The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Betting, Predictions & The Simpsons

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

By now, most people know The Simpsons is the longest-running primetime scripted show in American TV history. And for fans of the show (and those engaged in pop culture generally) there are many examples of the iconic show correctly prediction the future, including the worlds of politics and sports. Today Action Network hosts Chad Millman and Simon Hunter welcome on two entertainment veterans and brother with deep ties to the show. Joel Cohen has worked on the show for decades and has written nearly 40 episodes. His brother Robert Cohen wrote Flaming Moe's, one of the show's most beloved episodes, and is a veteran of many successful Hollywood writers rooms. Together the group discusses the passionate, often ridiculous gambling culture among TV writers, how the show does or does not predict the future, and so much more. #Volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, it's us The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

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Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves,

their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 in the TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Welcome to the favorites of the podcast, part of the volume podcast network. I am Chad Milman of the Action Network. Today, I'm joined as always by my co-host, my companion, my compadre, my BFF, professional better Simon, Hunter.

Hello, Simon. Chad, what a show we have today, brother. Dude. We got very. special guests for a very special show. We like to figure out on this show what is going to happen in the future. I don't think any medium has been better at predicting what is going to happen in the future than the Simpsons, which not only is it the longest running scripted primetime show in American television history.

It has been epically successful in predicting the most outrageous things from voting scandals, which one of our guests predicted many, many years ago, to Olympic curling gold, whether it's sports, whether it's politics, whether it's polluted waters and three-eyed fishes. The Simpsons have been predicting it for years. So I wanted to dig in on how they do it. Here to discuss it. Two fellas happen to be brothers. Both have worked on the Simpsons.

One still does. They are industry veterans. Canadian royalty. One of them has directed one of the best documentaries on Canadian sense of humor in history. It's a pretty long list. But they are fantastic looking duo. Rob Cohn is a close buddy.

He's been writing and directing his way through Hollywood for years on some of the biggest and best shows you've all watched, including The Simpsons, Wonder Years, Big Bang. My personal favorite, somebody somewhere, which made every top 10 list of the best shows last year. He also won an Emmy for his work on the Ben Stiller show. If you're a Simpsons super fan, he was the screenwriter of one of the show's most beloved episode Flaming Moes, season three. His brother Joel has been with The Simpsons for almost 30 years.

He's an executive producer of the show. He's written nearly 40 episodes, some of which we are going to talk about today because they pre-sense. some of the most outrageous moments literally in history, including a very special treehouse of horrors episode that is still relevant today. Like me, Joel is an author, which is the hardest thing to do, much harder than a long, successful career in Hollywood. His delightful book, How to Lose a Marathon is available wherever books are sold. The Boys, the Cone Brothers, have a new animated show. It's hilarious Super Team Canada produced with Will Arnett.

He also does a podcast. People may have heard of it. It's available on Crave TV and on YouTube. Fellas, it's been a long preamble. I apologize, but you've been around forever and there's a lot of stuff you've been doing. So welcome to the show, Rob. It has got you down and you want to end your life. Bills to pay a dead end job and problems with a wife.

But don't throw. in the towel because there's a place right down the block where you can drink your misery away can warm you like a hook and happiness is just a flaming mow away happiness is just a flaming mow away say hello hello chad this is the sound of my impressed voice thank you joel can you be equally impressed It would be hard to match that level of enthusiasm, but hello as well. All right. I got to ask, first off, Joel, you've been there forever at this point.

Why does this keep happening? How do you guys continue to predict the future? We're getting into it right now, are we? Yeah, let's just do it. Let's do it. Let me tell everyone the sad truth, and then I will try to salvage it with a little bit of hope at the end. How about that? All right.

So most of the time when people say Simpsons predicted it, what has happened is the Simpsons are a bunch of hacks. And we have merely reported on something that has already happened, but the world travels in cycles. So one of the things that people talk about recently or semi-recently is Simpsons predicted COVID. And they show this clip that was aired after SARS, if you guys remember SARS, one of our great viruses. And we did a joke on the show where like the newscaster Kent Brockman is saying, this Asian flu, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So people show that clip and they're like, Simpson's predicted COVID.

In fact, we were like probably three years after the fact of SARS and just doing it sort of a joke or a take on SARS. So a lot of times it's just that cycle of life that looks like there's a prediction. Add to that now the ability of everybody out in the world to use AI and crappy animation. And people are creating memes and little video clips that look like a prediction after,

course the fact that it happened. The third thing I'll throw on the bummer pile is like, for example, there was these horrific fires in Los Angeles. There's all these things, Simpsons predicted the fire. Well, we have 800 episodes. Shockingly, we have had one with a fire in it. So you can find a clip of a fire and then say Simpsons Brick at the fire. So those are the bummers. The good news is the day after I started the day after this aired, but one of our writers, Dan Graney, who Rob knows certainly, was writing an episode and he had to think. of it was in the future, I forget the name of the episode, but it's in the future when Lisa becomes president and replaces the former president and has to name who the president was.

