Reddit AMA Recap: Brent Forrester Talks About Writing For “The Simpsons” And A “King of the Hill” Revival Set 15 Years After The Show’s Series Finale
Right now, producer of The Simpsons Matt Selman is trying to explain to the Twitterverse that the show isn’t real-life, so when an episode comes on that changes the continuity of prior episodes, it should be treated as episodic and not “canon”. I get the latter phrase has since been ostracized in recent years as a result of the increase of comic book adaptations for TV and film plus anything Star Wars, but understand that the show has had decades of writer’s rooms and really the show is just trying to push out good content.
One of those writers is Brent Forrester. The longtime writer has been part some of the great rooms in recent history making stops at The Office (where he also directed a bunch of episodes), The Simpsons, and King of the Hill as the show’s head writer. That last part is important because in a recent AMA session on Reddit, Brent dropped news that a King of the Hill reboot is in hot negotiations for a revival set 15 years after the show’s finale. There are a lot of questions that may need answering when it comes to pass, but this news is awesome news and everyone wants it to happen. In the meantime, here are highlights from Brent’s recent Reddit AMA session where he talks about how he wrote “Lemon of Troy”, working in different mediums like live-action versus animation, and a whole lot more.
On writing live-action vs animation
Biggest difference between animation and live action: In animation it costs nothing to go to space, blow up a battleship, fight a dinosaur…. all things that are too expensive in live action. So go big and use lots of visual gags in animation. Animation is also faster based and more gag heavy: you can’t rely on good “acting the way you can in live action
On his “Lemon of Troy” episode of The Simpsons
At the Simpsons, we used to have these elaborate “Story Conferences” where the writers would pitch stories all day to James L Brooks in a suite at Shutters hotel. We would be given a couple days to prepare. I spent both days at the public library, wandering through the books looking for any inspiration at all. I was in the classics section, looking at Greek myths and history, when I came up with the idea for Lemon of Troy, which is obviously based on the myth of the Trojan Horse. I thought it was the perfect framework for an “Epic” story of conflict between Springfield and Shelbyville!
Can you tell the future while writing for The Simpsons?
Weird isn’t it, how many predictions from Simpsons episodes came true? Including the presidency of Donald Trump! But I will tell you the secret there. There have been 500 episodes of the Simpsons. That is a HUGE amount of material. Just by pure coincidence and sheer numbers, SOME of the things we predicted came true. But many many more things did not come true. It’s just statistics, sadly. Not magic 🙂
How many spec scripts do TV shows typically get at any given time?
On the Simpsons we got unsolicited specs all the time. 100% of them were insane.
Is a King of the Hill revival happening?
I am sure Greg Daniels and Mike Judge will murder me for sharing this but… HELL YES. They are in hot negotiations to bring back King of the Hill. The Trump administration made it suddenly very relevant again. The characters have all aged 15 years. The project is sooooo good. Okay I’ve said too much 🙂
Just cancel this bird already. The chicken is beyond cooked. It's burnt to a crisp.