Time Magazine got served its purpose, It got you talking! 
Celebrating The Simpsons 500th Episode Milestone with Executive Producer Al Jean by Diane Morasco
Since the 1989 debut of The Simpsons, eight time Emmy Award-winning producer/writer Al Jean has attributed over 400 episodes to the highly acclaimed animated series As the series showrunner for over 250, he has won the sought-after Peabody Award and was selected for two Golden Globes. Presently Jean dons both executive producer and showrunner hats. He also served as writer and producer on The Simpsons Movie (which took in over $525 million worldwide), working heavily on the film throughout its entire four-year production.
Jean co-created The Critic and Teen Angel and functioned as producer on It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, for which he won three CableACE Awards. Jean also co-wrote SNL Presidential Reunion Video for Funny or Die which is credited with helping establish the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, Jean served as vice president of the college’s humor magazine, The Harvard Lampoon.
A native of Farmington Hills, MI., Jean resides in the city of angels.
Recently I was invited to attend a Fox media conference with Al Jean to discuss the historic 500th episode that will be airing Sunday, February 19th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific. Enjoy!
If Marilyn Monroe were alive today and to guest star, what would her interaction be with the members of the cast?
A. Jean: I’m sure we’d try to do something that was completely off character. The closest I could say was when we had Michelle Pfeiffer she was somebody that loved donuts as much as Homer. So it’d be something like that.
What do you think makes The Simpsons so iconic in history today?
A. Jean: There are a lot of different things. One thing I think is there are very universal designs and even a child—like our daughter can draw Homer and you recognize it as Homer and she’s only seven. These characters are really the kind of universal looks. They stand out when you’re flipping a channel. People stay on it and watch it. It just tapped into something that there was a real place for and I’m lucky to have been there when it started.
When you were hired as a writer had they done that first episode, the pilot show, yet or not? What was your thought of the potential of The Simpsons when you first joined it?
A. Jean: What they sent us—they were looking for writers to turn it into a half-an-hour show—was Tracy Ullman shorts compiled on a videocassette. I thought they were really funny. The job was only two days a week. It was turned down by several people before us, but I liked Life in Hell very much and it was a chance to work for Jim Brooks so I thought it was going to be a good job. I’d be lying if I said I’d be here answering questions about episode 500. They would’ve locked me up, but that’s it. I just thought it was a really exciting opportunity.
Is Julian Assange in this episode and if so, why is he in it? And are there any concerns about having him in it when other people on the Fox Network have openly called for his assassination?
A. Jean: He is in the episode. Obviously he’s a controversial figure and that was discussed before we agreed to let him do it. It’s a funny cameo and it makes no judgments about the larger case about him. So yes, he’s in it and we had to record him over the phone. It was a very kind of cloak and dagger thing, but we’ve been specializing in finding people who can’t be found so we thought it’d be especially unique for the 500th episode. I don’t think he was on the 500th episode of Gun Smoke.
How close did the talent come to leaving last October? It seemed a little bit murky. I know everyone was talking about cutting salaries and then suddenly the show was renewed for two years. I just wondered if there was a real go-down-to-the-wire aspect to that?
A. Jean: I think it was less of a close call than people thought reading the coverage. What happens is the cast has two, three, four-year contracts and when they expire then they’re renegotiated. It’s not a holdout. It’s not a walkout. It’s the way business works.
This was actually a very early signing. The network had said that the cost of the show that we were doing was prohibitive, and as you can see shows like House did come to an end because of cost. They said if you can get it down to a certain number we’d love to keep going as long as you can, and we did. Going through the whole budget, including the cast, and everybody just loves it so much that they said, “To keep it going we’ll work with what we see as a genuine concern.”
Did Fox ever give any serious consideration to pulling the plug on the show?
A. Jean: We had an episode which we just aired last Christmas called Holidays of Future Past. Had we ended the series that would’ve been the last episode. We were prepared to do that, but in my opinion, having been privy to it, I don’t think it ever really got close to that point.
I am wondering if there’s any guest starts that you met personally that you have any kind of favorite anecdotes about?
A. Jean: I can tell you one. I didn’t meet him. He recorded it and I heard it over the phone. But we had a table read where Ted Nugent was calling in from, as I understand it, a hunting expedition where he did his part in between going up in a helicopter to shoot things.
We had a line at the beginning where it said, “Man’s voice,” which is him. In other words, we didn’t see him yet and it just said, “Man’s voice,” and he didn’t read it. We said, “No, it’s you. You should read that line.” He said, “Sorry guys, you … up.” So that got a huge laugh. Someday I hope to meet him. Preferably not when he’s shooting from a helicopter.
If it ever came to pass that any of the talent left for any reason, since it’s such a long running show, would you find someone else who could possibly perform the voice in the same way?
A. Jean: I personally wouldn’t want to do the show without the people that we have. I mean they’re obviously integral to it and we’ve done so many episodes I can’t conceive of it without them. Had they not signed, we would’ve stopped the show.
