Talking Simpsons - Talking Mission Hill - The Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein Interview

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

To wrap up our Patreon-exclusive series Talking Mission Hill, we interviewed series creators Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and we thought you folks on the free feed would love to hear it as well! Listen in and learn the secrets of Mission Hill, as well as new information about what could be a long-awaited revival of the series—and if you're interesting in hearing more, consider signing up for the Talking Simpsons Patreon. If you sign up at the $5 level, you'll gain immediate access 13 episodes of Talking Mission Hill, as well as the rest of our limited miniseries and all of the other bonus podcasts we've made over the last three-plus years. Sign up today!

One, two, three, four. Bling blong, everyone, and welcome to a Talking Mission Hill special presentation. I am one of your hosts for this one, Bob Mackey, who is here with me as always. It's Henry Gilbert, proudly wearing my Gus t-shirt as we are in the afterglow of quite a fun day. A great hour-long conversation with Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, the creators of Mission Hill. Of course, you know them as the showrunners of Simpsons season seven and eight. They were writing on the show from season four before that. And obviously they've done a lot of great stuff since then, but we got to talk to them all about Mission Hill in a Mission Hill specific interview because we just finished our Talking

Mission Hill limited miniseries on our Patreon. Now there's a very good chance that you're listening to this as a patron on our Patreon and if so thank you but we are also putting this out on the Talking Simpsons feed so more people can listen to it so if you're curious we just went over the entire season of Mission Hill using the Talking Simpsons treatment and the first episode of that was on the Talking Simpsons feed a few months ago but if you want the rest of the episodes there are 13 more of them that cover all the episodes and one episode about the unproduced episodes to listen to those you need to go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at the five dollar level you'll get all Talking Mission Hill and also all of our limited mini series we've done before that and anything we do in the future as

long as you stay a patron so yeah yeah oh and our previous interviews with bill and josh actually are part of your five dollar sign up too that's right i think this is our third chats uh we've done two josh weinstein interviews uh two bill oakley interviews maybe three if you count the live show yeah we talked to them a lot and we said we somehow find new things to ask them every time especially because we haven't really talked too much about uh mission hill with them before because uh we hadn't watched the series in a while before doing this mini series and now we came pre-loaded with so many questions about mission hill you're gonna learn so much about it we got so many details that they've not revealed before we asked them about you know episodes they didn't do commentary for on the dvds

and if you've listened to the talking mission, you know that me and Bob often have said, boy, I'd like to ask Bill and Josh about this. So we tried to remember all the things, the most important questions that were burning for us in the podcast we did, questions about Yale, about their voice acting, all these things. We learned a whole lot from this interview. And of course, we talked plenty about

the possible upcoming show, Gus and Molly, and you'll hear all of that in our interview with Bill and Josh. So please enjoy. So we are here with Bill and Josh, and guys, we are at the very end. We just finished our Mission Hill podcast. And as we're doing it, we're hearing internet buzz all over the internet of this new Wally and Gus potential show. We wanted to start off the interview by asking about this because we're very excited about this potential program being somewhere. So are we.

Somewhere other than our computer. Yes, our computer and our heads. Right. Well, when did you guys start talking about this? I mean, I'm sure since, you know, for the last couple decades, you've been wanting to do more Mission Hill. But what was the impetus for this new discussion and planning of a sequel series? It was in October. I don't even remember what the inspiration for it series? It was in October. I don't even remember what the inspiration for it was. It was in October. And for some reason, it just occurred to us that it might be a good time to try to bring it back. But I don't know. I think the thing is,

we had thought about it multiple times over the past couple of years, because there had been talk about a Mission Hill comic book. Do you remember this josh like about three or four years ago yes we were going to do a mission i actually had several meetings with the publisher about it and there were a couple different ways to go like i think we actually decided on the the final incarnation before we just said fuck it was a was two different versions of mission hill that had gone one had gone really well and one had gone really badly in the future do you remember this and then and one of them like andy had reached his dreams and become matt graining and and uh things were going really well and the other one things had not gone well and it was going to be mission hill light and mission hill dark and there'll be two different comic book lines and then i think we

just decided that like it was going to be a huge amount of work and you know to maybe have like 200 people read it and yeah it just kind of fell by the wayside that's still i maintain that's still a great idea to do both oh yeah it is kind of funny i mean i suppose that we could have flash forwards in gus and wally if we ever did that because they're going to be flashbacks we get into that a second anyway so sometime around october uh it suddenly occurred i think it was i think it was to me but we talked about it almost immediately was what if we emphasized what if we made the show more about gus and wally i mean gus and wally were our favorite well we liked writing for all the characters but they were by slight a slight margin our favorite and it just seemed like a good time to maybe launch a show you know why it was because there's been so much crazy anime it used to be that you had to launch animation that would appeal

to a large audience and now you don't you can launch an animated show that you had to launch animation that would appeal to a large audience. And now you don't. You can launch an animated show that only appeals to a few thousand people, assuming you can get the money for it. And we were like, and I don't think even five years ago we would have thought that it was feasible to launch a show where Gus and Wally were the stars. But now it seems like it's possible. So somehow it just occurred to me, like, what if we made the show the same show pretty much, but with increased emphasis on Gus and Wally and with flashbacks? Right. And that's a big difference. Yeah.

And also part of the thing is because Gus – like Andy moved to Mission Hill, you know, a couple years ago, a few years ago. But Gus and Wally have lived there for like 40 or 50 years. So there's the whole history of Mission Hill and their history. So it's like, it's a whole, we always felt like that's a whole rich world that we didn't explore, except in that one wonderful, maybe the best episode about Gus and Wally's love story. Oh, I was going to say that a number of people on Twitter have expressed alarm

that the other characters are not going to be in it. And let me make everybody put everyone's fevered minds to rest that it of course the other characters are going to be in it it's essentially the same show as Mission Hill except there's more Gus and Wally and there's flashbacks so like what I mean to say is there probably won't be quite as much Kevin and Andy although there'll still be plenty of Kevin and Andy there's going to be a lot of slightly more Gus and Wally and also flashbacks. And that's part of the thing we wanted to do is, is tell stories.

