Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Table Read Special!

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

A lifelong dream came true for us—no, not running onto the field during a baseball game, going to a Simpsons table read!! Hear all about our whirlwind trip to Los Angeles to see the actors and writers perform an upcoming script for the show, what it was like to meet some surprising folks, and tons more! Plus, our thoughts on the just-launched Disney Plus and what it means for The Simpsons! We're able to do trips and podcasts like this thanks to the support of listeners at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons ! Become a patron today to hear countless early and exclusive podcasts!! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons where we sit quietly behind Julie Kaffner. I am your host, the Hank Azaria toucher, Bob Mackie. And this is our chronological exploration of a table read of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today? Hey, Henry Gilbert, loudly laughing in the room to make sure everybody knows I know it's funny.

Many a knee was slapped, including mine. So yes, we're here to talk to you today about a very special event in our lives, perhaps the peak of my life as a Simpsons fan, and I assume Henry's as well, is that we got to attend a Simpsons fan, and I assume Henry's as well, is that we got to attend a Simpsons table read. Essentially what a table read is, in case you don't know, it's a rehearsal

of the episode with the voice actors, and we were there in the room with them thanks to amazing friends of the show, Nick Pruer and Mark Malkoff. They made it happen, and we are eternally in their debt. Eternally, yeah. We owe them a giant cake i

gotta find their addresses and get them a cake or something i never thought this would happen and to get to go to it and then you know i didn't want to tweet about i didn't tell anybody about it until we finally tweeted about it in the past as a thing that had just happened because i didn't want to risk it i was like I don't believe it until it finally happened. Until I was sitting down there and voice actors were talking, I assumed an earthquake would happen and swallow us alive before the voice actors actually spoke. But yes. So yeah, Mark Malkov, of course, he worked on Letterman. He's got a great and fascinating career. Check out his Wikipedia page. He's done so much. He was great to hang out with him for half a day, talk to him,

but he's also got a podcast and that is the carson podcast a podcast all about johnny carson and if you are too young for carson like me uh it is still incredibly fascinating i say start with the mike reese episode you learn a lot about mike reese and carson and what crusty was the engineer to make fun of during their years on the show yeah yeah i like that you know on that podcast that mark he has people on that build up Carson's legacy and mystique, and then guests like Mike Reese who just tear down the mystique, and they're just like, no, no, no, he wasn't that special. I do love Mike Reese's last 25 years of bridge burning he's done since he left the business.

It's so great. It's so much fun to listen to. It's been really great. Yeah, everybody should check out that Carson podcast. We got to have Mark on a podcast too. It was so much fun talking with him. been really great yeah yeah everybody should check out that carson podcast we gotta have mark on a podcast too it was so much fun talking with him we got to i mean what a favor he did for us like we met him the day of the table read like we didn't he didn't even know yeah and he drove us there in terrible la traffic it's always bad folks yeah and of course nick prurer from the

found footage festival he was a guest on a recent, and that is where we loudly whined about never being invited to a table read until someone finally said, let's give these suckers a break. The whining finally paid off. We should have known that would have done it at long last. whole journey started was having nick pruer on the podcast a few weeks ago for i'm with cupid when we uh we had him on that's when he told us the story of doing a simpsons table read how magical it was and he had asked us like man one of these days you guys got to go to it right and we're like yeah we should it's funny that i guess spoilers for the table read mike scully was there i would say friend of our show. We've interviewed him twice. And we went to say hi to him, and I think he was kind of surprised it was our first table read. In fact, he's like, is this your first one?

And we're like, yeah. He's like, oh, it's going to be a good one. You'll like it. Yeah, which, you know, if you think of that, Mike, why didn't you ever invite us to these things? Yeah. Come on. You owe us, Scully. Big time.

I mean, maybe it really was just thinking, like, if you don't say you want these things, people assume you don't, even though they should feel from us a cloying need coming through our eyes that says, invite me to a table. I guess they can't smell the desperation sweat through the microphones. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. But yeah, so Nick reached out to us and said that his friend Mark got invited and that he could get some plus ones to an upcoming table read.

But I believe we had two weeks notice to do it. Like when they sent a special, like, can you fly down to Los Angeles that day and go? And we're like, yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So yes, I guess Nick was going to be Mark's plus one. And then, of course, he was like, you both should go. So I'll make sure that Mark tries to get you a plus two.

But also at that time, a friend of the show, Nina Matsumoto, was scheduled to come down and stay with me for about a week. We visit each other fairly frequently. And I was like, we got to ask for plus three. There's such a thing as a plus three. No one gets a plus three. But we like a thing as a plus three. No one gets a plus three, but we pled Nina's case. We just gently pled.

We were like, oh, can Nina Matsumoto come? She is a former bongo artist. She worked on the Bart Simpsons comics. She's got so much credibility as a Simpsons fan. She needs to be part of this. And I was terrified that I would have to leave her behind at my apartment to go do something I'm sure she would be totally understanding about, but still be very wanting to go to, very much wanting to go.

