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AVC: What was the holdup to getting a Simpsons movie made?
MG: The TV show is something we work on year-round, so we don't have a staff of animators and writers and producers sitting around waiting for us to say "Go." We're always working on the TV show, and it didn't seem that it was worth doing a movie unless we had a great story and could do something that justified people pulling a $10 bill out of their wallet. We also wanted to wait until it cost $10 to go to the movies. [Laughs.]
AVC: You've been talking about a Simpsons movie possibly being in the works at least since 1996.
MG: We make a lot of jokes. One writer joked that the movie was gonna be about Bart losing his virginity, and that made headlines internationally. And it was a joke. It's actually gonna be about Milhouse losing his virginity.
AVC: Which Simpsons characters are your favorites?
MG: Some characters always make me laugh. I love Apu, I love Principal Skinner's mother, Ralph Wiggum of course, everyone's favorite. I like the squeaky-voiced teen, 'cause he seems to be working wherever Homer needs to order a milkshake or buy a movie ticket.
AVC: You've said that your adult career has been based on living out your childhood fantasies. Are there any that you haven't lived out yet?
MG: I look at where I am in my career and try to think, given this as my foundation, "What else can I do that's fun and will make an audience laugh?" I've got a few ideas under my belt, but now I've got some homework to do, to continue the childhood metaphor. With the Simpsons movie, Simpsons TV show, my weekly comic strip, and four Futurama DVDs, I know what I'm gonna be thinking about for the next two or three years.
I have to say that The Simpsons comes from a huge number of great writers headed by Al Jean, the show-runner, and the work that they do is really fantastic. It's a blast just to sit around with them in the writers' room and listen to all the filthy jokes that will never get on the air.
AVC: What's been the most satisfying aspect of The Simpsons' success?
MG: For a while, it used to make me really happy that the show offended people and they got outraged. It always felt to me like we were Daffy Duck and there was a world of Elmer Fudds out there. But now even the Elmer Fudds have realized that you can't mess with us, and so they pretend to like it, and I know they really don't.
AVC: From the beginning, the show has dealt with faith more openly and extensively than anything else on television. Was that by design?
MG: We had the ability to do it, and because it's a cartoon, we can show all aspects of religiosity. It's not just the family saying grace, which would be dreadful in isolation, but we also show eternal hellfire, the Devil, and even God, who is a 12-foot-high guy in a long white robe with five fingers and a big white beard. So that's fun. We haven't shown God's face, except once in a "Treehouse of Horror" episode when Kang and Kodos used an accela-ray on a boring baseball game and ended up collapsing the universe. Generally, you don't see his face, but I always thought that we should show God's head with a long, white beard, with his face blurred out because of internal illumination, but the top of his head would have Homer's two little hairs.
AVC: On Futurama, Robot Devil has appeared a number of times. Is there a Robot God to go along with him?
MG: That's one of the things we're probably going to explore in one of the Futurama movies. In one of our best episodes, we had a conversation between Bender and what apparently was God, and I think we're going to explore what was really going on in that conversation.
AVC: Is Homer ever going to seek treatment for his alcoholism?
MG: Sounds like a real laugh riot. I'll get right on that. It's possible. I mean, he chopped his thumb off in one episode, so I suppose Homer in recovery would be hilarious.
AVC: How did Ricky Gervais end up writing an episode?
MG: We asked him. We were huge fans of The Office, and he and Stephen Merchant came over here, and we asked him to do a script, and he said yes.
AVC: Other than The Office, what makes you laugh?
MG: I'm very sad that Don Knotts just died. He's the greatest comic actor on television, ever. I like a lot of British comedy. There's a British show that just finished up its second season, called Look Around You, which is a send-up of science thrillers, which I like a lot. On a regular basis, I watch The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Countdown W/ Keith Olbermann, which may be the funniest show of all. It's similar to The Daily Show, except there's no braying audience.
AVC: The most prolific Simpsons writer is John Swartzwelder. How is he able to be so prolific, and why doesn't he do audio commentaries?
MG: We begged him to do audio commentaries, we've even said "We'll bring a microphone to you," and he refuses. He's very stubborn. There's nobody like him. He's got a lot of eccentric political opinions.
