Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bill Oakley Interview Spectacular

Episode Date: February 8, 2017

We’re breaking format, but for the best reason of all! Simpsons veteran, writer, executive producer, and awesome guy, Bill Oakley talked with us for an entire hour this week! He tells us about the switch between seasons 4 and 5, his philosophy for writing the characters, episodes he wish they’d made and so much more! We’re more excited than Al Gore to present this one to y’all…

this episode of talking simpsons is brought to you by audible and you listeners can go to audibletrial.com slash laser time and get started with a free 30-day trial and get a free audiobook i heartily endorse this event or product product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to a very special episode of Talking Simpsons. This is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons. I am your host, as always, Bob Mackie. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert hi!

Christopher chronologically breaking Antista for a very special episode. This is a first for us. Yes it's something I always lamented that we the Simpsons gets a summer off and we never do. There's no break in between seasons uh in between seasons for us we just start up immediately and it's nice to have some breathing room with an amazing special thing that we got to do. That's right and if you didn't see what episode you're listening to this is our very special interview For us. part one so just getting to talk to him asking questions he probably hasn't answered before was a treat and i think the interview went astoundingly well yeah yeah i was super duper excited for it shout out to eric nagel oh thank you the best friend of the show we've ever had he set us up with this so thank you very much eric if you're listening we we really appreciate it when we started this i dream it would be a dream to speak with any simpsons writer for it and they they are you know they're they're on Twitter. You can find them.

But it's not an easy thing just to get them to talk with you, especially for like a whole hour. Like Bill Oakley, who, again, a television executive producer, like a writer with a million credits we couldn't even touch on in our interview. Like we didn't talk about Portlandia. I was kind of interested in Futurama, the regular show he wrote on that for some episodes. Mission Hill. We talked a little bit about Portlandia. I was kind of interested in Futurama. Futurama, the regular show he wrote on that for some episodes. Mission Hill. We talked a little bit about Mission Hill.

Among the things, just to tease the interview a little bit, that he, man, revealing what young writers are assigned, the transition

in between all of the writers leaving from the first four seasons. Where we are right now in the seasons. And conversely, on our Patreon, which supports this show,

patreon.com slash lazertime, we have our season four wrap-up show. So you got two shows this week instead of a true episode, but all like super granular Simpsons information now. The season four wrap-up, what does that entail exactly? Well, I go through every story that was in Daily Variety at that time. So you get a lot more behind-the-scenes stuff we didn't touch on that just happened over the entire season. Including some new-to-the-listener details about the Tracy Ullman lawsuit against The Simpsons. I don't even remember that happening. I didn't even think it was spoken of until Serious Jibber Jabber.

The beginning of the syndication and even some extra details on the Simpsons Yellow album, which we already talked about on a Lazer Time podcast. And we also spend a great amount of time talking about the basically 10 or 11 people

who left the show and what they went on to do after the Simpsons, most of which was coming back to the Simpsons and writing again. Eventually, but we've done that for,

I guess, every season so far. Season two, three, and four wrap up. So far, yeah. There's no season one. As well as the first season of Talking Simpsons because they're the ones who help make this show a reality. Yes.

So that's all. That is on patreon.com slash lasertime. $5 a month or more. A pledge will get you access to that. And we really appreciate everybody who has given to the Patreon. It helps make this happen. We love doing it. And I also feel like we should give a – we don't totally get a bio on Bill.

So we should just mention, like, Bill Oakley, in case you don't know, he was – started as a writer on The Simpsons with his writing partner, Josh Weinstein. They connected in college and then entered the world of Hollywood writing. I believe they went to grade school together. They were friends in grade school and then they reconnected in college. Yeah, they've got a great history together. They are longtime friends. They came on in season four first as freelancers who were then hired on as the writers. And he worked from there.

And so we really dig into season four and five and a bit of after seasons four, five, and six Oakley Weinstein became the executive producers of the show for season seven. Right. And so we get a bit into that too. We, we talked a whole lot about their entire career is in a lot about his career, though.

Honestly, even though he talked for 50 minutes, we could totally, I could chat with him again when we get to season and to season five and to season six, I can easily talk to him. And I was more, I was most fascinated when we get to season, end of season five, end of season, mid season six. I could easily talk to him. Really candid. And I was more,

I was most fascinated looking at the transition season, what it's like to be one of three existing Simpsons writers at the beginning of season five. And one of them is Conan O'Brien. Like, yes. Like, how do you, how do you carry this torch?

And it's, in hindsight, it's amazing that they did. Yeah. To such a wonderful extent. They didn't lose the quality. Yeah. And now Oakley,

this is something bob and i have in common too that in in the pre-podcast world i would love listening to the commentaries over and over and over again while i'm playing a video game or doing something just having them on in the background and so i got to know bill and josh very well just through those and they were some of the most like open and honest about production and everything in those commentaries yeah not to speak for Bill but like you guys said it he was he says in the interview he was a fan of the show before he came

aboard he was a fan of the show afterwards he seems to know enough about the history of the show before and after his tenure there follow him on the on Twitter as he's that Bill Oakley and he and his writing partner Josh Weinstein will tweet actual pages of scripts that didn't make it into the show notes they wrote they'll tweet about

episodes they couldn't make it's they're just great historians memes straight off Frankie I do they they do it all it's really great and again I am I'm so happy he talked to us like I'm on a high still chatting with him I think you guys will enjoy this sorry for breaking

format and not immediately going into Homer's Barbershop Quartet. I think it was worth it. But that'll be the next one anyway. Yeah, it's definitely coming. This is worth it. And we really want to talk to more Simpsons writers, so hopefully this is not the first and only time we'll get to talk to one. We're not dicks. Yes. We're very friendly and we love their work. Yeah. We talked,

I hope Bill can just tell all the rest of them in their like secret meetings of Simpsons writers like, well these guys didn't kill me, and they were nice. I'm sure there's a pool hall they all hang out in. So with that, after this break, we will get right into that interview. The Simpsons will be right back. and get started with a free audiobook and a free 30-day trial of all Audible is. What is Audible? They've got over 180,000 different titles to choose from, ranging from audiobooks, comedy albums, radio shows,

some of my favorite old-timey radio shows, and you can listen to them all on your iPhone, Android, MP3 player, desktop, tablet, doesn't matter, wherever you can plug in headphones. Audible's got all your bestsellers, your Game of Thrones, your Harry Potters, the latest biography from whatever comedian is you like and they have become my go-to place to get audiobooks for an incredibly low cost so once again that's audible people and you can go to audibletrial.com slash laser time and get a free audiobook and a free 30-day trial of the service are you already tired of 2017 jump into the past with 30 2010 a weekly look back at what happened 30 years ago, 20 years ago, and 10 years ago.

