see all musical, all live action, in terms
of really breaking the mold?
Matt Well, I think we
might have a top secret Claymation thing coming up, which
I’m probably not allowed to talk about.
Jim Oh, wow.
Matt But I’ll just say the word “Claymation”—no, no,
excuse me, not Claymation, stop motion.
Jim Stop
motion.
Matt Some exciting stop motion potential
thing. This one really took a lot of our energy. It was a
labor of love, but it was also a labor of work. And I’m
excited to get feedback on it because we’ve been working on
it for a year in our crazy bubble, and it’s a stylistic
shift, it’s a different kind of show, it’s got so much more
music and so much more rhythm to it, and so much more of an
urban flavor, how many ways can I say that? Jim Yes.
Matt And it’s all about Mr. Burns’ friendship with
another rich guy. But I think the story is very deep and
very meaningful, especially in modern times where
billionaires dominate the headlines. And I think the
feelings of billionaires are going to become increasingly
important in the future, so let’s do a show about that.
Jim Well, thank you, Matt.
Matt Alright, my
pleasure, Jim. And I’ll talk to you soon.
Moderator
Thank you. Next, we’re going to the line of Laura Hurley of
Cinema Blend.
Matt Hi there.
Laura Hi. I have
to ask, how interesting was it to have that crazy variety of
guest stars for this episode?
Matt It was fantastic.
Each one was so fun. Here’s how it works, is they come in,
they read the script, and they’re so funny and they add so
much that you have to go back and change the script after
they’re here to accommodate all the great extra stuff they
said.
And, I will say, they were all amazing, but
Taraji P. Henson particularly was the only one really making
fun of herself. And she did it with reckless abandon, she
had so much fun doing a send up of Cookie called Praline,
who’s, if possible, even more over-the-top than Cookie
herself, and she just escaped from jail. And every scene she
comes in she just stirs the pot, and she clearly was loving
it and having so much fun, sort of the opposite of her
serious role in Hidden Figures. But, they’re a good
counterpoint to each other, I guess, the two sides of Taraji
P. Henson, dramatic and comic.
Laura Thank you very
much.
Matt They were all fantastic, especially
Charles Barkley with his one line.
Moderator Thank
you. And next we’re going to the line of Steve Owens,
Entertainment World.
Matt Hi, Steve. Steve How
are you doing, Matt? A question for you, since you’ve been
on the show now 20 years how do you come up with the
creativity, that you’re not burned out? Do you read
magazines, or watch TV, or what?
Matt Well, I am
burned out. Let’s make that clear, I’m burned out. But The
Simpsons holds up a mirror to America, and America, for
better or for worse, never stops changing, so there’s always
ideas there. And the family doesn’t really age or really
doesn’t change that much, at the beginning of every episode
they’re still like a regular family with their problems. And
that is a very relatable emotional place to start out from,
and that’s just a great creative launching off point to tell
almost any kind of story.
And so you can do so many
different kind of things, small, emotional stories, epic,
sprawling, F. Scott Fitzgerald hour-long, hip hop ultra
homages, or darkly satirical South Park style stories. There
are so many ways you can take the show. Our format is so
flexible. And there’s no better show to me that is more fun
to keep fresh than The Simpsons, and also a fear of getting
fired is inspirational as well.
Steve What character
would you be closest to on the show as far as your own
personality?
Matt Probably all the writers are sadly
closest to Milhouse, unfortunately, but maybe Lisa. It’s a
show about Homer written by a room full of Milhouse’s but
not a lot of Homer’s.
Steve Great.
Matt We
have a couple Homer’s on the staff, Bart’s.
Steve
That’s the studio execs.
Matt Lisa’s and Milhouse’s,
we’re all Lisa’s and Milhouse’s, you’re sitting in the
corner observing, sadly. But I am excited to the degree to
which this episode seems to have really struck a cultural
nerve, I was hearing about it from everywhere. And we’re
right after the huge NFC football game, and I don’t know if
I can tell you this, but I have arranged for Aaron Rodgers
to throw yet another, a game winning Hail Mary right at 8:00
Eastern Time, ending the game launching right into this
episode. So, that’s already been pre-arranged.