And, you know, there's a lot of shows that kind of have operating two timelines these days. And we wanted to have episodes, some episodes that dealt with what it was like in mission Hill in the fifties and sixties and seventies and deal with alternative lifestyles, not, and not just being gay,

but also like the whole world of beatniks and hipps and deal with alternative lifestyles not and not just being gay but also like the whole world of beatniks and hippies and the whole 70s kind of s thing with the swingers and all that stuff there's like there's so much alternative lifestyle material from america all for the second half of 20th century that's never been dealt with really on tv yeah and an animated show yeah where it's like it's about it's also about the history of alternative america yes that's awesome yeah we were talking about this on our podcast and we were hoping that it would be a period piece because uh we feared that gus and wally couldn't survive this long and also i don't want to see any fiction made a written after what are you talking about

he is immortal he could be immortal but like i kind of want to revisit the cushy 2000 uh specifically anything before 9-11 yes i think that's good yeah that that's a theoretical like we decided that too then i can't tell you how many times we've debated this over the years if mission were to come back would we age it up we would make it today and with this the answer is no, it's a time capsule and it exists almost exclusively in the world before 9-11. So theoretically the show never gets to 9-11. In, in, in, not only in Gus and Wally, but in just in the, in the universe, I think because it's, it's a capsule of that era. So that's, you know, people have been asking about that too.

And I think in theory we're never going to arrive at that date no that's great and yeah that last episode is uh the the gus and wally one is i think it is my favorite i think we gushed about it quite a lot when we did and also like uh my husband he'd never seen it before uh until he watched it with me for doing the podcast and he seriously had like tears in his eyes at the uh at the end of it like the that's great it was so yeah it's really touching to us yeah we should make sure to give dan mcgrath credit for that because honestly dan mcgrath first draft of that thing was brilliant and so much of the material that you see on screen and you love just came right out of his head and And like, I want to be a credit hog. I want to make sure that Dan gets the credit for crafting a lot of that backstory in that episode, specifically all the movie stuff and kind of the whole world of the Ed Wood characters and the man from Pluto, which I think he wrote mostly by himself.

Yeah, Bill, I don't know if you're leaving clues behind for the fans, but I remember a very suspicious Instagram story with John Vitti. And I remember telling Henry, like, John Vitti's in this story. They're working on something. I know it. Well, we only talk about fluid. Vitti and his wife and I correspond quite a bit about fluid these days. And he's actually really popular. As my most popular guest reviewer, I'm always trying to get him to review new stuff because people think he's actually really popular As my most popular guest reviewer

I'm always trying to get him to review new stuff Because people think he's really handsome Like John Ritter It's always great to hear from him We just interviewed him not too long ago Yeah, that was great But yeah, I'm hoping You know, yeah

Right now the Gus and Wally show Is a twinkle In your guys' eye But but I really hope that movement starts happening on that because it's too good of a tease. We need to. Some of the movement has already happened. I would say it's not just an idea. It's already a document. It's already – we have a – working on a deal, attempting to working on a deal with Warner Brothers,

and I believe we'll take it out now. There's no guarantee that any of these places will buy it, because Mission Hill is an expensive show with a very devoted but not huge fan base. So I'm hoping that we will sell it to HBO Max or something like that, but there is no such guarantee. Yeah, though I mean, you know, now, right now, animation, like, that's a work from

home kind of show like yes it can't be done and also the cool thing is with with all the talk about it on the internet we've seen even more fans come out of the woodwork and it's like a really overwhelming amount which is great and so we feel like there is there's the audience for it the audience that's kind of been waiting and the audience a lot of them people were kids or teens at the time and so now they're like now they're right around or just past andy's age so it's kind of perfect for that too also i mean this is the thing the eternal problem with this kind of thing is that the art let's just say that without being too braggy michigan has a lot more substance than a lot of these other shows. I mean, you've seen with the laundry list of shows that are returning. And I would say that we're not quite like that.

Like, we're not a show that 12 year old boys are going to immediately love. This show is particularly the Gus and Wally version is actually going to require a fair amount of interest in like cultural history and things. It's still going to be funny, but it's not going to just be a gag fest. And in our experience, it's always been harder harder harder to sell shows that are not gag fests man i i am hoping for the best and have my fingers crossed i hope that we're our show us covering mission hill has helped to spread the word a little bit to and help with this too i bet it has and i we're grateful for that oh thank you we'll have more to cover in the future hopefully yeah but i guess we can get into our questions we're grateful for that. Thank you. We'll have more to cover in the future, hopefully.

But I guess we can get into our questions. We're trying to cover stuff that we haven't really heard in past Mission Hill interviews, so hopefully you guys haven't answered these questions a thousand times. But I guess we can start off with, we had just actually interviewed Lauren McMullen recently, and it was great to talk to her. And we were just wondering, how did you find her, and how did she enter the project initially? I want to say also, Lauren, before we move on from Gus and Wally. Lauren is involved in Gus and Wally, too. That was one of the most exciting developments of the past six months.

She indicated that she wants to be involved from the ground floor and is going to come with us to the meetings and is going to basically reprise her old role as the visual genius behind the whole enterprise. So that is another thing that we are extremely excited about. That's great. I wasn't sure how much you could say, but that's great. You actually just sent a bunch of stickers, vintage Mission Hill stickers. Oh my god, I ran out of those because for the last 20 years, I stick them on the luggage when we travel

because they're so bright and easily identifiable and I finally ran out like two years ago. So those are very rare. I got like four left. Yeah, they are. I don't want to stick them on anything. Yeah, they're too valuable to actually be stuck to things. But also, Lauren is a true, true animation genius. So she's like an equal person in this show

and how good it was. And you met her in college? Bill, I think think didn't you were you working on the uh harvard the lampoon at the same time yes lauren was president of the lampoon um the first year i was on and she was one of the best we had it was a weird time where we had three of the best artists of the century on at the same time her and paul felix and mel haran um and paul felix went on to you know he's a big wheel at disney and stuff and like but lauren was amazing she was elected president and she was um she had an uncanny ability to also work in a lot of different styles too like she would like if you

said we want this to draw be drawn like the comic strip nancy or or the wizard of id like she could do it and this was she was only 20 19 or 20 years old and And so we worked with her many, many times. And we were also friends with her, just like socially. And I don't even remember what happened with Mission Hill. We were like, we tried to get her on the ground floor. I remember sending her the first draft of the script. Yeah, yeah. Gosh.