Here's something you may remember from 1987. Alf had a clip show episode based on the fact that he shocked himself in the bathtub and got amnesia in the first season. So they, yeah, look, but it was actually controversial because he electrocuted himself in the scene and then parents called in saying like, that's too easily imitatable, I guess.

So they changed it that he just got hit on the head, which is the standard stock cliche way of getting in. You know that, I can't replicate.

So they spend the entire episode reminding them of their previous adventures. This is January. I know. This means they've only been on the air

for like four months. Yeah. Yeah. You got a lot of clips of El. There's like nine episodes to remember. I know. This means they've only been on the air for like four months. Yeah. You got a lot of clips of Elf. There's like nine episodes to remember. You know what's a tougher production? There's puppeteering and more steam. And like the first season has to be in the can. Like it's January.

I bet there's also a way like, put this at the end or something. You kids like Elf. This episode is just Elf clips. There's no, you know, father and son stupid talks. Who cares?

Oh, the fucking 90-year-old dad. I constantly have to take his shit off. Oh, honey. I love you so much. Oh, my goodness. Morried Alf and morried Ronald Reagan won't get re-elected.

Alf. He's in his second term. I wanted to be king. I'm much older than I seem. Oh, why do I have a two-year-old? That's 302010, a weekly look back at what happened in music, movies, TV, and games every Thursday right here on the Lazer Time Network. 302010! 30, 20, 10! Several episodes prior to that, he was the creator of Mission Hill, and he's currently working on Portlandia. Welcome to the show, Bill.

Hey, thank you. I'm proud to be here. I should add, by the way, that I was showrunner and wrote those episodes along with my partner, Josh Weinstein. That's right. That's right. We don't want to give Josh the short shrift here. Right. So it's great to be here. Thanks. So right now we are currently at the very beginning of Season 5. And I think really what was on our minds the most is the huge turnover in staff on The Simpsons at that time. Right, Henry? Yeah, you know, the look at it was, and you hear on the commentaries, Kate Feer was like senior-itis for a lot of the staff.

But you, Josh, Conan O'Brien, and I think a couple others were holdovers into season five. So, yeah, what was the – Yeah, wait. When exactly did you come into the show? That was freaky. Yes. In fact, as soon as you said season five, that's exactly what I thought about. Like it's burned into my memory like the weirdness of late season four, early season five.

This is all like super inside baseball, but maybe that's what you guys want to hear about. Oh, yeah, the most inside of baseball. Josh and I started – when we started working on the show, I guess it was writing Marge Gets a Job. And that was like – they were still in very early season four. And then we got hired pretty much after turning that script in, which was super awesome, of course. And they were – we were just about recording the monorail episode i think anyway so we were there for all of season four and um conan had been hired about six months before us i think and then shortly after i mean i guess a little bit after us they hired dan mcgrath

um who was also someone that we had worked with in the past and then basically everybody left yes it was it was crazy because at the end of season four, yes, you're totally right that Cape Fear was like senioritis. That was like the last episode recorded for season four. And then it was like goodbye. And literally everybody on the staff just left. This was also during a golden age for TV comedy writers because this was the golden age of the development deal. Right, right. They were paying anybody who could pick up a pen

a fortune to write sitcom scripts. And not that the people on The Simpsons weren't extraordinarily talented, but they were all getting great offers to go to other places. And literally every writer on the staff from the top all the way down, except for Conan, me and Josh, and Dan McGrath, left.

And so there was this extremely weird period, I guess maybe it began a couple weeks after the recording of Cape Fear, where there was nobody there. And it was just us. And there was a power vacuum doesn't even begin to describe it. We didn't even have a boss.

We just showed up like Joe. There was nobody telling us what to do. And I think somebody said, well, somebody will get hired to run the show at some point. And so Conan and me and Dan McGrath and Josh just all came in into this empty office

and kind of sat around like, what should we do? And then we started making up stories for season five in a real casual fashion. We would go out to Malibu and have lunch and toss around ideas and stuff. And that went on for like, I would say six weeks. And it was definitely the weirdest,

one of the weirdest experiences in my career, but it was super fun because there was low pressure, obviously. Yeah, I imagine weird. You're in a low pressure situation on one of the most high profile shows that's ever happened. And in hindsight, it worked out pretty okay.

But I just imagine that'd have to be slightly terrifying still. It wasn't so terrifying because it wasn't our responsibility, to be honest. Like, if the whole thing had derailed, we were the lowest guys on the totem pole, pretty much. So it wasn't our responsibility. But it was, and I think, I guess it sounds like this was covered adequately on the DVDs,

but yes, definitely a weird time. Then Dave Merkin took over for season five. So like what, you know, what was the change from Gene and Reese to Merkin behind the scenes? Like what were, how'd you compare them as bosses, for lack of a better word? It was super weird. First of all, nobody had ever okay ultimately we all ended up getting along with merkin and everything got ironed out but i would say it was rocky at the beginning none of us had ever even met merkin and i guess i would say that

we me and josh and conan and dan mcgrath were like it was just it's weird to have somebody come in and be your boss and like you've been there for much longer than them right and and not i guess not much longer but more like a year longer and the boss is telling you what to do and we're like well that's not the way we used to do things of course that's normal i would say in a work situation yeah in a real office that probably happens all the time there's a new boss and like the boss wants to do things his way and you got to do it i would say that we were probably spoiled and not used to doing things like that. So yeah, it was totally weird. It was everything. There was a certain way that things had been done since day one and it was all kind of invented by Sam Simon and David Merkin came in and had a way of doing things from other shows. He'd worked on great

shows like, you know, new heart and his own show, get a life, which we all loved. Um, and, but it just wasn't our way. And so I would say probably for the first eight to 10 months, there was a fair amount of friction, especially between me and Josh and Dave Merkin, just about the way things were happening. And of course, we were just barely above the lowest level writers. So who are we to fight with him? But I think that's ultimately why we ended up,

why he assigned us just to write five episodes and so we spent most of the year in our office writing those episodes was the tone of the show fully decided upon because we were on this little adventure where we chronologically are going through the show and it really goes from like sitcom to edgier sitcom and and later on seems to embrace being a cartoon and being silly yeah i mean let's just say that like things in in the middle of season four things started to get probably the monorail episode being the watershed things started to get kind of crazy and prior to that it had been a fairly realistic show in many episodes you know like lisa substitute for instance would be a good example it could

easily have been a live action show yeah and It could easily have been a live-action show. And it could easily have been. And it was very realistic, with the exception of a few cutaways. And then around the time that the monorail episode started to happen, and also, I would say, maybe some of the senioritis started to happen, the realism kind of drifted away. And this was also around the time that Sam departed, because Sam had a complicated deal, which kind of let him basically leave the show right around that time. And I think that Sam, I don't know.

