Carolyn And Kai Omine Talk Writing The Simpsons + Spill Exclusives

Carolyn Omine and Kai Omine hang out with Sandy to discuss their Disney+ episode of The Simpsons called "Yellow Mirror." This mother and son writing team (Carolyn Omine is an Emmy-winning producer who joined the Simpsons’ writing staff in Season ten and became the show's first female Executive Producer when she was credited as an Executive Producer in Season 17) pull back the curtain to share how they ended up writing together, their writing process, and spill the beans to give The Writers’ Hangout two super cool exclusives!

The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards sponsors the WRITERS HANGOUT.
Executive Producer Kristin Overn
Creator/Executive Producer Sandy Adomaitis
Producer Terry Sampson
Music by Ethan Stoller

Transcript

0:11

Hello, my name is Sandy Adamidis, the social media director for the Page International Screenwriting Awards and your host for the Writers Hangout, a podcast that celebrates the many From inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting the project made, and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry, and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros, and have fun. Hey guys, it's Sandy. I'm coming to you from Studio City, the crown jewel of the San Fernando Valley. And boy do we have a great show for you because Carolyn and Kyle Minnie are here to talk about their Disney Plus episode of The Simpsons titled. Yellow Mirror. Carolyn is a Emmy winning producer who joined the Simpsons writing staff in season 10 and became the show's first female executive producer when she was credited as an executive producer in season 17. Kai is Carolyn's son And a talented artist in his own right. Also a singer Kai. Grew up near the 20th century Fox lot and had other Simpson writers as babysitters. On a side note, you'll hear me call Carolyn Corky. We are old friends and quirky is an old nickname and my brain just won't let me call her by her real name. Also, there is not one but two Simpsons exclusives in this episode. Are you guys ready? Let's start the show. Carolyn Oie and Kini, thank you so much for joining us on the Writer's Hangout. Thank you for having us. Yeah, this is super cool. we were supposed to record earlier, but you had a bit of emergency. What happened? Yeah. Our little dog, Lucy, out of nowhere started crying. She's obviously, she's very vocal. She always makes these little monkey noises when she's excited. But she was yelping and then every time we touched her, couldn't really figure out where it was, so we had to. Take her to the bat. she's of the dachshund Corgi body type. Yeah. Which apparently very long very short. She's like a big sausage, so she's thrown to back problems. And she had a little disc thing. That's is what they suspect. And we didn't, yeah. So we're just, she's just no confirmation. She's just on drugs. But she's a little mix. she looks like if they took all the extra parts of many different dogs and put them like, here we got extra. Let's make a dog. adorable. she sleeping now, Lucy? she got a little chew. Me too. Hey guys. Congratulations on your episode of The Simpsons titled Yellow Mirror. It hasn't aired yet. Can you tell us anything about it? Sure, So last season we've started doing some episodes that air exclusively on Disney plus. two to four episodes a season. Usually things used to air on Fox, and then a year later they would go on Disney Plus. And there's a few that go exclusively on Disney Plus, and this is one of them. It is. An anthology as we do in the Simpson. Sometimes we do either full length episodes or sometimes we'll do trilogies Sometimes we've done Bible stories and things where we've done three. But this one because it's on Disney Plus, we have a little bit more leeway it's never gonna be broadcast on, regular broadcast television. So it doesn't have a lot of the requirements that normal Simpsons do. So part of why we used to do trilogies was because we had those commercial breaks, this doesn't have commercial breaks. So we decided to do this anthology, and then we decided two of our stories were just, we just. Like them so much, we decided not to try and cram in a third. So it's unusual in that it's only two stories. So it's actually a new length of story for us. Oh, interesting. Like a mini, like a mama bear of sizes, is that what we're calling it now? That's what we're calling it now. But yeah we are only limited in terms of cost of animation as opposed to normally we have episodes have to be 20 minutes and 40 seconds, like to the second. we can let things breathe a little bit more because we, it can be pretty much any length we want because it's only gonna ever air streaming. I did a Christmas episode like this and they were like, you can luxuriate because you know you're not on broadcast. And I was like, oh, how much extra, like you're just limited by the the cost of animation. So I was like, oh, how much more time is that? And they're like, 10 seconds. I was like, no, it's not that many. Can I answer? I just have a question. When you say you are only limited by animation what does that mean? You're, you are only limited in the cost of animation. Yes. Like the actual cost of, but what about the actors? the actors get paid for doing a. Recording session. They'll, it doesn't really, it doesn't, I don't know if it matters. I'm trying to, I don't really don't know if they get paid for longer recording sessions, but, Oh, okay. Oh no, that makes sense. I