Yeah, well, because she's like, oh, thanks for flying down to Berkeley. Now I'm going to fly down to Burbank to achieve your dream. I'm going to have an amazing experience. Can you watch Louis? Don't worry. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Thank goodness, like Mark Mark and through his contacts, he was able to get a plus three.

So four seats at the table read. That's a pretty big get. And it was a pretty full room too, right? Yeah, yeah. It was, well, I mean, yeah, the size of that room. I guess I never imagined how big or not it was. I'd seen pictures before, but they didn't give you the full scope of the place

until you only see it once you're there. it was i'd seen pictures before but they didn't give you the full scope of the place until uh you only see it once you're there like oh this is like a real huge group of people in this room then we were able to get all of us in there that's when we finally purchased our plane tickets to all fly down together uh it's good for us that where we live in the bay area that it's just like an hour long flight to los angeles so you can do it it's just like an hour long flight to Los Angeles. So you can do it pretty quick. Yeah, barely an hour. And we were going to meet up with Mark the next morning.

They do their table reads on Thursday. So it was just a week ago. Yeah, so we met up with Mark in Burbank and he was going to drive us to the studio because he'd been to the studio before. And that was maybe the most stressful two hours of my life not not because of mark of course but it was like okay we have to drive 20 miles let's get a three-hour head start to drive through just the winding one lane traffic all the way to the fox studios and i've lived in southern california before i thought i think every time i'm prepared to understand traffic again i really am not yeah we should always add an hour to everything we think.

We gave ourselves two and a half hours. We're like, that's definitely enough time. And we should have given ourselves three and a half hours like it was. So we were told it starts at 10 a.m. sharp and you should be here by 9.35. You know, we're looking at Google Maps the whole time. And it's going okay until we get to, like, the one road that goes from Burbank to Los Angeles. Very poorly planned city. Has anyone ever talked about this?

The traffic in L.A. is surprisingly bad. We're in this one left turn lane for 30 minutes, I think it was. And we were all like, Mark was especially just, like, getting really antsy. Like, I think it was and we were all like mark was especially just like getting really antsy like i think he was feeling really bad i think he was starting to feel the prospect that he might be late to the thing and we'd miss out yeah i think he was feeling pretty bad and we were trying to tell him like no i know we're gonna make it it's cool don't worry just just relax we'll we'll be fine but internally i was thinking too thinking, too, like, oh, my God. What would I do if I found out I was this close to going to Simpsons table read and then late?

I was just having a lot of wishful thinking and delusion. That paid off. So, you know, it worked out for me. We were making a lot of small talk to try to not be nervous. But, yes, we finally started moving again. We get there. Well, then there's there's also like there is some confusion none of us live like he's from new york and we don't drive at all we were all getting a little lost in downtown la trying to get onto the fox lot we finally did at 9 35 and it took us like another 5 10 minutes to get to the building and And in that time, I was also super worried of like, if we make one wrong turn,

then coming backwards will cost us more time just walking here and we might be late still. Luckily, the guards are very helpful. They're not like the guards in Plucky Duck cartoons. They gently point the way and they would let you out of the studio too. Ralph the Guard works in Warner Brothers. Oh, you're right.

So I guess Fox guards are nice, I suppose. That's true. Yeah, but so we got to walk to the building and uh that's when we saw the people standing outside and we're like that's when i could finally breathe like we made it okay okay okay and then it was uh like the night sky full of stars all around us so we uh we met a lot of the simpsons cast and crew. Not all of them were there. And so, personally, we posted pictures on our Twitter. And I'm sure you'll see a nice picture as the cover art for this.

But we met Matt Groening. We talked with him for like a minute because he's a very busy man. But he's super friendly. We got a picture with him. Of course, Nina was there. She was talking to him as well. She mentioned Bongo to him. And they had met before at some convention. So, know obviously he remembers her yeah out of the millions of people he meets uh i mean yeah he he was very nice to us like it was mark mark was being very good at

telling us like here let me introduce you to these people like he was he was a little more confident than oh for sure the strangers we'd never met before he was really corralling us like oh you got to meet matt graining he's out here you got to meet Matt Groening. He's out here. You got to meet him right now. I was kind of hoping. Well, yeah, we met Matt Groening and talked to him and shook his hand, took the picture. We also got to say hello to James L. Brooks. Like, he was there.