I don't know for sure, because that was before my time. But I think Sam had been kind of an advocate of the realistic stuff. So who knows? Anyway, this stuff was still really funny. And there was a ton of hilarious people on the show, including Mike and Al, who are running it. And George Swartzwelder and Conan and BD and all those guys. So, yeah. In any case, the show had including Mike and Al, who are running it, and George, and Swartzwelder, and Conan, and BD, and all those guys. So, yeah, in any case, the show had gotten crazier, but I think people

liked that. So, I mean, in retrospect, maybe our complaints were all stupid at the time. I think that Josh and I wanted it to say, Josh and I wanted it to be a little bit more realistic, like the show from Lisa's Substitute and things like that, and I think Dave Merkin saw it as more of a cartoon universe,

which is totally valid given what had happened just a few episodes earlier with the monorail and stuff. Does that make sense? Yeah. So going back to the transition between 4 and 5, were there any hurt feelings, or did anyone see the mass exodus of writers as a sort of betrayal, or was it just considered show business? It seemed at that point the show could not get any better,

and if I was on the staff, I would be like, let's keep the band together, guys. But I'm not sure what the culture was like at the time, or if it was just considered, you know, of course, we're going to get other jobs or writers. We're not going to stay on the same job forever. You know, I can't really say what there were. I don't, I wasn't witness to any hurt feelings. I think everybody was like, this is a gold, this is a gold mine. We've created this incredible show, and it's time to reap the rewards. So let's go off to development deals and get some of that money that we have earned. And basically, this is exactly what happened. This has happened to a number of shows like this, like MASH, I heard, or Seinfeld, where the shows were big hits.

All the writers suddenly left because they all had opportunities to go create their own shows. And that was what happened around this point at The Simpsons. And as far as I know, there weren't any hurt feelings. There easily could have been at levels that I wasn't privy to. So, you know, the episodes that we've covered so far, you and Josh wrote Marge Gets a Job and Marge and Change. I noticed for both of them they were Marge-centric, at least in the title, but also they pushed really hard on the lack of a better word, funner characters

like Burns or Lionel Hutz. Did that come in the rewrite or in the second run? How did that work out? That came in the rewrite. I think I may have said this before, but I don't know if it may not be that much of a secret.

Like the people, they, they get the young, the new people have to write the March episodes, you know? So like the, so like, you know,

the seat, the guys who've been there for a long time, like John VD, they get to write the Homer episodes and the Bart episodes. and the, the March episodes are foisted off on the youngest, newest guys. So that's why Josh and I had two Marge episodes that year.

That was a different experience because that was a story that Conan made up and was assigned to us. And then I think we did a fairly good job. Obviously, it was good enough to get hired, but it was like when a freelancer writes an episode, it's going to be rewritten 70% to 80% no matter what, just because the script is good, but it's not what they're doing. And it was like when a freelancer writes an episode, it's going to be rewritten 70% to 80% no matter what just because the script is good, but it's not what they're doing.

And it was also like it just wasn't quite right for the tone of the show at that point. Anyway, they rewrote it heavily. And Marge and James was a different animal where it's like Josh and I wrote a really realistic episode. Like, again, we were fans of the realistic. So it really was much more realistic about Marge going to prison. And then in the rewrite, it really was much more realistic about marge going to prison and then in the rewrite it got turned into this nut i would say the nuttiest episode we ever had our name on um it wasn't necessarily what we had in mind but it was funny stuff and your question is totally right yes all that crazy stuff comes in the rewrite because they're like okay we're

going to cut out this two-page scene where marge is sent to jail and it's a realistic sad scene and we're going to replace it with a two-line scene so that's where Lionel Hutz comes in oh yeah see captain all that crazy crap because you just want to get a laugh and move past it so yes that's that's how that happens I've always heard that Marge is one of the harder characters to write for having to remain a grounded real center in the middle of this insane universe so i can i can see how that can get how we use electricity can be smarter cleaner and greener at electric ireland we can help guide you there you see our new net zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans ev tariffs solar panels and much more making your clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter.

Find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie. Head to the chopping block over the course of Rewrite. Also, she doesn't, I think we've discovered, like, okay, first of all, Marge is a pretty good, as far as like cartoon moms go, she's actually quite good. Because the cartoon mom is always the worst character in every cartoon. That's true. What are you supposed to do with this character?

This character is only there to object to the crazy schemes of the husband and stuff. Old father figure. Right. So Marge is like, Marge is pretty good. And I think over time we found more comic fodder from her personality, which is that she's really provincial.

She's only heard of two spices. She's a real stick in the mud, and she hasn't had much life experience, but she's also kind of opinionated. Yeah, and surprisingly self-aware at times. Yeah. So we found more, but the comedy in characters like this usually comes from their foibles and their flaws, and Marge doesn't have have that many which makes her harder to write going back to the season four transition we'll move on to later seasons soon but um I'm just curious how much of season four was actually completed by the season five staff it seemed with so many people leaving so many

things were rewritten towards the end of season four I'm just curious as to what season five's team impact was on that season oh nothing they part of the season four deal was that the season four people had to complete that that's the way it always works you know josh and i completed this season eight while season nine was being done and so like mike and al like most of the staff was long gone but mike and al were coming back constantly to do all the post-production and music scoring and editing of episodes from season four okay wow while still working on the critic. Yes,

I believe so. I think the critic was just kind of ramping up at that point. I was more curious, like what was the first with the new staff? Like what was the first episode of season five? You can remember finally taking shape within the new writer room. I feel like it was the Bobo. It was,

it was Rosebud, but like Rosebud actually came out, came out great. Like the thing about these episodes is that that was Swartzworld or wasn't it Rosebud? I think so. Yeah. And so like we had a deal with like, it was a weird situation because Swartzworld was writing five episodes and Josh and me were writing five episodes, which is already 10 out of the 22 episodes of the whole year.

