I've been on something of a Simpsons kick lately and picked up Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons to read on my flight back to New York for Christmas.
I grew up watching The Simpsons and first really began to appreciate the show right as it was hitting its stride in the early to mid nineties during the era where Conan O'Brien was on the writing staff. I've always loved the show and even though I haven't watched it regularly since high school, I still can quote word for word from some of the early seasons.
Springfield Confidential, published in 2018 and written by longtime Simpsons writer Mike Reiss, was a quick read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found the format to be quite similar to that of Live from New York in that it walked readers through the origin of series, how the show and the end-to-end process of creating an individual episode had changed over the years, and gave brief overviews of some of the more influential members of the Simpsons' writing staff.
I enjoyed reading about the origins of certain characters and learning more about how the backstories of those characters evolved over the years. It was also quite interesting discovering how certain famous episodes, especially those from the show's sixth season, came together over the course of months or even in some cases a couple of hours in the writing room.
The book was relatively free of deeper dives into behind the scenes drama between staff members, and although I'm certain that drama was omitted not for lack of material, I didn't miss it.
Something I really appreciated after finishing the book was that none of the staff who were hired to work on the show in its first season expected it to last more than a couple of months. It's especially funny looking back now in the show's thirty-first season to think that all of the individuals who were present at time time of its creation had almost a complete lack of faith in the series staying power.
None of this was even to mention that, at the time of the show's premier in December of 1989 on the then relatively new Fox network, there hadn't been a prime-time cartoon on television since The Flintstones had ceased production in 1966. The Simpsons writers and production staff quite literally had to reinvent how to produce a prime-time cartoon in a way that hadn't been done with success for decades.
If you aren't a Simpsons fan, there probably isn't a lot in this book that would make it worth the read. However, if you're even a fan in passing and you're looking for a light and entertaining read, you won't have any regrets saving this book for a long flight.
I grew up watching The Simpsons and first really began to appreciate the show right as it was hitting its stride in the early to mid nineties during the era where Conan O'Brien was on the writing staff. I've always loved the show and even though I haven't watched it regularly since high school, I still can quote word for word from some of the early seasons.
The cover of Simpsons Confidential.
I enjoyed reading about the origins of certain characters and learning more about how the backstories of those characters evolved over the years. It was also quite interesting discovering how certain famous episodes, especially those from the show's sixth season, came together over the course of months or even in some cases a couple of hours in the writing room.
The book was relatively free of deeper dives into behind the scenes drama between staff members, and although I'm certain that drama was omitted not for lack of material, I didn't miss it.
Something I really appreciated after finishing the book was that none of the staff who were hired to work on the show in its first season expected it to last more than a couple of months. It's especially funny looking back now in the show's thirty-first season to think that all of the individuals who were present at time time of its creation had almost a complete lack of faith in the series staying power.
None of this was even to mention that, at the time of the show's premier in December of 1989 on the then relatively new Fox network, there hadn't been a prime-time cartoon on television since The Flintstones had ceased production in 1966. The Simpsons writers and production staff quite literally had to reinvent how to produce a prime-time cartoon in a way that hadn't been done with success for decades.
If you aren't a Simpsons fan, there probably isn't a lot in this book that would make it worth the read. However, if you're even a fan in passing and you're looking for a light and entertaining read, you won't have any regrets saving this book for a long flight.