Yeah, yeah. I wasn't sure if those big wigs would be there, you know? Yeah, I wasn't expecting Jim Brooks to be there. Even Matt Groening. I would assume Matt Groening was busy with Disenchantment, whatever stage of production they're in. to be there you know yeah i wasn't expecting jim brooks to be there even uh matt graining i would assume matt graining was busy with disenchantment whatever stage of production they're in but according to uh mark i guess he's been coming to table reads very often lately in the past couple of years i could i mean he that he still works that much on it in the 31st season is impressive

and and yeah i guess you know with disenchantment the last couple years he probably couldn't make these thursdays like especially that's in santa monica and this is in los angeles so yeah the pain of that but your own private helicopter but yeah the first person we saw when we walked into the room so it's assigned seats and we saw where our names were and we were right behind what turned out to be the center of the room yeah we were right behind julie cavner matt geraning jim brooks and hank azaria yeah and hank was the first person we saw there but he was sitting seated next to julie but i was so buzzed up of seeing hank azaria i didn't realize who julie was for like a second you know yeah oh right that's well because she get this she doesn't look like how she looked 20 years ago when you saw pictures of her i think the last time i

mean i don't think she's like a recluse i think she does not do a lot of live action stuff anymore uh but i have not seen a picture of her or footage of her since probably that actor studio special so i did not recognize her at all yeah we sat down and uh we met We met Hank first, I think. I think we shook his hand first. That's right. Yeah, we shook his hand and said, oh, it's so awesome to see you there. As we'd find out later that that was special, Hank is normally not there in person for the table read.

So we got an extra joy there. Very sharply dressed. I felt like scum shaking his hand. Like, oh my God, this is the coolest man ever and he's shaking my hand. And he did make a smart quip at me where I was like, oh, I've been wanting to see one of these my whole life. He's like, well, actually, you're going to hear it. And I was like, yes, sir.

I'll sit down. That we didn't embarrass Nina by telling him about her fan site. No, no. It was previously discussed on Talking Simpsons, a podcast. It's true. We told folks that we did a podcast, and we mentioned it to them. I think it was Yardley Smith at the end of the table read who was the most impressed of our podcast degree.

She is a fellow podcaster. Yeah. We told Matt Groening, yeah, we're here. We do a podcast. He's like, oh, which one? And we told him. He's like, okay. So maybe Matt Groening will hear this.

Maybe. I have a feeling he's very busy and has better's better things to do as a 65 year old man uh i'll tell you when i sent my mom the picture of mac reigning she didn't know who that was like i sent it in a group text to my mom and brother and my brother knew instantly and i was sure my mom would too but she's like she told me later she said well why why is henry sharing with me a picture of an old man that's weird i sent it to my mom and i was like this is matt carini creator of the simpsons she thought it was very cool yeah yeah the uh i also i was too nervous to eat anything it was funny mark mark went right to the free like fruit and bagels and stuff but i was just too nervous i didn't want to

touch anything i mean i also i held it in the entire time because i was like i don't want to go to the bathroom it's even one second of this. You made it. I did make it. It wasn't too distracting, though. Once all the famous people left, that's when I was like, okay, I'll pee now. Your pee could have been mingling with theirs in the sewers. What an honor.

And so we said hi to folks in the run up to about 10, 15 or so, I think was when it really started. And that's when, like, it was at the last minute. Well, not last minute, but it was very late when Dan Castellaneta, Yardley, Tress McNeil, and Pamela Hayden came in. Oh, and Kevin Michael Richardson. Yes. Those actors were a little later than the rest. And a special guest star on this read. So Harry Shearer normally phones in. actors were a little later than the rest and a special guest star on this read so harry shearer

normally phones in uh but this time for some reason it was pretty cool uh kevin pollack was there the celebrity impressionist and comedian kevin pollack was there to uh read for harry's parts yeah yeah it was a really surprising thing we went in in there like, wait, why is Kevin Pollack here? Like, it just was, and the news around the room was just that Pollack was asked by James L. Brooks, especially, of like, can you do me a favor and come to the table reading for this and do Harry's parts? Because normally Harry is just on the phone. There wasn't any explanation of why he wasn't on the phone, but he wasn't there. Yeah, and I guess we didn't sign an NDA, but we want to be polite and not give away any details about story. I was going to just read the whole script right now.

Let's pick our parts right now. I call Skinner. I'll be Poochie. Poochie comes back in this episode. That's a lie. It's a huge lie. No, I didn't know. But yes, I will say it did feel like a special episode,

not in terms of moving the plot or a big event. It's not like 22 Short Frames of Springfield either like a high concept yeah episode like that though it's an interesting character-based episode and i think uh it felt like a special event because matt selman announced up front the uh i guess kind of sort of like kosher runner with al jean at this point yeah no al jean no jean he was in new york presumably recording or eating delicious pizza so we don't know but uh he said up front i want to folks, we have no one over the phone today. And everyone cheered. So I guess that would really suck the energy out of the room to have people on the phone with a delay trying to voice act The Simpsons.

But yeah, it did feel like a special event to be there with all live actors. And of course, Dan and Julie were there. And no Nancy. Nancy was not there. Yeah, T trust was doing nancy's roles yeah which was fun she did a good part she's trusting a good part and yeah the the whole episode was was really fun i know maybe it's just the giddiness of being in the room but like it was a funny script with good jokes in it that made me laugh i'm really looking forward to

watching this episode yeah it was like we've never why would we have like we've never experienced knowing a script of a simpsons before it gets animated like we always get them in tandem so now that we've seen this script and you know this is before a final rewrite or uh the animatic when they might redo a bunch of things there too like there could be a lot of stuff that changes from this. Or there's some characters in it that have never appeared before. So I'm curious to see what the animators, how they'll design them, how they'll make these new characters look. Yeah, and I think when this episode goes live, probably in, I'm guessing, October or November of next year. I'm just roughly guessing. I have no idea.

