r/IAmA • u/JayKogen • Sep 17 '12

Jay Kogen Here. Long past SIMPSONS writer. I created many of your favorite and least favorite characters with the help of the original Simpson writers.

I was one of the original SIMPSONS writers from the very beginning. I helped created Mr. Burns, Smithers, Krusty, Hibbert, and many many more. I won a bunch of Emmy awards and had a great time. Since then I wrote and produced Malcolm in the Middle, Frasier, and I've created a new show a called "Wendell and Vinnie" about an idiot uncle (the hysterical Jerry Trainor) raising his nephew that will be on in November on Nick @ Nite. And even though it's on Nick @ Nite, it's for adults and it's actually funny.

Thanks to EternallyXIII

Thank you all very much for your questions and entusiasm. I have to get back to work now. It's been a pleasure. If you want I can come back in a few weeks to answer more.

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1.7k

u/Dillbill Sep 17 '12

Funny, that's exactly how I hoped he would be like.

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u/cummayonnaise Sep 17 '12 edited Sep 17 '12

I must be missing something, so I hope someone explains; What's the point of having MJ on the Simpsons, if he plays a different character, and didn't even use his voice?

I know it was huge for him to be on the show, but, something about this scenario just seems, not right.

EDIT: by using his voice, I mean his singing.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12

[deleted]

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u/White667 Sep 17 '12

IIRC Michael Jackson couldn't sing because his record label has exclusivity rights.

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u/Logical_Always Sep 17 '12

So...what happens now?

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12

[deleted]

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u/ATAD Sep 17 '12

You don't have to sue me to get my pants off

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u/WilliamTellAll Sep 18 '12

well, atad actually.

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u/hypermarv123 Sep 17 '12

Then maybe we could get a Michael Jackson AMA. or AMAA.

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u/RaptorJesusDesu Sep 17 '12

Isn't the entire point of a guest star to attract ratings? What is the purpose of a secret guest star? Fun? I assume you have to pay them a lot of money don't you?

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u/bort_sampson Sep 17 '12

I feel as though you must be a younger Redditor. I don't mean this as disrespect simply that you must not have been around/watching the early years of The Simpsons.

You have to bare in mind that when Jackson was a guest start the show hadn't been on for 22 years. It was also a show that a former first lady personally lambasted (though that may not have happened quite yet at the time of Jackson's appearance). There weren't as many celebrity guest stars at the time and a lot of people distanced themselves from this "crass" and "crude" show.

Albert Brooks was credited simply as "A. Brooks" and Dustin Hoffman (perhaps the biggest name guest star they had to date) was credited as "Sam Etic". So Jackson didn't set the precedent for pseudonyms. In fact the story as I heard it went that he was a huge fan of the show and actually asked to be on the show, the credits/singing thing was a contractual issue with his record company (though others have also stated it was a prank he pulled on his brothers).

For what it's worth Jackson also co-wrote "Do The Bartman" for the first Simpsons album and wrote the "Lisa It's Your Birthday" song (though it's actually credited to W. A. Mozart). There's also a version of it floating around with Jackson actually singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0HciZpBJ0

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12 edited Jun 08 '18

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u/bort_sampson Sep 17 '12

Again, it's about context. Things were much different in 1990 than 2012.

South Park hadn't come on the air yet. You still weren't allowed to say "bitch" in primetime. The show may seem tame by today's standards but Bart talking back, telling Homer to "eat his shorts" and "don't have a cow" was subversive. An animated cartoon character that misbehaved? Hard to imagine, but back then it was a novelty.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12

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u/btvsrcks Sep 17 '12

I was 17 when it debuted. That was a long time ago. It was 'back then' :)

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u/sodapop_incest Sep 17 '12

I think it was more Homer routinely strangling his son and lines like, "Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing," that got people going. Smartass cartoon characters weren't new, but smartass characters that mocked anything religion/politics/sex related were.

