[HN Gopher] John Swartzwelder, Sage of "The Simpsons"
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John Swartzwelder, Sage of "The Simpsons"
Author : mooreds
Score : 139 points
Date : 2021-05-02 16:28 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| DiNovi wrote:
| Anyone read his self published novels?
| ovulator wrote:
| I've read most of them. Some of the stuff is just gut bustingly
| funny. But it isn't grounded by anything, it comes close to
| just being a stream of nonsense. They basically come off as
| ideas for novels, or television shows, with no polish.
| slickdork wrote:
| It's best to read this interview in Ron Swanson's voice.
|
| It was often speculated that Swartzwelder was the inspiration for
| Swanson in Parks and Rec, but Michael Schur denied it. Though,
| Greg Daniels was the one who worked with Swartzelder while at The
| Simpsons, so I don't know if Schur's denial holds water
| considering it would have been Daniels' who intended it.
|
| They do look and sound strikingly similar.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I've been debating with my friends about the Simpsons vs Family
| Guy/South Park. And while Family Guy/South Park definitely have
| their merits, the Simpsons is just in a different league. There's
| a great roundtable^[1] of Simpsons writers hosted by Conan
| O'Brien (who also was a writer). They talk about how with the
| Simpsons, no matter what, the family fundamentally cares about
| each other. Whereas with more modern animation and comedy as a
| whole, there's this extremely misanthropic feel. Bob's Burgers is
| probably one of the few shows that actively bucks this trend.
|
| Of course The Simpsons is also just really funny. Family
| Guy/South Park are too, although I find that Family Guy resorts
| to shock humor far too much and South Park often repeats the same
| joke for the entire episode ad nauseum.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtJ28qOEG1g
| flobosg wrote:
| > no matter what, the family fundamentally cares about each
| other (...) Bob's Burgers is probably one of the few shows that
| actively bucks this trend.
|
| King Of The Hill comes to mind as well.
| spacemansam wrote:
| For some reason, KOTH never caught my eye when it was on
| regularly. Saw it again a few years ago and loved it.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The golden era simpsons is some of the best comedy ever
| written. Sometime after season 10 or 11, quality dropped. I'd
| argue that golden era simpsons is definitely in a different
| league than southpark/family guy. However, after the golden era
| they are pretty comparable with, frankly, the simpsons being on
| the lower end of humor.
| codyb wrote:
| The newer seasons, while not as good as the golden era, are
| fairly decent in my opinion. I stilly try to catch a new
| episode when it comes on on Sundays and they seem to have
| picked up some steam. The newer episodes feature all sorts of
| characters as the main plot runners.
| [deleted]
| morebortplates wrote:
| https://archive.is/80lqM
| gorpomon wrote:
| Even though more than the credited writer collaborates on a
| Simpsons script (as Swartzwelder says in this interview) it's fun
| to count how many jokes are packed into a John Swartzwelder
| episode of the Simpsons. I did it for several of his greats and I
| found it to be around every 10 seconds something comical was
| happening.
|
| I've read a few of his books as well, and while I haven't counted
| the rate feels similar (of course, depending on how fast you
| read).
|
| That pace of humor is both prodigious and after excessive
| analysis a tad tiring. But a Swartzwelder episode isn't a thing
| to dissect, it's a thing to behold. It's really some of the best
| comedy every produced, hyperbole be damned. Just take a minor key
| episode like "Whacking Day"-- it manages to hit this incredibly
| assured series of notes. It's both completely ridiculous (a town
| holiday to beat snakes) and at the same time a cutting satire
| about how people dogmatically stick to tradition. It's completely
| relevant today, even though many of the younger folks watching
| might not know who Barry White is. And that's kind of the secret
| sauce-- the longevity and levity are intimately tied in a way
| that other comedies (or even the Simpsons of today) can't quite
| match.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _even though many of the younger folks watching might not know
| who Barry White is._
|
| Many of the younger folks watching when the episode first aired
| in 1993 probably didn't know who Barry White was, either. His
| hits were from 20 years prior. Even if you didn't know who he
| was though, he works in the episode because his distinctive
| voice is written into the story & used as a plot point. He
| doesn't just make a cameo appearance that any random celebrity
| could have made.
|
| Keep in mind, this is a show that made Rory Calhoun references
| in 1995!
| ok123456 wrote:
| Most people only know who Thomas Pynchon is, is from the guy
| with the paper head over his head who appeared two times on
| the Simpsons as a throw away joke.
| gorpomon wrote:
| But everyone knows who Rory Calhoun is, he's always standing
| and walking!
| tootie wrote:
| There's so many jokes in vintage Simpsons episodes that I can't
| understand how they were even written. They can't have made sense
| on paper. The writing was amazing but so was the cast and the
| writers had to have so much faith that putting a stage direction
| _Homer shrugs and grunts_ would be devastating at the right
| moment. It can 't be understated how big an impact they had.
| Every show, even non-comedy, has borrowed inflections and phrases
| from 90s Simpsons.
| legitster wrote:
| My favorite is Mr. Burns answering the phone "ahoy-hoy".
|
| It's funny on so many levels, and it requires an amazingly
| esoteric bit of knowledge in a time before it was easy to find
| that kind of stuff on the internet.
| mbreese wrote:
| When the joke was first made (Mr. Burns using the phrase), it
| wasn't "common" knowledge, but it was a known thing. Like one
| of the "fun facts" you'd find on a cereal box, or in between
| segments of a TV show, or as a Jeopardy question.
|
| I remember seeing the episode and understanding the joke...
| it was just meant to make Mr. Burns appear *really* old.
|
| Maybe I just had a ton of useless/esoteric knowledge as a kid
| -- that's likely too.