So like it was kind of a strange situation where, you know, only 12 of the episodes were being done by the staff, so to speak. And then the rest of them like although ours and Schwarzwalders were rewritten they weren't rewritten that much it was a different type of thing but for Rosebud is the first one I remember happening and it wasn't that weird because it was

Schwarzwalder he knew what he was doing the story was really clear cut really simple and I think it came out it's a perfectly good episode in fact it's many people love it. I just watched Citizen Kane last night. It was on Turner Classic Movies last night as of this recording. And I was always curious,

who was the big Citizen Kane nerd on the Simpsons staff? I don't know. There were lots of references to that tossed in. And I don't know if there was one specific person. I think it was just kind of like a cultural touchstone that everybody was familiar with. I don't think I had watched it until they forced us to watch it for more job.

You and Josh went from writing a lot of season five and six to then like becoming the showrunners of seven and eight. Was there like an interview process for that? Or was it just kind of just found in time of how you proved yourself working on the show? Like how did they pick a new showrunner? God bless David Merkin. He recommended us for it. I mean, usually it's the person – I don't know. Usually it's only happened four times in history.

We've only had four different showrunners, right? So in our case, Merkin recommended us. I mean, we had been there the longest. Obviously, it would have been Conan. Conan would have been there longer than us, but he suddenly left to become a famous talk show host. And then we became immediately after only having been on the show for whatever, like 14 months. We were the senior guy.

We've been there longer than anyone else on the show, which suddenly thrust us into this position of being the grand old men, even though we'd only been there for 14 months. And we're like 26 years old. Merkin recommended us and we were grateful to him for doing that and i think it was just like i don't know it was natural we had been we were hoping to do that um i think we would have left if we had not become the showrunners at that point you know go off and work on our own stuff but it was the opportunity that we had been very eager for because we had our own way that we wanted to do the show and we got to do it and it was because there was no at that point there was no interference from anybody and we were totally we just were left alone to do what we wanted to do the show. And we got to do it. And it was because there was no, at that point, there was no interference from anybody.

And we were totally, we just were left alone to do what we wanted for like two straight years, which is the rarest opportunity anyone will ever get. So one of the great things about following you on Twitter, Bill,

and Josh as well, is that you are both really great historians for The Simpsons. You seem to have kept every table read script or at least all of your notes or a huge portion of them.

I've been seeing you tweet out these pitches for episodes that were never made. I'm just curious, can you go over a few of the episodes that you maybe wanted to make but couldn't? Because there's been some gems you've tweeted out but they're kind of lost the time, those tweets. There weren't really that many episodes that we wanted to make that we couldn't because as I said

we were operating totally without any strictures except for the censor. The only episode that we wanted to make that we didn't was the scientology episode which because you know nancy cartwright has i'm not going to go into detail on this podcast but right so we don't want to yeah george pitched this hilarious episode which was just like we didn't want to go into it with with them at that point so that was the only one that we wanted to do that we didn't i mean by the end of season eight we were like i felt like we didn't want to go into it with with them at that point so that was the only one that we wanted to do that we didn't i mean by the end of season eight we were like i felt like we were running on fumes like and we were like we didn't we didn't we ran out of episodes we wanted to do so it wasn't like there were tons of episodes that we're dying to do like i think we had about

i don't know 35 episodes we wanted to do and we did them plus seven more i seem to recall you tweeting about ideas that didn't work. One I have a foggy memory of is Homer gets 10,000 surplus army jeeps. Is that something? I love that idea. Can you talk about that? You're making a lot of mistakes. Let me clarify for you.

Yes. Okay. There's an idea that Josh and I wanted to do that we could never figure out what happened. We could never figure out the ending for it. But like in real life, it's called Bart gets 144 Jeeps. Okay, thank you. I had the number wrong and the character. Yeah.

So this is a real rumor from like around the end of World War II. There was like an urban legend that there would be these ads in the back of like Popular Mechanics and other magazines like that, that you could buy surplus army jeeps for World War II. They would come unassembled, packed in grease, but you had to buy them in bulk. So like you could buy, you know, and people, I think I gather that in the 40s and 50s, people were always talking about, you know, if we could just get some friends to pony up all this money, we could buy 144 jeeps and sell them and whatever. So we were like, I found that to be fascinating idea especially like as a kid can you imagine how amazing that would be and all that crazy crap that was like in the back of comic

books that you could order oh yeah and like bart like the whole idea of getting your own vehicle so bart the idea was bart finds an old copy of argosy or whatever it was it sends away for this thing and it, like, it sends off to some sort of military supply depot where the guy doesn't know what's going on, and he just fills the request, and Bart gets 144 Jeeps packed in grease, and people, he sells them for, like, five bucks apiece,

and everybody in Springfield is driving around in a Jeep, and, like, because the cars are so cheap, it doesn't matter if you wreck one and then use another one, and it basically becomes kind of like a Mad Max wacky racist thing. And I just thought that was the coolest idea, but we could never find any

like, there's no story there. It's more like a first act or a B story, but there's no middle and end. Anyway, that was my favorite idea that we had that we never did. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World parody at the end of that one season. You did touch upon briefly, and this is what I love about the transition.

You mentioned the censors. And The Simpsons, in hindsight, because we were young growing up, it seemed like The Simpsons was a hot-button, controversial topic. But in hindsight, it quickly faded away from like being the target of uh like watchdog groups yeah and it's because south park and all these other shows immediately became far more offensive yeah like what was that it was like 1997 or whatever that south park came out of like at the at that point it was like the simpsons was yeah it was very team in comparison to what you'd be seeing other animated shows yeah because in hindsight we

were looking at the timeline, and it's like Ren and Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead, and The Simpsons only had one year in the spotlight of like, this show is not family-friendly. Yeah, in hindsight, The Simpsons is kind of tame. It seemed to me, now, more honest in the depiction of an American family. Yeah, I think that there was a... You guys were probably barely born when this happened

but if you remember were you guys alive in 1989 yes yes seven okay all right well you may you may not recall that there was a incredible amount of outrage about married with children oh yeah and like there was this fox had just come on the air and like was trying to make a name for itself by being outrageous. And there was this huge boycott organized by this woman named Terry Riccolta because Married with Children was so offensive. Of course, in retrospect, now it's not nearly as offensive as everything on the air. But at the time, it was shocking. And I think and then The Simpsons came on and Simpsons was, I would say, less shocking than Married with Children. But the fact that it was a cartoon and people are so, God, I would say, less shocking than Married with Children, but the fact that it was a cartoon and people

are so, God, I would say it's only maybe within the past 10 years that people have realized that not all cartoons are for little kids. At the time, people were like, this is a cartoon for little kids. How can Bart be saying, eat my shorts? And I think it was

really, the outrage about The Simpsons was just mainly because people really thought that anything animated had to be for little kids yeah and this kind of it's simpson it took the simpsons 15 years to break down that perception you know i think into the to the watchdogs point i i love going through like uh this the commercials that aired on the simpsons and unlike married with children it's for like toy jets and like games and video games and it did have marketing geared towards children. So I almost understand the criticism.