How much longer do you think you can do this? How many more stories can you tell?
A. Jean: We’re definitely going to do a total of 559. That’s what the new deal is for, but I honestly think—because again, it’s a show with a really rich universe, many characters. It centers on a family, which is extremely universal. I don’t know where the end is. I’ve jokingly said, “Why not 1,000? Why not 2,000?” But that’s sounds a preposterous to me now as 500 did then so I really don’t know.
You mentioned that one episode you thought would’ve been the last one had there not been a deal. Do you have one in your pocket that will be the last one if it happens?
A. Jean: No. We spent it. Right there is no clue and no plan. It’s not a show like Lost where we’re going to hope to answer a fundamental question with our last episode. I’m sure whatever we do it’ll want to have a little bit of closure but also just be really emotional and true to the series.
With over 500 episodes, how would you say The Simpsons are different today, as a family, than The Simpsons of 1989?
A. Jean: I think the world maybe has gotten a little bit more post apocalyptic in its thinking. You see a lot of sort of dire prognostications, bleak visions of the future. So I think that the show reflects that a little bit, but we were never that optimistic about big institutions and governments. We were always more interested in the relationship of the family.
Any dream guest stars you would love to book in the future?
A. Jean: Sandy Koufax would be a great one.
So last week you had two dedicated fans that broke a world record by watching The Simpsons over 86 hours straight.
A. Jean: It was sort of stopped so it wouldn’t go too long, but I think they could’ve gone a lot further. My wife and I visited and they were really—they really like the show.
So how did that come about, that whole competition?
A. Jean: It was just an idea from Fox where they thought in conjunction with the 500th episode they’d have the marathon. I think to actually watch all 500 would be beyond human capacity. I certainly wouldn’t want to be walking into the room saying, “Hey, I wrote … 498.” They were really cool and my congratulations to both of them.
Do you have any plans to kill off any characters this upcoming season?
A. Jean: No. We did it a little bit with Maude Flanders and Bleeding Gums Murphy. I think that people don’t want to see us kill off grandpa. They want him to be around. They want this universe to sort of stay roughly the same just the way that Bugs Bunny never killed Elmer Fudd. It’s really kind of similar.
When you think about 500 episodes, in that opening title sequence, that’s 500 sentences that Bart writes on the blackboard, 500 saxes of Danny Elfman’s theme and 500 couch jokes. I’m wondering—that is some accomplishment—how do you come up with all three of those things every single episode? Who came up with the idea and how do you keep those elements fresh?
A. Jean: At the beginning, Matt and Sam Simon wanted to change the credits every episode because as you recall when we debuted there were much longer credits on the shows, and they wanted to do something that would keep it interesting and you would never feel that any episode was the same as the others. Over the years, we’ve often cut back to where it’s just the couch guy being new.
I’ll be honest, the toughest part is to do chalkboard—I don’t even how many he is to write with chalk on blackboard because it’s just kind of like an archaic form and we try to avoid that one. But the cough guys are a real inspiration and some of our best couch guys I think we’ve done in the last 100 episodes.
Being that The Simpsons has proven staying power, do you feel, personally, that there is a formula for good comedic TV?
A. Jean: There’s never a formula. You’re always surprised when you go to the table and that joke you think is really funny doesn’t work. I mean that’s the sort of tightrope walking aspect of the job. And if you think there’s a formula then that’s probably when you should stop because it’s just too—then you’re not taking it seriously. I’m always really thrilled when one of the writers suggests a great new story because that’s the hardest thing for us to come up with at this point.
Of course that led me into my next question, which is what continues to be the most challenging aspect of keeping the series going so strong?
A. Jean: That’s it. Once you get the idea we have 20 great writers and you can really develop it in a way that I think is funny and emotional, but I’d be crazy if I wouldn’t say it’s harder to come up with new ideas now than 100 episodes ago. And it’s not just 500 because we often to two or three story lines in an episode so it’s really more like 1,000. I don’t even watch the other animated shows … then I would just sit here going, “It’s been done.”
What can we expect from the 5ooth episode?
A. Jean: There are a lot of little touches marking the milestone the way we like to sort of at the same time celebrate and mock something. And then there’s a really nice emotional story about the family finding out how their neighbors really feel about them and it’s not good and they have to deal with that.
THE SIMPSONS PACK THEIR BAGS AND LEAVE SPRINGFIELD
ON AN ALL-NEW “THE SIMPSONS”
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, ON FOX
Milestone 500th Episode
Grammy Award-Winning Musician Alison Krauss
Records THE SIMPSONS Theme Song
The Simpsons are evicted from Springfield and join an off-the-grid community outside of town. But when Homer and Marge try to sneak back into Springfield, they are welcomed with hostility from their former friends and neighbors and begin to appreciate their new and more accepting home in the milestone 500th episode of The Simpsons, At Long Last Leave, airing Sunday, Feb. 19 (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
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