Dan's first idea was President Depp because he thought, Johnny Depp, then he thought, no, no, that's too viable. It has to be the most ridiculous, idiotic name you could ever put in there. So he chose President Trump, which that was in 2000 that aired. So that was a clear prediction. And as you've mentioned, with all the last thing I'll say, with 800 episodes, we occasionally do stuff that then does prove prescient, like we've predicted Olympic curling success and World Cup scores and Super Bowl teams, et cetera. So a long-winded answer to say,

often it's either super laziness and a little bit of luck. Well, look, I know Simon is a, he's a Halloween special lover, and Joel, that's one of your many specialties. The sports angle on this, And I know Simon wants to ask about it because it also contains one of the greatest and most relevant prescient predictions that has happened in The Simpsons. But the sports angle is fascinating me because everyone in that room is clearly a sports fan. And you guys have predicted so many things.

You know, as I used to run ESP in the magazine. And in 2013, I think you guys did FIFA corruption and you had a French version of ESP in the magazine. magazine that had the cover of, you know, French, of a FIFA corruption, and a year later, that's happening, right? And so where does the sports fandom come in to all this? Tons and tons of sports fans. I wouldn't say everybody's a sports fan, but it's a lot of guys with nothing better to do than look at their phones all day. So there are a lot of sports fans. And then, of course, sports just like anything else in society trickles in for predictions, but like FIFA corruption,

I probably could have told you in 1983 that there was FIFA corruption, right? So that we did a story about it is not so shocking. So anyhow, we just do a lot of sports episodes. I just had an episode on a couple weeks ago that sort of mirrored the Otani betting scandal. I know if you guys heard about that. It wasn't covered very much in the media.

So we had a Macedonian baseball player who gets corrupted and starts betting on sports as well. So that was on a few weeks ago. But anyway, so lots and lots of sports fans, I guess is a half answer to the full question. Simon, would you like to... Yeah. I'll go with Rob.

Yeah, do it. Rob, in my mind, you grew up in the greatest generation of comedy. And not talking America, I'm talking Canadian comedy. You had Jim Carrey, Norm MacDonald. And even before that, you know, it's a bunch of legends where, you know, Martin's short, to me, one of the greatest comedic minds ever. What made that little pocket? of Canadians so fucking funny. It's like crazy. Like even all these years later, like I go back and

I watch old norm. It's so hard for comedy to hold up 30 years later. And that's how you know these people are way out of their time. Like you're a part of it. Like you are part of this group of people that put themselves out there in a unique way. What do you think makes Canada produce these heavyweight comedy styles? Well, you're giving me if there's more than 100%, you're giving me more than that credit or something that I really didn't do because I agree with you. You know,

every country mostly has their own unique sense of humor. And obviously if you're in the United States or Britain or Canada, it's more mainstream just because of the way they make TV shows. But I do agree with you. It's Canada, you know, for its relatively small population, has generated these hitters in comedy forever. And there's a million theories.

but I think it's really because we're stuck between England and the United States and we are watching the U.S. and observing them and we're sort of watching Britain and we know we're kind of British, kind of American, but we're also naval gazers to a degree and that internalized thought process creates this weird mishmash that is this observational comedy. And there's no real theory, but I will say, I agree with you. I mean, to me, SCTV is the greatest sketch show and sketch group of all time. And Python is a very, very tight tie with them. And then everything else is a big drop off. They're good, but they're never going to be that level. And I think so much of it is just being insane because you have terrible weather and you're

stuck inside and you're envious of your neighbors and you just kind of get this distorted. passive aggressive style of comedy. So I think that's why Canada's created that. And then you have people like Jim Carrey, who is obviously brilliant, or Martin Short or any of the STTV people, that when they go to the States,

they're viewed as these exotic, weird aliens that happen to live on the landmass that's connected to you. But their view on things is so different and they're great mimics. And I think that's what's led to the Canadian style of comedy. And I love the old theory of the cold and the harsh weather, just like in England, when you come over here, it makes you need to laugh about life. And that's why, you know,

