Talking Simpsons - Talking Futurama - The Eric Rogers Interview

Episode Date: December 12, 2020

No, you're not seeing things—as a special holiday bonus for all of our pals on the Talking Simpsons free feed, we're giving away a free sample of our Talking Futurama miniseries in the form of an interview with one of the show's writers. If you enjoy this and want to hear all of Talking Futurama—along with too many other things to mention here—head on over to patreon.com/talkingsimpsons and sign up today. Thanks! Good news, everyone! For our first ever Talking Futurama interview, we're talking to the great Eric Rogers, who acted as assistant to the writers for the first two production seasons, wrote of the "Terror at 500 Feet" segment of Anthology of Interest I, and returned for the Comedy Central reboot of Futurama as a regular writer of episodes. Listen in as we talk to Eric about his journey into the world of TV writing, what it was like to be on the Futurama staff from the very beginning, the difficulties of working with Fox, and more! And if you enjoyed this interview, please let Eric know—he's @EricRogersHere on Twitter.

uh hoi hoi everybody and welcome to our i believe first talking futurama interview yeah i am i'm one of your hosts the uh stronger than gum berkeley's bob mackie who's with me today as always you know i'll say this on a future podcast i'll repeat it i'm a big robot and i demand a big podcast interview and speaking of which uh soon you'll hear us talk to the writer of that anthology of interest segment eric rogers and eric rogers was an assistant to the writers for the first two production seasons of futurama from like the very first episode onwards after the pilot and he would later go on to write for the comedy central episodes we talked to him for about 30 to 40 minutes about his time with the show,

the show's rocky history with Fox, and what it was like to finally raise to the rank of writer for Futurama. Yeah, it was great talking to Eric. Eric's fun on Twitter too. You'll say it at the end, but follow him on Twitter, at Eric Rogers here.

He has been very helpful to just this podcast for questions of, hey, in the early days, what about this joke? What about that joke? Because not only is he a professional television screenwriter in his own right, but he also was a witness to all of the writers coming up with those jokes.

So he was there on the ground floor and he gave us some really great insight into those early years, especially if you trauma and the comedy central years to like, so he was it's just super awesome to talk to you know a professional writer who also was a witness to all of the the crazy stuff the ups and downs of futurama like eric all that harvard magic floating around in the air but yes as we always do we'll ask you if you enjoy the interview uh please let eric know he is at eric rogers here on twitter and eric is spelled eric so at eric rogers here please let him know you enjoy this interview and who knows we might talk to him again or maybe other futurama

writers oh we can cross our fingers yeah but but i guess here let's go quick into that chat with eric oh i'm so lonely since i came to the future will you be my friend ow who are you i'm a big, and I want a big cereal. You too? Will you be my friend? Put her there, pal. I'm in your wallet. So we are here with Eric Rogers. And Eric, our first question is, we really want to know, where did your career in television writing begin? And how did it lead to being a part of the Futurama team?

Great question. One I love to answer. So I moved to L.A. right after graduating from college in 1995. And I knew I wanted to be a writer. Didn't know much about TV writing, per se. Thought I, you know, like most kids who have stars in their eyes in the mid nineties for Hollywood, also a kid from the 90s, a kid growing up in the nineties, you know, the Simpsons was everything. So I started working in television and I started working my way up the ranks.

I started as a PA and then became a writer's assistant and a script coordinator and, you know, all those good below the line type jobs in writer's rooms. And I was working at Steven Bosco productions and Steven, Steven had NYPD blue on him at that time and murder one and was just kind of crushing the, the drama game. But you know, I always wanted to, I always had this comedy side to me. I had a weird sense of humor. I didn't know what I, what exactly I was going to do with that until I lost – one of the shows I was working on for Steven got canceled,

and I was out of work for probably six months, seven months, and things were looking dire, and I was thinking, okay, this TV career is not going to work out. It's time to pivot and figure something else out. And then 20th Century Fox. And they say, hey, we have your resume here. And do you know who Matt Groening is?