Oh, yeah. And kids were watching it, like, crazy, too. Like, at the time, like, The Simpsons would, people seemed to think that The Simpsons was this huge rating success. But that was only during that one year. And, like, when it knocked Cosby off Thursday night at 8 and it was like the first and second season. Then for the rest of the – at least the time that we were there, The Simpsons was always number 47 or 50 or 60 in the weekly rankings. And even that, it was because we got every – basically every kid in America was watching The Simpsons and some are grownups. But that was like – it was just such a tidal wave of kids and a small number of grownups and like barely anybody over 30. So it was a weird, it was definitely a weird demographic.

We always, I always bring it up as, and I think we do too, is this, this bridge of the gap between what our parents and we liked at the same time. My dad liked the show for different reasons, but we watched together on our one TV household back in those days. I think you guys lost my dad when you made fun of Rush Limbaugh in Sideshow with Bob Roberts. I was curious with that episodes like the

Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy. You talk about the kid audience, but those really dug into Watergate. Watergate, feminism, uh, feminism representation, all this kind of like stuff that even, even in the previous season,

Simpsons didn't really wade into all that much. Uh, what was, what was the push for you and Josh on that? Do you mean what was our, we just wanted to reach episodes that we wanted to see, um, as, but like nobody, like if you're talking about like, what did anybody, nobody complained because grownups weren't paying any attention that was the whole point the weird thing was that very few adults were

watching the show or at least paying attention in any serious way I think back in those days I don't know, nobody complained about that stuff and that's sort of what I was wondering looking at these episodes what would have been the censor feedback? What would they have wanted cut during this period of the show that you were working on?

It was all trivial stuff. And that was the thing. Until we got to the John Waters episode. Every episode, the censor would be given a copy of every stage. So they'd get a copy of the script and the recording and the animatic and the color screening and the final episode. And at each stage they would send notes

by fax over. And the notes would almost always just be two or three sentences on a piece of paper. And it would be like, please delete or substitute for the word for Homer's use of the word ass. Please use discretion in depicting Homer's pants falling down. It was just stuff like that.

It was always just about nudity and sex. And sometimes about smoking, like things of that nature. They were perfectly reasonable. What happened, though, is because the show was so rewritten so frequently, our general policy was just to ignore the notes and often by the time that the animation came back the scene had been changed anyway and it didn't make any difference that all came to a head when we i've told this story before so i won't go into great detail but when we did the gay episode it was a huge switch for them instead of sending us the two sentences worth of notes it was three

solid pages of notes about every single mention really of everything having to do with anything and then at the end they were like the entire topic and substance of this episode is not suitable for broadcast and they wouldn't let us they didn't want us to do the episode at all and we were just like we didn't know what to do so we were just. And we were just like, we didn't know what to do. So we were just like, okay, well, let's just ignore these notes. We ignore every censor note and continue to animate the episode. And then we did. It came back 10 months later from Korea.

And then by that time, the Fox president had been fired and replaced with a new president. And we just got one note back, which was acceptable for broadcast. And that was the end. So it was a testament to just kind of keeping your head down and motoring through i know you've talked about it before but i we have a show where we point out 30 2010 and that that episode is 20 years old as of about this recording wow it's it's it's coming up on its 20th anniversary either this week or next yeah so we

did just recently revisit it what was what were so opposed to? Was it the presence of John Waters or Homer's – It was – and it was – they were opposed to any mention of homosexuality. Wow. And any reference to that topic and anything having to do with it at all. Like the whole point of the episode they were upset upset with, and every single mention of the word, of any word having to do, referring to it, they didn't want us to deal with this,

so, with this topic. Well, I'd just like to say, as a gay 14-year-old watching that episode 20 years ago, like, I love, I love that one very much,

and I really appreciated that. Oh, I'm glad. Yeah, and I guess it was worth it it it ends up at the top of top 10 lists all the time yeah i think the thing is that they just didn't at the time this was not this was way before will and grace yeah this was when there were on television if any and especially which a show would that had such a large youth audience i think they were just

terrified and then the political climate and the network changed and they just said, okay, fine. I don't know exactly what happened behind the scenes, but you know, it was definitely a transitional time for television. You mentioned working with the animation team. So I did want to get into that a little bit, like what was, you know, there's been other things that get into like the granular details of working with the director and the animation team, but what was generally the communications between the writing staff and the animators? It was usually with the directors.

We had a rotating stable of seven directors at that point. David Silverman was supervising director, and he managed the whole operation. And then there were seven directors, including Mike Anderson and all these other dudes, and Susie Dieter, who was our lone female director at that point. And the episodes, they each would direct three episodes per season, and we just kind of rotate through them. And our main contact was with Silverman and with the director of the individual episodes.

And the director would be in charge of everything, so there were a lot of people, I mean, a really talented staff working at Film Roman on all the episodes. We didn't have that much contact with them, unfortunately. But there was different departments, like character design, prop design, background design, storyboards, coloring and all that stuff. And so usually it was just all the communication

was kind of filtered through the director, except for sometimes for storyboards, because we would have meetings to go over the storyboards with the people who had done them. So, Bill, it seems like in retrospect with the seasons you ran with Josh, I feel that you were trying to either close the door or end certain character stories. I can just think offhand of revealing that both Itchy and Scratchy, not Sideshow Bob, but Skinner and Han Springfield are all frauds. And also making Sideshow Bob a good character. These are all things that left an impact on the show. And, you know, divorcing Kirk and Luanne Van Houten. Did you want to leave an impact on the show in this way? It seems like you were trying to make some big changes, maybe in preparation for the end of the

show, or maybe just to leave your own stamp on the show i don't think that we had attended we intended to make any i will say that we thought the show was going to be over within a year of everybody thought the show was going to be over how many sitcoms go beyond eight or nine years you know virtually you can count them on two hands probably so everybody felt like the show was running out of steam this thing is going to be over really soon. Let's just have a lot of fun and do all the crazy episodes that we'd want to do

in the final days of the series. And so that was kind of our MO, at least in season eight. We did not intend to leave things all, you know, we didn't intend to leave things all damaged and broken as you see TV flying.