I always joke. I go back and visit family just about how even a local guy at the pub could be the funniest you've ever met in your entire life when I go back to England. And I've had that with Canadians. Like, I've had a lot of friends who've come down here. And I feel like what you're talking about, they just don't know. They're just so different, especially to Americans, even though, you know, they aren't even that far away. And, yeah, I love. you know, Mike Myers talks about it where, you know, Canadians, they'll be talking and be like, oh, and he died the other day. So sad. And it's just like really funny, but they don't know they're being funny that is, you know, throw these type of things in. And yeah, for someone like you,

I just thought it was interesting where you really grew up in the perfect era of that type of comedy. And yeah, obviously you don't take any credit for it, so I won't keep pushing it on you. I think, I mean, the last thing I'll say on that is, I really think bad weather has something to do with it because you have Britain, you think about the United States, you have New York, you have Boston. You rarely hear of like a hot, brilliant, edgy comic from Tempe. You know, like, it's not, it's just, I think being stuck inside and in sort of crappy weather and observing and having a lot of time with your own thoughts

and then watching TV creates that flow out of you. And, you know, I think if you think about Monty Python, just as an example, there, it's crappy weather, they had no money, they had no support, they were these guys that were very well educated

and people thought they were weird, so they just banded together and using amazing brainpower created Monty Python, which is incredible. So I think that to me is sort of the perfect soup for how you get to places like that.

I feel like you were just throwing shade at Arizona's own David Spade. I love Spade. But name your second favorite Arizona comic, Chad. I can't do it. Okay. Next topic. Gary Shanling?

That's pretty good. He moved there, though. He doesn't count. Aren't you guys sponsored by the state of Arizona Tourism Board? Yeah, exactly. Comedy clubs in Arizona. Kiss that goodbye. Joel, both of you, I know, are huge sports fans.

Give me a sense from your own experience, how sports informs even the slightest way what you're doing day to day with the Simpsons or just your enjoyment of the industry that you're in? Well, I am a very, I'd say deep sports fan. Of course, during football season, I think I do five fantasy teams and Rob and I have been in a Pickham League

for a long time together. You're Canadian. Who's your team, local? Well, when we were growing up in Calgary, We used to get channels from Washington State. So I became a Seahawks fan. But as you know, once you get into fantasy football, you've corrupted yourself horribly and you can't be a fan to anybody anymore.

So my favorite fan is my wallet. My favorite team is my wallet and just trying to win, which I never do. But I love it. And then right now, like I'm deep in the hockey playoffs. We're in a bit of a moral quandary right now because we were from Calgary, which despises the city of Edmonton. But Edmonton is the last Canadian team and they're playing Florida. which is maybe the worst American place for there to be a hockey team.

So we're kind of being forced to cheer for the Oilers, but I am as a patriot. And then at work, everyone's betting on sports all the time. Another thing I'll just throw in the pile. I wrote a book with Dan Patrick, your old colleague from ESPN, about football that I really enjoyed.

So I'm deep in sports as much as I can be outside of work and love it in every capacity. I will also. I'll add to that. Oh, sorry. I'll add to that that, you know, I started, Gracie Films is a company that produces the Simpsons. So I started there a long time ago. And even as a naive pearl clutching Canadian lad, I was stunned at the level of sports gambling and just gambling that happens at that company.

Like numbers that are shocking, but people that were very into it and still do it and bookies and the whole thing. And even they have a thing called the Gracie Pool, which has been going on for 20 plus years. Joel and I have participated in it. But that's the least serious level of sports gambling they do. And that is a serious pool to get in. So if you're easily scared, I would avoid Gracie films when it comes to gambling. But if you love sports, it's a great place to be. And The Simpsons great because there's so many sports fans.

But just to throw one last thing. Sorry, Chad. I see you're all winning. You're either about to throw up or to talk. either way or either are welcome. But I was going to say, like, it's writer's rooms are like eight to ten people stuck in a room all day for anywhere from eight to sometimes 15 hours. I mean, it's inevitable that if it's a lot of people that are into sports, there's going to be

a lot of bets coming out of that environment. Yeah, I was going to say gambling and comedy, though, goes hand in hand chat. Like most, especially in my line of work, a lot of comedians who I've met in my life, especially when I was living in Vegas, was all because. of sports betting and they'll be in the books and they'll be like hey you got to come meet this guy and you go over there and again that's how i met norm macdonald this guy was a notorious gambling who lived in the book and you know that's someone that i you know ran into and i knew right away people told me do not tell him you're a fan or that you enjoy his work it will be a much

better experience and from him i've done that with every comedian i've ever met with that and they all love betting i think it's the rush they chase the same thing that kind of get on stage and And what, you know, I would love to know about the Simpsons writers is, is when they're predicting these Super Bowls, is there something behind it, right? Are they trying to speak into existence with their own bets, or is that just, once again, just by luck? You know, I think at some point, we can all tell who the favorites are in a season. So you can make somewhat of a prediction of, you know, if I said narrow it down to five teams that could be in the Super Bowl, you'd probably be right on three or two of them. So it's mostly luck. What gets freaky is sometimes we've

actually got the score right. Yeah. Things like that. So that is just, that is pure luck. But Simon, as a professional bet, or I say bet on everything you see on the Simpsons because they're all going to come true. You've got nothing to live. Yep.

