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John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons”

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Re: John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons”

#51

Post by codyb »

cogman10 wrote: post #31
hardwaregeek wrote: post #27

I've been debating with my friends about the Simpsons vs Family Guy/South Park. And while Family Guy/South Park definitely have their merits, the Simpsons is just in a different league. There's a great roundtable^[1] of Simpsons writers hosted by Conan O'Brien (who also was a writer). They talk about how with the Simpsons, no matter what, the family fundamentally cares about each other. Whereas with more modern anima…

The golden era simpsons is some of the best comedy ever written. Sometime after season 10 or 11, quality dropped. I'd argue that golden era simpsons is definitely in a different league than southpark/family guy. However, after the golden era they are pretty comparable with, frankly, the simpsons being on the lower end of humor.

The newer seasons, while not as good as the golden era, are fairly decent in my opinion. I stilly try to catch a new episode when it comes on on Sundays and they seem to have picked up some steam. The newer episodes feature all sorts of characters as the main plot runners.

Re: John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons”

#52

Post by spacemansam »

flobosg wrote: post #28
hardwaregeek wrote: post #27

I've been debating with my friends about the Simpsons vs Family Guy/South Park. And while Family Guy/South Park definitely have their merits, the Simpsons is just in a different league. There's a great roundtable^[1] of Simpsons writers hosted by Conan O'Brien (who also was a writer). They talk about how with the Simpsons, no matter what, the family fundamentally cares about each other. Whereas with more modern anima…

> no matter what, the family fundamentally cares about each other (...) Bob's Burgers is probably one of the few shows that actively bucks this trend. King Of The Hill comes to mind as well.

For some reason, KOTH never caught my eye when it was on regularly. Saw it again a few years ago and loved it.

Re: John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons”

#54

Post by 12ian34 »

Simpsons-specific content starts around 50% into the interview. My favourite snippet:

>Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way.

That's a good reminder that can be applied across domains. even perhaps engineering.

Re: John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons”

#55

Post by djitz »

legitster wrote: post #36
tootie wrote: post #13

There's so many jokes in vintage Simpsons episodes that I can't understand how they were even written. They can't have made sense on paper. The writing was amazing but so was the cast and the writers had to have so much faith that putting a stage direction Homer shrugs and grunts would be devastating at the right moment. It can't be understated how big an impact they had. Every show, even non-comedy, has borrowed inf…

My favorite is Mr. Burns answering the phone "ahoy-hoy". It's funny on so many levels, and it requires an amazingly esoteric bit of knowledge in a time before it was easy to find that kind of stuff on the internet.

I answered the phone by saying ahoy-hoy for years as a kid. I loved Mr. Burns’ random antiquated phrases

Re: John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons”

#56

Post by flatiron »

cbsks wrote: post #53
flatiron wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just me or archive is unusable on mobile now due to the capcha being off screen?

I was able to view the captcha by rotating my phone into landscape mode

You are living in the year 3000
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