Because he's got a new show coming. And of course, you know, I'm like, yeah, I know who Matt Groening is. So they tell me a little bit about Futurama. And this is right. this only the pilot script had been written nothing else really had been done i mean matt and david and you know they had conceived all the characters and all that good stuff and fox had bought the show but nobody knew anything about it um and you know this is also 1998 when you know there's really

no internet and you know it's not like it was just um matt's next show and uh but that was a big deal i mean you know matt matt had not done anything you know this was the second thing after the simpsons so to uh have the opportunity to to uh be go in for this writer's assistant's job on the show was massive um so uh they brought me in i did the interview and I got the job and I was the first writer's assistant on the show and I was with the show the first two and a half seasons into season three and that's really when becoming both a tv writer and an animation writer really kind of took hold of me, you know, being in that writer's room, seeing, you know, how those guys work, how funny they were, how dedicated

they were, how, you know, just just watching the process and actually, you know, being a part of a room where you felt, you know, you felt like you were one of the gang, even though you weren't quite yet, you know, there was still work to do to like rise up the ranks and all that. But, you know, David and Matt and all those guys, you know, Ken Keeler and Pavarone, they always made me feel like I was, you know, one of them and never, never like just the guy in the corner typing words. So, you know, luckily, by the end of season two, David, you know, I was pretty, pretty vocal about wanting to be a writer, you know, the was pretty, pretty vocal about wanting to be a writer, you know, the whole squeaky wheel gets the grease thing. And David gave me gave me my first

opportunity. And I got to write the anthology of interest season finale with him and Ken. You know, which was just amazing. Like, I just, I remember getting that phone call in my little apartment up in Westwood. And, you know, just like, you know, you just you remember getting that phone call in my little apartment up in Westwood and you know just like you know you just you just think that's it you know it's like winning the lottery so it was just really a like a magical moment in life and and then from there you know that's really when I decided that I wanted to be a comedy animation writer. And I took some time away from the show, like I said, about mid-season three, because my wife, who's Australian, was moving here to L.A. from Australia. And, you know, we'd had a long, yeah, we'd had a long distance relationship.

But her coming here, you know, I really wanted to spend a lot of quality time with her when she got here. And, you know the the grind on futurama was still you know still pretty legit you know even though we had two writers assistants in a big room and all that it you know it is this show is still taking a lot of time and uh you know day-to-day time that is um so i stepped away um so i could um spend time with her and we you know luckily we ended up getting married shortly thereafter. We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. So that's been working out.

But in the meantime, while I'm, you know, hanging out with my soon-to-be wife and, you know, we're getting into really, we're solidifying our relationship and all that good stuff um i had also dabbled uh in writing comic books uh and um bill morrison at bongo comics which was matt's comic book company as you guys well know um they asked me to write a couple simpsons scripts uh and that went great uh you know i wrote my first my first story of Simpsons scripts. Uh, and that went great. Uh, you know, I wrote my first, my first story for Simpsons comics was a sideshow Bob story, which, you know, again, I love sideshow Bob. So it was just like perfect, like the perfect character to like, you know, dive in on that,

on that side of things. Um, and then, uh, you know, I, I, I the comic book work really kind of kept me afloat and, uh, and kept me immersed in the Futurama and Simpsons world. You know, I, I, um, wrote, um, the, uh, the first issue of Futurama comics, um, and, um, wrote probably between the Futurama comics and Simpsons comics, like 30 or 40 published issues over, over the years. So, um, so yeah, you know, it's like really, was i was i was in the animation

universe at that point and uh uh really like just there was no looking back i you know i really love writing in animation and i love the fact that you know we as time has gone on especially in kids animation we're we're getting the opportunity to tell more sophisticated stories. Oh, yeah. And do more comedy. You know, we're really like, there's a whole generation of us that, you know, kind of were brought up on The Simpsons and Futurama and Family Guy and all that good stuff.