it is the length That's true. It's so yeah, the actual, the most expensive part is the animation and it is like super, lots of money per second yeah. Oh, I see. And I take it from the title, it is a takeoff on Black Mirror. Yeah. like Black Mirror or more of a Twilight Zone kind of thing.'cause Black Mirror tends to focus more on like technology or something going crazy, but Twilight Zone, Our, ours is more like. Weird and it's got some some like horror elements in a way. Yeah. It's not quite a horror like that Yeah. Which is why we, it wasn't quite treehouse of horror type of, it was not like one of our Yeah. But it, it's a little trippy. It in the way that Black Mirror is similar to Twilight Zone. We're like that. Like Black Mirror tends to be specifically about technology. Ours has a little bit of that, but it not, but not, not the whole thing. Not the whole thing. Yeah. I'm intrigued. Do you know, we can tell you, wait we are deciding that we are going to exclusively let you know uh, two, we, we have two really cool guest stars. Guest. Yeah. One is Patty Harrison, who if people watch I think you should leave the brilliant sketch show. I think you should leave. Oh, she was also in a together with Ed Hels. It was a movie from a bit ago. She's a brilliant uh, and so she does a real star turn, super funny. And then we also have a really exciting cameo by Demi Moore and super duper Cool. the fact that both of them are beautiful, dark haired women with bang. Is just a coincidence. That is not anything to do with the episode, but just, other than being an interesting thing, it's a little bit to do with guys, thank you so much. This is my first exclusive. Yeah we wanted to the writers hang out exclusive. I'm so excited. Do you have an air date yet? No, we don't. Not, no, not yet. we're just about to get the color back. We had a, the schedule got a little messed up because. Of the fires and gotten back on schedule for after the strike. And then, the fires were devastating. We had a couple people on our show who lost their homes. And yeah, it, I mean it was just, anyway, so that, that kind of threw us for a loop. I'm very sorry for your coworkers who lost their homes. Yeah. It was such a tough period of time. Kai, I don't think you know this, but the other big headline during the fires was quirky and I didn't make our dinner because of the fires. I think I saw that on BS That's tragic. I'm so sorry. Thank you. And we're so la we didn't even call each other. We just knew, Kai. I'm sure you've attended many Simpson table reads. Yes. What was it like sitting in a room and hearing your work performed by those talented actors, which we can now include Harrison and more writers and producers. But before you answer, can you explain to the writers up there who might not know what a table read is? Sure. So a table read once the script is mostly finalized Then we have the writers and producers and the actors come together. For about an hour to actually read through the script. That's why it's called a table read. And there is a table. Yeah. Oh, there's a table too. Like Sit around a table. There's a whole long process deciding the right table. And we got well yeah, we got a good one. There is one caveat that we had because of the fires, we had gone after the pandemic we wrote remote for almost two years. And then we actually had our table reads were over zoom for almost three years. But we had started to go back almost most of our table because it really makes a big difference. To do them live because on Zoom things are a little the timing is off'cause people have lag. And but we did have to go back to our specific table read was this particular table read was Zoom online on Zoom because of the fires. So many people would end up just not being able to come to the physical table read. So we were just like, oh, okay, we'll just have it online. Which, still made it pretty cool. Yeah, it was still so cool. To hear all the actors reading out our script like Dan Castaneta, who does Homer and so many other voices I've met him so many other times in my life and known him as a person. But then hearing him do Homer heard something for a joke that I wrote was so cool and so surreal. And he would just bring something new to it that I didn't expect to bring to it. And that's true for everyone. Everyone too. All of the actors were so good. And it was so much fun, even when there were like little zoom hiccups, like someone not coming in time or something, or lagging, some weird technological issue. But yeah, that's, that was such a fun experience. for us the number one goal of the table read besides, hearing it out loud for the first time. But our biggest. Priority at the Simpsons is that's really the first time that Matt Graining and Jim Brooks hear it. And so that's where, they often they know of stories or, but that's really the first time they hear it. And that's when they give their notes and so we're always a little worried I hope Jim likes it. Nope. He doesn't wanna change a bunch of stuff and he it went well. So that was, even though, yeah, it was on Zoom and there was all these hiccups it still they didn't like the script. So that was, by our standards was a success. That is great. how did you guys divide up the workload? who came up with the premise when writing the script? Did you sit down together? Did you write separate? How did it all come about? she did all of it, and then I just put my name Yeah. Next to her. Yeah. He typed his name in. No. That was