Behind The Laughter For Real

James L. Brooks hates the existence of this book and ordered as many people as he could still boss around NOT to talk to the author. That might tell you something. I wonder what they've got to hide.
 
Mars, I'd highly recommend checking this book out. It slaps James L. Brooks and Matt Groening in the face and tells of the real person deserving of the credit: the ubiquitious Sam Simon. Plus, tons of hilarious and nifty writer stories!
 
I read a bit of it in Barnes & Noble today and it's a pretty cool book with lots of behind-the-scenes stuff, both good and bad. Though I must say, it does paint David Mirkin in the not-so-best light...
 
So basically it's a book that tells a lot of insights on the series, but you gotta have the mindset that the author doesn't have any with kind words for the creators behind it?

Hmm...I might still buy it despite my loyal Simpsons side; I have an obsessive love for behind-the-scene contents after all.
 
The author is a Simpsons nut who shares many fan's belief that the show went downhill a long time ago. He has a lot of good to say about the people behind the best years of the show but at the same time does his best to illustrate that certain people behind the scenes get more credit than they deserve, and that some didn't get enough.



Then buy this book.
 
I bought the book too, and I have to say it makes me look at Fox and especially Gracie Films in a negative light now, and it makes me feel sorry for Klasky Csupo and Gabor Csupo himself. But at least the shift over to Film Roman was on somewhat friendly terms between Csupo and Phil Roman.

I also don't much like the way James L. Brooks treated his former friend, Jerry Belson. That was just downright heartless.
 
I'm definitely buying this book sooner or later (maybe sooner). Now if only we had similar books for other shows like Futurama, Family Guy, etc.
 
Does it talk about how Matt Groening wasn't always the driving force in the writers room? I always felt like Groening was getting far too much credit for genius episodes that other more talented writers probably wrote.
 
Yes, it does, but it gives the rationalization that Matt was previously an artist of an underground comic strip, whereas Brooks and Simon were both well-known TV execs and writers. Also, the book claims that while there was some animosity between some of the writers, including Simon, it really didn't pick up until all the merchandising checks came, and it was revealed Matt was making much more than anyone else.

But you really shouldn't be surprised that Matt isn't into the creative side of the show that he gets the credit for. I really do like Matt, but it's been obvious for years he really doesn't do anything, except for creating the initial characterizations of the Simpson family(even these were later tweaked by the writers). Even characters like Krusty, who was created by Matt and inspired by a TV clown from his childhood, didn't have their personalities created by him, it was the writers, led by Sam Simon.

It's kind of like even though Walt Disney is famous for starting the highly successful Disney studio, the only thing he really did of high importance creatively was create and voice Mickey Mouse(even then, him creating Mickey Mouse is up for much debate).
 
I'm kinda curious about this book now. It's weird to learn that Sam Simon is responsible for a lot of things on the show. The man doesn't have the best track record. Sure, he worked on Taxi, but that was during the later years. And he worked on Cheers, but he wasn't responsible for that show's success. And since leaving The Simpsons, his biggest credit was The Drew Carey Show which was nothing special.

Compare that to, say, James L. Brooks, the mastermind behind Mary Tyler Moore and Taxi in addition to Academy-Award winning movies like Terms of Endearment and As Good As It Gets.
 
The way the book explains it is that Brooks is more of the businessman. The book talks about him being the driving force behind getting the show on the air, and getting all the freedoms for the creative process(such as the lack of presence by the network during production). But other than that, it is said that Brooks isn't in the writing room most of the time, and a lot of times isn't even in Hollywood or California in general. But to be fair, the book does say that Brooks has contributed some jokes to the show.

Compare that to Sam Simon, who personally hand-picked all of the original writers, sat in the writers' room for just about every episode from the first four seasons, contributed many jokes and gags to the show, gave many of the characters their personality traits, and, along with Klasky Csupo, gave the characters their definitive style as far as the design of the characters goes.
 
Even the first season was quite inconsistent. There was obviously a major shift in the quality of writing from even the last episode of season one to the first episode of season two but it's very hard to account why that happened considering the writing staff didn't change.




Brooks was the Executive Creative Consultant just until the David Mirkin era. Brooks in fact used his clout to sidestep the Fox Network execs completely, leaving him as the only person Sam Simon and co. had to answer to. The writers frequently credit Brooks for strong rewrite contributions not the least of which being the "You Are Lisa Simpson" note in "Lisa's Substitute".
 
This shocked me the most, especially because he comes off as the nicest guy on the audio commentaries. The entire story with Brent Forrester will change the way you view David Mirkin forever.

That's the basic bottom line of the book: a lot of very funny and smart people do the most heartless things. I was almost expecting to see something bad said of Conan O'Brien because it seemed to be in the spirit of the book, but nope. Everyone who spoke to the author who tore others' reputations to shreds had nothing but good things to say about CoCo.

A bit of warning: the author shares one opinion that not many here will agree with. He thinks Family Guy (even today's) is far better than American Dad (which he says as being "god-awful"). Just to, uh, let you know. ;)...
 
Speaking of Mirkin, that reminds me, there is a lot of small spelling and other errors in this book. In one of the interviews with Brent Forrester, Mirkin's name is spelled "Mirken", and there are others like Lindsay Neagle's name being spelled both "Nagle" and "Neagle", and the author describes an episode as part of a certain season when it really was from a different season(I think it was a third season ep being described as a second season ep).

EDIT: Ah, found one. On page 126, the author claims the line "I want to be bad like Michael Jackson" is a line from "Do The Bartman", when the actual line is "If you can do the Bart, you're bad like Michael Jackson". It's just a stupid nitpick, I know, but I found it quite noticeable.
 
Actually, that quote is from a Groening interview, so the flub is Groening's, not Ortved's. And you're right, there are numerous spelling errors in the book, especially with names. Leela from Futurama is introduced as Leila, which really bothered me.

But on the bright side, it's really up-to-date, mentioning Futurama's recent cast negotiations and Family Guy's emmy nod!...
 
I was thinking of the incident with Bob Kushell myself, though like I said, I haven't read the whole book yet (hence why I need to buy it one of these days).

On the other end of the spectrum, I do like how the book gave some positive recognition to Mike Scully, or at least didn't bash him like is so popular to do.
 
Some things I'd like to know.

Do they talk much about Jon Vitti? Something tells me he has some behind the scenes stuff that would really be interesting to hear.

How about Oakley & Weinstein during their showrunning period? I'm pretty sure they didn't leave on the best terms.

I plan on getting this book, being as I am a hardcore Simpsons nut, but these are the people I've always been most curious about.
 
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