Yes, yes. Because I still have also some very early thoughts that she had on it and stuff. Yeah. I think we needed her and wanted her from the very beginning or you know two weeks after coming up with it yeah yeah and i think we talked about it like i think we sent her stuff from the beginning i mean remember she did all the very first drawings she's the only one who ever did any drawings for mission hill and we had all these discussions i still have those things i have those faxes yeah literally old yellowed faxes with all the different um incarnations

of what andy might look like and what kevin might look like so yeah she was on from the ground floor with this thing and i don't i think she had already directed episodes of king of the hill and and maybe even simpsons at that point i think yeah i think she had maybe just done king of the hill she was yeah she had done critic and then king of the Hill. She was, yeah, she had done Critic and then King of the Hill and then you guys. Oh, yeah. The Critic, yes, right. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, I had heard in another interview, Bill, you say, like, she's basically a co-creator on it. I think we've, after doing this podcast, we've really come to appreciate, like, her influence on the show much more too. Yeah. Oh, it's totally. Cause also if you look at, if you look at like the drawings and the official drawings, there's like a signature,

like a Matt Groening, but it's, it's WOM, which is Weinstein, Oakley McMullen. Oh, I never know. Oh,

that's so cool. It's not in everything, but it's just in some things. So, but it was like, yeah, it's like, it's us three. So, okay it was like from the stickers and stuff yeah it's like it's us three so um okay so when you guys were uh you know working on the pitch for mission

hill did you guys have any other shows you were pitching as part of your deal at uh at the production company or was was it really all on mission hill that was a golden era of people wasting money on tv writers like there's so every TV writer was getting a big deal. And like all you had to do was just come up with a show and pitch it. And because there was such a lucrative, you know, you know, syndication market back then for shows like Friends and Seinfeld or whatever. And like so every sitcom writer was thought as thought of as a very valuable commodity. And it's like they pay you just to sit in your office and come up with one idea so yeah no that was what we were doing

and uh we pitched it like this show was not an easy sell either like we wanted to sell it i remember every one of those meetings where people rejected it and i remember the things they said and it drove me still echoes in my head i'm sure josh will be able to do his impression no i uh yeah tell me because i i seriously blocked them out like it's okay but tell me uh this i'd say okay this just to preamble i've always been wary of these times where people are like it's the animation boom people are buying animation because those are the times that we never sell our shows and that's what people are saying now and that's that's why i keep my fingers crossed for gus and wally uh at this time everybody was buying shows uh animated shows most of which were

catastrophe if you remember these ones on nbc i'm not going to say their names because the people who worked on them god bless them you know we all are in the same boat in this stupid business but anyway there are a lot of shitty animated shows on in 1990 and 2000 um we pitched our show to i think the first place was fox and i remember that i remember that meeting and it sucked and then we pitched it to nbc and i remember a number of the criticisms which josh i'm not gonna you know we would continuously repeat in a sarcastic way for years thereafter um about how being it was animated rent and how the character was a loser and all these certain things that the president of nbc said um and i think we even may have pitched it to cv anyway so we finally ended up at the wb and the wb at that time was like no nobody knew what it was

it only had a few shows on they were shows like there was an exercise show about a gym and there were a number of different weird shows that were on in this first couple years of the wb before it decided to become the teenage girl network um and we pitched the show to them and they were like they loved it they loved it they loved it and they immediately bought 13 episodes and it was the greatest sale of our career um and then the sad story of what happened as if you may recall if you're old enough is that during the time after we sold it but before it came on the air it suddenly became the teenage girl network like they bought buff buffy suddenly became a huge hit and and they put on a whole

bunch of other shows of that type uh you know like roswell and blah blah blah blah and when our show came on it was this weird redheaded stepchild that had no place on the network. They still had this weird night of shows for an African-American audience like Jamie Foxx and Steve Harvey, which also we didn't belong in. And they just stuffed us in there. We were canceled after two episodes.

The end. That's a succinct way of putting it. Yeah, also, why did they, uh, why did they skip the second episode in the order that it's on the DVD? Because it, it went straight from the, the pilot to porno for pyro and skipping the,

uh, the great sexpectations one. I believe that they thought that the porno for pyro was the most likely to get a 10. There were two different things. And a lot of this, a small amount of it has to do with our own hubris being that we were in a number of things where we were insistent that the show had to be on in the fall which was ultimately i think a mistake and

we but they listened to us because it probably should have been on in the in the winter like most animated shows debut in the winter um they should have slightly but we were we lobbied them and we succeeded in getting that on the show on the schedule in the fall and we also were like it has to premiere right after buffy and we were like because for some reason we thought that like the young teenage girl the teenage girl audience of buffy would appreciate mission hill and they really did not so they put the pilot on right after buffy at our insistence and it totally did very shitty ratings because people did not cross over from Buffy to Mission Hill and then I think that they selected the porno for pyro one as possibly the most dynamic you know the one episode that would get the most

people talking so that was the first one that they decided to broadcast and I don't even remember if they broadcast another one after that because you know it it's a sexy episode with Kevin in the bathroom of a bodega. Right. Our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. Yeah, I think the next one didn't air until like June after that. Yeah, I think you're right.

Yeah. Oh, I was going to ask. So we just revisited the whole series. And structurally, we definitely noticed that unlike your Simpsons episodes for the most part, a lot of Mission Hill has a lot of these modular B plots that end up disappearing by the end of the only season. Was that something you wanted to do or you were intending to do from the beginning uh because uh towards the end your stories were getting too big for these smaller b plots to fit in i think that was a fact that it was a symptom of the stories being too big like gus and wally

the episode plan nine originally had a subplot which was about which i think appeared in one of those lost episodes which was about the suvs you know what i'm talking about oh yeah i think it's in one of those last episodes where andy and where andy and jim are driving around and are annoyed at yuppies and suvs and they finally get a combine you know what i'm talking about that's in the yale script i believe the death of a yale man one yeah yeah that was moved into that because that was originally in McGrath's script, which made it way, way, way too long. So we just cut it out. And I think that's because the nature of the stories, certain stories require a huge amount of real estate. And that was one of them.