We can do an episode about it and talk about what was in our scripts. We can talk about the experience more in detail when the spoilers come out. Yeah, yeah. But I'm looking forward to that episode. I think it'll be a really good one. Again, no spoilers, but it did feel like, wow, I get to come to a Simpsons table and read number one. But number two, they're doing this episode with these characters. I feel like this is even more magical yeah oh yeah yeah uh

man so yeah the whole the whole thing flew by so fast when we got to the third act in the script that is when i started to uh get slightly light-headed of thinking like oh no the end is in sight yeah this this so the fairy tale ending's already coming each page could be our last but it was fun to laugh along with the script too and like let the people know we were enjoying it too and just to be like sitting again we were sitting right behind graining brooks and your and julie and hank like that was just really special yeah and it was uh and michael price did the stage direction okay yeah that was michael price i guess because selman this seems like a selman run episode perhaps because he was he

didn't do any stage directions he was doing the marking of the script which i think is how they mark like well that got a laugh or other thoughts as the episode is being read aloud you know yeah it felt like it went over very well with the crowd uh and i know based on commentary some table reads are not good yeah i almost wish i could go back to see a classic just to be a fly on the wall in like a season four oh god table read that like went poorly yeah like go to see a homer at the bad table read have no one laugh oh yeah that was one that had a terrible team yeah i like when mike reese on the commentary just straight up says like that was a terrible table read nobody laughed nobody liked it's funny they can remember the table reads well when it's one you're overseeing and nobody laughs at it i

think it does stick in your head it's like you're presenting your own little play that fails i guess we really can't talk anymore about the um contents of what we saw but we can talk about the aftermath where it was basically just like eyeing people. Are they going to leave? Are they going to leave? And judging them based on the 20 seconds that we interact with them, judging their entire character and personality. These were busy people who were doing their jobs that day. They don't have a bunch of free time to stick around with mooning fans who just were like let in the room and i had to keep in my mind like okay bob this is the 700th time they've done this they might not have time for you they also have other jobs to get to so like uh some people were just out really quick like pamela hayden was out and tress mcneil and uh julie kavner signed like two scripts so she was

sort of like a cartoon character like signing a script and like walking out at the same time i think i think like she got wrecked like caught in character signing a script and walking out at the same time. I think she got caught in a fan cloud or something. Dan was also gone pretty fast. As was Brooks and Groening. They left pretty quick. Hank Azaria did stick around, which was pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah. We all got our

script signed by him, and Yardley Smith is the one who hung around the most, and she was very nice. So nice, yeah. I worry that he or she who hung around the most, and she was very nice. So nice, yeah. I worry that here she was staying around so long, and then we'd be like, hey, I know you thought you were done, but the last of the fans are here,

and they demand a signing. You've never met fans before, have you? But she was so nice. She really was. Nina brought with her one of the lisa comics that she drew yeah the really really cool one with the lisa on a unicorn cover and yardley seemed to really love it like i think she really appreciated that nina drew such a good lisa and uh with so much heart and care in it and she signed the script as yardley and lisa for all of us with different

messages so yeah thumbs up to yardley oh and also really uh we got matt selman decided to and kevin pollack uh i will say it seemed like matt someone was confused or surprised that we knew who he was and we wanted signatures yeah yeah maybe he was like oh these fans just know the actors they don't care like one of these days we'll get selman he seems like i thought he might have heard of our podcast just because he seems more plugged in than most of the writers on it but he's like get these nerds out of here maybe he knows and hates our podcast i don't know yeah the uh another person i want to say was so nice to us was kevin michael richardson yeah like he's he's been a regular on the show for a while now one of their you know utility voice actors who just does a lot of different voices

kevin michael richardson is so great he does voices on just about everything i mean he's most famous as the principal from american dad at least to me like he's so funny in that role but uh but yeah he was so nice to us he was so he was when i complimented him he's like oh you're so nice and he was just a really just a cool guy you're talking to him and he was like even like oh you don't want to talk to me you want to make sure you get their signatures before you leave right he was like being very deferential to the you know the main cast yeah yeah which is very nice that's why you humble that's why i wanted to give him an extra compliment of like don't know i know who you are too mr richardson like

you were you're a great voice actor in your own right. And I got Kevin Pollack's signature. Yes, yeah. Well, that's a fun addition to this story was later to find out that our buddy Eric Nagel, who we had on previous episodes, he texted us to let us know that he's friends with someone else who was in that room that day. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. And that person just took a picture of like, hey, I'm at a table read and sent it to Eric.

