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'The Simpsons' turns 18. Don't have a cow, man Thursday, September 07, 2006 "The Simpsons"(Sunday at 8 p.m. on Channel 5) Lisa befriends the son of mob boss Fat Tony in the 18th season premiere, with guest performances by Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Imperioli and Metallica.
SO I'M sitting with Al Jean, longtime "Simpsons" showrunner and a writer on the show dating back almost to the beginning, listening to him describe some of the plots for the new season.
"All due respect," I say, after listening to him describe episodes where Homer joins the military and Bart gets a driver's license, "but at least half of those sound like plots you've done before, if not more than once."
"We've done every plot in the history of plots," Jean admits, "so everything we've done before is similar to something we're doing now."
This is the 18th season for "The Simpsons." In a business where most shows don't last 18 weeks, that is a ridiculous tenure, one that will see the show airing its 400th episode next May, followed by the long-rumored "Simpsons" feature film, being written by Jean, Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and eight other veterans. So Jean rightfully feels he needs some slack when it comes to storytelling deja vu.
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"We have a policy on not repeating jokes, either lines or scenes," he says, "but we do have plots that are similar to older plots, because there's no way around it. When you've done 400 and each show is two or three storylines, you have to be a little lenient or else you'd never get a show out."
Sunday's season premiere, for instance, has Springfield mob boss Fat Tony (Joe Mantegna) getting into a mob war, complete with guest voices by Joe Pantoliano and Michael Imperioli and hints of A3's theme to "The Sopranos" -- a song that played over a "Sopranos" opening title spoof in the 13th season finale -- but there are also hints of sweetness as Lisa befriends Fat Tony's son Michael (what else would he be named?), who wants to be a chef instead of a capo.
(Nelson, terrified to realize he's been bullying Fat Tony's kid, starts loudly insisting, "There is no Mafia! Columbus Day is better than Christmas!," while Lisa befriends Michael by showing him a newspaper story about her own dad, with the banner headline "Local Man Thinks Wrestling Is Real.")
"The biggest challenge at this point, honestly, is thinking of new ideas," says Jean. "We have a great staff, but it's hard to get an original concept. Once you do, the rest is easier. It's been a challenge doing the movie simultaneously with the show. And there's a little bit of difficulty that you have, and the movie has helped, getting people to watch new episodes, because you compete with yourself. You put 'The Simpsons' on TiVo, and you get 40 episodes filling up in about two minutes. It's always my goal to remind people that it's on 8 o'clock Sundays with new episodes."
Jean has run the show on and off for nearly 15 years, and he's well aware of how difficult it is to live up to his own work. When I mention, half-kidding, that good as the new episodes may be, they'll never live up to season four, he says, "Well, I ran season four, so I can't lose. I ran half of them.
"I have often felt that people are nostalgic for certain eras of the show because it corresponds to certain things in their life that they're nostalgic for."
Nah, season four was just better.)
All involved with the movie have been sworn to secrecy about it, though Groening did screen a pair of extremely rough animatic clips at the San Diego Comic Con in July, video of which keeps popping up on YouTube faster than Fox's lawyers can get it taken down.
But while running the TV show as well as the movie, Jean not only has to avoid duplicating jokes from 17 previous seasons, but any that might pop up in the film.
"There have been a couple of instances where something was similar, and I said we couldn't do it in the show, but the plot of the movie is something completely different. There have been surprisingly few overlaps. The writing staff has attended a (script) read of the movie, but before that, we would have moments where I would say, 'We can't use that,' and they would say, 'Why? That's funny,' and I would have to say, 'There's a reason, a mysterious reason not to include it on the show.'"
Jean was an "X-Files" fan and remembers being disappointed with the "X-Files" movie -- which, like "The Simpsons" feature, was produced simultaneously with the show.
"I saw that movie, and it was frustrating, because it didn't give answers to anything. Fortunately, our movie is not intended to give any answers to anything or explain any mysteries."
Not that there are many mysteries left to solve about Springfield. Season 11's "Behind the Laughter" revealed the town itself is in Kentucky -- though, to be fair, later reruns of the episode changed it to Idaho, Missouri and several other states, a constant shuffle that Jean says was "purposely designed to irritate the fans."
Also designed to irritate the fans? Comic Book Guy revealing in season 16 that his real name is the thoroughly average Jeff Albertson.
"That was specifically done to make people really mad. We just tried to pick a generic name. It was also the Super Bowl show, so we did it so the most people possible would see it. People on the Internet are going, 'Why did they name him? Comic Book Guy was so much cooler!'"
Later in our conversation, Jean even admits they brought Dr. Marvin Monroe back from the dead "just to" -- you guessed it -- "annoy people," which prompts me to ask exactly what percentage of jokes (outside of season nine's "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show," 22 minutes of heckling the most obsessed fans) are designed to anger the audience.
"Only a few every now and then. Mostly we intend to please, not annoy."
Clearly, most fans are still pleased. While the odds on catching up to the 635 episodes produced by "Gunsmoke" in its 20 seasons are slim, that has more to do with the different era's production schedules ("Gunsmoke" was producing 39 episodes a season for a while), "The Simpson" has a good chance of passing it in number of years in primetime.
"I think I'm going to be dead and buried before 'The Simpsons' ever gets removed from our air," Fox president Peter Liguori said recently.
"I was hoping it would last five years when we started," says Jean, "and here we are in season 18. I know the cast is signed for at least another year after the one is being broadcast. Matt (Groening) said he thought we were nearer the end than the beginning, but that was season 13, so we could make it to at least 25 seasons. I'll milk this cash cow as long as there's blood in my veins."