I want to know how we get into the Gracie films pool. It feels like exactly the kind of pool we'd want to be in, Simon. It's a substantial, I'm happy to ask. It's a substantial investment at the beginning of the season. you are playing against it's all with the spread. And there are some people in the pool that use extra resources and outside sources for their information. But the great thing about it is that if you win a week or you win the whole pot, somebody will deliver fresh cash to your location.

And when I say fresh cash, it is unused bills that are perfectly crisp in an envelope to your location of choice. And that thrill is, it's got nice payouts, but if you happen to win, you will have somebody pull up in a manila envelope with a manila envelope of cash that looks incredible. And that's the moment you want to savor. I'll say, Chad knows my favorite competitions in America are tax-free competition. So you speak of my page right now. Do you guys remember the gold sheet, Simon? Is that still around the gold sheet?

Oh, yeah. It's not around anymore. We actually tried to buy it when I was at ESPN. And it's just not really a thing anymore. It's just not, it's not necessary, given the way the world is. But why do you say? A guy that Rob and I both have worked with

and a wonderful guy and an incredible Simpsons writer and legendary and really great guy, he was a avid reader of the gold sheet. And avid Better, I won't reveal his name, but he one time bet, I'm going to say, thousand dollars on a presidential election and lost but anyhow he he was a real deep reader of the gold sheet i remember even like preseason football him telling me like that's where you make all your money is in preseason football and i never believed that then and still don't believe it now but he was a

he would have the gold cheat in front of him all the time well i will just add to the depravity of the simpsons and gambling where i won't say a name but there is a person there who made a lot of money and basically placed two bets on the color of the Gatorade that would be splashed on a coach and bet against themselves on the color so that they were covering every possible color of Gatorade and were rooting basically against themselves hoping for this color,

knowing that they couldn't win because they spread the money out too much on the Gatorade. But there's definitely enthusiasm for cash-free earnings at that show. Yeah. My favorite Gatorade story is Jared Lorenzen, who you guys might remember, was a 300-pound quarterback at Kentucky. And he made it to the NFL. He was a backup for the Giants when they made it to the Super Bowl against the Patriots. And I feel like it was the second Super Bowl.

And before the game, which happened to be in Arizona, he was on the field. and he texted all of his friends back in Kentucky the color of the Gatorade on both sidelines. So he wasn't telling them which team he thought was going to win or giving them anything other than, if you think the Patriots are going to win, this is the color of the Gatorade, if you think the Giants are going to win,

this is the color of the Gatorade. And it's gotten to the point where that and the National Anthem, like, how have you guys not done a national? national anthem controversy with a famous singer and the betting on that as an episode. You may have predicted it. The part I took of that whole story that's sad is that there's only one color of gatorade on each sideline. Like, teams could afford a variety, a smorgasbord of different gatorades. We don't know which one's going to be dumped, but it's sad to think that

they just commit to yellow or blue or orange or whatever. I do have a touchdown. I do have a Simpson question that, you know, this is just something you would know because it's something you have to be inside. If this is true or not, I'm obviously grew up South Park fan, Simpsons fan, never liked family guy. The South Park episode with the manatee's pushing the balls to make a family guy episode, is it true you guys sent them a bottle of, was it champagne or wine?

I don't believe that's true. Oh. I mean, we love that episode. They have another episode, which maybe is the same one where they did Simpsons did it. Yeah, Simpsons did it. Yeah, yeah, which we have a really good relationship with South Park and, shockingly, to send many people pretty much with family guy now as well. Yeah, because to me, like Bill Hader, a guy who does work for South Park,

he felt like he was like a Simpsons guy and that you could really see his style. You can tell you just grew up on Simpsons and he's taking a lot of that to South Park. And I just, to me, that was one of their best hires ever where it's just like, that's a match made in heaven where again the influence of simpsons and it's on comedy to same thing with s and it's it changed everything and there's little pieces of all this comedy and all this new comedy so yeah i just had to ask that question because that's like as a south park band i always wondered are okay are the south park and simpson's actually cool so i love to hear that you guys are actually you guys we love those guys and bill hater's been a voice on the show a bunch times and is

amazing incredible is there a south park simpson's family guys guy pool that exists and if so maybe we can start one. Well, forgive me, Rob, I'm talking more than I should. But we do this thing at The Simpsons, which is equally sad, but we do a fantasy football league for summer box office. So we auction off movies. We have $100 fictional money and you bid on the movies that we divide into lots and big movies get split into thirds or quarters or halves, depending on how big we think they are. But that idea is internal to the Simpsons, been going on for 20 years, but then I've heard that Family Guy and maybe South Park have taken on that idea and have done it themselves internally.

