How Bart and Lisa Simpson Helped Launch a COM Prof’s Career
On its 30th anniversary, screenwriter and COM professor Adam Lapidus recalls a special episode of the long-running animated comedy
Adam Lapidus (center), COM assistant professor of film and television, caught his big break writing an episode for "The Simpsons." Illustration by Monica Chu.
Earlier this year, Fox announced that it would renew “The Simpsons” for its 35th and 36th seasons. It’s a staggering, historic run for a primetime network television series. Of the current 34 seasons (more than 700 episodes), Season 4 is rated by some as the series’ best, as it includes “Marge vs The Monorail” (Read “The Ringer’s” 30th anniversary retrospective.) and “Last Exit to Springfield.” There was also another well-received episode called “The Front” by a new writer named Adam Lapidus, who is now a COM assistant professor of film and television.
In “The Front,” which aired 30 years ago, on April 15, 1993, Lisa and Bart are inspired to write an episode of “The Itchy and Scratchy Show.” They send their script to television executive Roger Myers Jr., but he doesn’t even read it. Lisa and Bart, who believe they aren’t taken seriously because they are children, resubmit the script under the name of their grandfather, Abraham (Grampa) Simpson. With Grampa’s name at the top, “fronting” for Lisa and Bart, Myers reads the script and subsequently hires Grampa as one of Itchy and Scratchy’s writers. The episode, which Lapidus says was “defiantly” named after a 1976 film starring Woody Allen about blacklisting in the 1950s, parodies the blacklist era and pulls back the curtain on animation and television writing.
After “The Front,” Lapidus earned his first network staff job writing on “Full House.” He spent the bulk of his career working for the Disney Channel on shows including “Phil Of The Future,” “The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody,” and “Jessie,” where he became an executive producer. He also wrote and produced “Team Kaylie” for Netflix.
COMTalk chatted with Lapidus about his big break 30 years ago, advice that he shares with students, and how “The Simpsons” helped him meet his high school crush.
Q&A
With Adam Lapidus
COMtalk: What were you doing in Los Angeles in the early 1990s?
Adam Lapidus: What I was doing was struggling with writing. I had been writing for three years, and I had a few credits. But I was trying to get a job. Back in the day, you would write an episode of a show that’s currently on the air, and then your agent would send it out to people to show that you can write. But you never would send the script if you wrote an episode of “The Simpsons” – to “The Simpsons.” They would never buy it. But it was sent to other shows to show what you could do.
COMtalk: Where did you get the idea for Lisa and Bart to write for Itchy and Scratchy?
Adam Lapidus: I got an idea for the episode after watching a story about the show “Tiny Toons.” Some kids had submitted an idea to Steven Spielberg, who was executive producer. I thought that would be funny for Bart and Lisa to write Itchy and Scratchy. I knew a very successful writer named David Davis, who worked with [Simpsons co-creator James L.] Jim Brooks. I called David with the idea because he knew “The Simpsons,” and he was kind of my mentor. I was going to write it as a spec script, but he called back maybe a day later and he said, “I pitched it to Jim. Jim really likes it and he wants to buy it and have you write it.”
COMtalk: You must have been floored.
Adam Lapidus: It was one of those “This Doesn’t Happen To Me” moments.
COMtalk: Did you feel a lot of pressure?
Adam Lapidus: Oh, my god! Immense pressure because the hope was to get a job. That’s what you try to do. I just wanted to do a really good job, and I couldn’t believe this was happening—that I was going to write for the hottest show on television.
COMtalk: You worked with “The Simpsons” writing team, which had really hit its stride by Season 4. What was the key for you writing this episode?
Adam Lapidus: I had a very detailed outline. An outline might be 5 or 10 pages for a 30-page script. My outline was 25 pages! I really worked through the outline with the writers. It was about a week before I had the outline done.
COMtalk: At the end of the opening scene, Bart asks Lisa, “Cartoons have writers?” It’s one of many jokes aimed at animation and the TV industry. Was that the focus of your comedy?
Adam Lapidus: That wasn’t really at the front of my mind, but an amusing side story. I did have more of that in my first draft, with Bart and Lisa also seeing the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon dubbed into different languages when they went on the tour of the studio, which I thought would be funny.
COMtalk: What is your favorite joke or gag from the episode?
Adam Lapidus: My favorite one that was mine? As a kid I was a big Flintstones fan. I loved how Fred would run through this tiny house and pass the same window nine times. So I wanted to write a joke when Bart and Lisa went on a tour with the producer, and he’s talking about animation being expensive as they are passing the same—I think it’s a water fountain and a cleaning person—four times.
My absolute favorite joke in the script was actually Conan O’Brien’s. There’s a line where Grampa is asked to share his life experiences, and I remember Conan pitching “I was a night watchman at a cranberry silo.” That’s crazy funny. I was happy to have a joke like that in my script.
COMtalk: Speaking of Conan, he’s a Harvard grad. So are many of the writers. What did they have to say about the jokes at Harvard’s expense?
Adam Lapidus: All that Harvard stuff, they wrote that in ensuing drafts. I wouldn’t dare have made fun of Harvard writers when that was nearly the whole staff of the show at the time. That might have been a bit self destructive of me.
COMtalk: Brooke Shields does a cameo toward the end of the episode. Was that your idea?
Adam Lapidus: I had a crush on Brooke Shields in high school. My friends and I joked that when I moved to Hollywood, that was the reason.
At the end of the episode, we had an awards show. It was basically the Emmys for animation. I thought, “Who would be a good presenter?” So, Krusty the Clown should be a presenter. And I thought “Who else?” Well, Brooke Shields would be funny, and maybe they would like it. And they did. I always tell my students, if there’s someone you want to meet, write them into your script. I got to meet Brooke Shields, and she was super nice.
COMtalk: “The Front” led to your first network staff writing job. How do you advise your students who want to break into the industry today?
Adam Lapidus: It’s a mix of things. The main thing I tell them is once they get out [of school] they have to keep writing. You need a sample of everything. You need a half-hour live-action sample. A half-hour animated sample. You need a feature, because you never know who you’re going to meet. If you meet a movie producer, you want to have a movie.
And the thing I tell them the most, actually, is to create a group of friends who are peers with them. People like Judd Apatow [who also has a Simpsons writing credit], Amy Poehler, all those people that you know, are working together. They met before they were famous. In 33 years I got four jobs through an agent, and everything else I got through my own contacts.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