No, no, no. I actually like Sideshow Bob's change for the better, but it was always strange to see him just immediately revert back with no explanation in the next Sideshow Bob episode. What are you talking about with Sideshow Bob? I don't remember what you're talking. Are you talking about the... The Sideshow Cecil episode. Yeah. At the end of it, he was still a good guy, right?

Yeah. Well, we figured that would revert back. Okay. Like, that one was just... I think it was our feeling that every season there should be an episode with Sideshow Bob. At least at that point, we were definitely kind of, we wanted to do things the way they had been done in the old days,

which was like every season you got to have one Sideshow Bob episode. Every season you got to have one itchy and scratchy episode. You know, you got your Halloween episode, and then we always said, okay, also two crazy episodes, or two format-bending episodes, like the spinoff or the 22 short films and so we decided like the sideshow bob episode was not an attempt to tamper with his character it was more just like because frazier was so big at that time was an attempt to kind of leech off their success i feel like i noticed a change when when you and josh took over uh with homer and i i like both characterizations but i'd say like seasons five and six a lot of time uh homer came off as like an indestructible crazy person

but in seven and eight he gets a little more normal or at least like down to earth he's a guy who can't like explode and then be in the next scene yeah that was our i mean i think that we covered this at the beginning of this podcast was that we kind of want like the more realistic version of the show and season three i still believe that season three is the best season of any tv show of any time any kind ever and that by the way we weren't even there for season three so i'm not like trying to blow our own horn on that so i just think it was the perfectly constructed season so when josh and i took over we literally sat down and said, okay, season three, how did they do it? Okay. Here's, there's a Lisa episode.

There's like the order of the episodes, the topics of the episodes. We were like, let's copy this. And then once we have that, you know, once we're able to copy it, we can sort of expand upon it. But it was our desire to take things back to season three um with with room for a little bit of expansion like for crazy stuff like 22 short films yeah and uh you know the poochie episode did a lot of like commentary on the fan base too like did uh you i think i i'd heard you and uh josh say in other interviews or commentaries that you were like the first Simpsons fans hired. Like, did that – is that kind of why you communicated more with the fans in the show or portrayed the fans more? Yeah.

We were like – we were huge Simpsons fans when we were hired. And so, like, it was like – obviously, it was a dream come true to work there. And, like, we had obsessive – you know, we had collections of all the little figures and all the other merchandise in our office. And we'd actually written some articles for Simpsons Magazine before we got hired and stuff. And yeah, it was a big deal for us. And yes, we communicated with the fans on all TV Simpsons until it became so frustrating that I canceled my internet account. It was like, man, this was back in the days when I had to learn, I had to know, learn a little bit of Unix,

actually log on. And we had like, um, I had an account through this, I had to go through UCLA and then got this account that was like a dial up modem. I had to have them install a special line in the office that could use a dial up modem,

a dial up modem and, um, just standard old modem software, whatever, 1200 baud modem to read this news group. And this was like, what, season four was still airing, I guess. And I did have to use Unix to use it. And it was like, oh, boy, people are talking about the show.

I like to see what they like. I like to see what they don't like. But then as time went on, it became kind of a nightmare. It became the, oh, my God, I don't have to tell you guys. If you look through this snpp and you see people's reactions it's like even the most beloved episodes have of all time yeah maybe have 70 people liking them and then the other 20 viciously hating them and finding a lot of um sometimes their critiques are valid but the critiques are so just i would say dispiriting

finally after like i don't know a couple years of that, I was like, forget it. And I just had them take out the motor. I never looked at it again. Exactly what I was wondering, because I don't know why negativity is the Internet's resting state, but it seems that The Simpsons maybe had one or two years where they didn't have to consider immediate Internet feedback. Were you one of the first people with internet in the office

checking what the web was saying about the show? Yeah, I wasn't the first. I was the first person to do it from the office. I mean, I recall the reason I even knew that this existed was because when we got hired there, I think it was Jake Hogan, somebody had given him a big pile of printouts. And this was on fan-fold computer paper from the 80s. It was a big pile of printouts like and this was on fan fold computer paper you know from the 80s it was

a big pile of printouts about comments from episodes in seasons two and three from all tv simpsons and i was like it was just sitting in the office in a pile of garbage and i was like what is this and and somebody was like oh people talk about the show on the computer and we were like what and so i was like oh my god how can i read this And so that was how I figured out I got the Unix account. And then I was like, man, it was tough. People like, this is what I discovered. I mean, I think people, even the most crowd-pleasing comedy in the world, and let's say that that's something like Jay Leno,

has about 65% of people going, oh, that's pretty good, or I love it, or whatever. And then 35% of people going from, you know, being uninterested to hating it. And so like even the Simpsons most popular episodes, like maybe 70 to 80% of people would like them. And the other people would just tear them to shreds. And being the type of person I am, I would re I would read with great interest, the tearing of shreds.

And then I would be like, Oh, it would just bum me out. And I think this is the, you know, this has been going on for 20 or 25 years now with writers reading TV criticism from Twitter and whatnot. In this era, did any of the feedback actually help you or was it just a distraction from,

you know, going with your gut or going with your writer's intentions? Well, the feedback was coming on episodes that we had already written 11 months earlier. A little hard to respond to that. It's also the thing is that people don't agree. It's hard to draw any conclusions from those posts because people don't agree.

Some people love it when Homer, as you said, explodes and acts like an asshole, and other people think it's the end of the world. And so it's impossible to draw any broad-based conclusions except perhaps taking the score of the episode, like, ooh, this one most people didn't like, this one most people did

like, because there's always somebody who hates something, and there's always somebody who loves something, no matter what it is on these episodes. Do you ever have any fans come up and tell you, like, I used to think Poochie or Frank Grimes or Armin Tamzerian ruined the show, but now I think it's one of the best episodes

or I've changed my mind. Do you ever get that? I see that on Twitter sometimes and other times when I read. My favorite things are those things on AV Club where they do those reviews of the old episodes. And then, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, those are great. Yeah, those are fantastic. But then after that, the comments are so funny because people repost a lot of the original All-TV Simpsons comments from 20 years ago.