I feel like you guys are much bigger gamblers than I had any sense of it before. And now I understand like when I'm hanging out with Rob and it's the middle of the football season and I'm staying at his house and I landed, you know, seven o'clock. and it's 10 o'clock, East Coast time, and I'm at his house and I'm having dinner, and I'm falling asleep. But he keeps asking me questions about who I like for the weekend. It's all starting to make sense now. Well, I also, when Rad Chad shows up and stays at his Hollywood mansion,

we're so excited that you're here, but also you know everything. So whether it's the fantasy pool that we're in or just some insane situation, situation like what's happening with Aaron Rogers now. Like it's you are honestly the only person that I feel can make sense of a lot of ridiculous situations. So, uh, like, Dak Prescott,

you go, why aren't the Cowboys drafting X, Y, and Z? Do they really like Dak? Like, you're the only guy I can go to to get the answers. But at the same time, there's all this weekly drama where you go,

you wonder like, uh, the Bengals a few years ago when they were hot. It's like, do you think they can keep the heat? on and get to the Super Bowl and win it because it's so out of the blue that you're talking about the Bengals and the Super Bowl. So

you are the guy that I go to for everything. And sometimes it's connected to the fantasy league that Joel and I are in, and sometimes it isn't. Simon's hear that? I am the guy. He's the guy. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news.

We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast,

where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, Help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered.

Sports slice brings you closer to the action. with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife-Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I competed there myself.

I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Genschen went. I mean, she went down to three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface.

Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I was going to ask Rob, is Chad the best house guest ever? Is it like he eats barely anything, maybe uses the bathroom twice? The bet is made him perfect every morning after he wakes up. He's just easygoing?

He's, we love it when Chad is here. Our son loves Chad. We have photo documentation of them partying for years and years and years. But when Rad Chad is in town, we, We are very, very excited. No, Chad only takes three beers and he's in bed by 9 p.m. It's good. It's so true.

We love it. Do you guys, have you guys thought about Super Bowl futures already? Is there a Gracie Films pool that takes advantage of Super Bowl futures? Joel, do you have a position that you've taken that you would like to share? I hate the season-long bats. I need the quick hits. Like, I hate thinking, like, oh, Will the Giants win more or less than nine games a year?

So no, there's no future discussion. I'm sure, again, like I said, we could all talk about which teams we think will be back this year. But I have no official financial position. All right. Also, the Simpsons and like every writer's room that I've ever been, there's certainly a handful of rabbit gamblers, one or two that have a big problem. But you're sitting in a room forever and you've got phones now before you didn't have phones. and people are going to naturally check out scores

or they're going to do online gambling. And so that just leads to filling in the gaps between pitching on a story where you start talking about gambling and football season especially. But I just think it's only increased. Yeah, and everyone's got a runner now, right? Even if you're in a state that doesn't have it,

you know a guy in a state that does that can do something for you. And I was going to say, if you're going to make one futures bet, Joel, are you in L.A. for work? Yeah, yep. Do you throw a little either on the Rams or the 40, Niners. Get involved in California a little bit. And do it, man. I don't have the patience. I need it. I need it bath. I was going to say we

You bet it and forget it. People bet like on stuff like what time the showrunner will let us leave. We'll bet on if someone has to go out of the room and prepare like 10 jokes for one spot in the script, we will bet on which of the 10. We bet the other day on a guy we work with us loves to get tattoos and someone came in and presented five tattoos, only one of which was real. and we bet on which tattoo was the real one. The answer, he got it on his wrist. It says no lex because he lost his Rolex, so it says no Lex on his wrist. When you were doing the,

you did a Treehouse of Horrors episode where Homer went to vote. It was Barack Obama, John McCain. This presaged a lot of freaking chaos. Explain what happened in the episode. and obviously how it predicted more and more chaos in the voting world. Well, I hate to keep going back. I think it's just like you see these trends that are obvious, right?

