Interview: Mike Reiss Of The Simpsons On Bleeding Gums Murphy, The Golden Age, And Tales From Iran
“We have to think of a great idea for an episode that isn’t any of the first 2,000 ideas we thought of in 32 years.”
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“Certainly, nobody loves hearing it at the show,” Mike Reiss, writer and producer for The Simpsons, tells me after I ask if he subscribes to the idea of the Golden Age. “Because if you weren’t there in the Golden Age, you go ‘Oh so I’m here in the Crap Age.’ It’s funny, the show’s early years are very well loved, but then when you press people, they go ‘well, not the first year. And the second year is kind of shaky, too’. And then we hit our stride partly because in the first couple of years we were just figuring out how to make the show. Nobody had made a show like The Simpsons, a weekly animated show, in 30 years and all the people who knew how to do it had died. We literally went looking for these people, and they were all dead. So we were kind of making it up as we went along.
“But by season three, we knew how to make the show. You know, 2,000 story ideas have already been used up, and I pick that number because we’ve done 700 episodes and every episode has three storylines. So we have to think of a great idea for an episode that isn’t any of the first 2,000 we thought of in 32 years. They used to just say ‘Simpsons started to suck in season seven or season eight’ and then year by year we put The Simpsons out on DVD season by season, and that’s where the fans would sit down and watch the season again. So there’s been this reappraisal when people look back at the show. The end of the Golden Age, I think, used to be season six. Then it was season eight, and now it’s up to at least season 14, which just means eight years of the show that people used to say suck, now they say are the Golden Age. And I think that’ll keep happening.”
Wherever the Golden Age begins, Reiss was there. An original staff writer on the show who still serves as a producer to this day, Reiss has seen it all. He describes The Simpsons as “a big hole to shovel jokes into,” and more than 30 years after he started, he’s still shovelling. Reiss was behind There’s No Disgrace Like Home, the fourth episode to air and one of the first to be penned. It was co-written by Reiss and current showrunner Al Jean, who was Reiss’ long time writing partner both on The Simpsons and other shows like The Critic. As Reiss explains in his typical, self-deprecating Simpsons wit, the reason he and Jean were so successful is simple – he gets lonely, and duos are cheaper.
“When you write with a partner, which I did for 16 years, you were in all respects just treated as one person,” Reiss says. “So you get paid as one person, you share one office, when I would walk into the room, they’d say, ‘Oh, Mike and Al are here’, even though it was just me. So when you work in a team, you think of yourself as one person, you function as one unit. And shows like to hire teams because they’re getting two for the price of one. It’s just a different way to work. I did it for years. I liked it that way, because I wasn’t alone in the room. The lonely life of a writer just wasn’t for me, so I like having Al around. There’s this myth that you want a writer, a partner, who complements you and does the things you can’t. But Al and I, we think 90% exactly the same. And it was just like having another version of me in the room. And if I couldn’t think of it, maybe he could. So it was not only a very long partnership, but it was extremely harmonious and we never fought.”
One of the defining characteristics of Reiss & Jean’s back catalogue on The Simpsons is the heart underneath the story. As well as There’s No Disgrace Like Home, the pair wrote Moaning Lisa, Lisa’s Pony, The Way We Was, and ‘Round Springfield – all remembered as some of the most emotional narratives in Springfield history. Again, keen to deflect any suggestion that he might just have been good at his job, Reiss insists he and Jean got those episodes by luck, and certainly not by choice. “I really wish I could take more credit for it,” Reiss tells me. “Just to go back where you’re mentioning all these episodes we did that were heartfelt – I think almost none of them were generated by Al and me. They were assignments. Especially Moaning Lisa, it was a very key episode in the history of the show, but we didn’t want to write it at all. And it was sort of a joke around the office ‘Oh, here’s the guys that got stuck writing the episode where Lisa’s sad.’ It was James Brooks [one of the show’s original producers] who wanted to do an episode, and he said ‘here’s the pitch: Lisa is sad!’ and we go ‘well, there’s a good use of the animated medium!’”