tiring. Oh my God, I remember that. No, we so here's the thing is like we i'll, where we just even decided to write together. I always knew I wanted to write with him. But we, I had done two scripts that were three my last few scripts. Like when we did, I did the Treehouse of Horror 33. And when we were getting ready for the table read of that, it was when Kai, we were behind and I had, Kai had to go on his we went on his trip to look at colleges. And so I was basically like, I'll just, rather than using the room, it was like I was just gonna be riding it on the plane and in hotel rooms and stuff. And so I would run things by Kai then. And so he helped a lot on that. And then I did another episode on Mid Childhood Night's Dream, which was the same thing. That was when he was actually going to college and I was very upset and crying because he was leaving and, so I was writing that and he was helpful then. And then this last thing I did, which was the, a double Christmas episode that was coming back off of the uh, strikes and then we decided to do this double episode. So that was already a lot of work. But then it was like when we decided to make it a Christmas episode and Disney was like, great, we'll need it in October. And we're like, what? Because they normally things don't go on Disney plus until a year later. But since this was the first time we were doing an exclusive that was on Disney plus, we didn't realize things have to be turned in two months earlier, so they translate everything. So it was like, already it was such a tight deadline that for the color. I didn't have a room for that either. It was like, I would, we were we'd get the color back on a, I remember it was like Wednesday at 10 30 at night, and they were like by two 30 the next afternoon. Where normally we would have a room dual, whole rewrite, color rewrite. And then, then we, like the next week we would figure out the edits and all this. It was like by two 30 the next day I needed to come up with all of the edits and anything that we were gonna rewrite would have to be done with either a DR, automated dialogue replacement or editing. There was very little retakes we could do. And so that was corky. That's, that is insane schedule. Yeah, absolutely insane. And because it was a double episode, it was like we did one week like that where it was like, I remember it was like a Wednesday, 10 30. It's gonna be final lock, edit two 30 on Thursday, and then meeting with the composers for the music and the, and then mixing it like on. And then the next week it,'cause it was a double episode. That was the first half. And then the next week it was Wednesday, like we did the second half and then put it all together. So it was really crazy. And there just wasn't, we couldn't really have a room because, it was like, I would get it 10 30 at night. So again, Kai helped me on that. So that's basically. Where I felt like he deserves to have an episode. He's helped me so much on this. 100%. And for the writers out there who might not understand when Corky says room, what she means is all the writers will go into one room and sit with the script and work on it, pump up the jokes. Is that what the kids say? Pump up the jokes. Also just to double back, I think it's really interesting that you brought up that while you were on the college tour, you were writing the script for the film people out there and the people who are trying to get into tv, if you are precious with your writing time and you need a good night's rest and it to be very quiet and to have coffee, that's doesn't always happen. You're riding on trains, planes, and automobiles. Yeah, I remember I was much more in my younger days, there were things where I felt like I was, things I needed to do to be more writerly. there was a point. Early on, I'm ashamed to admit that I used to be a smoker. when I quit I was oh, how will I write without looking like a writer? But that turned out to not really matter. And then when I had Kai all of a sudden those things that I used to think I needed, one of the things I think I used to need was to put things off till the very last minute and then have lots of over, like all-nighters. That was like I can't do that anymore. I have to just believe that I have access to my writing, at all times. And it does work out. It, I feel like it, I've got better as a writer, just getting rid of all those things. Yeah. But anyway, so the thing is yellow Mirror we decided, okay, I'm gonna write an episode, we're gonna partner on an episode, Uhhuh. we made it a, an appointment. No we live in the same house. We made an appointment of like, when we were gonna meet and we were both gonna have ideas and come together with these ideas. And we came up with a whole list of ideas to run past Matt Sellman, our show runner. But the two that we really liked. Yeah. And even some of the other ones all had the vibe of more of a segment than a full episode. Yeah. There were a few, yeah. Felt more. Yeah. You know what? Let's do this like a tree house or two. We knew there was that, we definitely knew that this was the two things that we liked, and then we actually, first we were trying to do a trilogy, so we were trying to come up with, but we, when we had come up with some other ideas, that would be whole episodes, but it was very much, I think every one of our ideas were like, you had an idea. And then I was like, oh, that's cool. We could do this. And then I then you were like, it was very much an improv between the two of