Watching Simpsons

IfMagazine.com interviewed executive producer Al Jean about his feelings on reaching The Simpsons 400th Episode, a significant milestone, and about how The Simpsons have survived for so long. Here are a few blurbs from that interview.

iF MAGAZINE: You’ve been with the show for a very long time, yet it still seems so fresh. Why do you think you haven’t exhausted any ideas?

AL JEAN: There are several reasons why the show has lasted as long as it has. I think the way the show was originally created by Matt [Groening], Jim Brooks and Sam Simon. THE SIMPSONS universe is so rich and varied, we can really do different things every week and I think the fact that the characters don’t age and it’s animation. When you watch LEAVE IT TO BEAVER in the final year and suddenly Beaver is nearly an adult, it seems pretty stupid. It doesn’t age as well. Whereas the kids on our show, they’re eternally ten and so on. And we work very hard. We have staff of 20 writers and many more animators who are very dedicated and on the ball.

iF: You’ve never been very secretive about future episodes coming up with the SIMPSONS, yet everyone’s been very secretive about THE SIMPSONS MOVIE.

JEAN: I’m not even sure why we’re so secretive, but we’ve kept it so well, now we don’t really want to reveal it. There are things we can do with the animation and story we couldn’t do on a television show that’s 30 minutes long. One thing I can’t emphasize enough, when we made the movie, the show had been successful enough. We didn’t want to do something that was an attempt to make money off the show. We really wanted to do something we were proud of and do something that this is a movie that deserved to be a movie.

iF: Do you think you’ve exhausted every idea and permutation for the series?

JEAN: We really haven’t. Coming up up with Season 19, we have new ideas that we’re enjoying doing. We have an episode where Homer flies in Mr. Burns’ private plane. He loves it so much, he never wants to fly in a regular plane again. That might be our season premiere. Stephen Colbert and Lionel Richie are in it.

iF: Is there ever a SIMPSONS idea that you decide is something you won’t do?

JEAN: There is very little we won’t do, but it should have two things, a real human emotion connected to some member of the family or in Springfield and if you can make a satirical point, that’s even better.

iF: At the end of the day, when do you think it would be the end?

JEAN: If the cast didn’t want to do it or if we ran out of ideas. I don’t think the former is imminent and I’m still excited about the shows we’re doing.

I think it’s interesting that the main creators, Matt Groening, Mel Brooks, Sam Simon, and Mr. Jean, haven’t wanted to let the show go. It seems that when other shows go out, you hear comments from those involved in the show that it was time to move on. I’ll be surprised if anyone from The Simpsons say anything like that.

If you’d like to read the rest of the article, visit ifMagazine.com.

The Simpsons, Al Jean, The Simpsons Movie, Simpsons 400th episode

-Anna