And it just blows your mind well yeah what do you think of like um you know when you reflect on your legacy just with the simpsons like what do you think of the memeification of the simpsons because it was happening before uh the website frinky act went live last year but i'm seeing it even more now we're like on twitter or facebook people will just sum up a moment in pop culture or the news with a screenshot of The Simpsons. I just want to know if it's weird to just keep seeing jokes you wrote over 20 years ago just flying in your face every day. I like it. I mean, as a fan, I personally use Frankie Yak at least once a week.

Those guys, God bless those guys for making Frankie Yak and making it free. I still can't believe Fox has not shut them down, but maybe Fox sees a little bit of upside in having this exist. I love it. As a fan, I'm always like, I'm rushing to Freaky Yak for my latest to make my latest criticism of Donald Trump or whatever, you know, and finding the perfect gift for it. Is it weird? Yes.

It's also weird not to get any money for it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I mean, the most, I would say the thing that irks me the most is when someone is using something I wrote as like their background or tweeting or as their quote, yet they don't follow me on Twitter. Everyone, please follow Bill. Is it that Bill Oakley on Twitter? Well, no, I don't even care. If you're using a scene from an episode I wrote as your wallpaper and a quote of something I wrote as your quote on Twitter, it seems like the least you could do is follow me.

Citations are important. So I'm just curious, Bill. I'd like to know what your favorite characters are to write. It seems like with you and Josh, you really enjoyed to get into the specificities of a very mundane character. And I assume Skinner might be your number one. But can you talk about the kinds of characters you like to write? My favorite character is Chalmers.

It's always been Chalmers. But I like Skinner as... I love... Okay, Skinner is fun to write. A realistic Skinner. All that stuff with him, with the diet caffeine-free Dr. Pepper and the fruit cocktail cup,

all that stuff in that episode is all drawn from real life, from all the teachers that Josh and I had in high school who were just like that. And like, yes, that's fun to write. But the character of Chalmers, in fact,

when we had Simpsons bowling shirts made, you got to put your favorite character's name on. And mine was superintendent Chalmers. And the reason I like Chalmers is because he's the only sane guy in the town. And like, it's very much like green acres, which is a show I used to like as a little kid, where there's one sane guy, and he's surrounded by nuts.

And, like, that's Chalmers. Like, Chalmers, sometimes he gets a little crazy, but he and maybe Dr. Hibbert are the only sane guys in this town. And they have, in order to function, they have to just accept it. Like, that's the whole point of that Steve Hams thing. Charles Meurs, he just can't believe that Skinner is attempting to get away with these lies, but eventually he just doesn't care enough.

It's very much like dealing with Donald Trump, where it's like if a person is going to lie 99 times a day, eventually you're going to be so worn out you're just going to say, okay, let's just move on to the next thing. And I guess Frank Grimes is the character who couldn't handle it. He couldn't handle being in a sitcom world. Exactly. We were, I mean, the whole point of that was like.

When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Well, first of all, it was to give Homer an enemy. And what's the character who has all the opposite characteristics of Homer?

But also anybody taking a realistic look at Homer in that world would be appalled. That's what Frank did. He came into the Homer's universe. He questioned it and he paid the ultimate price. Death. the ultimate price death so you guys left the the simpsons with the lisa dumbening episode which was such a sweet uh last episode to go out on what was did mission hill come right after that or did you guys like kind of spend some time building up a show or pitching your own show to networks you and josh that's a good question i believe that we this was again during the this

was during the waning days of the thing when any idiot with a pencil could get a deal to create their own sitcom. So Josh and I were like hallelujah, we got a deal and we got a deal with Castle Rock Television and I think that was the first thing we had made up other pilots before

that when we were working on The Simpsons that were live action but they didn't go anywhere. I think we had done two or three, but that was our first animated thing. The whole concept for Mission Hill was to fill in the gaps that The Simpsons had, which is like The Simpsons doesn't really have any characters between the ages of 12 and 30. We were like, that's a golden area. We were like, let's create the show. We've got a high school student.

We've got a 24 year old. And so this show is going to do, we're going to do Simpsons style comedy with a kind of like a underground comic vibe focusing on that time of one's life. Yeah. That show hit me too late. I didn't discover it till Adult Swim and I had just moved to San Francisco, Hipsterville as as just a poor young person, and that show hit me real hard, man, Mission Hill. Oh, I'm glad. That show had the most... We worked so hard on that show, and it had such a tortured

history because of the fact that it was on the WB. We sold it to the WB Network, which of course nobody remembers now, before they decided to become the Teenage Girl Network. At the time they were like it seemed like they were going to kind of be fox version two but then between the time that we sold the mission hill and the time that it went on the air they had buffy and they

decide buffy vampire slayer and they decided we're going to be all teenage girl stuff all the time so by the time we got on we were like the weird redhead redhead stepchild and we were only on what we broadcast this like two and a half times before they canceled us. It was the most infuriating experience of my life. That kind of waste of money, I can't imagine. To invest millions into an animated series and then only show two,

and then just wash your hands of it, that must be incredibly frustrating. Why wasn't everybody fired? I mean, I don't know. It's crazy. And fortunately, Adult Swim picked it up, and whatever bargain basement price they got it for, and fortunately adult swim picked it up and you know, whatever bargain basement price they got it for,

they were able to run it 2000 times. Yeah. And so people got to know what it got to know it, which is, I'm happy about. It was such a great show, but I wonder, did you guys feel, I think I had heard Gene and Reese talk about this too, with the critic, that when they left the Simpsons, they tried to do a show that was the opposite of the Simpsons. Like they made Jay Sherman divorced. It wasn't as happy.

It was about a feat, New Yorkers. And then they put some of the show's short run into it not being The Simpsons. Did you guys maybe think you regretted going outside of The Simpsons or making it too different? I don't know. I don't think we would have copied The Simpsons, although I think in retrospect, we probably...

If we were just interested in making money, which is a very valid concern, you want to make a show about a family. I mean, look at the history of animated shows since 1990. How many shows that weren't about a family succeeded? How many? Zero? I guess South Park.