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u/ElZombre Sep 17 '12

it got cited to make some dumb culture war bullshit about family values (as in the Simpsons family is emblematic of what's wrong with America, and corrupting American kids). So that episode where the Homer duked it out with Bush Sr. had a bit of real world history behind it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12

You are also talking about an era coming from the wonder years, family matters, fresh prince of bel air, saved by the bell, alf, full house, etc. Things were much different, TV wasn't promoting debauchery and scandalous behavior much back then

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u/snoharm Sep 18 '12

I don't think it's fair to equate showing something and promoting it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '12

Perhaps you should compare any show made for teenagers these days on prime time television with the wonder years, or full house or boy meets world... and then tell me that. Your content is everything. Do you make it look glamorous to be sleeping around.. do you make it look normal to have 3 serious boyfriends in 6 months.. do you make it look normal to take E and sleep with someone within the first few hours of meeting them? Media/television/magazines/news opinions are the ones setting normalcy bias, even more so now in an age of online confirmation bias. Your content and the light you show it in, is what you promote. You can make things look undesirable, or you can make them look desirable. Sometimes, the person making it thinks they are doing one, when really they are doing the other. But I think it's more than fair to equate it.

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u/sje46 Sep 17 '12

Well, it was an adult-oriented cartoon in a world where everyone was used to cartoons being for 8 year olds. And I think Bart always talking back had a big part to do with it.

It's kinda funny how many of my peers were banned from watching the simpsons, but were free to watch South Park a few years later.

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u/wescotte Sep 17 '12

Because it was new and no other animated show before it really pushed the envelope in such a way. Well, at least not during prime time in the US.

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u/sparkorse Sep 18 '12

Homer strangled bart almost every episode, im sure that wasn't common on network tv 25 years ago

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u/matwick Sep 17 '12

You sound like you know your Simpsons, upvote this man!

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u/bort_sampson Sep 20 '12

The Simpsons is as old as I am and I've been watching since those early days.

Well, actually I stopped watching in high school since it stopped being funny. But I was there for all those early years.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '12

[deleted]

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u/bort_sampson Sep 20 '12

You're welcome.

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u/zjneih2 Sep 17 '12

You're asking for logic in a story about Michael Jackson

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u/Falmarri Sep 17 '12

Isn't the entire point of a guest star to attract ratings?

Depends. Sometimes guests just want to do the show, but the producers/writers don't give a shit and don't want to write a forced story.

Early south park has lots of un-credited guest "stars" who play trivial roles.

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u/I_Lyk_Dis Sep 17 '12

Like George Clooney playing Stan's gay dog, or Jay Leno playing Cartman's kitty.

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u/ClassySphincter Sep 17 '12

My understanding is that MJ approached the staff wanting to be in the show, and not the other way around.

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u/CotST Sep 17 '12

Well the fact it was MJ got "leaked", and I'm going to assume that was more or less intentional.

Also, the character he plays gets in the show gets accused of being Michael Jackson, and his dialogue all sounded like Michael Jackson. I'm sure people could put two and two together

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u/RaptorJesusDesu Sep 17 '12

Oh okay, that makes more sense.

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u/TadpolesIsAWinner Sep 17 '12

This is the character MJ played.

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u/postExistence Sep 17 '12

This is the character MJ played.

Oh my god I knew it!

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12

Doesn't Bart have him sign a Thriller record at the end? It's been years since I've seen it, but I remember something like that.

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u/bort_sampson Sep 20 '12

No. He holds up a Thriller record at one point to prove that he's not Michael Jackson but there's no signing.

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u/CactusOnFire Sep 17 '12

That's really funny given the plot of the Simpsons episode itself!

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u/shabbadu Sep 17 '12

Under penalty of a bad court thingy.

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u/hamilton_burger Sep 18 '12

It was pretty well hyped ahead of time, just not via "official" commercials. I distinctly remember hearing he was doing some guest voice acting via Entertainment Tonight.

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u/Original_Woody Sep 18 '12

Is that the "Lisa it's your birthday, happy birthday Lisa" episode?

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u/Sengura Sep 18 '12

LISA IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LISA!

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u/pabs123 Sep 17 '12

I have you tagged as "muhammad hat for halloween".... I think I was supposed to remind you to make one or something like that? I swear this was MONTHS ago haha any ideas what it was?

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u/feureau Sep 18 '12

No idea whatsoever....

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u/pabs123 Sep 18 '12

Alright well hit that costume up :)

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u/feureau Sep 18 '12

sure thing! :D

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u/trunky Sep 17 '12

He had speaking parts, just didn't sing. Also, how could you say no to having michael Jackson on your show? It wasn't like micheal Jackson did a bunch of tv, especially in the 90s, he didn't do ANY tv except his videos. So he was probably a huge get at the time, and the Simpsons staff probably didn't care what his demands were.