And did you were there any other like B plots you you didn't use that you had like plans for? Like the like I mean, that edible couch one is a, I think that's my favorite of the modular B plots. Did you have any others you weren't able to use? I don't know that we have too many modules. Honestly, some of this stuff is going to appear in Gus and Wally, so I'm not going to spoil it. There are a few, I would say there's at least 12 episode or runner ideas that we've fished out of our old files

that are now part of the Gus and Wally canon. Oh, great. Awesome. Yeah, that were fantastic. Yeah. I'm not going to give those away. I would say that the only episode that we didn't do that we really wanted to do was this Christmas episode where they were going to go to Wyoming

to visit the French's parents. And there was a number of crazy stuff. I just remember a lot of different scenes that were pitched for that. Like Jim having to go outside and smoke in like the, in the, you know, in the blizzard outside and, and,

and, and the parents, how the parents deal with Andy and Kevin together. There was a lot of fun stuff, but that was the only episode that probably will not appear in Gus and Wally. That was a mission. He'll lost thing. Did you guys have any plans?

You know, there's not a lot of guest stars on this show. Did you guys have any plans for guest stars in in mission hill that uh that you weren't able to get or did uh or no i don't think we've never i think like we're never huge fans of guest stars unless it's like some we just like crazy old people like laurenrence tierney and stuff and we were like it i i maintain that it's not a huge draw to have a guest star unless it's somebody who has like an amazing voice yeah i'm with you i don't even recall that we wanted eunice to be a guest star but then um michael payne's was friends with jennifer jason lee was like she would love to do it and then we

were like oh fantastic but i i don't recall that we ever had any ambition to have a lot of guest stars because also we had such a good cast and like I didn't really care like in retrospect it seems like we actually kind of were anti-guest star now as you said it Josh yeah because also it's all people like like Nick Jameson and Tom Kenny and all these people like can do so many different voices or like Charlton Hestopolis or whatever like those guys are great mimics so unless there's somebody who's like oh jennifer jason lee is really great and she's friends with somebody on the show that's that's that was and like like dave thomas who we had worked with before so we wanted him you know as a teacher and stuff but

and mr engelmeyer yeah yeah oh god he's so good is that is that old war criminal i love he's so good yeah was your role as showrunners any difference on mission hill in terms of how you ran the room compared to the simpsons we didn't really have a room that on mission hill i remember this distinctly this is where we invented our new style of working which is not which is not room but the room only exists for pitching out the stories. Okay. And at this point, I distinctly remember when we made that decision, which was after the first table read. And we came back,

and we had this dumb schedule where we're going to have to record the episode the day after the table read. And we sat down with the whole writing crew and we go, okay, let's see if we can get a better line for this. And it took like about an hour to come up with one better line.

And I think we just left the room and I think this conversation we're not going to do it this way and first of all and we move the recorder we told colin to move the recorder week down the road and we disbanded the room and everybody this is where we've used this system on every show we've done since yes which is basically the room yeah i totally agree i think it's so much better than the room the room exists for the story and and you can spend three days on the story pitch if you want to, in a deep divegrath one time we kind of do a pass and then we assign to the writers like come up with come up with five different funny signs for this bodega come up with a funny response to this and people would just turn them in and we would put them in the script or we have someone else put them in the script yeah you get and you get by doing that the modular

system you you literally get like 10 times more jokes than you would normally get. That's pretty cool. The one thing that you don't get is like people riffing off each other and improving the joke and whatnot. But I think that there's times for that. Like you could do that at the animatic rewrite or whatever. You don't have to do that. In my experience, the room is a vast waste of time especially since the invention of cell phones where people are looking at their cell phone half

the time it's like you could do the work you could you could do do twice the work and be gone by 3 30 or 4 p.m if everybody was just paying attention or everybody was just writing the stuff on their own um so yeah that's like the way we've been working really for over 20 years now. Okay. Yeah. You know, you mentioned Dan McGrath and in our interview with him a couple of years ago, he mentioned what, what a great office you guys had set up for mission Hill and that it was, uh, that, I think he mentioned that he, he joked that it, that's how he knew it was too good to last because it was such a great office that you guys had set up. Yeah.

Oh, right. He's so right, man man it was so good like it was like it was like because it was just a place in santa monica it was a kind of in its own building i mean there are other offices and in fact that when we moved in the office next to us was neil young's production company where he had his all his model trains set up and stuff but then he was he was moving out but it was just like a really comfortable office and there are nice cafes and restaurants Wow. crappy old rundown place in Burbank where most people have to work these days. It was a modern building that was brand new that was kind of like back in the internet bubble days. I think there was some internet company that had the whole second floor. And it was, as Josh said, you could walk to stuff.

It was a really nice neighborhood. It was a really good commute. And also, it was a really good staff. Plus, we had parties, man. We had parties that you couldn't get away with these days, that party the christmas party where there was the silver christmas tree with all that crazy shit hanging out you remember that yes i remember also like our our lawyer our lawyer got really drunk our old lawyer oh yeah we had we had several parties that were really raucous and um like you couldn't get away with it because people were drinking, today, these days, people were really drinking a lot. And there was a lot of music

and the office was really fun. People would stay there overnight. Yeah, people slept in the office, which you couldn't get away with. But also, you guys, you predicted, there's lines in the SAT episode where Kevin and his friends are talking about how, like, oh, the children and baby boomers are trying to get into college and it's going to be harder than ever.

Like, that is a giant problem now, 20 years later. Yeah. Is that from Death of a Yellman? I don't even remember that. I haven't read that episode in so long. That's from the SAT one where they're figuring out how out how they need to get you know electives and okay yes no i uh we did not i i have i don't recall the line you're speaking about okay so sorry that's okay that's all right uh so we wanted to know that's that's one thing to touch on that

though is i think i mean this is what people who get canceled say, but this show was ahead of its time. Yeah. Where it's like, it feels like it's much more relevant today with everything than it was then. It was then, I mean, then it felt like a weird niche thing, but it's so much, and like even people living in sections like Mission Hill have become much more prevalent now and even more so like 10 years ago

and so it feels like now is the right time for it and especially if Gus I would go so far but go ahead I would go so far as to say that that also holds true to some extent with our Simpsons episodes which I do not believe anybody liked all that much when they were initially on in 1995 and 1996. But now we can't you can't stop hearing about them. And I think that's something, you know, people grew up with a certain sense of humor and have now adapted to that. Like the same reason that people didn't like Conan when he was first on. But then he just now everyone loves me doing the same stuff.