And, you know, those people are the ones who are doing, you know, all the animated shows now. And really just, that's why I think you see the quality of, of really across the board from preschool to adult. Like, you know, there's so much good high quality animated animation out there right now, not just the look of the show, but there's just the overall, the overall quality from, from writing to voice acting to everything. So it's a, it's an awesome time to, um, to be an animation writer,

to be an animation. Um, uh, and, and, you know, strangely enough, you know, we're in this pandemic and animation is the one side of the industry that, you know, hasn't, hasn't skipped a beat, you know, I'd even say it's gotten stronger because you know at least it's the one thing people in our industry know we can produce moving forward and know we can do without you know um fear of covid related shutdowns and that sort of thing you know because most of us do our do our thing from our desks in our house anyway so um you know we're all we're all just uh uh social distancing um here at our computers and making uh making animated shows so um so yeah

that that's my uh long-winded way of answering that question that was great i mean you're right everything has gotten worse except for cartoons yeah every it's it's the safe way now every voice actor has their mic at home so they can right uh well yeah so i i was curious you know in that early days you know you saying you got hired in 98 and the show premiered in 99 like what what was it like working on the show back before the big premiere you know it uh from from what we've seen it it seemed, you know, very exciting, but also stressful. And, like, I recall on one DVD commentary, David Cohen even said he, like, briefly quit the show from feeling so overworked. Like, what was it like then? That was legitimately a grind at the start of season one. There was a stretch over that summer where we worked 36 days in a row without a break.

And I was the only writer's assistant at that point. So you're talking 14-hour days with everybody, just doing our best to, you know, get this show moving. And, you know, it was a hell of a, it was a hell of a thing because, you know, it was the second show with Matt's name on it. And that, that was serious pressure, you know, and there were a lot of, there was a lot of tug of war with Fox, you know, over what the show is and what it could be. And, and, and, you know, they want it. I think they wanted Simpsons 2.0. Yeah. And they were, they weren't going to get that, you know,

of course it was going to have Simpsons DNA, but this was David, you know, this was David's baby and Matt's baby too. But, you know, David really like, you know, as far as the writing side of it goes, you know, this, this was, this is, you know, David, David really wanted to make this his own thing. And he, and he did of course, but I think that, I think that pressure, you know, cause David hadn't, David had, David had not run a show by himself before. And you know, he, he had been one of the higher ups on the Simpsons, but you know, they had 20 people in that room, you know, he had been one of the higher ups on the Simpsons. But, you know, they had 20 people in that room, you know, and there was a hell of a support system and an infrastructure there.

You know, we were just, you know, this future I was just getting its legs. So I think David, he did. He quit. He quit for a minute because he just didn't feel like he could. Hopefully I'm not speaking for him, but I feel like he just, what I got from it is that he just didn't feel like he could handle the pressure that was being put on him and the show. And, you know, he walked away for a second. And, you know, just a couple of days.

My memory serves correct. It was just a couple of days where we didn't have David around. That got worked out pretty quickly. I think Matt worked his magic and made David feel comfortable about the fact that he had David's back. Matt was always good

with fighting the fight against Fox. And I think that was probably the most important factor in the show continuing and David continuing to be the the head of the dragon i guess for lack of a better word is you know he you know i think he needed matt to go i am not i'm going to shield you from the the crazy pressure that fox is going to put on us you don't worry about that you go make a show you go make the show that we we wanted to

make i i will be there to sign off on everything and to tell fox that this is what we're doing and they can go fly a kite if they don't like it um you know and i think part of the problem too is and i think my merit but i hope my memory serves correct here but i think that the executive at the top of fox television who bought the show moved on during that whole summer during that process of us going into production so there was a new head of fox who did not like i from what i gathered did not like the show did not like sci-fi who knows what he thought of matt i don't know he probably didn't like matt because matt matt just did not back down from a fight and thank god because matt like matt was our savior you know matt matt was matt was the

one who and rightfully so he could go to fox and go hey man i helped you build this house you're not gonna tell me how to make my second show you know um and that was really important you know like to have that guy go you know what i'm you bought this show i'm gonna give you the show that you bought you know and um um you know so so once we had david back and matt was you know uh taking care of the business side of it and you know keeping fox away like you know we were off and running and um i'd say by the fall like the holidays of that year we were really we were a smooth running ship um and we were just you know normal regular animated sitcom doing its thing and it was uh but you know i know all that sounds dramatic but it really wasn't well i i know from the research we did like you know uh it had it had a little