It was through Reiss & Jean’s scripts for Moaning Lisa and ‘Round Springfield that the iconic character of Bleeding Gums Murphy established himself as a Springfield legend, and Reiss confirmed that Bleeding Gums will be back in Season 33 for a flashback episode. Obviously, it needed to be a flashback, given that the character has died – although when that happened, nobody was more surprised than Bleeding Gums’ voice actor, Ron Taylor. “There was a funny story, I forgot all about this,” Reiss says. “The actor playing Bleeding Gums Murphy lived in Colorado, and he had to fly himself in to record the show. And so Al and I came up with the episode where Bleeding Gums dies. We’re sitting there at the table read and we get to the part of the script where Lisa comes to the hospital room and it’s empty. And they say, ‘Bleeding Gums has passed away…’ and the actor goes, ‘I died?!’ and it was clear he hadn’t looked at the script, he flew all the way from Colorado and hadn’t read it. He was as shocked as anyone watching the episode was, he knew the sweet gig he had was over.”
Travel is a common theme in The Simpsons, but it’s usually to destinations further afield than a flight from Colorado to LA, and that’s something the show and Reiss share. Reiss has visited 134 countries in his life, while The Simpsons have been to almost as many. However, much to his frustration, he hasn’t been able to put that experience to good use. “In fact, I almost never get to use my personal knowledge of a country when we do an episode about it,” Reiss tells me. “I think we have to focus on the big touristy things that everybody knows. After 32 years, it’s getting hard. They’re running out of places to go. We did an episode, I think, second season, where Homer is on a plane for the first time and he’s just doing all the things an idiot would do on a plane. And now they’ve been to every continent. We’re running out of fun countries to send them to.”
One place Reiss is able to put that experience to good use though is his new podcast, What Am I Doing Here?, where he talks about his experiences travelling. Just don’t expect this to be your typical travel podcast. “I don’t care about informing anyone.” he says. “If you’ve learned something from my podcast, I’ve failed utterly. It’s just funny, true stories. So if I go somewhere, and have a great time, I come home sad. I didn’t get a podcast out of that one.”
Reiss recalls having a great time in Portugal, but all he took from it was that Portugal has a lot of cork. “That’s not really an episode,” he admits, so don’t expect to learn about Portuguese cork from Reiss anytime soon. That’s not to say it’s all complaining though. “I don’t want people to think it’s all just me bitching. It’s all surprising. And so there’s a bit of me complaining about places I’m supposed to love, and then there’s a lot of me loving places I’m supposed to hate. There’s quite a few episodes about me, this Jewish guy, travelling all over the Muslim world and there’s no better place in the world I’ve visited than Iran, and nobody would think that. But it’s just a beautiful country. I went there for three weeks, and I always want to go back there.”
Part of the reason Reiss seems to get along so well in places you might not expect a tourist to go is because he doesn’t think of himself as much of a tourist – he’s just there to meet people. “My wife is just this sponge for history and loves the dates and the dynasties and all that stuff that I couldn’t be less interested in,” Reiss laughs. “But I love people, and I love meeting people. It gives you just such a nice feeling about the world and humanity in general. We went to Iran, and this was really at the height of tensions. I mean, it’s always the height of tensions with Iran, but this was a particularly bad period… When there’s tension between countries, that’s just politicians fighting with politicians, and generally, people like people. The Iranian people love America, they absolutely love it, everybody there has a cousin who came to America and made good. They love our TV, and they love our movies. And they love The Simpsons, everywhere I go – that’s always a nice entree.”
You can listen to What Am I Doing Here? with Mike Reiss on the Bleav Podcast Network each week.
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Stacey Henley is the Editor-in-Chief at TheGamer, and can often be found journeying to the edge of the Earth, but only in video games. Find her on Twitter @FiveTacey
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