I don't know. I have no idea. That's just my my observation is that perhaps the stuff we were doing wasn't really liked at the time, but it's gotten a little bit more liked over the past 20 years. So we wanted to know also what the root of all the Yale mockery, what that is, and if that came from you and your friends trying to get into the Ivy League. There's a lot of that in the series. And how close was that to your own stories? Well, I got rejected from Yale. I applied early. I thought you were waitlisted. No, I didn't even get waitlisted got reached i got rejected from yale i applied early i thought you were

waitlisted no no i didn't even get waitlisted i just got rejected i applied early and i think then that maybe i was waitlisted but i may have just been outright rejected so i hate them but it's also like yeah it comes also from i think the old harvard rivalry as well right right well kevin seems like that kind of person i don't it seems very organic to kevin uh yeah that he would be the type of person who would want to get into yeah rather than harvard or stanford or whatever that he would specifically set his sights on yale is is a in my experience a kind of specific type of person who tends towards the kevin yes uh so yeah was the then the yale stuff uh i couldn't tell if the yale stuff was like

general ivy league you know bashing or specifically about uh the type of yale man that i think it's kind of both because it's general too because like because like andy and jim went to borchmore which seems like kind of like not not a great. And so I think it's a party school. Yeah, it's a big party school. We're going to have more drinking deaths than any other school, but not even counting the hazing deaths. That's what he said. But yeah, that seems like an expensive – it still seems like a pretty fancy school because it sounds like Swarthmore or whatever. And it sounds like an expensive school where you get a crummy education and still have to pay a lot of tuition.

Another thing with Kevin's character that hit me only in this in-depth rewatch was what a young Republican he is. He's such a kid libertarian on top of – just in the first episode when he said like his favorite he mentioned dilbert and robert heinlein and i was like whoa okay i get these uh red flags now like was was that also your intention with kevin those weren't so crazy back then right like certainly dilbert wasn't dilbert was on at the same time as we were on upn and i really liked i liked dilbert i thought it was really funny i don't recall that everybody knew that Scott Adams was a kook. And so fairly recently. The Republican vampire was our early proto guy

who now is probably like a congressman or something. But Kevin is more just like a type of nerdy guy that we knew as opposed to like, I think like early early proto republic i think your point is well taken though i could easily see that have been the case that he would have been that he could have been a republican in in that time and i think perhaps the seeds of it were there i think while watching it we were like uh kevin is going to become ben shapiro if andy doesn't intervene oh Oh, Jesus Christ.

That's hilarious. That's perfect. Now, well, that's what I see then Andy's, you know, dirtbagginess as like a heroic thing that he's saving Kevin from just a life of like sheltered hatred of other people. I think that's what happened. Like extrapolating from where the series ended past the point of gus and wally i believe that you're correct that living with andy ultimately did change kevin away from becoming a ben shapiro type and probably made him a better person and that's what i imagined that was what was going to be in mission hill in the mission hill light comic book in my recollection was that that kevin really looked up to andy that kevin gotten, I think that I recall that we couldn't,

weren't quite sure what was going to happen with Kevin, but he was going to be doing pretty well in a really boring field, like printers. Like he was a, he lived in Silicon Valley, but he worked at a printer. He was high up at a printer place. And it was, he didn't have any, you know, it wasn't glamorous. So he was always trying to glom on to Andy's glamor and come visit Andy, you know, who lived in a Matt Groening lifestyle and try to glom on to his because he envied him, you know, and that's probably kind of the secret.

It's not a secret. That's what the whole engine of Mission Hill is that Kevin looks up to Andy, but would never want to admit it. Also, the show had a real like video with the kids on the show. They really felt like the you guys understood video games on a level that i think no network show in 1999 did like you you guys really seem to be knowledgeable of the video game world that including like a very it's such a tragedy that you guys did a great ultimate online parody but then by the time it came out people weren't playing ultimate online anymore you know i think that attributes to that is that we had a fairly young staff. We had a number of people who were

in their early 20s writing on the show. And also, I was playing those video games at the time and reading a lot of PC Gamer magazine and stuff. So we kind of like, we had a bit more knowledge of that and a bit more ability to, you know, you can't do that kind of stuff on a live action show. And so Friends wasn't doing a lot of video game stuff to my knowledge nor was seinfeld so like

we were able to kind of stuff it onto the air again because also we were in a rare position of people not really caring what we were doing which is the best position to be in and also the show had teen characters which which which was one of the genesis original genesis of a show is because like the simpsons didn't have that and there was no real like animated show dealing with it when you're the ages of like 17 to 23 or whatever and that's what's one of the original things were like let's do a show about that and there's also was no show about older gay people in their 60s either so one thing uh i thought that was very astute, and I'm not sure if you guys knew you were doing it at the time,

but it does feel like a lot of the show is a commentary of the relationship between Gen X and millennials. No one was talking about millennials, but you can see how these different factors inform both Andy's lifestyle and attitude and Kevin's. Like Andy had things a little easier as a Gen Xer, things were a little cushier, and Kevin is one of the first millennials going to college,

and there's way more anxiety, way more pressure, and he's about to encounter a lot of horrors in his adult life that the show obviously didn't cover. I think that was an accident. I don't know that we were trying to make that generational commentary. It was just because the two brothers were two mismatched brothers. And I guess looking back, yes, you're totally right. But I think that the generational commentary was merely a coincidence

because they were both of that age group. Yeah, and also because we were Gen X, and so that's like Andy and Jim kind of like mirrored some of our job experiences or people we knew. Or for example, like Aaron Ehas, who's a few years younger than us, but he wrote the unemployment episode which like really speaks to that yeah i think there was there was so much left unsaid in the show but it's there like andy is clearly uh the first child that uh they didn't know what

they were doing and kevin is the younger child and uh what the typical criticism of millennials is just like you had helicopter parents, they coddled you. And that's often the case of the second child in general. But I can see a lot of that commentary was there, even though you said you didn't really know you were writing it. Yeah, that's true. Well, I think that's true. The commentary about the generations were not there. But definitely the first and second child thing definitely is infused throughout that whole thing.