And then Eric sees me and you in the center of the picture. He's like, what the fuck? That's amazing. I totally forgot about that. That happened like the day of. So I was probably just too euphoric to remember that. That was just so funny. So just too euphoric to uh to remember that that was just so funny so uh that was an extra an extra detail to it but yeah so we stuck around until

everybody left mark had to go like he had a thing like right after the table read he had to go to and so he said like oh that's cool mark bye and so he he left we haven't seen him again since it's real whirlwind day. I hope he made it home. He's still in traffic right now as we speak, that poor guy. And we sort of parted at the writer's room, by the writer's room, where there's the Bart Topiary, the Simpsons giant hand with a donut promoting the movie.

So we were by where the magic happens. Yeah, yeah. They were probably peering out the blinds like, what are these nerds doing? Which one of them is going to pull out their gun? It wouldn't be the first time. And then we went to the Fox store, and that's where we got the surprise of seeing that they were selling Simpsons cells that day. They knew people coming out of a table read were just hot for Simpsons merch.

Just like, give me a cell. I need a cell. And I couldn't resist. No. I got it. I'm'm not gonna reach for it but i got it right here it's the from homer versus sexual inadequacy it is grandpa's speech about his tonic and it's just such a great shot of grandpa holding up his tonic surrounded by a crowd of weirdo bystanders so you get to really appreciate the weirdo bystanders there there were

a number of tempting ones if price was no object there was one that was like 200 bucks more that i wanted more than that one but i was like no i have to i can't spend that much i i get i allowed myself a little but it was a once in a lifetime event i totally would have done it nina and i were thinking about going in on one together, but there was no single one there that we'd be sad if we didn't buy. There were so many great ones. There was one like,

so one I really liked was Burns with the We're Number One hand thingy in the back of his limo, which is really good. Another one was Moe and the Lie Detector. Oh, yeah. Another really good one. If there was a slightly better Burns one

or Skinner one like skinner and chalmers i would have spent the money immediately right there and not regretted it but uh it was a little too much for me at that moment but now i really really want to sell i'm going to go look for a really good sell uh for my future home what really pulled me into it was you can buy cells for around the same price on eBay or a bit more. But it's having the cell in your hand right there. Here it is right here. You're holding history.

You're going to buy it. It's right in your hand. And as I said on that episode when we did it, that one is an important one to me. It is the dad episode. And it's what I watched with my dad and my grandfather. And it just has so much history to me that specific one i was like all right i i feel like i gotta get this one nina nina was the one who really talked me into it she's like yeah i was trying to pick between two and she said okay imagine you left these and came back and saw that one of them was gone, which would make you more sad if it was gone? And that's when I knew my answer.

It's a good strategy. I almost bought, it was not a sell, it was just the line drawing of Homer in his nacho hat. That was very tempting as well. Plus there were some line art from Futurama of like Scruffy. I almost bought a Scruffy from there too, but you don't get sales with that because it was always digital.

They also had some limited run merch there that was cheap enough for my blood. I almost bought a Scruffy from there too, but you don't get sales with that because it was always digital. They also had some limited run merch there that was cheap enough for my blood. So they had a new Cape Fear pin set and I really wanted it because it had a pin that said the Thompsons on it in the Simpsons logo. Oh yeah. But there are two other pins on top of that.

So it's just a really cool sort of retro modern looking cape fear arts with bart in his bed like cowering and then three buttons on it so i'm not warning those buttons yet but look for me with a thompson's button soon and there were some really tempting posters there but i was like that'll get messed up on the plane ride i didn't bring a poster tube with me we had like an afternoon to kill before it was playing time again yeah yeah well and so then we also ate at the fox uh cafeteria that was nice it was so cheap i got a really good tuna melt and fries and a drink for nine dollars which i guess is probably what the rest of the world pays for tuna melt but i was like wow i can eat this cafeteria every day i i

mean i'm glad they make it seemingly affordable for the folks who work there because they they don't have many other options. Are you going to fully leave the lot and drive 30 minutes to get something to eat that isn't on the lot? The man who made my tuna melt was very nice. I was like, this is the magic of showbiz, baby. They've made sandwiches for all your favorite Fox television stars. It was also cool walking by like some of the studios like we walked by one that had filmed a million things but to me most interesting was batman 66 like it was the the studio where adam

west filmed his classic batman episodes we walked by the fake new york sets yeah yeah in the in the big simpsons mural with the sing not sing the blues key of springfield yeah yeah and the the tip for all you out there is apparently you can just walk around the fox lot and no one will ask you who you are or what you're doing well if you've made it past security the first time you can just meander for as long as you want the weird thing is you have to swipe your badge to leave so we got to a gate and i was like i don't know and the security guard was like oh i'll wave you through go ahead and i was like wow he has no idea how much i stole i have a feeling i have a i wonder if they were a little more lax because it was fox just bought by disney so this is just like a lame duck period for the fox lot because the fox lot is owned still by fox but all

the stuff that's made on it is owned by disney so disney's like currently renting it out they didn't they didn't buy that real estate they bought the products that were made there so i wonder if the security is a little more just like who cares yeah uh so much history was there yeah an amazing amount of history there like every bench was a bench from titanic that had to be so many benches on that damn boat i mean they gotta have at least you know dozens of benches on screen and then they have to have like backup benches for in case a bench breaks james cameron is a real bench freak apparently underwater diving and benches his two passions when you think of titanic you wouldn't think of benches no no in fact when i saw the first one i was like there was a bench on the titanic so i guess that deck was pretty big yeah if people got to sit down somewhere it's uh i believe i made

a reference to the cane from citizen cane yeah uh so anything else about the table read i'm trying to scan my memories anything we can talk about but uh again a totally amazing experience i never thought it would happen and it was so great to uh you know just say thank you and to meet a lot of the people who've been entertaining me for the past 30 plus years. So such a great experience. Thank you again to Mark and Nick for making it happen. We are so in your debt.