yeah oh go ahead sorry oh no i was gonna say yeah from from our little bit of research we definitely uh noticed we noted that there was a change in executives at fox and like 98 that we were sure like we saw like the like bob right the fox Fox time slot changed so much for Futurama, that first season. Yeah, and I wanted to get into that, too, because I think most people remember watching Futurama, like, every day on, like, Adult Swim or Comedy Central or now SyFy, just like, oh, yeah, Futurama is, like,

a faucet I turn on in my house, and it just keeps flowing. But back, we've been going over, like, how Fox was airing the show 20 years ago, and it was okay you get one 8 30 slot on sunday and then we're going to usher you away to tuesday for a fashion and then maybe bring you back to sunday just the time slots kept changing the days kept changing what did it feel like on the inside because uh friends of our show bill oakley and josh weinstein, Mission Hill, was basically shelved after two episodes. Were you concerned that Fox could just hold on to these production episodes and just never air them or just burn them off in a summer? Yeah, that was absolutely a concern.

You know, I mean, when we premiered, we were in that 830 slot. And I think we only got I think we got two two weeks in a row. And then we were off for like two or three weeks. And then we came back on for like two more episodes, and then we were off again for two. Like, there was no consistency. And, you know, our numbers were really good. I mean, particularly in this day and age.

Like, you know, it's always fun to like, you know, look at like what Gone with the Wind would would make in 2020. Right. You know, and go, oh, my God, it would have made six billion dollars. Right. It's kind of fun to look back at what TV shows ratings were, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, before we had, you know, streaming and DVRs and all that good stuff. Because, you know, we were we had damn good numbers in that 8 30 slot you know and and that was a confounding thing we were like look we we lost a little of the simpsons lead lead in but like we certainly weren't like uh you know the grand canyon it wasn't like it it wasn't like you know we were losing half their audience you know they the audience was sticking around to watch the show. And, you know, like with any, like with any new show, you know, you, you gotta get the time,

come back to it at the, at the normal time slot you say it's going to be on. So when Fox starts jerking it around and, you know, you know, we get two episodes here and then we're off for three weeks and then, oh, and by the way, now you're on at 7 30 and then oh yeah this season you're definitely going to be on at seven o'clock on sunday and oh by the way we have football so you know most of the time in the fall you're not even going to get to air your full episode because we're going to have football spill over into the seven o'clock hour like you know it it wasn't they didn't seem like fox was shy about trying to kill us um but you know like the show just the quality like just just like we rose to the occasion and you know um you know we started winning some awards and and the critics like

love the show and so you know it was hard for fox to to justify um truly just canceling us outright and and you know not airing these great episodes because you know the the we we we were a little bit of a hit as far as you know the critics went and you know awards and good stuff like that so um you know i you know this is not a punch down to family guy but we had that over a family guy you know family guy wasn't winning writers guild awards and they weren't winning you know best animated uh series emmys um you know uh but you know yeah it was the little show that could and thank god we got our second life on comedy central as well because that was great. That was such a good time. I mean, even four seasons under

that scenario is just impressive that you guys... I think it really speaks to the great work you were all doing there. I was also curious, you know, from the beginning you can see these really cool Easter eggs for

Leela's parents or Nbler is uh shadow in the first episode like what from your vantage point how early were some of those secrets like baked into the the show like were you guys talking about that kind of uh mythology early on oh yeah i mean i think that was one of the things David and Ken and Matt loved about the opportunity to do this with this show is that they could, you know, have, especially with animation, so you could have the foresight of knowing, okay, you know, we have eight to 10 months per episode to produce each episode, right? from from conception of story to finished product right um so in that regard you you know even if you haven't thought of the easter egg yet

let's say you wrote wrote a script but you're not going to see the animatic for it for you know let's say two and a half months and you're not going to see full animation for you know five months you can if it occurs to you that we for, you know, five months, you can, if it occurs to you that we can plant something into an episode, you have the time to do it because animation takes so long. So, you know, but that being said, like, you know, David and Matt and, you know, the guys, they, they all, they, they wanted to do these things early on, especially, you know, you, you brought up the, the Nibbler and Lela's parents of it all like those those two things specifically were were um long cons you know they wanted to play and um uh and they paid off well and you know that that nibbler thing