And the way that Mrs. French coddles Kevin and treats him like a baby is part of it. Yes, that's part and the way that mrs french coddles kevin and treats him like a baby is is part of his yes that's part of the dna of the show and i i really like that in the final uh the 18th script which is the one where kevin uh briefly moves back to wyoming like that's where kevin realizes how much he was coddled and it's actually like driving him crazy and he he didn't he didn't realize how annoying it was until he had some freedom that's the porno star one right yes yeah that one is that's a good one man i don't i hadn't read that in like a decade and i read it last year and i was like oh my god this is so entertaining and it like really brought everything together too

um that i highly highly recommend everybody read those scripts if you have the slightest bit of interest and hopefully by the way if we sell this to some place i think there's a possibility that they might maybe they'll make those scripts oh yeah now that we're on that topic we just recorded an episode about all the unfinished uh you know materials for the potential season two or the rest of season one and uh we really wanted to know like how finalized were those scripts uh Why is there only one finished animatic for an episode? We're just doing internet detective work trying to figure out, like, where all these pieces came from. Can you comment on just, like, how complete

certain things were at the time and, like, around what time things were shut down? I remember that was the absolute golden, golden, the golden ages of the show where we were naively assuming that everything was going to be great. And they had ordered five more episodes of the golden ages of the show where we were naively assuming that everything was going to be great and they had ordered five more episodes of the show they'd order five more scripts and this was probably about six months before the premiere and immediate collapse of the show they'd ordered these things and we had all the time in the world to do them and we kept the writers around and we got to spend like a week pitching out each of those stories and i remember we were outside in like lounge chairs and stuff. And it was the most luxurious. That's why those episodes are so.

Yeah. I think those are the best among the, those are the best episodes because it was the show hitting it dried too. And the reason that this stuff all got, it was just because basically what happened, everything was shut, everything immediately cut off and every show,

every episode was in a different stage of production. Like the last two were only, it only just recently been table red and the others were already being animated they all been recorded uh one had been storyboarded and one or two had been turned into animatic and everything was just shut down immediately upon whatever it was september 20th 1999 so that's like why that stuff everything is it is it was in a different stage of completion and hopefully as i said in the miraculous state that somebody not only buys cussing wally but also wants to make those maybe we can dig that stuff out of the warner brothers archives if it's still

there yeah it's like the mary celeste of animated shows it's kind of just floating out there just as we just as we left it uh yeah uh so i september 99 was when it stopped was did you guys have hopes at first that it would restart because i i found a variety article from the time where you know an executive at the production company said uh was was quoted as saying oh we're gonna find another time for it like we're it'll come back in the winter. Like, had that been – was that actually the plan at any point? I think it was pretty obvious that it was not going to come back in any real way. We held out – like, everything was all closed down.

We were already working on Futurama at that point. Like, the offices were closed. Everybody had left. And we had hopes that they were going to do something but putting your show on this summer in the summer is a burn off what's called a burn off it it means that they're just broadcasting the episodes you know to recoup some of their money and and that's it it's not it's not usually known as what is it it's not a relaunch it's what is politely known as a burn off in tv where it's like basically a meadow for for burning

off all the remaining crops in your field so you can put something new there. So I don't think we had any hopes. We were so pissed. I cannot tell you what a huge – how hugely infuriating this was given that how many years of effort and how many millions of dollars were put into this thing to only have it broadcast twice. I can't, you know, whatever. And then the network has, let me just put it this way. I don't think anybody's pining for the return of the WB network, but people are more interested in the return of Mission Hill.

Okay, so fuck you, WB network. God damn it. Assholes. We're putting it out there. We can't tell you how much. It's also, thank God for the fans and Adult Swim and stuff and that's really that, to me like that's

the birth of the show in a way because that's when people got a chance to see the whole thing and people got a chance to get into it. It's like the show wasn't given a chance at all and then Adult Swim gave it this crazy beautiful chance and i think

that was in a way the genesis of of the fandom for the show absolutely i mean nobody would have ever heard of the show like it would be one of those broadcast relics like turn on that was only on for one episode canceled in the middle of its first episode like nobody would have any idea that this show existed and also i'd also like to say fuck you to all those critics who gave Mission Hill bad reviews. Yeah. Because, you know, I still remember your names, if you hear any of this, and I'm still mad at you. I fucking canceled my subscriptions to a couple different magazines because you should all go to hell. I hate you so much.

Anyway, I say the one – we got a few good reviews, and Variety is one of them that said it was the best comedy of the year. So I really like that but i think the thing is that like again i honestly can't understand what kind of personality can watch the first couple episodes of mission hill and say it was awful i don't like what's wrong with you that you would think because it's something different it's when people are confronted with something different they get all mad because they have to think or they have to adjust their brain. And they want just a standard jokey-joking Heimer animated show.

And especially at that time when people either wanted Simpsons exactly or Family Guy or they were too old to get that animated shows could do things. And so, again,

I say it was ahead of its time. And those critics are really probably like 80 years old now. Aggravating. That certainly didn't help the show. I'm sure that part of the reason it was canceled was because not only did the ratings suck, but also the reviews were bad.

And the thing is, I found there's just such injustice. i know every creator says this about their show getting a bad review but i think in our i don't think the show was bad i think i wouldn't be able to admit it somewhat if it were bad if it had been phoned in or shitty or somehow but like i don't think that it reserved the excoriating reviews that got in a number of major publications that continue to aggravate me to this day uh no you guys it was an adult swim show before adult swim existed like it was like two years too early it's uh like uh it's really too bad i got lots of the you know adult swim had a number of like one season shows

but even when you see mission hill along with those other uh contemporaries of it like i think mission hill stands out among those two is like the best of those but not not to not to overly compliment you guys well thank you but it was also like thankfully too like they played it so often and it's like right that's where also other places like teletune in canada i think places in south america there's a huge South American fandom of this show. I mean, relatively, but huge. But it's like, so it really got shown around the world by other places. And also because, honestly, let's not, I really appreciate Adult Swim doing that.

