By Fred Topel | Image property of 20th Century Fox.
The Simpsons Movie
Mike Scully has taken a consulting producer role on The Simpsons. Since he continued consulting on The Simpsons Movie, he chimed in with a few comments on the process of making the film. One big laugh about a Fox network cross promotion had a funny story behind it. Look for the name of a real Fox TV show to appear in the film.
Mike Scully Gives Simpsons Movie Easter Eggs
“That actually changed,” Scully revealed. “In the original draft of the script they were doing different kinds of reality shows at the time than the one we eventually chose. I think the original joke was a show called Ship of Skanks.”
Luckily, Fox had plenty of outrageously titled programming in real life. Scully also had some perspective on the film’s emotion, particularly Marge’s final breakdown with Homer. “We were really trying to get to a woman who is completely broken and her spirit is defeated. I got there I guess by breaking the actress’ spirit. She worked so hard at it and she wanted it to be as good and that’s also a big impact Jim had on that whole scene. The whole goodbye scene, a lot of that was just we were just going to stop doing jokes and do something really emotional and change the rhythm slightly and let the audience really care about this and it worked. Julie [Kavner] did a great job on it but it was probably 100, 150 takes for the scene.”
Lisa gets some emotion of the happier kind with a new boyfriend. Scully recalled actress Yeardley Smith’s plea. “Yeardley Smith had asked, ‘Is there any way she could possibly keep this one?’ Because in the show, we've done a few romances and they always end unhappy for her.”
There is a major movie star cameo in the tradition of A-list Simpsons guest stars. “First it was Johnny Knoxville,” Scully joked.
As for sequels, it could be a while. It took 18 years to do the first Simpsons Movie. “Ideas like pig crap don't come overnight.”
The Simpsons Movie opens to theatres on July 27th.
Add to Heffee!