Steve
Oh, okay. Matt So, you can write that, that he will
definitely throw another Hail Mary at 7:55 Eastern Sunday
night, and then, boom, just to make the launch of this
episode even more amazing.
Steve Perfect. Alright, I
appreciate it, Matt.
Matt Okay. Thanks.
Moderator Thank you. And next we’re going to the line of
Simon Applebaum. Please go ahead.
Simon Hi, it’s
Simon Applebaum from Tomorrow Will Be Televised. It’s all
about television [indiscernible], and we just wrapped up our
show, so I’m late on the call. And I’m looking on my
computer screen about Jim Beanz, who came out with a press
release, by the way, today, Matt, about his work. I’m
curious whether his music influenced the couch gag you did
for the episode on Sunday, what Bart writes on the
chalkboard, what Lisa does with the saxophone, etc., etc.
Matt Which was the couch tag last Sunday? I don’t
remember.
Simon The couch tag this Sunday, this
episode.
Matt There is no couch tag in this episode.
It’s so jam-packed with Empire, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Long
Island, Great Gatsby, Simpsons, Burns, ruthless, adventure,
hip hop excitement that there’s no couch tag.
Simon
Is that a first?
Matt No, because if episodes are
long we just get right into them because you want to deliver
as much story value as we can. So, in fact, what’s unique
about this one is that there’s no middle, there’s no end
credits at the end of the first one, there’s no new opening
credits at the end of the second half hour. It’s run
straight through. It’s never been done by The Simpsons
before. So, it’s just one single piece, that’s a brand new
thing. But Jim Beanz was fantastic, and I stand by
everything from the press release, his music really informed
the show and he has a different voice, an exciting voice
that gives the show I think a new emotional value that is
really interesting, we’ve never done before.
And Jim
did a hip hop remix of the classic Simpsons theme, it’s over
the closing credits, which is fantastic and we’re very proud
of that, he’s proud of his work. He wrote a lot of music for
us, there’s a lot of rap in this, but the trick is never
have the Simpsons rap. The Simpsons must not rap. You have
to bring in the outside characters to rap because they are
much better at it.
Simon Thou shall not rap, a very
interesting thing. Matt, I also wanted to ask you, because
this is the first hour long episode of 600+, whether there’s
been any thought about doing a cliffhanger situation where
you start the show on a Sunday and then you have an episode
on Monday night to wrap up the plot line? I’m asking this
because this weekend HBO’s launching a new series called The
Young Pope with Jude Law and for the first time that I can
recall they’re having episodes both on Sunday and Monday.
So, I’m just curious whether that’s ever been discussed, the
idea of a cliffhanger where you start the show one night and
then you end the next night?
Matt Well, I love that
idea. If I ever recover from making this episode I will do
it, because we had the cliffhanger of who shot Mr. Burns
many years ago, 22 or 23 years ago, and that was a two-part
show with a cliffhanger, but that was always engineered in
that way. This is our first solid one hour, one epic, super
story event television. But that Young Pope thing sounds
pretty cool. Again, if I could think of a great idea for a
cliffhanger worthy of two nights in a row, I would do it.
Maybe I will.
Simon Matt, thank you again for the
conversation. Good luck on the show Sunday night. We’d love
to have you and the gang on our show at some point.
Matt Oh, any time, any time. Go Aaron Rodgers.
Moderator Thank you. [Operator instructions]. Next we’re
going to the line of Stacy Roberts of SeriouslyOMG.com.
Stacy Hi, Matt. I loved the episode.
Matt Oh,
thank you so much.
Stacy You said it’s a labor of
love, what made this episode different than all the others,
besides being an hour?
Matt Well, a lot of it stems
from it being an hour, but you’ve seen it so you’ll notice
there’s a B story in the first half with just Lisa, and then
Marge has her own B story in the second half about her and
her store, so it’s kind of cool in that we got to really
play with the form of the show and then have stories begin
and end, and then new stories begin and end throughout the
whole hour, so that was pretty fun and interesting. And that
way also if Fox ever does break it up the B stories will be
self-contained.