But that's still got a lot of family kind of stuff in it, you know? That's the thing. It's such a weird thing to say, but it's like that is people, I guess, want to see their own experiences reflected back at them or something. I don't know. I can't possibly fathom the reason that the only family shows succeed, but they're much more likely to succeed, which is why, you know, every Seth MacFarlane show is a somewhat similar version of the same template, and they all succeed, whereas everybody who goes out and tries to do a show like Napoleon Dynamite animated

or whatever sees the writing on the wall very quickly. So, Bill, we don't have you for much longer, so I do want to go back to The Simpsons really quick, and I'm just curious as to what do you consider your proudest addition to the show? Out of all the shows you worked on uh what do you consider your proudest addition to the show out of all the shows you worked on what are you proudest of i'm really proud of the steamed ham segments of course i see that's the only thing i ever wrote by myself on the symptoms do because josh and i wrote segments for that 22 22 short films episode i guess i really like the frank

grams i know i don't i like the frank grams episode but i wouldn't say that it's my favorite and that i think some of the lesser episodes that are more just like family oriented and solid are the ones that i forget to mention i always people ask me like what are your favorite achievements and i always say frank grimes 22 short films but to be honest i actually think i like some of the more family-based episodes that i don't that i always forget to say like the the Hans Sprungfeld one, which is kind of a good Homer and Lisa one, and a couple other ones like that.

Marge in the Chanel dress? Yeah, I like that one too. I really like the grounded ones, but they don't spring to mind because they're not as catchy in one's memory as those unusual ones. Did you know that any news story about Australia would somehow contain a reference

to a show you'd written 20 years ago? Dollary dues? I was happy to see that this week. Just this week I was getting all these Twitter things with lots of scenes from that show. I mean, for God's sakes, who would have thought that we'd come into conflict with

Australia? That was the whole point of the episode. It was how preposterous it would be. We came up with that. It's like, what could Bart possibly versus Thanksgiving, Bart versus everything. Well, what if Bart were to take on an entire continent? Donald Trump does need a booting.

And it's like, well, what would be the most preposterous thing for Bart to come into conflict with? Australia, who's been one of our staunchest allies for a hundred years, and then here it is happening in real life. I could have sworn I saw a headline or a tweet that Trump plays knifey-spoonie with... I saw a lot of the...

Pretty sure I saw that too, yeah. I saw a lot of the report of like, Australia hurt feelings of the document. Yeah, I think I retweeted a thing like that. Or a petition to change their currency to dollar-y dues. I do love that episode i really do my favorite thing in that episode is the stamp that's 25 years of electricity one final question for you uh i'm just curious as to when we talk about the simpsons we talk

about a lot of familiar names you and josh of course uh john schwartzwelder i'm just curious though who do you think is the unsung member of The Simpsons, the writer, performer, any member of the staff who never really gets talked about and you feel like they should be mentioned? Well, okay, the most sung, and deservedly so, are George and Swartzwelder.

I would say the most unsung, I mean, this is aside from the showrunners, let's say the writers, it would be John Vitti. John Vitti was the solid, as much as you would go to swartz welder or george for the off the wall crazy joke that nobody had ever heard before you would go to vd for the incredibly solid episodes like lisa's substitute with the heart and the um the heart and the comedy and soul and the down-to-earthness groundedness

that especially in a universe like this sim so I would definitely say John Beatty. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Bill. You are my favorite writer, and you wrote my favorite episode with Josh, which is Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1, so thank you for doing that. And thanks for joining us. Is there anywhere we can find you or anything you want to promote that you're working on

currently? All the stuff I'm working on right now is secret, but I think you'll find out about, you'll know what I'm talking about when you start hearing about it in about six months. Excellent. Anybody who wants more details on that kind of stuff should follow me or Josh on Twitter. I am thatbilloakley on Twitter. Excellent. Thank you so

much for your time, Bill. Pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you guys so much for listening to that interview. Man, that was fun. Yes, that was great. And I hope you got a lot of great info out of it. Bill was great. Great interview. Lots of great stories.

Super nice to us. More than open to anybody from The Simpsons who would like to talk to us. And we should probably reach out a little more. I mean, I know Henry has, and I haven't certainly. Well, I'm hoping now we can just say, well, we had Bill Oakley. I hope the listeners don't hate us for breaking format. How could they hate us? Because, yeah, if we're going to talk for 90 minutes about a 20-minute episode, how are you not going to like Bill Oakley talking about The Simpsons for an hour?

So thank you so much for listening. Next week we'll be digging into the beginning of Season 5 with Homer's Barbershop Quartet. Still production Season 4, though. I mean, come on. But still, it's Season 5 of the show's run. A Beatles fan's delight. Yes. And, again again i've been

your host bob mackie thanks so much for listening you can find me on twitter as bob servo i also host the classic gaming podcast retronauts that's every monday at retronauts.com a new episode about a classic gaming topic if you've never heard the show before please listen to the bart versus the space mutants episode that i did with henry and chris we talked about that terrible game for 50 minutes and and I think we definitely made the most of it. Basically a Talking Simpsons episode. It is a perfect entry point

into the world of Retronauts. Excellent, excellent episode, I think. And you can find me on in my writing. I do work for Fandom at Fandom.com, and for Something Awful at SomethingAwful.com. Comedy and video game writing, anything you could want. Word. I'm at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. Please follow me.

And I really would appreciate that. That's where I tweet out a lot of things. But you can find my writing, mostly about video games, on Fandom as well. Fandom.com. I'm still part of the Lazer Time family. And again, you know, we plugged in a ton in the front. But seriously, Patreon.com slash Lazer Time. A a great way to support this this wouldn't exist without that and five dollars a month gets you access to that first season and our all the season wrap-ups

including the brand new season four one which is out very soon and we've done uh exclusive stuff for other shows uh 30 2010 our chronological breakdown of this week in pop culture history 30 20 and 10 years ago also has a season or year try year wrap up on patreon as well as cheap popcast the wrestling show a weekly uncensored non-advertised

bonus time where you can get exclusively there in addition to like over 50 full-length movie commentaries video commentaries of cartoons and wrestling matches it's really fun stuff we try and offer to people who uh like help us survive and do this for a living awesome so yes please let bill oakley know at that bill oakley on twitter that you liked hearing on the show and we'll see you next week with a brand new episode see you then Wow. Infotainment.