Important writer on The Simpsons gives a rare interview: “It was more fun when there wasn’t a culture of cancellation yet” | TV

During his tenure at Fox, Swartzwelder co-wrote 59 episodes: the largest number any writer has ever worked on the series. His awards include “Homer at the Bat” and “Itchy & Scratchy & Marge”: episodes close to the hearts of fans. “In 1980 I had the opportunity to meet Matt Groening, the creator of“ The Simpsons. ”But I actually wrote three full episodes before they actually paid me. At that time they didn’t have enough budget to pay their writers full time,” Schwartzwelder recalls. “However … it was more fun at the time. Because after that we were allowed to do everything. We didn’t have to discuss anything in advance with the heads of the show. They didn’t have time to look at our fingers anyway. So we just fired what we felt. with it “.

According to John, there wasn’t even a specific target audience. We wrote to ourselves. So our target audience was actually “comic book”. Thankfully, many adults and even children found the same hilarious things that we found funny. This is how The Simpsons went down in history. ”

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When the cat is away, the mice dance. And apparently quite literally, because the lack of a good control system led to the legendary “Itchy & Scratchy Show”: the extremely bloody animation program about a cat and mouse killing each other’s lives over and over in terrifying creative ways. The program that two characters, Bart and Lisa, prefer to watch. “That’s really through one opening I got the show, “Swartzwelder smiles.” We should never have included such bits in the program without some kind of filtering. We even knew at that time that the palace was watching. We found that for some reason our bosses were just fine with a TV show on our TV show. If we showed it to Bart and Lisa first, and then to our viewers, then it was allowed. Because by showing the reactions of their parents – Homer and Marge – we indicated that we know those gory films were so wrong. You say, “Look how wrong this is.” “Look, there are more bad things here!” That makes the difference between people laughing at something and people knocking on the studio with lamps and pitchfork. ”

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He realizes: “If we had tried that day, that would not have been true.” It is true that “The Simpsons” is coming under more criticism these days. Recently they were shot because of An episode on Morrissey. Indian character Apu has been removed from the series due to racism. “I’ve lived the golden years of the show, even before it happened Culture abolition And everyone wanted to get you out of the tube for the slightest mistake. ”He also looks back at his career with relief.“ I would like to have an estimate for the complementarity of certain terms, such as “meh”. I used that for my “The Simpsons” jokes and now everyone is saying it! “

Moreover, he says he knows Homer Simpson’s secret. “I wrote about him like he was a dog. His character is based on that. In one minute he is the saddest man in the world, because he lost his job, dropped a sandwich, or accidentally killed his family,” he laughs. “But in the next moment he is the happiest man on earth, because he found a penny, for example – maybe even under the corpses of his deceased family. He forgot his misery so quickly. He’s not really a dog, he’s smarter than that. A little bit anyway. But. He has a attention span of a Labrador. And when it comes to comedy, you can’t do anything wrong. ”

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