I think the whole thing thematically
comes from the world of hip hop and our ideas about that. A
lot of hip hop lyrics and ideas are about excess, it’s
living large and splashing the cash, and having things be
over-the-top, and so we wanted the whole episode to have
that feel of like a grand hip hop melodrama. So, the fact
that there’s so much music in it, and the show is so scored,
and there’s so many original songs in it, really makes the
whole thing I think feel different, regardless of the fact
that it’s twice as long. And even Marge’s little B story has
its own funny little extra score which we put in. And you’ve
seen it, so you’ve seen the raps, there’s no Simpsons
rapping, you noticed. But I thought these epic raps are
pretty funny and pretty cool, and sound legit, as opposed to
just a bunch of nerds trying to think of lyrics.
Stacy No, it did. How did you wind up booking Common and RZA
for the show?
Matt Well, we wanted people that really
represented both where rap is now and the history of rap,
and we only had room really for three people, so we just
went out to them as people that we’re all huge fans of, they
all have their own style, they all have their own place in
hip hop history, and they each bring a distinct point of
view to their own music. And we really wanted them to
collaborate on what, as part of story, is the ultimate
reputation destroying diss rap ever recorded. I don’t know
if it lives up to that, but that was the goal, and to make
it funny.
Stacy It definitely did.
Matt I
hope you found it devastating when you watched it.
Stacy I did. And now that you’re renewed for two more years,
that means not only are you going to have Episode 666—
Matt Yes.
Stacy —but you’re also going to have
the most episodes of any scripted television in history. Are
you preparing those episodes?
Matt We are. We are. I
don’t know what 666 is yet, but that’s a big one, right, the
mark of the beast. Stacy Right.
Matt Any episode
that signals the coming of the Antichrist is a huge episode,
right? I don’t know if Fox is ready to announce that yet.
But it would be cool if that were a Halloween episode, if we
could arrange that, again, I’m just pitching here. But to do
a satanic episode for 666, you know us, we’ll think of some
fun comment on it.
Stacy And what about the episode
that will put you ahead of Gunsmoke?
Matt I don’t
know. I think we just do exactly an old Gunsmoke script with
the Simpsons plugged in, but no jokes and just super
straight, our favorite episode of Gunsmoke but with the
Simpsons.
Stacy That would be awesome.
Matt
And to call it Gun Doe doesn’t really work.
Stacy I
know you’ll figure it out.
Matt But, yes, we have
two huge milestones. We think we run out of milestones and
they keep coming.
Stacy Thanks. As long as they keep
coming.
Matt The milestones keep coming.
Stacy
Here’s to 1,000.
Matt Oh my gosh, that would be
something all right.
Stacy Very cool. Thank you. And
thank you for your 20 years of work on the show.
Matt
Thank you guys for hanging in there with us along the way.
Moderator Thank you. And next we’re going to the line of
Tora Shae of Black Girl Nerds. Please go ahead.
Matt
Hello. Hi, it’s Matt.
Tora Hi. Can you hear me?
Matt Yes, I can.
Tora Hi. So, nice talking to you
again.
Matt Yes, nice talking to you too.
Tora
So, first off, what prompted a desire from the team to
immerse the Simpsons and Mr. Burns into the world of hip hop
and the music business?
Matt Well, it was really that
kind of observation that guys like Jay Z make videos in
which they live in the world of Mr. Burns when he was a
young man, like the world of the ’20s, of the opulent
millionaires of the ’20s. So, it was that observation that
Mr. Burns, and Jay Z, or Dr. Dre, or Russell Simmons, or any
of these guys actually have more in common than you might
think, even though one is an old, old, old white man and the
other guys are coming on middle age black men. But the fact
that they revere the opulence of the ’20s is an interesting
commonality that we thought was a great launching point for
an epic friendship. And it’s an epic friendship all right.
Tora What was the process like trying to represent
characters that would appeal to a black audience, the hip
hop community from a comedic lens without making them feel
like stereotypical characters?