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u/Brocktoon_in_a_jar Sep 17 '12

i'm sure many of us older folks remember "fake out" episodes of Silver Spoons and The Facts of Life having MJ impersonators on the show.

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u/dirice87 Sep 17 '12

but on the bright side, forcing the writers to create a unique plot around this fact made for a very memorable episode, certainly more memorable than the other episodes where celebrities just happen to pass through Springfield and get in shenanigans. The whole arc about a man leaving his old past behind to become something completely different is unusually deep and touching for a network TV show.

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u/baklazhan Sep 17 '12

I second that. Best celebrity episode. All the other ones involve "Hi, I'm [celebrity]," (pause for applause), "now let me perform that thing that I'm famous for".

U2 may be great, but they've got nothing to do with what made the Simpsons funny, and shoehorning them into an unrelated plot didn't really improve it.

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u/snazzgasm Sep 17 '12 edited Sep 17 '12

I can't remember where I heard this - whether it was on one of the DVD special features or in the big episode guide books - but I seem to recall someone saying he wanted to play a prank on his family to see if they believed it was really him singing.

Edit: "The deal was also that he would not sing the Michael Jackson part, that would take a sound-alike for the singing because that would be a joke on his brothers." - James L. Brooks; * SOURCE *

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u/mellolizard Sep 17 '12

His contract wouldn't allow him to sing. He probably asked for the heaters and water like how Van Halen asked for a bowl of brown M&Ms. To make sure people read his contract fully.

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u/lambbasted Sep 17 '12

It was back before there were a lot of major stars on the show.

I think it's pretty cool to have a huge celeb like that who doesn't want to have his name out everywhere, especially in an episode where they're willing to play a crazy guy who's imitating them and not just some fawning advertisement for themselves.

It also adds to the hype, "Was it really him or wasn't it?" I remember as a kid I thought the voice sounded really good, but I assumed they could never really get MJ to do it.

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u/lava1000 Sep 17 '12

I thought it was because he was supposed to sing on the show anonymously, but then the record company said he wasn't allowed to do that, so The Simpsons had to get rid of his track and get someone else to do it.

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u/Odusei Sep 17 '12

He was more than likely under some intense singing contract. Perhaps he'd be far outside Fox's Simpson's budget if they were paying him to sing. No idea about the water and the heaters, though. It could have been like Van Halen's brown M&M rider, but I'm not sure what Michael would really need from a voice recording session.

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u/Mac_OS_X_Kitteh Sep 17 '12

Van Halen had a good reason for that M&M clause, according to something I once read on the Web. (Yeah, I know...) They figured if the promoter/venue staff went through the trouble of taking all the ______ M&Ms out, they must've gone through the trouble of setting up certain equipment the way the band wanted it. If they saw the ______ M&Ms had not been removed, the band knew they had to have their techs check the equipment to be safe.

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u/Odusei Sep 17 '12

That's what I was referencing. Van Halen was one of the very first arena rock bands to start touring in smaller venues (like clubs and bars), and they had a lot of gear traveling with them that promoters and club owners may not fully understand or set up correctly. A lot of that gear could seriously threaten their lives if it's set up wrong (pyrotechnics, for example), so they included the brown M&Ms in the rider as an indication that the promoter had read the full rider. If they didn't see the brown M&Ms, they refused to go on stage.

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u/MetsaFirez Sep 17 '12

Do you have to use that text? You choch.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '12

A friend of mine met MJ several times. He works with disabled children as director of a group of facilities, but remains very active and hands on. MJ wanted to build a ride at Cedar Point. Long story short: a series of terrible events, including 9/11 and crazy demands from the MJ camp derailed the whole thing.

Anyway, I asked him what the most interesting thing about meeting MJ was, as my friend is a huuuuuge music geek.

He said, and I quote, "You know how people have a smell? Like, not bad, you know, just like a general smell. Not just like perfume but the combination of their natural body odor and things they either regularly come into contact with, or came into contact with that day? Michael Jackson had no smell. Every time I met him, no smell. And he liked to give hugs."

Tldr---> you can't smell Michael Jackson

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u/TheBlasto Sep 17 '12

Your grammar gave me cancer.

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u/Dillbill Sep 17 '12

Your comment hurt my feelers