AVC: He's a libertarian, isn't he?
MG: He'd probably disagree with that. [Laughs.] But yeah, that's sort of the area. Ornery, I would say, is his political area. He's one of the funniest writers ever. Let me take this opportunity to applaud his novels. You can buy his novels online, through Amazon and through his own website. One's a tough-guy detective novel, and the other's a Western.
AVC: Would it be fair to say that you view the business aspect of show business as something of a necessary evil?
MG: The behind-the-scenes shenanigans have nothing to do with doing good work. If anything, it's just a distraction. So you just have to keep in mind that the important relationship is the relationship with the audience. That's what I try to do. Everything else is secondary.
AVC: There have reportedly been ideas for spin-offs shows featuring Troy McClure or Krusty the Clown. What happened with those?
MG: I know Phil Hartman said he wanted to do something with Troy McClure, and I thought that was a great idea. And I love Dan Castellaneta. I think he's the Don Knotts of the 21st century. [Laughs.] He does the voices of Homer, Grandpa, Krusty, Mayor Quimby, the squeaky-voiced teen, and on and on, and I just thought the idea of a live-action Krusty the Clown show would be something Dan could go completely crazy with. And halfway through the pitch, Fox said, "Can it be a cartoon?" So okay, we'll make it a cartoon. And it just got bogged down in the kinds of mysterious machinations that often happen in Hollywood. Maybe someday we'll do it. I don't know.
AVC: How much is Krusty based on Jerry Lewis?
MG: All of these characters are collaborations between the writers, animators, and actors. In my original conception of the character, the idea was that he was a clown from back when I was growing up. Specifically, I was inspired by a clown in Portland, Oregon, named Rusty Nails, a clown whose personality was nothing like Krusty's. He was actually a very sweet, good-natured clown. [Laughs.] With an incredibly frightening name. And Dan took Krusty to new areas. I didn't realize the clown was Jewish until Jay Kogen and Wally Wolodarsky, two of the original Simpsons writers, pointed out that he was.
AVC: It sounds like a happy accident.
MG: Like I said, the show is a huge shared vision, and a lot of people have done a lot of great things on the show. Listen to the DVD commentaries, and you'll get a vague idea of who did what. [Laughs.] It's been so long that sometimes we don't remember.
AVC: It seems like you guys really enjoy watching the episodes again.
MG: Yeah, it's very easy to get caught up in shows that you haven't watched for a decade. I don't sit around at home and watch the shows in reruns, except occasionally, just to try to remind myself of what happens next, 'cause often, I've completely forgotten an episode, which is really fun. At the end of this season, we'll have done 385 episodes, and we're gonna reach 400 by the middle of the following season.
AVC: You've said that a major brewery wanted Akbar and Jeff to endorse their product. What did they think having them as spokesmen would accomplish?
MG: They were going to ride the beer-company party train to wherever Spring Break is held in Florida. It used to be Ft. Lauderdale. You ride the beer-company party train and the beer-company yacht, and they were going to have Akbar and Jeff tattoos. [Laughs.] I had a rule years ago that I made for myself: the Life In Hell rabbits wouldn't endorse anything, but Akbar and Jeff would endorse absolutely anything. We got a little ways into the negotiation, and then an article in Rolling Stone came out and said that Akbar and Jeff were gay midgets. That ended it, even though I tried to point out that all fraternities are gay, that's why they're fraternities.
AVC: They're also incestuous midgets, aren't they?
MG: They could be, yes. They're not midgets. They're just a little short.
AVC: Can you see yourself ending The Simpsons any time soon?
MG: I honestly don't see any end in sight. I think it's possible that the show will get too financially cumbersome, and there will be enough in the can that we'll say, "Okay, let's call it a day," but right now, the show is creatively, I think, as good or better than it's ever been. The animation is incredibly detailed and imaginative, the stories do things that we haven't done before, so creatively there's no reason to quit.
AVC: In one interview, you said you're happy with The Simpsons overall, but you're never entirely pleased with any specific episode. Do you still feel that way?
MG: We're working very fast, under tight budgets, so there are always things that any artist wants to tweak. I look at it that way, but then when I just listen to people laughing at the show, I go, "Okay, I guess it's good enough."
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