you know was right uh you know falling back into the the tube um and you know the shadow and all i mean like that was that was there from the beginning so you know it was really super cool that you know they wanted to do that were able to pull it off and you know you know I think it really provided a blueprint for you know other shows being able to pull off stuff like that too which is really cool. So I want to rewind a bit and a question that we probably should have asked a bit earlier, but can you clarify, just because we're on the outside of the industry, just what does it mean to be a writer's assistant? What was your role on the show, your duties and such? room with the the writers um uh all day um as they are conceiving of episodes writing episodes all that good stuff you are the guy or the gal in the corner who is making sure that all the good good ideas get down on paper and so let's say it's um you know they're pitching out an episode

um you that's that that is a bit of a grind grinder sort of day or two, because, you know, they're the writers are trying to figure out what the story is going to be. And so all, everything's on the table and, you know, if they're throwing stuff out and laughing at it, you're writing it down. Right. Um, and then from there, you know, you start, they, the writers start to whittle whittle down and hone into, you know, okay, this idea works, this idea works. And then once they like kind of latch on to what an episode can be,

then, you know, then really you have, what's next is basically a story break. And, you know, that, that's a day or two of just, you know, going over what the show can be beat by beat, maybe throw in a few jokes. And as a writer assistant, you're just writing all that down. From there, you will hand off whatever you have, you know, via email or, you know, hard copy to the writer who will go off and then, you know, write an outline. The writer will be gone for, you know, let's say a handful of days. uh when they bring that outline back in that is uh that's that's gone over in the room uh but with the entire staff to to uh you know make that as uh

tight and awesome as possible uh you are uh you know the writer's assistant is there you know putting those revisions in for the team then Then that's sent away, gets the network and studio approval, then the writer's off to write the script. And then when they bring that script back in, again, the room goes over the script, you know, beat by beat, line by line, joke by joke. And the writer's assistant is the one who, again, is at the computer, you know, making all those revisions and typing that stuff in?

And one important thing I've left out is most writers rooms have a giant TV screen against a wall. And that TV is connected to the writer's assistant laptop or computer. And so they can see everything that you're getting down so you're not missing anything and um everything looks good and and you know that that as you probably would expect all of that is um shepherded by the the showrunner and and you know the the leader uh for all that so um so yeah that's that's that's basically the job you know it's a lot of, you got to be a fast typer. You got to be a good listener. You got to know when to keep your mouth shut and when it's time to, you know, usually with most good showrunners, you'll develop a rapport and they'll let you know when it's okay to pitch a joke or, you know, they'll ask you your opinion on a story, you know, and I think that that's a real key to being good at that job is to not get

greedy and want to be, you know, at the, at the grownups table too soon. You know, you, you have to, you know, you got to kind of wait your turn and develop a rapport with the, with the team before you start to insert yourself as a writer. So, you know, it's a bit of a, you got to be patient. You got to be patient and you got to wait your turn. But, you know, if you can do that and you're a decent writer, usually you'll get your shot. So, yeah.

So it's been 20 years now. If you were to see one of these old episodes on a rerun or whatever uh would you remember like i remember this joke really brought the house down or one writer really fought for this joke i remember what like diet coke i was drinking when this was pitched do you have like specific memories of like the jokes that were being thrown around or is it just kind of like a storm in your brain yeah no no it's a little bit of a storm brain but you know like there are there are there are moments that um uh really do stand out you know um you know and this is gonna sound so egotistical but like most of the stuff i remember

is like specific to like a joke i pitched or something. Oh, sure. Yeah. So, you know, like some of my favorite moments are, you know, in the 2D blacktop episode, you know, which is our Fast and Furious show. You know, we were, we were writing, we were trying to figure out the end of that episode. And, you know, I came up with this, came up with this joke where, you know, the, the, the gal who is the, the spaceship uh racer she's got this she's got this running joke throughout the episode about having issues with her dad who she can't speak with and um they don't have a relationship and they can't talk so i can't i pitched this joke