But honestly, my guess is they did it because it was cheap. And they were getting the show for cheap. Warner Brothers was like, Hey, we got this show that nobody liked. You want to broadcast it? It's only $10 an episode. You can run it 2000 times. And that's what they did. Now they have adopted it. Like it's, I know that Andy French is on their billboard or whatever that like they have all those, you know, in Atlanta at their headquarters, they had, at least they had these giant paintings of all the adult swim stars i know andy french is there so god bless them for adopting it in a more formal way but like i think most of those places just bought it because it was cheap yeah and we were just going over the

the production schedule or sorry the air schedule and it was uh i didn't know at the time because i couldn't find the show but the last episode air on wb was unemployment part one so i was like people were just in limbo for two years, not knowing what happened to the fate of Andy French. Yeah. And that's part of a show too. Another thing that was ahead of its time too, was it was in a way serialized and it had an ongoing arc that was planned

for, for years. Yeah. Yeah. He was supposed to change jobs every eight episodes. I think we told, said that before, but that was the initial plan.

Yeah. When we did, uh, when me and bob watched the uh animatic for pink uh crap gets in your eyes in that one what i i thought gwen was kind of gonna come in and out of his life but that really was like a big that was like such a serialized moment of just growing their relationship and them officially becoming a couple plus putting jim and stacy together like it i was gonna ask it seemed like you guys were building a lot more you know linear storytelling than uh than say the simpsons can afford well that was the plan it was to keep it is just to have our i mean the plan was to for the show to go for tens i'd plan in uh

in success was that the show would go for 10 seasons and that Andy would gradually claw his way up the ladder to become basically a – We're talking about an episode of Gus and Wally where Andy French meets us and hates us. Do you remember this? We discussed this, Josh. Yeah. Because Andy French – we had this episode. This is the ultimate masturbatory exercise, but indulge me for a second. Andy was like the Simpsons, and he got to come to Hollywood in 1999 and have a meeting with Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and we were just total dicks to him, and he hates us. He's constantly running us down and stuff.

And then finally, when he gets successful, he just tries to screw us at every opportunity. So maybe you'll see that someday yeah we've been longing for more of your voice acting uh on tv because uh we it's all we always forget that you're in the show and your roles are amazing uh especially you josh because your character is so over the top and uh we just want more of you in cartoons over the top characters much easier to portray as a non-actor and you you guys want... Oh, you did a good job. Don't sell yourself short. Toby is... The performance of Toby is a masterpiece.

Oh, thank you. But I also... I should give credit to John Candy because it was based partly on this crazy character, I think named Stefan, that John Candy played, who was like a giant kid. Right, in pre-teen world.

There are a couple of sketches called pre-teen world that they did on SCTV. And the drawing looks very much like that character as well. But the voices, yeah. The voice comes from me. But it was influenced by that very much. Had you guys wanted to do voices on Simpsons before?

Or was that just something you decided to do voices on simpsons before or was uh was it was that just something you decided to do on mission hill i think we i don't think that the idea of the writers being able to do voices on the simpsons was ever allowed or even broke because the actors there have like they're super pros and i don't recall any writer ever trying to do a voice we only i don't think it was ever thought of right we did a couple things just on the mixes where we didn't have it like i did the voice of that guy on the mixes where we didn't have it. Like I did the voice of that guy in the,

when Bart has that dream about going to. Oh yeah. And the guy behind the book, cause no one could do, no one could do the talking through the microphone drive through things. So I ended up doing it that. And, but, but yeah,

it was very kind of verboten, but then I think we saw in other shows. Well, all these other shows have writers doing voices and so it was probably after south park came out and we were like jesus christ those guys do all the voices on their own show and so we were like just we'll just take these two small characters but honestly now that i feel like maybe we should have korean guy do george bang rather than me that's something we'll have to discuss when we get to gus and wally you know another

thing i was curious about compared to the simpsons is that definitely in the broadcast versions of Mission Hill, there's so much great, you know, licensed music, whether it's like a comedy use of the song Cherry Pie or just like great indie music like, you know, Pave major leagues like so uh budget wise did you guys have a lot to uh use there compared to the simpsons for for licensed music well i think we i think we i recall that we did have a very good music budget and we also had a great guy sean who was like who was our our indie music guru guy because like we're into some of that stuff, but he was really into it. And so he, his specific job was to find these great songs that would, would go with certain things.

And then that's. Most of them, they were pretty cheap though. That songs weren't famous songs. They were cheap. Like, cause they were indie records. And so like,

he was always getting huge stacks of CDs from various indie record companies, but I mean, Josh handled all that. I don't know. Yeah. So there, but, and it was also also like that was the shame of like the dvd i'm so glad like the dvds came out and we pushed them to do it but they didn't it was so cheap that they stripped all the original music from it which was a real shame yeah that i i also wondered like

the the crappy crud wagon uh script that calls for like yeah like 10 different 80s songs i wondered like if you guys like how much that would have cost to do that episode it would i mean it probably would have been more expensive so like a lot of times you'll save the music budget for like okay we have this big music episode coming up but i would hope too with like gus and wally or we'd make a deal of a some company or whatever because there's we want to have a lot of music of all from the 50s 60s 70s 80s blah blah blah so i think because i think music was an important part about a background part of the show my recollection though at least from the simpsons is that the songs vary widely

in how expensive they are like what like if you want want a George Michael song, it's going to be $20,000 a second. But if you want an ABBA song, it's $500 a second. So like it's not necessarily how famous the song was. It's more like who the publisher is and how much of a dick they are, as I recall. Like you often were surprised at how cheap something famous was. So I guess one of our last super specific questions is about the real world episode. It is such a perfect time capsule to our, with our fascination over that program. And what we liked about it, it's, it's not just a parody of the real world. Andy is in the, literally the show,

the real world. There are MTV people there. There are mentions of Puck and actual other real people on the show. Is the title of that episode an indication you were actually worried about any sort of legal action? They made us change that, as I recall, right? The Big Ass Viacom Lawsuit, was it? Yeah, that's right. I think that it was originally something like, fuck you MTV or something. The title was something that they actually made us change. And the Big Ass Viacom Lawsuit was the result of the change.