You're welcome back on our show anytime. Yeah, no, Mark and Nick, thank you both so much. We got to have Mark on soon. We'll find one that is appropriately about late night or close to late night since that is his passion. But man, Nick and mark uh the new best friends of the show really i demand all of our friends to outdo them yeah that's the challenge now whoever gets us on the show that's the next that's the only next high after this of

like getting to voice a character on the show uh we're chasing that table read high for the rest of our lives yeah i mean i'd uh i said it on the episode on I'm with Cupid. You don't know how many of these table reads they have left, you know, like in the current incarnation of how they've always done table reads. Like, Simpsons will never stop. Folks will leave the show. They'll be recast. But Disney will always keep making more Simpsons. But the Simpsons machinery that's been making shows since 1989, that was what we got to experience today.

Yeah, to be in the room with two of the creators. Of course, you can't be in the room with Sam Simon. It'd be a weird room. A seance, I suppose. Yeah, just a magical experience. And again, there have been 700 of these, but there have only been 700. So I did feel extremely special to just be there, to be allowed to be there. So there's a very good chance you could be listening to this for free and there's a very good reason number

one we wanted to brag to as many people as possible about the very cool thing we got to do because of two amazing friends of the show so number one bragging rights number two just we want to give you guys out there a small taste of what being part of the patreon is all about at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and what we're doing now is very similar to our monthly community show, Talk to the Audience, where we talk about what's happening in our world and the Simpsons world and updates about our podcast. So we wanted

to get this out as soon as possible, so this will just be limited to this podcast. It won't be on the next Talk to the Audience, but in case you're wondering, all the extras are at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons and you get all kinds of extra stuff. The episodes you get a week early every week. And exclusive miniseries and so much stuff on top of that.

So, yeah, we thank you for listening this far, if you're listening for free. Yeah, you know, we're only able to do things like go to this table read thanks to your support. Like we, number one, just having the money set aside to afford plane tickets on a week's notice to go down to los angeles but also having just two days like if we worked at a job me and bob would have had to get days off from work to go do it and maybe at this time of the year in games press we might have been told like you can't take two days off in this economy i'd have to say a parent died or something to go but yeah it's only thanks to the supporters on patreon that we're able to do that so we super duper appreciate that but you get so many things for supporting me and bob including the community

podcasts like this and also right now the futurama podcast season two is currently going out only for Patreon subscribers. So please, please, please consider signing up if you haven't yet at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. We can give you a little taste of talk to the audience or community podcast by closing this little podcast that we're doing now with some chat about Disney Plus because it went live as of, has it only been yesterday? I feel like my life has changed. Hashtag Disney Plus, crying emoji, heart heart emoji give me my money right now up front hashtag disney plus all the feels hashtag ad i love uh but no i that's why i felt weird to say anything positive about watching things on disney plus yesterday because everything felt like an ad for disney plus i made a joke about bonkers yeah with the hashtag ad but uh we're living in it now we're living in it

and uh of course we could talk about what the simpsons is like on that whole streaming setup and it's not good nope not good not yet at least as of this recording well if we all remember 2014 when simpsons world launched, it was all in HD. So episodes that had been done in a 4-3 aspect ratio in SD got cropped and turned into widescreen in HD. Because I guess that's what they feel like if people see a square thing in SD, they'll think it's old and crummy and they won't watch it. Their TV is haunted, perhaps. But especially in the case, this is the case in everything, but when you take a square format and squish it or stretch it or chop it up to being in a rectangular form for HD,

you are butchering it. I feel like I made a monkey's paw wish when I was a snob in the 90s saying, like, everybody should watch widescreen movies that's the right way it's supposed to be seen on your square tv now it's like okay you've got all the widescreen you wanted now it kills all your square sized things miss those squares yeah i've been uh i've been witnessing this so on itunes occasionally i'll buy an episode on itunes before disney plus to be like i want to do some research on the road or at a coffee shop i'll pay three bucks to just bring the episode with me. And there is intentionality behind the

widescreen edits. So most of the time they will crop the top and bottom of the screen to make a widescreen image. But occasionally when cropping would make a very awkward image or would chop off too much of a face or something like that, they will just squish the image into the rectangle. So there was someone there making that decision for every episode that's in hd that wasn't before unfortunately there's no good way to do it and i find that online i understand why it's being sold this way but i don't like how it's being sold as this ruins jokes because ultimately i think it ruins like three or five jokes what really matters is this ruins the intentionality of thousands of hours of animation that was all carefully plotted out by hundreds and hundreds of artists.