about how um he did he didn't he didn't hurt her with what he said it was it was the words he never said and you know just kind of a little little dumb joke like a laughter tears like like he was he was like he couldn't catch his breath and that made like me as a young buck writer i was like so happy because i was like oh my god i made the showrunner cry tears of joy this is amazing um so you know just stuff like that you know there was uh uh god john dimaggio's you know he's got these moments at table reads where you know he he and billy were so exceptional like finding weird moments with the way they would, you know, deliver lines. And, uh, and like the, I forget which episode this was. Uh, I think it was the one where Bender and Amy hooked up early in season seven,

six, whatever it was. Um, there, there's a, there's a, there's a moment in that show where Amy goes to bail Bender out of jail and, uh, and he, Bender pulls out an accordion and and uh and he goes oh it's the joke is something along the lines of oh that's that uh that's so sad amy i wrote a little song to cheer you up let's go already and the way the way john delivered that like that we didn't know how we didn't know how he was going to sing that at the table read but when like like when he busts that out he was just you know he did he he did that at the end of uh another episode i wrote um the the one where fry and leela are in the zoo they're like the way the the whole the end

hit the end line where he goes you were in a zoo like the way he did that at the table read was just just phenomenal um now just just from doing this hearing just the sounds john dimaggio makes just makes us laugh yeah he's just uh i mean yeah i mean you know it's so funny because you know i've gone on to i've gone on to do it a couple other shows as a showrunner and um you know you you wouldn't believe how hard it was for me to like convince the people on uh at activision to bring john on uh for skylanders academy like i thought i was like this is a home run i'm gonna put i'm gonna get john on this show this is gonna be great and they they they turned me down they they made me go they made us go cast a film actor instead of john and i felt so terrible about that because I'm like, this guy is money in the bank.

Like, he's so good and I can't believe that I have to even ask you if I can put him on the show, let alone you tell me I can't have him on the show because he's not a big enough name. It was so,

that was infuriating. That is bonkers. That's another story. You know, I did want to ask real quick about the uh anthology of interest one because that was one we just covered uh for our new season and so um not only like how how you were approached for it which that must have been you know kind of daunting as uh as a as a relatively new writer and you have all these like harvard graduate simpsons legends uh to work with uh but also like was was the feeling internally always an anthology

of interest was going to be kind of like futurama's uh treehouse of horror totally yeah it was totally going to be that um you know it would have been would have been awesome if we had uh been able to do one of those each season but you know i kind of love the fact that. You know, it would have been, it would have been awesome if we had been able to do one of those each season, but, you know, I kind of love the fact that like, you know, we evolved it a little bit with like Saturday morning fun food and naturama in the later season, you know, naturama, like that was a, that was a blast to write for, you know, cause I actually learned stuff in my research on that one.

But yeah, like, you know, the, that, that first anthology of interest, you know, like it, you know, But yeah, like, you know, that first anthology of interest, you know, like, you know, the guys, you know, the group just was really excited about, you know, trying to do like a, you know, sort of a strange tales type sci-fi,

you know, thing with our universe. And, you know, the possibilities would have been endless for sure um but um you know it's funny you brought up you know being daunted by you know um writing in the room with those guys you know i never felt daunted because like i just was so excited to do it you know and um it's funny to look back you know every now and then i'll look back on some older scripts and just look at like you know what mistakes i made you know not knowing what i know now and not you know compared to then and you know i look back on my first draft and i just go ah god you know you

didn't know anything rogers so you know thank god you were there to like learn some stuff from these guys because you know you suck um but you know it's like, again, being able to write with David and Ken on that episode, you know, it just, that was a dream come true. And, and, and those two specifically, like, you know, they're, they're idols of mine. Like they, they've always, they've always taken care of me as, as far as, you know, teaching me stuff. And whether they knew it or not, you know, they were mentors and, um, you know, like, and, uh, you know, Ken Keeler is, is, he's one of the great geniuses of, of, of TV writing. And, uh, you know, I wish, uh,

I wish we got to see Ken do his thing more for sure. He got out of his rat race. He's living in North Carolina or something now. So that sounds nice. Yeah. Ken and David Cohen are not on Twitter or else we would be bothering them. Oh yeah, oh yeah. They're smart to stay away. So about Anthology of