| davidw wrote:
| "Alexander Graham Bell originally suggested 'ahoy' be adopted
| as the standard greeting when answering a telephone, before
| 'hello' (suggested by Thomas Edison) became common." - from
| the Wikipedia page on 'Ahoy'.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| In high school my friends and I would discuss during the
| commercials to see what jokes each of us were laughing at,
| because we knew it would be different.
| anamexis wrote:
| I learned from this interview that The Simpsons are what
| popularized the word "meh." I had no idea that it was not a
| common word before this.
| rekwah wrote:
| It's a perfectly cromulent word.
| tootie wrote:
| This is probably the quintessential example of what I'm
| talking about. I was actually surprised to learn they didn't
| coin it themselves. It's not even a word, but it has so much
| meaning. It's an entire mood and everyone knows what it
| means. Lisa says it to Homer in an offhand exchange. It's not
| even a joke but I will never not laugh at it.
| comprambler wrote:
| The hullabalooza episode in reference to the younger
| generation being apathetic to the world. (Neither Highs nor
| Lows)
| vlunkr wrote:
| Also the word "yoink" I think.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| They were written and then endlessly workshopped to increase
| the number of jokes per minute. I believe the goal was 6 per
| minute during early seasons of the Simpsons.
|
| Obviously that is really hard to do and its fallen out of
| style.
| swader999 wrote:
| Because animation takes so long to produce there's a lot of
| time to polish and dial the jokes.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Very few cartoons are broadcast live. It's a terrible
| strain on the animators' wrists.
| swader999 wrote:
| They just need to use both arms.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| It is still fairly common advice in stand-up to keep the
| jokes coming every 7-10 seconds.
| helipad wrote:
| If anything the jokes of the vintage years have got better with
| age.
|
| Not only because I understood the cultural references or
| occasional 'adult' jokes more, but also because of the layers
| to a joke.
|
| Like many Pixar movies, the same gag can make you laugh in
| different ways as a kid, as a know-it-all young adult, and as a
| middle aged person.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/80lqM
| flatiron wrote:
| Is it just me or archive is unusable on mobile now due to the
| capcha being off screen?
| cbsks wrote:
| I was able to view the captcha by rotating my phone into
| landscape mode
| dls2016 wrote:
| "They can kill the Kennedys but they can't make a decent cup of
| coffee?"
|
| Army Man Magazine: https://armymans.tumblr.com/
| bstre wrote:
| Wow- now that is some comedy gold. This feels like the sort of
| thing a person would know about, but I didn't! Thanks.
| standardUser wrote:
| I'm going to have to read his books. Even his jokes in the
| interview are comedy gold.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _"The Simpsons" did something I didn't think possible: it got
| viewers to look at writers' credits on TV shows._
|
| This made me think about what _The Simpsons_ , or any show,
| really is. For a show with a relatively thin premise, it can
| really be anything the writing team wants it to be. _Homer at the
| Bat_ might as well be from a different series from _The Bonfire
| Of The Manatees_. The cast is the same, so the different writing
| team is really felt.
|
| _Yes. Thanks to the deal [executive producer] Jim Brooks had,
| Fox executives couldn't meddle in "The Simpsons" in any way,
| though we did get censor notes._
|
| I guess Fox had to take some sort of risks when they were a
| nascent network (especially before they had the NFL). It was
| probably an exciting situation for the show runners to be in. I
| don't they could've gotten such a deal at a more established
| station.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I've gotten into the habit of looking at writers credits when a
| show I'm watching starts to go downhill. Inevitably its because
| some key person at helm started to leave.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > it can really be anything the writing team wants it to be.
|
| "Moaning Lisa" was an episode idea for the show Taxi.
|
| If I remember my Simpsons DVD commentary correctly one of the
| Simpson's writers was fresh off of Taxi and had this idea for
| an episode for a long time, that didn't catch on for that show,
| so it was remolded and rewritten for the Simpsons.
| alexilliamson wrote:
| That was James L. Brooks! He was indeed coming off of Taxi.
| Romanulus wrote:
| This is a great video related to this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk
| kbr2000 wrote:
| Where's the interview? I see just two paragraphs introduction,
| and then a list of links to (unrelated) books and articles.
| rasfincher wrote:
| Looks like it's behind their paywall.
| patwolf wrote:
| I was seeing that too. I switched to a different browser and it
| started showing the whole article. It was very confusing--I
| thought for a minute that the article just ended there as some
| sort of cruel joke about a person that doesn't give interviews.
| leephillips wrote:
| Yes, the _New Yorker_ paywall is confusing. There is no
| indication that you are not seeing the complete article.
| Their website in general is a layered failure of design.
| mastercheif wrote:
| Interesting, Wired does the same thing. Must be a Conde
| Nast thing.
| rasfincher wrote:
| I enjoyed this article. Especially his discussion of writing
| filler text in scripts that would be ironed out later during
| rewrites. I see a nice correlation to writing software. Get it
| working in general and then go back and optimize it.
| cainxinth wrote:
| write drunk, edit sober
| theorymeltfool wrote:
| This is a well-known trick of writers though. You put something
| down that sucks, and it basically makes your brain think about
| it while you're not doing anything. Harlan Ellison talks about
| this too. It's why so many Simpsons episodes are parodies of
| films; you take the basic plot outline to a film, change up as
| much as you can to make it funny, and then fill in the rest.
| ggambetta wrote:
| Found that very interesting too! I'll try working around
| writer's block using that technique :)
| murph-almighty wrote:
| I did something similar for a show script I had to write once
| (a spoof of a children's show). I got the original plot down,
| then worked with a partner to actually go back and insert the
| jokes we'd thought of while writing the first draft.
|
| Worked out pretty well, though I don't have any awards to show
| for it.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I've never been prouder than when the new hire refactors my
| code.
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