They created these images with the 4x3 picture in mind, and everything is coordinated around those dimensions. It damages it. Even if it doesn't ruin every joke ever in the show, I think it's a crime if it ruins like three jokes like yeah every everybody's talking about how it does ruin the duff the three tubes of duff joke like it does that but what really sucks about it is that we've been through this we've been through this already with simpsons world for a year it had no sd option then finally like people uh complained about it enough i guess and fx added an sd option which was very annoying to click to make it that instead like it but and so now at the launch of disney plus i just hoped they'd start with the option but they didn't

for whatever reason and somebody said we had been told wrong information in the lead-up like one reporter said uh or he had messaged with folks who were working on disney plus who officially said oh yeah the sd versions will be there for sure and then they weren't like so there was misinformation being spread too about it somewhere like it that's why we all just figured they wouldn't do the simpsons world thing again no not again yeah i thought at least the commentaries wouldn't be there but i assumed yes of course they'll preserve the four by three of these hd crops but they didn't my one major issue with disney plus is it's the same as every streaming service now in that it's designed poorly on

purpose where uh it's not designed for your ease of use it's designed so you will just get tired and stumble into the things they paid the most money to make so like let's say i'm watching an episode of bonkers which i was for what a cartoon let's say i'm watching episode 47 i'm taking notes and then i have to go make lunch or something i come back how do i get back to that episode well i have to go search for bonkers or click on it in my wish list and then scroll over like five pages to episode 47 and hit play there's no like recently watched there's no you just watch it's all just the same like bad interface that every streaming service has because they don't want you to find the things you want they want you to find the things they want you to find and i can't stand it everyone's like this and i

knew it would be like this i mean they should netflix does have a continue watching a lot most others don't or they at least have like you got to go through two levels of stuff of what was the stuff i just watched on hulu yeah i went back to netflix today to watch an episode of star trek because of futurama and i was like this is so much better than disney plus i never thought i preferred netflix to something but that's something i don't think will ever change no i well i mean in all of these they want you to see the thing they spent the most money on all the prestige like that's why the big rectangle of mandalorian is bigger than just anything on there it's uh so i've had some nice time with disney plus other than the simpsons stuff that's a bummer i i did have a momentary thing of when going through simpsons

and seeing like uh oh season three started with that episode i didn't think oh right so that's when i remember that stark raving dad won't be on here oh yeah yeah it uh it confused me for just a second and then i remembered michael jackson's crimes remember it's only on 10 million dvds no probably 50 million dvds and also uh online in billion places, so you'll never see it again. Yeah, yeah. Also, it's funny. If you go to the Simpsons World website, they just turned it off. Like, you can't use it anymore.

Like, Disney Plus told them, once Disney Plus starts, don't have Simpsons World anymore. Don't do what Disney Plus does. Like, it wouldn't let me sign in or anything. That's crazy. It was crazy expected but expected i i think what i liked about bonkers and other you can tell what shows don't matter at all to them because they didn't hdify them like bonkers is just a square spider-man 1994 is just a square like all these crappy shows if they didn't bother hd cropping them for a recent airing they're just still in four by three so bonkers thankfully preserved in its uh at times very well animated glory it's uh another thing i a negative i'll say on disney plus is that with a lot of their shows

simpson seemingly is all in order uh like in episode broadcast order but bonkers for example is not uh bonkers is the the thing we go back to a lot but it's happening with a lot of shows yeah i i checked a few more like so bonkers isn't gargoyles is pretty much in in full order but like the spider-man tv series which had four specific seasons like they actually did very linear storytelling in the spider-man 1994 show especially from season two onward and the episodes are out of order they're like they're in kind of order but they're also just called one season so it's just 65 episodes in a row instead of separated in season i will say for like disney afternoon shows i would look at a wikipedia

article about list of episodes and just watch them by air date because things like DuckTales, the five-parter premiere is like in the middle somewhere or towards the end and again with Mock, we go back to Bonkers again, the reason why you're subscribing the pilot-ish two-parter is like episodes 45

and 46 or something crazy like that. So I recommend if you want to watch these really long syndicated shows, look them up by order of air dates and not just by what disney plus lies to you about yeah i mean i also saw with the ducktales 2017 show like the executive producer on that show tweeted out like people if you're watching ducktales for the first time in 2017 you watch it in this order it's in the wrong order on disney plus and we're trying to fix it but right now if you watch it in the order they present it you have giant spoilers and their very intricately told story is told out of order you know it sounds like it's a problem

even for a new thing that you would think they'd have in order i i haven't heard if gravity falls suffers a similar fate like that would be a really bad show to do out of order there's so much content to wrangle, but you assume that someone like that or a company like that would have the resources. It's the biggest company in the world. But because they're the biggest,