Interest, how different was the aired version compared to your final script? Because we know that it's a very collaborative process. Just because your name is on it doesn't mean you're responsible for every spoken line of dialogue and every frame of animation we see you know you're talking about david and ken here who's first drafts or just you know every time out stellar um but it wasn't you know my memory of it wasn't that it was too different um you know the definitely the

the you know that's the one great thing about a good writer's room is like you know you don't send your writer out to write a script without a super solid outline. And I remember, you know, with review trauma, we always had really strong outlines. So, you know, the, the, the story structure was always, you know, pretty much the story structure was what it was when I left the room to go write the script to what it aired. Right. You know, I think the biggest thing that changes, the biggest thing that changed was,

you know, the jokes, you know you know, the whole I don't think I had the lob. Oh, I might've had the lobster bisque line in my first draft. But you know, Bender's Bender's whole Hamlet, Hamlet esque, you know, depth at the end, I think that was conceived in the room when we were rewriting it or when they were revising it for the table read. Incorporating the Iron Man song, I think that was brought in when we had it in the room. The Mbop part of it

that was conceived in the room. It's mostly just it's like it's mostly just like adding those things and and punching up the jokes really like but story-wise like it was it was pretty much what we came up with before i went out to uh write write the script cool cool now i yeah i did recall hearing on the commentary they said like that was just they wrote you you guys all had too much like you just had to clip things out of it just to fit it in oh man i i yeah my first draft i i did it you know over this pandemic i i did a couple you know ways of cleaning out my garage right

and uh you know i had a ton of ton of old scripts out there and i found my first draft and my my dumbass turned in a 25 page act for you know and and I'm telling you guys 15 pages is tight for for one act of a show I turned in 25 so the biggest mistake there was hey dummy you can't just give writers 25 pages because they only have to cut 10. Um, you know, so, uh, you know, uh, you know, I, one of these days I'll have to go back and find that script and look at all the crap I must've, uh, overloaded it with just to see what they had to cut out. But, uh, yeah, it was also, that's one of the things you learn as a,

as a whippersnapper writer too. You're just like, uh, you know, learning how to edit is so important, you're just like, uh, you know, learning how to edit is so important, you know, um, uh, it's the biggest mistake I think a young writer can make. It's just, you know, going, Hey, well, you said to write all the story. I gave you all the story. And, um, you know, as a showrunner, you, you sometimes just, you want, you want a writer to go, Hey, uh, why don't you come back to me and we'll have a conversation real quick. If you're going to give me a 25-page script or a script that's like 30% over what it's supposed to be, let's talk about that before you give it to me

because you're going to give me more work than I need. Yeah. So let's move ahead real briefly to the Comedy Central episodes before we wrap this up. We definitely want to talk to you more about those once we cover those in detail, but we've just finished covering the second season in complete up-close detail,

listening to every commentary, reading every source on them. But we do want to just ask briefly about the Comedy Central stuff. How did that happen for you, and what was working for Comedy Central compared to working under Fox? It was awesome.

I was Comedy Central like compared to working under Fox? It was awesome. So I, I was, I was kind of floating between jobs and I had had to have gone, I mean, you know, I've done some freelance animation writing, but, but this is like 2009 at this point,

but I, you know, to pay my bills, I was, I went back to be a script coordinator on dramas and I was completely unhappy with that. Like just, you know, I was like, this is not where I went back to be a script coordinator on dramas, and I was completely unhappy with that. I was like, this is not where I'm meant to be. And I heard, I think it was the internet, or somebody texted me. They basically got the word to me that got the word to me that

Futurama was coming back and it was going to get this two season pickup on Comedy Central so I immediately emailed David and I said I will do whatever it takes to be part of this show again like you know I you can make me

you know I'll I'll clean the gutters, man. You know, you tell me the job to do, I'll do it. And, you know, of course I wanted to be a writer, you know, first and foremost on the staff, you know, but David, you know, he was very honest. He said, look, I, you know, I've got the staff in place already, but I would love to have you back as a writer's assistant.