Matt Well, I hope they
don’t. The Simpsons goofs on everybody, and we certainly
employ stereotypes with all our characters. I hope certainly
this one, our characters have some level of nuance. I really
believe our new character, Jay G, who is voiced by the
fantastic voice actor, Kevin Michael Richardson, he brings
such a humanity and intelligence to his role. And Jay G
isn’t just a bad guy or a good guy, but he’s a modern man
who’s self-made, and what is the price of being a self-made
man and climbing to the top. If you have the ruthlessness to
become successful, can you turn off that ruthlessness before
it destroys you? Does that ruthlessness that allows you to
become a billionaire, does that keep you from becoming close
to anybody?
To me those were the interesting themes
of that character, and so to me we wrote a character who’s
really like literary in nature, Jay G, and that’s the kind
of depth that keeps you from falling into stereotype,
although you know The Simpsons, there are stereotypes, like
Chief Wiggum, the pig, right, our policeman is a pig. So, we
take stereotypes and we make fun of them and we turn them on
their head, and we try not to be lazy about it. And that was
our goal in this and all things.
Tora Right. Finally,
which character from this episode could you see fitting into
the regular Simpsons cast?
Matt Well, I would love it
if Jay G was part of the show. It’s so fun. Also. I know
Keegan-Michael Key wants to be part of the show, he plays
Jazzy James, a washed up, betrayed rapper who’s forced to
sell scented candles in The Simpsons version of the
Hamptons. But he was just so funny when he came in and so
full of energy, and just took everything, and he’s such a
great improviser and did so much with it that I would love
to bring a lot of these people back. I don’t know, I love
Jay G, though, he’s just a great guy.
Tora I
definitely look forward to the episode. And thank you for
all that you do. Thanks for talking to me.
Matt
Thanks so much. I hope you like it.
Tora Thank you.
Moderator Thank you. And next we’re going back to the
line of Steve Owens, Entertainment World.
Steve Hi,
Matt. First of all, Kanye West is going to be really mad
he’s not in this episode.
Matt Yes. Well, it could
be, it’s not too late. It is too late.
Steve Okay.
You’re talking about a lot of music in this particular
episode, an hour full, that’s enough for basically an EP to
put on iTunes. So, any plans on doing that for the next
morning as a follow up kind of thing?
Matt That is a
great idea. I think if we did it, it wouldn’t be ready right
away. It’s exciting. As I was saying before, my one rule is
I didn’t want The Simpsons to rap, but then I’m like well,
are people going to want to buy a rap song that isn’t by a
new character? I wasn’t sure about that. So, in terms of
iTunes and digital music streaming, I thought I would just
wait and see how the episode played with the audiences
before we took that next step. But we haven’t ruled it out.
To me one of the things that makes the show stronger, again,
is that the Simpsons and Mr. Burns do not rap. None of our
lame white characters rap. But then again we’re meeting all
these new people and they’re doing all the hip hop, and if
people dig it, we’ll put it out there.
Steve Great.
I look forward to it, hearing the sound track, and I look
forward to hearing the episode, and let’s see a 12.2 on this
episode.
Matt Oh my God, that would be great. Well,
Aaron Rodgers, again, has already agreed to throw the Hail
Mary to end the game, so that’s going to be a big lead-in.
Steve Perfect.
Matt So, that’s going to be
great.
Steve Alright.
Matt Thank you.
Moderator Thank you. And we’re going to the line of Art
Shrian, My New York Eye. Please go ahead.
Art Hi,
Matt. Something I want to ask you, after working on this
show for 20 years, are you able to single out one thing, or
one moment that’s been the high of working on this show? And
the second part of the same question is, in 20 years what
was the most frustrating thing being a storyteller on
something that is so long, you talk about long form going on
forever, so the most frustrating thing and what’s the most
rewarding thing?
Matt And the two go together. It’s a
great question. I think the most rewarding thing, it’s hard
to say there’s one moment, it’s like when the episode airs
on a Sunday night that you’re really proud of and you feel
that thrill that you made something that you hope is special
and that people will connect to you and remember. And in
this world of eight million really, really, really good
television shows that our old dusty 28-year-old show can
still make an impact and still reflect the world back to
viewers, that’s the high, that’s the thrill, is just putting
that show on Sunday nights, the ones like this one, that
you’re super proud of, there’s nothing else like it. And
it’s harder and harder to make an impact in the world of
culture because there’s so much great culture that to feel
that anything even reaches people is the ultimate thrill.