I don't remember specifically, but I remember we were intentionally trying to get MTV. MTV didn't give a shit about us. They never probably even heard of that thing. But that was like – the only time anyone on Mission Hill ever heard of it was when Darren Aronofsky was in the same – the guy who directed Pi. Right. He's the same studio director. Actually was in the same place where we were mixing or recording recording and we showed him the Pi episode, which he loved. So that was the only time that we ever actually encountered anybody that we were talking about

or sending homages to or whatever. I also recall there's a story, isn't it, that Martin Scorsese saw it because somebody's mom was working with him or something? There's some story and he's like, oh, that seems like a good show. i think i do not remember that was a good impression of martin scorsese by the way i don't know what you're talking about dude i swear i think it might have been collins mom or somebody was working with martin scorsese and for some reason they showed him the clip of the show or or it was on and he, he, he commented favorably on it. Wow. Okay. That's, I'm glad I'll file that away in my memory scrapbook.

Wow. And the, yeah, the, I guess one, one other question I wanted to ask was about how like the, the comic convention episode is another one that feels like so well observed of and way ahead of its time. Like every I think, you know, in the last 20 years, lots of sitcoms have done the let's go to Comic-Con episode. But you guys were way ahead of the curve there. And also like there's not unlike how the real world feels like such a quaint throwback to what a reality show was in the 90s. Same to when he goes when they go to see the superhero movie. real world feels like such a quaint throwback to what a reality show was in the 90s same too when he goes when they go to see the superhero movie and kevin's like this isn't right the remember

issue 213 or whatever like uh you you guys were way ahead of the curve on that thank you yeah i also remember like because we went we went i remember doing a the law i launched at comic-con for mission hill but it was just like that was the days where you could just walk into any little bit like a little ballroom we were in some little room maybe there are a hundred people but i remember doing that and it was just like we like we always like since we started on simpsons going to comic-con and so it was that was the last comic-con i ever went to i think was that mission hill one i don't think i've been since then and because it was but that was back again like what i would the whole point of going there was for me to go find issues of mad in 1959 like there was no there was very

little other tv stuff there was a very small amount of tv stuff back then yeah it just shows it was only animated shows where i think we're the only like TV stuff. It shows how much a nerd culture has dominated, you know, everything when in your 1999 show, the main character doesn't like nerd culture. Yeah. I feel like by default, your main character must enjoy star Wars and video games and Dr.

Who and all the nerd stuff that we are all obligated to like. Yeah. I feel, I think it was like, it was like Andy's into alternate. He's an alternate nerd though. He wouldn't admit it. And, and Kevin's more of a straight-by-the-book nerd.

Battlestar Cryactica. I felt such shame when I was a kid watching it. And by kid, I mean 17, watching it and seeing Kevin say, like, Star Wars, do you hear that? He thinks Geordi LaForge is in Star Wars. I was like, I was exactly Do you hear that? He thinks Geordi LaForge is in Star Wars. I was like, I was exactly that kid. He felt seen.

You did a good impression of him back then. That was really good. I was thinking of that line, that Star Wars is... But that's the kind of thing that I would do. I've only seen a couple episodes of Star Trek, and I've seen Star Wars maybe once, one and a half times. So that's, I don't know. I feel like that's what people, and people like McGrath or whatever,

a lot of people who worked on the show probably were like that. We did. We had an assortment of all sorts of like fan, fan ship in the show. I'd rather people who are huge Star Wars nerds. So I guess we have reached the end of our interview with you guys. Thanks so much for your time. Please tell everyone where they can find you online.

And maybe if you want to plug anything else, throw it out there. Okay. You can find me, Josh. I'm just on Twitter, Josh Strangehill. I'm on Twitter at ThatBillOakley. But more importantly, I'm on Instagram at ThatBillOakley, where I exercise my hobby of reviewing food, fast food and snack food. I don't care if you follow me on Twitter or even do anything else other than follow me on Instagram because that's all I care about these days.

It doesn't pay any money either. It's so highly entertaining. It really is. It's one of my favorite things. And we know you can't say anything, but we are looking forward to more Disenchantment whenever that comes, the new batch of episodes. Yes.

Thank you. That should be winter maybe okay uh and yeah even you know even in these in these times the the your food reviews have been been great bill so thank you thank you they've migrated mainly onto these stories because there's been so little fast food is kind of going through a slump as you might imagine they're not really launching a lot of new stuff so i haven't been doing as many videos but i i have compensated by doing far more weird homemade type stuff on my story so check it out there and uh and yeah i guess all our listeners need to spread the word about uh gus and wally and and go out in the street start finding a shotgun in the air and're very hopeful and that family point happened to us

yeah this is a if anyone listening to this is an executive at HBO Max or um Netflix just call us up and buy the show we don't have to go through all this rigmarole just use our twitter handle and say you want the show and whatever or for instance or if your mom or your sister

or whatever or your husband is one of those executives tell them all they have to do is just send a message to us on on instagram or twitter we're there all the time just by the show we don't have to go through all those rigmarole people and we've already got ready and also what if andy had to what if andy had two cool friends named bob and henry in this series i I like that idea. I'd say the designs are already done. Thanks to Nina Matsumoto who drew us in.

Seriously, those are so there's such perfection that we should put them in. I was honored to be drawn in that style. She's the best. Thank you guys so much as always. Thank you.

Best of luck with Gus and Wally. Yes, yeah. Thank you. Crossing our fingers. So yes, thanks again to Bill and Josh for being part of this interview. And again, if you want to hear all of Talking Mission Hill,

it's at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Sign up for five bucks, you'll get that. And if you want to hear all of talking mission hill it's at patreon.com slash talking simpson sign up for five bucks you'll get that and if you want to find bill and josh online josh is at josh strange hill on twitter and bill is at that bill oakley on twitter and also that bill oakley on instagram yeah you're you're really missing out if you're not following both those guys on twitter i mean if you love simpson's history or mission hill updates like they are both keeping you abreast of that stuff plus i mean bill is the foremost food critic in my mind right now definitely and hopefully in the future there will be another missional interview possibly about gus and wally and we're hoping that comes to pass so yes thanks tell all your friends about gus and wally tell them to make it happen spread the word uh bombard every city hall meeting with questions.

Where are Gus and Wally? I need answers. Shove the anti-mask people out of the way and be like, no, Gus and Wally is what I need answers. This is more important now. So yes, thanks so much for listening.

And again, if you want the other episodes, go to the Patreon and we'll see you again in the future for another great interview. to Shopify point of sale, and you could save up to 20% and improve your bottom line. We're so serious about savings, we've made this ad 20% shorter. That means you get six seconds back. Just enough time to visit shopify.com slash POS20. Now that's an efficient ad.

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