us. I would definitely say these, this wasn't an idea I would've come up with by myself. And it really was an idea that we, it was the mix of the two of us. And, the first two stories that we really liked, but it was like, I'm not sure what to do with this.'cause it's not quite a tree house, but it's very tree house like. I don't know. Would you explain the tree house? So we have, every year we have the the tree house of Horror, which is a Halloween. Yeah, our Halloween special, it's three segments. Sometimes there's even more,'cause there's usually sometimes a little bumper at the beginning, and sometimes there's a little thing at the end, or sometimes it ends up being like five things or whatever. But but for the most part it's three separate stories and it has its own certain vibe. so I was thinking, I'm not sure what we were gonna do with this, but when we. Pitched our stories to Matt Sellman. He also was like, those two are the ones that were most interesting to him. So we first were like, okay, we'll do those two and then we'll just pitch. We kept pitching the third segment and, but then we kept saying things that we wanted to have happen in the first two, and then I texted Matt, like, can we talk for a second? And I said, Hey, what about if we did two segments? And he was like, I was just thinking you were gonna say that. And, yeah. It just, it's such a strange thing, but that is, it is a very unusual thing for us to do. And it was like, yeah, why not do that? Why not have this? We don't have to have three because it's not a a broadcast thing. And yeah, this way we can let the stories that we really think are really interesting'cause they really are different and I don't, yeah, we're excited about it. Now I don't wanna bring up anything sad, and this is actually gonna connect to you working with Kai. You co-wrote a lot of Simpson Scripts with Billy Wright. And we lost him last February. Can you just talk a little bit about Billy? I think the writers out there would like to hear about him, but this is how my mind works now. You wrote so much with Billy and now you're writing with Kai on this script. Did anything come up for you? Did you did you think but that's, did you get frustrated or were you just so happy because it was smooth, like your relationship with Billy, or you might've put a little pressure on Kai because of what Billy brought to the table, or did none of that happen? Okay first of all, it was actually December, oh, I'm so sorry. No. I think you might'cause the Memorial was in February, but it was, yeah, so that's, yeah. December 18th. 18th, yes. And by the way Billy and Kai were very close. They have a very special relationship. And I actually, one of my most prized things is when Billy would sometimes babysit Kai, they would improvise like these really hilarious little. Things, and I would get these little sketches being sent to me over the phone. It was like the greatest babysitter ever. But it was very different. I don't really think things came up because what writing with Kaia I'll say like with Billy and I wrote so much when we were in the Groundlings together and we just had always done a lot of improv together. So we were very free and easy and we always laughed. And then when I first came to him saying, Hey, do you know, I wanted to give him this opportunity?'cause I want, I just, there's so many talented people who don't get. A break. And I felt like he was definitely a writer who was so talented and really deserved a chance. And so I was like, would you like to write an episode with me? And I will say, it was so funny because at first he was so nervous and he was like pitching these weird jokes that it was so strange because we had written together so many times. And then I just remember at one point I was saying, okay, We need a line here. And he was like, how about this? How about this? and I was like do you think that's funny? And he's no. And I'm like just relax. Then one day he, at his gym. He got into a fight with somebody over, this guy put a towel like they were in the steam room and he put a towel over the thing and he, there was a sign saying not to do it, and he moved the towel and the guy punched him in the face and he had stitches. It was awful. and we had set up a time to work and he was like, I was like, don't worry. Don't you don't have to come in tomorrow. I was like, no, I'm coming in. And I was like you don't have to. And he is no I'll come in. And he is I might not be funny, but I'm gonna come in. And I was okay. And so he showed up in pain and he was so hilarious. And I think just because he had been given permission to not have to be great It took all the pressure off and then all of a sudden we were back to okay, this is, remember, this is what we do. We could write together. I love that. And that's such a great story for our writers to hear out there that, are nervous to put their talent out there in front of people. I also remember a story you told me with Billy when you first started writing together, like one of the first things you wrote together in the Groundlings, you were working on like a sketch or something. And so you were typing and he was telling jokes and you're just going, Uhhuh, uhhuh. And then at a certain point he just went, I feel like you're not listening to me. I feel like you're not writing any of my suggestions. Then you said no, I am. And you just showed that you weren't like actually saying oh, that's good. Every single one. But you were still writing them all