Now, the flip side of that is Monday morning you have to
go into work and do it again. And that feeling of how are we
going to keep this good, how are we going to think of fresh
ideas, how are we going to do what the show has done for all
these years, which is blow people’s minds and expose the
hypocrisies of the world, and tell great emotional stories,
you have to keep doing it, and that pressure is tough. Trust
me, this is the greatest job in the world, but at the same
time the pressure to be funny, and excellent, and touching,
and heart-warming and satirical is hard. And so we take it
really seriously, the silly business. So, every day it’s
like alright, this has to live up to the great history of
the show, and it’s daunting. But then lunch comes and it’s
all good.
Art And the last question, from your
experience, what’s your message to other young storytellers
that you’ve had, from your failed scripts to now producer of
one of the most excellent shows, what’s your message to
young storytellers?
Matt It’s a great question,
because storytelling is a joyful and tearful job, and people
do it to make money or they do it to express their voice, or
they do it for lots of reasons. And it seems like the future
is going to be more and more opportunities than ever for
storytellers to get their stories out. But the flip side of
that is that fewer and fewer people will ever see or absorb
those stories, and fewer of those stories will ever become a
broad-based cultural phenomenon that connects people and
that maybe from now on stories in fact will be dividing
people, because they’re just only reaching these targeted
small groups.
So, it’s a Simpsons style irony that
with more opportunities for self-expression, the more
limited the opportunity for that self-expression is to unite
people and bring them together. But who knows, I could be
wrong. You weren’t expecting that articulate an answer, were
you, but you got it.
Art Thanks. That is wonderful.
Thank you so much.
Matt Alright.
Art That is
good you said that. Thank you.
Matt Okay. I can give
out my answers now.
Moderator There are no more
questions in queue.
Matt That was it. I put them all
to sleep with that one.
Michael No, that’s all we
have time for. But, Matt, if you have any other additional
points or anything to add, you can do that now, and I’ll
just wrap it.
Matt I’ll shut up soon. Hank Azaria
plays a really funny rich kid, one-percenter that Lisa has a
little F. Scott Fitzgerald style romance with in the first
half of the show. And I hope you guys recognize that funny
character, because he’s this spoiled, entitled Hamptons rich
kid whose father is an investment banker, and Hank broke
this wonderful smarminess to the role, and we just thought
he was the funniest, most spoiled kid we’ve ever seen. And I
would love it if he came back as well, and I hope he doesn’t
get lost in the mania for hip hop. It’s interesting, because
most of the guest stars in the hip hop are in the second
half of the show, so people are going to have to stick
around for that as they drift away from their
football-inspired lead-in.
But what else? Jim Beanz,
I can’t say enough good things about him. He made the show
so unique and interesting, and such authenticity that, trust
me, I could never have delivered. And Milhouse is in it, he
plays a white rap nerd.
And it’s ultimately a huge
Mr. Burns episode, he’s really the star of this show, his
journey from feeling like a lonely old man to finally
finding a connection with someone, a hip hop mogul who he
thinks is like him, who shows him how to enjoy life again,
and then when he’s betrayed by that man it’s devastating and
he tries to get the ultimate revenge. And if any of you have
seen the episode, I truly hope you’re shocked by Mr. Burns’
what we think is the ultimate revenge, I don’t want to say
it out loud, but I hope there at least was a little gasp
that we went there for what Mr. Burns’ ultimate revenue is,
involving of course our other new character, the hilarious
angry goose mascot of Jay G’s Golden Goose Empire, Goosius,
who I hope will be the next Spider Pig.
Alright,
that’s it, right? Anything else?
Michael Yes,
thanks, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call today.
That was perfect. And as a reminder the one hour episode of
The Simpsons airs this Sunday, January 15th at 8 PM/7
central on FOX.
Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, that
does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your
participation and for using AT&T Executive TeleConference
Service. You may now disconnect.
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