Ricky Gervais is a self-proclaimed Simpsons superfan. “Once I bought into comedy in about 1999, I keep in mind considering that I’d like to get a joke on The Simpsons,” he as soon as advised The Impartial. “It had already been my favourite program for about 10 years by then. The factor is, each comic price his salt, his favourite factor is The Simpsons.”
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Gervais even paid Matt Groening 20 bucks to attract a Homer for radio flunky Karl Pilkington, proclaiming, “I like Karl ‘trigger he’s silly like me” in a cartoon dialogue bubble.
Gervais beloved the present a lot that he requested if he may write an episode, in line with Simpsons author Mike Reiss’ e-book Springfield Confidential. “We had been flattered,” Reiss mentioned. On the time, Gervais was sitting on prime of the comedy world because the creator of the unique model of The Workplace.
However the writers had been “much more flattered when he referred to as again two weeks later and mentioned, ‘I can’t do it — it’s too laborious.’” Regardless that Gervais couldn’t full the script, Reiss says we must always lower him some slack — he did pitch the plot, star within the episode and carry out unique songs.
For a easy little bit of Simpsons lore — Gervais couldn’t fairly pull off a script — this story has extra variants than a late-stage Marvel film. In Model B, it’s Groening who asks Gervais to take a crack at writing an episode, not the opposite approach round. “I knew I needed to say sure, however worry kicked in at precisely the identical time,” Gervais advised The Impartial.
Groening doesn’t dispute Gervais’s model. “We love Ricky’s work. We love Extras, we love The Workplace,” he mentioned in the identical joint interview. “And the podcast is implausible. It’s harmful to hearken to whereas driving as a result of it’s so humorous.”
Gervais agrees that he wanted assist together with his script, although his take differs from Reiss’ “I can’t do it — it’s too laborious” description. “The reality is that it was a co-write,” Gervais admitted. “I put some concepts down, despatched them off to Al (Jean, Simpsons showrunner), a giant bag of jumbled-up stuff, and so they put it via their mill. Then they got here again to me and mentioned, ‘Did you imply this?’ And I went, ‘Sure, precisely.’”
By some means, there’s a Model C of the story as nicely, with BBC Information reporting in 2006 that Gervais’ script knocked it out of the park. “The Simpsons Creator Matt Groening Stated Ricky Gervais Did Such a Good Job Writing an Episode of the Hit U.S. Comedy Present That He Needs Him to Do Extra,” blared a headline.
“He caught our tone precisely, after which added his personal Ricky Gervais/David Brent patheticness,” Groening supposedly mentioned in line with unsourced “reviews within the U.Okay. press.” “The whole lot you might ever presumably need from Ricky Gervais, you get. It’s doable we’ll collaborate once more. He needs to be an everyday character. Actually, he ought to have his personal cartoon sequence.”
Whereas these Groening quotes appear out of sync with different remarks, Gervais did turn into a cartoon character. The Ricky Gervais Present repurposed audio from his well-liked podcasts with Stephen Service provider and Pilkington, rendering Gervais and pals in easy, Hanna-Barbera-style animation. Should you’re a kind of “The Simpsons/Matt Groening predicted the long run!” weirdos, right here’s one other one on your information.