And if you come back, episode to write. And so I was like, please thank you i'm there so um we started back in june of 2009 um and it was so much fun it was like because it was just like getting on a bike and you know you don't you don't forget how to you don't forget how to ride the bike you know and but this time around you know we we knew we had a network and a studio that had our backs the entire time you know we didn't have to worry about time slot changes we didn't have to worry about not being promoted we didn't have to worry about you know um just feeling the love from comedy central like they they were they basically were like, we're bringing you back because we love you guys

and we know you can deliver an audience. And so writing the show then was just way more fun because there was no fear of the corporate overlords pulling the rug out from under us. So having those 52 episodes, knowing that those were locked in and we had those 52 episodes to play with. Like, it was really, really a good time. And, you know, I'm a huge fan of shows knowing when they're going to end.

And, you know, a studio and a network, you know, working with that show and going, hey, look, you know, this has been a good ride. But here's where we are going. This is, this is going to be the end and we're not going to pick you up after that. So you, you want to write towards that end, the ending you've always wanted with the show, do it. And I, you know, I think that was, I think David was really excited by that prospect, you know, because that final episode we did um you know meanwhile i think the title of the episode yeah um it just was such a perfect ending for a show that seemed to

keep getting this you know keep getting a new life but like we knew at that point like this should be it you know so it really was just like the perfect sci-fi funny sweet um capper to you know that entire adventure and um uh you know people ask me all the time they're like you know all these shows getting reboots and and being brought back but what about futurama and i'm like look i my my i don't have i don't know this for a fact but my guess is david feels good about the way it ended and he probably doesn't want to mess with that that's my take i and i don't know that for a fact like i've never had that conversation with david but if if i were a betting man i just i i bet somebody more than one somebody uh somebody's

have come gone to him and matt and said hey what do you guys think about doing the show again and i um i i i i believe david's probably just like no not interested we we we ended how we wanted to end you know so um no but who knows man you know maybe we will be back one day well i couldn't imagine it with and i couldn't imagine coming back without david like he's simpsons has had so many different showrunners but it was always uh david cohen uh show running futurama right like yeah right yeah yeah well man i i have a million more questions i like to ask i did want to just specifically say though thank you you were a real help in one of our earliest podcasts we did because we didn't know we were like okay does icy wiener mean the descriptor icy or does it mean i s e e wiener

and you on twitter cleared that up for us oh good thank you i'm glad i was able to help that was one on salt mystery cleared up for us yes yeah but did you want to plug anything uh while you're with us eric like your twitter account anything that uh you might you're allowed to talk about that you're working on right now? You know, yeah. If anybody wants to come follow me and my nonsense and my, you know, crazy tweets, I'm, what am I these days?

Is it Eric Rogers here? I think it's at Eric Rogers here. H-E-R-E. Eric Rogers here on Twitter. Yeah, let's double check that while I'm sitting here with you guys. Yes, that is, yeah. At Eric Rogers here, there it is. And I do have a, I can't, okay, here's what I'm going to say.

I have a brand new series that's locked and loaded that has 52 episodes. I'm a showrunner for Head Writer. It's sci-fi it's comedy it's action if you guys go to twitter and you look at my profile you will see that it uh i have have done some uh playful uh wording there to tell tell uh tell the world what i what it is because i'm dying to tell the world what it is but if i think i feel like if i say the actual word out loud uh corporate overlords will uh take my son away so but if you go to twitter and look at my profile it's right there in the description oh i want you to know that's uh extremely clever yes yeah

it's not that clever oh it's great um but that's that i do not know when that series is going to be announced, but it is sci-fi comedy action, half hour, and it's amazing. And it's been the second best work experience of my life since, it's been the best one since Futurama, honestly. It's been amazing. That's awesome. And, you know, I've got next year, I've been writing some preschool for a show called Smash, which will be on HBO Max. It's a kid's show about little superheroes at summer camp. And I've been writing for Polly Pocket as well. Those episodes will be out next year as well. So, you know, staying busy, trying to get my own nonsense going as well.

So, you know, hopefully I have some Eric Rodgers madness to put out into the world sooner than later. But, yeah, there you go, guys. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for talking with us. And we definitely want to have you back again once we get to the later seasons, for sure. We have just stretched the surface. That sounds great, guys. I'm totally down for it.

You let me know. I'm here. Thanks for watching!