We're like obviously, you know, gerrymandering of voting districts and stuff. And you can just tell there's going to be voting chaos in our future and, you know, people restricting people's rights to votes and all that stuff. So all that stuff was bubbling. I believe with that one and with. many other times, like it takes nine months to make an episode of The Simpsons. So a lot of times we don't do really topical stuff. But I think in that case, we literally held it or prepared like multiple versions and then just

slot it in the most likely one at the last minute of who was going to be on the ballot. We've done that a few times where we just, because we can't risk it to the very last minute. So, I mean, again, I guess I'm answering my first question. It was just that idea that all that stuff was in the water already, that idea of what will happen to elections and voting chaos. We probably got a little bit lucky, but then just even if you're talking about the spitting names on the ballot, I think that was just literally waiting until the Friday before it aired on the Sunday.

Yeah, and then since then, of course, there have been nearly billion dollars in payments for the libel of voting machine irregularities. So nice job. nail that one. And I've made like half of that billion. So it's worked out pretty well for me. But I also feel like when you're doing these things, it's almost like you're sitting in the room. And when you're not betting on tattoos and jokes and, you know, your NFL pools, you're sitting there and you're thinking, and this feels very much in line with how comedy writers would think. What is the worst thing, the darkest thing, the most outrageous thing that can

happen and let's write that into existence. Is that ever the framework for the starting or a starting point for an episode or a conversation? Yeah, Rob, you want to answer that? I don't know you've Well, I'll let Joel answer the specific Simpsons thing, but I'll give you two very fast examples that I witnessed. Back in the wild times of the late 90th and early 2000s, there were two different well-known television shows that they would make very serious bets. one of which was, could a PA eat five cans, the large cans of Heinz beans, Joel, you know the story? No. So it's like when you go to the market, there's the Heinz baked beans, and then there's these super family size.

So they started throwing cash on the table if the PA could eat these cans of beans. So cutting to the chase, the PA did it. They weren't doing any work. It took hours, and the PA was choking it down, and people kept throwing more money on it. And I think on the table was like $25,000 in cash, which is, Why they had that their pocket is crazy. So now the PA, he wanted to win because he was going to get a big cut. And then somebody after the PA had got the last spoonful of beans down and said,

I'm going to double the pot if he doesn't crap his pants in the next hour. And the PA literally ran outside and ran towards a hill near Warner Brothers Studios where this was happening. He had to go to the bathroom so badly. He wasn't even thinking, where's the bathroom? He just ran straight towards a hill. and had machine gun diarrhea all over this hill. Then the next argument was,

does that count? Because he was off property. Like, there was such depravity going on with this. It was like, does it count? Somebody has to go up the hill to make sure it's his diarrhea.

So there's levels of insanity. And then the other stories are... And a beautiful tree grows on that hill, thanks to that diarrhea that we all... It's a mighty diarrhea oak. Yeah. Just a field of bean plants. Yeah.

And so then the, the last one in one sentence is there was a room that I was in where the showrunner had a problem with some powdered medication that he enjoyed inhaling and people made bets on which part of his body would fall off first and it was a lot of money and the winner was his septum so they go dark and make a lot of money yes I was actually saying like for for an episode for ideas Oh, I'm so sorry. Just edit those out. Those are better.

Joel, I'll hand it to you. You know, if you can get to a funny, dark place, like, yeah, we all sometimes think of where do you end up, but then we got to have to kind of get there in a funny, dark way. So, yeah, sometimes thinking of a bleak, you know, apocalyptic nightmare, if as long as we can get there an interesting, funny way, we've done that many, many times. Well, that is like a very similar, Simon, you were saying it before. Like, there is a mindset and a sort of character trait where gamblers and comedy writers live in a very dark space.

Like, the bigger the risk, the lesser expectation is that you will succeed. The more you are planning that the other side of this is going to be miserable. and you're willing to live in that misery. Comedy writing is as big a risk as betting. Like, Rob, you go down from Canada, you're not thinking, I'm going to end up having this beautiful life. You're thinking, I just want to be funny. I've never thought I could be funny.

But yes, I think it's a risk because you are deciding when to speak. And if you speak, you hope what you say is received well and is funny. and otherwise you shut down, but then you in your head, you're like, you can't be quiet too long because I'm going to get fired. So I need to speak again. And then you just, the cycle continues. And yeah, it has its own challenges. Yeah, I think Rob just nailed it too, where you don't even know what's funny until you actually say it or, and like give other people's reactions to it, right? Because that's a challenging part with comedy. It's all subjective. And as someone that does love dark comedy, you know,

I'll laugh at really easy, lame jokes all the time. Like even jokes that miss are some of my favorite jokes. So it's like, you know, it is all random. And, you know, I view it as, you know, what we're talking a little about here with The Simpsons. It's like, I would love what's the highest rate you guys ever got? Do you ever get like, was it Y-14? Like, what's the limit you can push it now that we have presidents cursing on national television? Like, is there a limit now?

