The Simpsons has been on the air for 20 years!
This Sunday marks the landmark 450th episode of The Simpsons on FOX. Besides the hilarious episode, “Once Upon A Time In Springfield,” Krusty the Clown finds some onstage and behind-the-scenes fun with Princess Penelope (voiced by Anne Hathaway). After that episode, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock hosts a look back at the social impact of The Simpsons over the last two decades. Spurlock participated in a press conference chat just before the holidays and gave me some insight into not only making the documentary but also on The Simpsons cultural impact.
Spurlock with the Simpsons family at last summer's TCA tour
Jim Halterman: With everything you’ve done in your past, whether it’s 30 Days or Super Size Me and all that, what did you bring from doing that when you did the Simpsons special? Was there a lot that you brought because you’re looking at an animated series now.
Morgan Spurlock: Yes, I think the biggest thing that we did is I brought a lot of the people, the big thing that we brought over were the same people that I’ve worked with for years, like our same VP, Dana Maraschino who shot Freakonomics and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? with us, … Goodman who cut Freakonomics that we just finished, my producing partner, Jeremy Chilnick. For me, it was like just having the same group of people that I was around kind of helped us look at this through a different filter of figuring out how would we cover this, how would we go about this. The folks at Fox and at Gracie Films were really adamant about wanting me to go on this journey because at first I was, like, well, don’t want this show. I didn’t want to be in the special at all, and they said, listen, we want you to kind of tell the story through your eyes. What does this show mean? Then we just said, well, how do we go about that? We just started to put together some ideas of who do we speak to, where do we travel to, and I think having the team that I’ve worked with in the past was really helpful for me.
Krusty the Clown becomes involved with Princess Penelope (Anne Hathaway)
JH: Great, and what did you learn through the process of doing this whole project?
MS: I think that it’s just you realize what an impact the Simpsons has had on everything, what an impact it’s had on popular culture, what an impact it’s had on kids. The show is literally a show that has become multigenerational now. We met families who parents who watched it with their kids are now, those parents are now parents watching it with their kids. Now it’s this show that literally has transcended generations and is impacting a whole new group of people. Literally, I used to come home from school and watch the Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s Island. Now kids get to come home from school and watch the Simpsons. Hopefully, we’re breeding this incredibly smart and smart aleck group of kids out there right now that I think are benefitting from getting to grow up with that.
Some of Spurlock’s answers to other questions posed by journalists…
On interviewing some of the biggest critics of The Simpsons…
MS: We went to talk to the folks at the Catholic League who have been very vocal in some of the problems they’ve had with the show over the years, and we spoke to Bill Donohue who has spoken out multiple times about the Simpsons and about the way that Catholics and Catholicism is represented in the show, and it was good. I think that one of the things that people forget about the Simpsons is that over the years, and especially in the beginning, it was seen as an incredibly controversial show. Today there are shows that really push the envelope even more than they do from Family Guy to South Park, but it’s a show that I think really made people laugh and made people think from the beginning.
On why Spurlock was the one chosen to produce and host this look back at the series…
MS: I think I was picked because maybe everybody else was busy. I was kind of the one that was left over. When Al Jean and everybody called me up, they wanted to make a documentary that kind of looked at the series, but did it in a way that was a little different than kind of a pat you on the back kind of show, and they kind of wanted to know what my take would be in terms of looking at the show through my eyes, which I thought was a cool and fun thing to get to do.
I don’t know. With Matt Groening I think both he and I look at the world with a tremendous amount of cynicism. I think that we question a lot of things that are out there. I think that that’s why I was so attracted to … from the beginning is that it’s a show that has a very sarcastic look at the world, but at the same time, distrusts a lot of the things that we’re told or that we’re taught we should believe. I think that we’re kindred spirits possibly in that same way.
On some of the celebs in the special and other surprises…
MS: Well, there are so many surprising things. Folks that are in the special, they’re from John Waters to Sting to Moby, Norah Jones, Jerry Springer. Who better to talk about a dysfunctional family than Jerry Springer? We really covered the gamut and talked to a lot of different people that we thought could cover different topics that the show had talked about over the years.
For me, I think one of the most surprising things about the show is literally how beloved the show is outside of America. As huge a hit the show is in the United States, literally, this is a show that you travel anywhere in the world and turn on a television. At some point during the day on Earth, the Simpsons is playing, and I think that’s the thing that I was really blown away by. It’s not just a cultural phenomenon in America, but it is this global phenomenon that has just really transcended our borders. It’s become everybody’s family. It’s become something that I think everyone in the world can relate to and find some piece of themselves or their own existence in.
The Simpsons 20th Anniversary special (and the 450th episode) begins at 8/7c on Fox on Sunday, January 10th.
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Jim Halterman is a freelance writer who spends his days interviewing the top tier of talent and creative forces in the entertainment world and then, because he's that kind of guy, he brings it all to YOU! And, because we all like free stuff, check back on Fridays for the best giveaways!! (Photo: Interviewing actor Ray Ford - from DONT TRUST THE B**** IN APARTMENT 23 - at The Abbey, West Hollywood, 4/2012)
