John Swartzwelder

I need to.

I know Schwarzwelder's written a lot of short novellas, maybe.

But I've heard they're all funny as hell, just joke-dense, very good.

I've not read them, though.

It is very funny.

There are laugh-out-loud moments.

Matt Groening was just on Conan's podcast, and they were talking about Schwarzwelder, and they were saying that he would write the most insane most hilarious scripts and all they had to do was take out all the insane shit and it would turn into a perfect episode and these are basically if they didn't do that so it is there are moments that are laugh laugh out loud hilarious and then there are also moments of like what is going on like why would you do that incoherent sentence that you just wrote but it's all it is definitely worth reading it's they're really funny

I got to get into those.

Yeah, for the most part.

Uh, Conan, Greg Daniels, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, a genius.

A, a true genius.

And, uh, so the, the sort of mental firepower in that room, uh, was, was intense, and the standard that they had brought to comedy was so high.

He had a contract.

In four months his contract was up, and his job was to pitch jokes, and he said nothing for four months, because he just felt like, "Better to get fired, which I know I will be.

Rather that than embarrass myself with a bad pitch in front of Greg Daniels, George Meyer, Mike Reiss, you know, John Swartzwelder." And, and so that's, that's the way it was.

I think that's...

We just did Bart's Comet, which I say is, like, my personal, like, favorite, but every second of this one is hilarious.

And this is also a real power duo steering the episode of The Simpsons because we have director David Silverman, writer John Swartzwelder, and they weren't teamed up that often when it comes to these episodes, I think.

Only- the only other one I can think of is Krusty Gets Kancelled.

That's a David Silverman, John Swartzwelder duo episode.

Silverman loves doing Krusty.

He kind of created him.

Okay

... of the episodes, and the writer would often be there.

Vidi was like, I mean, just these incredible, absolutely incredible writers.

Well, do you know one of the, well, you rem- you were around for John Swartzwelder, right?

Oh, God, yeah.

So John Swartzwelder, another one of the great writers, and he would turn in scripts that were so insane.

Yes.

And we'd just cut, cut out the, the craziest things, and they would be absolutely brilliant.

They were so good.

Let me paint the picture for you.

Season five is where you start having a new cast of writers and producers and directors.

Some of the originals are still there, don't get me wrong, like VD and Schwarzwelder and stuff.

But you're starting to see some new writers, new blood show up here in the studio after this episode.

This is the last one of that.

I think he's talking to you.

Episode number 83, season five, episode two.

It is Cape Fear, 9F22, October 7th of 1993, written by John Vitti, who I think we have gone back and said probably is the second most consistent writer after Schwarzwelder and directed by Rich Moore and Kelsey Grammer making his return as Sideshow Bob.

Hank Azaria says this is his favorite episode of all time.