I don't know if there's a, I don't even know what ratings are anymore. Like, like, guidance, ratings are anymore. But, you know, we are sort of bound a little bit by the constraints of the show that it's established over 40 years or 30 years. But we've, you know, we've stretched as society's appetite for all that stuff is stretched. But, like, we had an episode once where Marge said BFD, like big fucking deal. And Fox bleep the F. Like, just the letter F was offensive in that context. So, and then we're doing an episode now with, like, we've been told we can't.

show Homer's butt anymore. And like, you know, stuff like that. So like the world is changing and we're just kind of dodging and, you know, it's always lawyers trying to protect themselves. But I don't know what the ratings are anymore. And no one seems to care also. Right. And my last Simpson's question, it's a stupid conspiracy. Plopper the pig. What is it deal with that fucking pig? Is there something deep behind it or is it just spider pig walking on the ceiling? That is one of the things that I think has shocked everybody so much that it, talk about a pig with, some of the digestive problems. This is a perfect play into that. But yeah, in the movie, they just put the pig and then like that spider pig joke. I think if you, when you heard that pitch, it sounds like that's a pretty easy

lame joke, but that has like registered and resonated so strongly with everybody's spider pig. And people love spider pig and in the writer's room, there's a spider pig hanging from a ceiling. And like that's just one of those things where you just didn't know how big it would be. And it, it seemed like a pretty easy joke to start with, but whatever reason people love that and the deal with it is just, we don't know, but God bless it. You know, this makes total sense now, Simon, the way you just described it. I feel like being in a writer's room, Rob and Joel, it's a little bit like you're chasing, you know, you lose a bet.

All right, how quickly can I get the next joke out there to see if I can get the win? versus, all right, do I hold back? Do I want to keep my powder dry? Do I need to build my bankroll? Like when you're in the room, Joel, you start. Is there that anxiety, that sweat, that energy that you feel that is very similar? Oh, yeah. Like what Rob said was, you could have been talking about me.

Like, I didn't speak for the first six months. And then I was told if I don't start talking, I'm going to be fired because you're so nervous. And then at some point you have to pitch, which is just really exposing yourself. pretty raw and it's a laugh or it's not a laugh but then you quickly just realize that everybody next to you is doing the same thing over and over and over again so you know we're all sort of gambling where the stakes are pretty low unless you get on a really really bad streak where you don't have anything in for maybe a year and then you get fired but yeah that you've got to just keep throwing stuff out there but i was very intimidated at the beginning my favorite larry david story

s&L is that he kept getting his shit taken off the board and every day he'd go and they take it off He goes, another great day at the office. Perfect. Just perfect. I love that story. He lived for failure. And that's why he's one of the greatest comedic minds ever to live. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's all like the same with gambling. Like you said, it's especially if you're in a live action show that has an audience. To me, the highest pressure is when you're shooting in front of the audience on a Friday night and you're on the floor and a joke tanks, you have seconds to rush over to the showrunner and pitch a fix. while the showrunner and the cast and the crew are there and the audience. And the worst thing is if you're pitched tanks, because especially if it gets to the actors and it sucks, it's like you cannot find a corner small enough to hide in,

but you got to go back and stick your face in the wood chipper again the next time it happens. So it's really, that's part of the fun of it. But at the same time, it's like, this is my opening. I've got to make it. And it's better to try than to be. be silent. Well, do you remember for both of you the first time sitting in this kind of environment when you had a pitch or a joke and it worked and you felt that rush like, okay, I've got one on the

board. Joel, you first. Like I said, I really went the first few months without talking and then I was told I have to start pitching. So I can even tell you the first joke I got on the show. we used to do this thing where we'd send people off we everyone gets stuck on like a we can't find a joke here so you idiot go write 10 or 30 and come back and pitch them to us and hopefully one will fit so I was that guy and the setup was that marge was mad at homer and he said what do I do to fix this and someone said take her to dinner or maybe a show and then my joke was what about benihana where dinner is the show and that was the joke that got on the show and that that broke my, broke the ice.

And 30 years later, you're still. With that joke, shockingly, I'm still here, I know. Legacy joke. I know. What about you? I would say as far as being on staff of a show, it was probably the Ben Stiller show. We were on the Fox Network, and they absolutely hated our guts, and we hated them. So we were doing sort of a parody of a shitty Fox show.