they don't have to care. It's like a cable company. That's what I feel like is also happening. I mean, at least they got... I did watch The Mandalorian. It's fine. It's fine. I watched one scene of Lady and the Tramp,

and that sucks. I think it's pretty obvious why they didn't release in theaters. It's funny. People think that things like Lady and the Tramp is them making high-quality content for Disney+, when it's really just them saying, this isn't good enough for theatrical. Just put it on here. No, there's no direct-to-DVD market anymore, so this is it. Yeah, this is the disney channel 2.0 like that like

there's a movie on there that i will totally watch but i'm saving it for christmas time but this christmas when i visit my mom and stepdad there's a movie on there called noel which is about santa's daughter and son played by bill hater and anna kendrick that also has billy eichner in it and it's just like it looks like trashy garbage christmas movie but i i'm fine with that i want to see that but but it's funny they present it as what a cool thing we have on here it's like well you would have aired this on abc yeah just the same show oh yeah one more thing i'll say about it is if you guys enjoyed our gargoyles podcast we did what a cartoon greg weisman the showrunner

of the show he made it clear on twitter of like if you binge gargoyles i think we can get more gargoyles made so watch it and watch it and watch it that's what he's saying uh i'm smiling right now because i'm sorry to go keep going back to bonkers but i'm planning the bonkers episode of what a cartoon right now. And Greg Wiseman worked on the first version of the show. When our podcast goes live, I need him to listen to it. I need to get Bonkers staff members

on our podcast at some point. We got to find out. We need Bonkers secrets. Greg Wiseman is here like, all right, you want to ask about Spider-Man, Young Justice, Gargoyles? So Miranda Wright. What was...

You know, wow. I'm going to just repeat this on our Bonkers podcast. about spider-man young justice gargoyles so miranda wright what was you know wow i'm gonna just repeat this on our bonkers podcast but i thought miranda wright felt a lot like elisa maza yeah it's the same i now i get it yeah gargoyles are just five bonkers it's what five or six who's the bonkeriest of uh lexington uh but yes if you want more gargoyles it sounds like i i think there's real stuff to this because greg wiseman like three years ago when young justice was on netflix he said everybody if you want young justice to come back watch it on netflix now because he knew those numbers if they were high enough warner would be like oh there is actually a fan base for this we'll pay to make more. And then Warner ultimately did make a third season of Young Justice with Wiseman in charge.

And from all accounts, did it right. I haven't watched the third season. So we could. And while we still, Ed Asner, Ed Asner's still with us right now. Get him in a room. They like, he should, Greg Wiseman should just record him right now. Be like, look, here's $50,000 dollars of my own money let me just record 10 lines here read most words of the english language we'll stitch them together in post just say goodbye goliath i love you hello

goliath hello goliath thank you elisa all those things uh but but yeah so that's one more component to disney plus uh though also if you just want to steal it i mean fuck it like who cares it's you don't have to give money to disney if you don't want they've got enough but i give them money yeah no i gave it i mean for us it's tax deductible as well and sometimes trickling down to us we're getting some new subscriptions because of disney plus yeah boy oh boy so yeah if you're a new subscriber on the patreon to hear old Simpsons that now you can watch along. Or, you know, I think you'll really enjoy a goofy movie, what a cartoon movie, especially when you can watch it on Disney+.

Or The Nightmare Before Christmas, correct? Yes, yeah. Or Aladdin. Yeah, and there'll sure be more there in the future. Oh, yeah, I watched that. Had you seen that Waking Sleeping Beauty documentary? No, that's on there. Yeah, I had not seen it before until now. haven't either uh it is absolutely disney propaganda but

it has it tells some dirty laundry in there which i actually did like mostly uh because you're allowed to say you hate jeffrey cat jeffrey katzenberg if you work at disney because he left for dreamworks they never say dreamworks in the whole movie it ends in 1994 when he quits after lion king is released like the funniest thing in there to me after we did the secret of nym podcast and we talked about you talked about don bluth and how he got fed up at disney there's a funny bit in the beginning so it's made by guys who stayed at disney and so he says and you know don bluth he was either loved him or you hate him like some people they were true believers in him and uh others of us

there thought he was just a controlling jerk and then the next thing they're like and so then don bluth uh quit and he took half the staff of the ink and paint with him and i was like oh so you're you're saying you didn't like him so you stayed and everybody that liked him left that makes a lot of sense god i gotta watch that now it's really good waking sleeping beauty but yes i apologize for all the bonkers chat but if you sign up right now you will hear that episode before everyone else does on sunday night so think about that and if you don't care about bonkers how dare you but also you'll have access to so many other things two plus years of bonus podcasts etc etc

you've heard it all but it's patreon.com slash talking simpsons but yeah I hope everyone out there enjoyed all of our fun stories especially about

the table read we had so much fun and we couldn't do it without you so number one thank you so much for supporting the podcast we really appreciate

everything you do for us and we will talk to you again soon on another great podcast thanks again We'll talk to you again soon on another great podcast. Thanks again. Wow. Infotainment.