Sam Simon Interview

There's a new interview with Sam Simon on his new career as a boxing manager:

Sam Simon: Writer, Producer, Director and Boxing Manager Extraordinaire.

Here's the Simpsons-relevant part (the spelling mistakes are the writer's, not mine or Simon's):

BH: Off the topic of boxing, how did you come up with the idea of The Simpsons and did you ever think it would be so successful and last as long as it has?

SS: I was executive producer of the Tracey Ullman show and the Simpson’s was a ten second long cartoon that we used to show before we went to commercial. And Jim Brookes that was another executive producer, he said that Fox was wanting to make it into a series and would I be interested into doing so, and there has never been a prime time cartoon so I thought, I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like a great idea to me but if Jim thinks it’s a good idea than I will do it. I actually think my belief that it was not going to be successful because I used to tell my writers and the directors on the show just to have fun because we are just going to make thirteen so we might as well make it a good thirteen because that is going to be it. (Laughs) And I think it freed everyone up to have fun with the show and I think that is what people responded too.

BH: Who thought of the parodies of Mike Tyson (Drederick Tatum) and Don King (Luscious Sweet), who thought of those?

SS: Drederick Tatum was from me and I drew the character as Marvin Hagler. Originally the two fighters that Homer was stealing the cable TV for, it was supposed to be Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler. We don’t tell the actors whose voice to do and Hank Azaria always picks the funniest voice. On the script it shows (boxer’s voice) and Hank went with Mike Tyson’s voice, I think that is how he became a heavyweight and everything.

No mention of Matt in there...

The second question is a little screwed up, but thanks for the read.

Good read! Thanks