And I wanted to be introduced by the crappiest mascot ever. or so it was somebody in a ratty fox costume. And Ben was like, well, what do we call this guy? And the worst joke ever, I said, what if we call him Foxy, the Fox Network Fox? And then I realized the words came out of my mouth, that is the hackiest pitch of all time. And Ben just fell over laughing. And in my mind, I was like, why are you laughing? That's terrible.

But then I just shut my mouth and let him enjoy it. And sort of had one moment of comfort where it felt like a, okay, that one was a winner for whatever reason. Rob, I want you to tell people, and this is my last sort of inside Simpson's prediction, because this one is so outrageous, it can't just be, Joel, like, this had already happened,

so it was in the ether and we just played off it. There's no way possible. Rob, you are the inspiration for the artwork for Millhouse, explain what happened and how that came to be, because Millhouse has one of the greatest predictions in Simpson's history. Well, I cannot claim any credit for this, but the quick version of the story was back when the show started, they wanted to use a Korean animation company to save money,

and so they were waiting for the designs. The designs came back horribly. and they needed to restart them, but they wanted to send references so they could copy the exact look they did want. So one of the amazing writers on the show called me in one day and he said, I want to show you something. He showed me a drawing of Millhouse and he goes, this is you. And because of the way that I look and I would wear shorts and a T-shirt all the time and have a giant nose, he explained that they had been taking photos of real people and sending those to Korea so that they couldn't screw up the artwork that they just would mimic the photos and make that character.

So I was delighted that that happened. I get zero money from it, but they just took images of actual people and they were doing it to save the animation process because they were so far behind. And then as a tag to that, if you look at the early Simpsons episodes, the artwork on the fridge that is supposed to be of the kids is the horrible animation that the Koreans are sending back because it looks like a terrible kid's drawing. All right. So in 2010, Millhouse predicts who's going to win the Nobel Prize and what I can only imagine

was a very high stakes pool at school for Milhouse and Homer. He predicted, I can't even say the guy's name, Banked Holmstrom from M. as the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize. He also had in his pool Ben Ferenga as a possible winner in 2010. In 2016, Joel, both of them won the Nobel Prize for their respective fields. Explain yourself. you'll see a gun approach from off screen as I start talking. Again, this is that they're, aside from gamblers that the other thing the Simpsons

is famous for is a lot of nerds and super smart people. And my guess is, because I can't recall any of this, that these people literally researched who are the leading candidates, just like, I'm sure Simon would and like the odds and looked forward on who's, I don't even know what the prizes were for, chemistry or literature or whatever, but I'm sure they researched these guys and who are the leading candidates or working on developments and took a swing. And again, the names are so obscured to morons like me that it sounds funny when it's on TV regardless. And then I didn't until this moment even know that they'd actually won. So I have some bets to collect myself. You did not. There's a lot of it.

A lot of stuff happens here. And I just, you can't keep track of everything, you know. That's like Simon, when we were betting on the Pope and we came so close because we, had it like all figured out that it was going to be someone who wasn't of the top five candidates who sort of had the right profile and instead of the guy from Chicago, we went with the guy from France and we were right there. We could have written a Simpsons episode. Yeah. How could you not pick the guy from Chicago? I know. I felt terrible about it after it happened and we've discussed it aggressively. Okay.

Our claim to fame is that we did, luckily the guy we had on didn't mention his name. So we went a total loss, but it was just, it was right there for me and chat. We totally missed on it. I got very locked in on the guy from France. I got locked in. I felt like, hey, I just did. I never thought it would be an American, but I thought everything the American had was the right profile.

And it wasn't going to be one of the guys who went in because, it's never the person that everybody thinks has the shortest odds as they go into the conclave. So to me, it had to be someone who was in Europe, had experience working in communities where immigration and immigrants were a big factor who could help expand the church and this guy in France because immigration in France was a lot of it was Africans moving to France. And so he had connections to the African community like, Rob, I went deep. And I just didn't see the dude with the background in Peru getting into that spot. You know what?

A lot of the Cardinals were making calls from inside the Vatican tipping off betters like you guys on the outside. So it's nothing next. Here's the color of the smoke. Yeah, I didn't get any of those calls, Joel. Oh, you're not on the inside. Amazingly so. Yeah. Joel Cohn, Rob Cohn, Super Team Ken.

Canada. Everybody go watch it on YouTube. Everybody watch it on Crave. You guys crushed. Thanks for coming on The Favorites today. Simon and I will return with our next episode of the favorites Tuesday on the Action Network YouTube page. Download us from Spotify, Apple Pods, wherever you get your pods. Rate, review, subscribe, leave us five stars, say whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time, love you. Action Network reminds you. Please gamble responsibly. If you or someone you care about has a gambling problem, help is available. 24-7 at 1-800 gambler.

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