CWA Panel 3403A: Simpsons Forever!

Panel 3403A: Simpsons Forever! was held Wednesday, April 9, 2008 in CU's Macky Auditorium. It featured a single panelist: Simpsons Executive Producer and Writer Tim Long. Mr. Long began the session with a clip reel of his favorite Simpsons moments. These scenes included:

Homer jumps Springfield Gorge - Bart the Daredevil
The Land of Chocolate - Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk
Potato Chips in Space - Deep Space Homer
Homer in 3D - Treehouse of Horror VI
Gay Steelmill - Homer's Phobia
Marge and Homer Nude - Natural Born Kissers
Homer Builds a BBQ - Mom and Pop Art
Stupid Sexy Flanders - Little Big Mom
Butter Off Dead - Little Girl in the Big Ten
Catch Me If You Can montage - Catch 'Em If You Can
Protestant Heaven - The Father, The Son & The Holy Guest Star
Diversity Tales video - The Italian Bob
White Stripes guest spot - Jazzy and the Pussycats

Mr. Long began his remarks recounting his first day working on The Simpsons in 1998. The writers were pitching the scene D'oh-in in the Wind in where Homer goes outside in the nude to the dismay of neighbor Maude Flanders. Homer attempts to assuage her by saying "Come on Maude, the human wang is a beautiful thing!" Long continues: ''We realized no one had ever said 'wang' on TV... It felt like a war room during the Cuban missile crisis, like we were discovering a whole new world -- a world were things were only going to get dirtier and raunchier. That didn't happen.'' Long cited the FCC's tightening due new presidential administration and the fact that someone revealed their breast at the 2004 Super Bowl.

"We can no longer show a bare ass on television... I wrote an episode last year where Kent Brockman says 'Motherfucker'... I was debating with the Fox censor how clearly we could say that."

To underscore the position of the censors, Long then quoted from the Freedom of Information Act-ed complaints to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the Simpsons (available as a PDF from governmentattic.org):

While watching the world Series. Fox advertised for the Simpson. The Commercial shows a homosexual encounter with an alien. I think this is inappropriate for the audience that would be watchin this program.

Homer was asking Marge, his wife, why they took in this really annoying older mooch named Gil. She responded
nicely saying, "Christian charity, I guess."; And Homer whined and yelled back, "What does a porn star have to do
with anything?!!?"

During the annual Simpson Halloween Episode, there was a scene where 4 simpson characters, Bart and Lisa Simpson, Nelson, and Millhouse are playing Halloween tricks. One of these "Tricks" was to blow up the hotel where a major political-event was taking place "Republican National Convention". I have accepted that this show will take pot shots at the President on occassion however I believe that this crosses the line.

The Simpsons cartoon features two women in swimsuits. While there were no nudity, this scene certainly was inapropriate because women should be dressed conservatively and obey the wishes of their husbands.

I want to complain about The Simpsons tv show regarding gay marriage. Homer Simpson kissing himself and having little baby Homers running around was just totally inappropriate for 8 p.m. when kids are watching tv.

Mr Long then cited a January 22, 2004 letter from the Parents Television Council filing an indecency complaint against The Simpsons episode Today I Am a Clown:

Homer remembers that on the night he was supposed to take Santa's Little Helper to get neutered, he instead took the dog for a night on the town.

Homer: "On our way to the clinic I decided to give him a night his wang would never forget."

''I thought we'd be able to use 'wang' forever! When they came for the bare ass, no one stood up. When they came for 'motherfucker', no one stood up. Then there was no one to stand up for 'wang'," Long stated, followed by raucous laughter from the auditorium. He described the FCC's regulations as being so nebulous that the Fox censors twist themselves into making some interesting decisions. He mentioned the episode The Father, The Son & The Holy Guest Star where Homer is confessing his sins.
"The line was 'I masturbated a thousand times, and I have no plans to stop masturbating in the future'. The note from the censor said 'one thousand is inappropriate'. We asked, 'what about a million?" and the response was 'that would be fine'."

He then discussed that if the censor rejected a joke that the writing team would send something dirtier out of spite. An example from the episode Brawl in the Family in which Grandpa Abe Simpson is waking up in bed after his wedding night. The original line was "Wanna take another ride on the Abe train?" which was rejected. The writers replaced it with "Care to give honest Abe another term in the Oval Office?" which was deemed to be fine. Another example was a commercial for a Viagra-like drug on television. The original script called for Bonestra, which was again to be found to be too dirty. Knowing that the script was going to be read, not necessarily aloud by the censor, Long found it an "interesting writing exercise" to come up with something that didn't read dirty but still sounded dirty. The result, Jammitin, was seen in the episode Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass.

The floor was then opened up for questions. The first asked that in light of censorship, could The Simpsons go online for less restrictions? Long responded that episodes were currently available on the website hulu.com adding that no one's figured out the business model for online distribution. Regarding the opportunity for decreased censorship he said ''...we don't want to drop the F-bomb -- we'd rather just be funny. We're happy to cede that space to South Park and Family Guy.''

The next question concerned political commentary on the program, and if the writers were promoting a message. "Not really," Long said, "the writers lean left in general. The exception would be John Schwartzwelder who would be proud to be called a 'right wing maniac'. After the impeachment John thought Clinton would hang."

Regarding the broadcast of The Simpsons in Saudi Arabia, Long had initially heard that it was changed extensively, to the point of Moe's Bar serving orange juice instead of beer. He stated later he heard that it wasn't true: that the program was shown uncut. He said the show and movie were embraced world wide with the exceptions of Germany and Japan. Long had heard that in Japan having only four fingers (as the Simpson characters do) is associated with the Yakuza. "That's one of the things I want to believe because it's so cool!"

The next question asked what the Comic Book Guy's name was and Long stated quite plainly: Scott Albertson.

An audience member inquired about censor notes dealing with the many times The Simpsons slams Fox, its parent network. Long said that doesn't really happen. ''We had an episode about Fox News but people are hesitant to criticize a cartoon because they look silly. Besides, Fox is choking on the money that The Simpsons has generated.'' He noted ''The Fox network is extremely raunchy, but its sister network Fox News is extremely conservative. There's a theory that Fox deliberately sets itself up for huge fines in order to funnel money to the Republican National Committee through the FCC. That's another thing I'd like to believe 'cause it's so cool!"

Guest star Thomas Pynchon was the subject of next question. ''That was such a coup! You kind of test the power of the show sometimes. We wrote his part as a joke and he loved it. The second time he was on the show he wrote his own jokes! (These wings are 'V'-licious! I'll put this recipe in 'The Gravity's Rainbow Cookbook', right next to 'The Frying of Latke 49'.) These terrible jokes from one of the world's greatest writers... We had Mick Jagger on the show, but because everybody wants to be on the show we don't treat them very well. Jagger wanted a hotel room with a Jacuzzi. We found him a room with a coin-operated one: you had to feed quarters into it...''

The next question began "You've done a lot of episodes-"
"Too many!" Long interjected.
"- Where's the show going?"
The reply from Mr. Long was ''It just keeps going... as long as there's things on this earth you can make fun of we'll keep going - I have no other skills.''

Regarding any restrictions on The Simpsons Movie, Long said "They wanted us to make it good" but otherwise no. "Fox was afraid we'd come back with an X rated cut."

"Do you get more letters complaining about sex or violence?"
''The ratio is about 10 letters about sex to every 1 about violence.''

On the subject of competition between The Simpsons and other shows, Mr. Long said "The more the merrier," adding for the most part the relations between the various animated shows are pretty respectful.

A viewer then asked if the kids will ever get any older and Long said for the most part no (outside of flash forward episodes). ''They're pretty adorable at the ages they are now. Bart works as an underachiever at ten. If he was sporting a starter mustache that would be pretty pathetic. Not that there's anything wrong with starter mustaches.''

The next question dealt with The Simpsons Movie. Specifically: "How did you get away with showing underage Bart's penis?" Long replied that ''oddly enough, there's actually an exception for underage children. There's tons of research, including how much flaccidity is acceptable. The key is it was presented in a non-sexual way."

The final question of the day was regarding guest stars: how much do they get paid and how long does it take to record their parts. They get paid scale. ''Someone like Tom Hanks, who was in the movie, doesn't need the money. Most guest stars donate their scale wage to charity. How long it takes depends on how many takes they need. Typically it's about twelve to fifteen takes. When we had Mr. T on we had to do a few more, since all his lines were in Hebrew. I was really nervous meeting Mr. T - much more so than with most of our guests - because he's one of my heroes. He was telling me about his role in Rocky III, how he wasn't beaten by Rocky, but instead took a dive because his grandmother needed money for an operation. I mentioned I didn't remember that being in the movie and Mr. T said 'Scenes you don't see'. He had made up a movie in his head!''

Mr. Long then thanked the audience for attending and closed the panel. Fans stood four and five deep to talk to him after the panel.