down, writing the good ones down and like it's good to communicate that, yeah, that was I remember this, the story, this was like why I was telling you the story. It was like, it was how I knew that Billy and I were gonna be good friends.'cause at in the Groundlings it was like, we're in the Sunday show and you get paired up, you pair up with people and we were writing and he made a joke and I was like I don't know about that. He just very quickly said, I feel like you're not taking any of my ideas. And I was like no. Look look back at the script that this is your idea. This is your idea, this is your idea. You're just feeling it more when I don't take it. But, I definitely we've been laughing and all this stuff that you've said has gotten in and and he was like, okay, you're right. And that's very much Billy, have his heart on his sleeve. he would be really happy and then all of a sudden he'd be like, I feel like you're being mean to me, or whatever. He would just say it, which was so great. It's a trait I wish I had more of, yes. Where you always know where you stand with someone. Yeah. Because then it was like, okay. And then we realized, okay no, that's not true. You are getting oh yeah, you're right. Okay. And then we carried on and I was like, I'm gonna be really good friends with this guy for a long time. I could just tell but with Kai, I will say I'm a little bit less like that. No, Kai, it was a very different writing experience and it was very smooth. Now with Billy, when we wrote on the Groundlings, here's the thing I will say for, if you're writing with a partner, it's hard to be completely democratic. when we write on the Simpsons it's not a democratic process. you have to have one person who's in charge. And with Billy and I, when we wrote our own stuff, it would be whoever was like, if it was your idea for the sketch you are the one who has the vision and the other person is the suggester and can suggest even deep things like, is that what this sketch is about? you need to have one person who is The decider and so then when we did The Simpsons, I've been on the show for 25 years, so I do know the show a little bit more. And Uhhuh it is a very freeing kind of thing to be in both.'cause if you're the,'cause often when I'm at work, I am not the decider when I'm not running my own episodes or running when I'm a co runner, but then you're just like, okay, how about this? How about that? And it's more it's fun. But So you were asking about our process of writing. We basically just wrote, we were talking at first of we were gonna split up and you write one scene and I write, but we ended up instead just writing more like how we do Write Simpsons, where we had an outline and we had gotten notes from the room and then we went off and we just wrote it and we just sat together writing it. I really enjoyed, it was a very smooth, I think Kai is very he's respectful because I'm his mom but he is also not afraid to go. I, are you sure? I don't think that should he will voice his opinions very strongly. And he knows me well enough. Like I, I sometimes when I'm running the room at the Simpsons. I will, sometimes I know this about myself. They, sometimes somebody will say they'll voice a concern and I'll go I don't, I don't, I don't see that. And then we'll continue. And then that night at dinner, I'll go, oh, wait, I get what she's saying. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'll go, okay. Yeah. I think you were saying, I understand what you're saying now, and because sometimes you just can't see it right away. Exactly. Kai Yes. You've grown up watching your mom doing all this and how do I say this? What did you learn? What did you think you knew about writing before you actually became a writer? Most of my memories of. Seeing my mom write it made writing seem very stressful. Which it is to a degree, but it's not as stressful as I thought. It's still hard, and I, something I guess I wish I knew before starting to write a bit more is it's, or at least when I did the Simpsons episode, it was also a lot of producing. for TV writers a lot of people don't realize that you have to be an editor. You have to know music. You do a lot. Yeah. Yeah. He definitely has gotten to, to see a lot of that. And that was, I learned, was that I learned a lot of how the sausage was made. It was disgusting. this episode There's a lot of music. There's a lot of music. And it's all so cool because we worked with bleeding Fingers, Kara t Kara Tavi, and she's so good. showing my age. Who's Bleeding Fingers? Bleeding Fingers is it's not your age they are no, it's a really uh, new age band. Everyone's listening to it. They are part of the Hans Zimmer umbrella. So maybe a way of saying it is a vendor of the Simpsons, the music vendor you guys go to, to create your music? They are, yeah. They are the brilliant yeah. Okay. And I apologize to Bleeding Fingers for calling them a vendor. They're not, but that's just the way I think that our audience can grasp it. They and we had been doing a lot with Bleeding Fingers over Zoom just because it's easier, but because there were so many songs we did go in to, to see. And also I just wanted him to just see this. So it was really fun. it just, it's. Phenomenal. And Jake Schafer and Russell Emmanuel, they're all there. Who's the producer? It was really amazing. how did you enjoy that part of it? Yeah. The songs was so cool.'Cause I know I love music and my mom handled most of the songwriting, though I will say most of the lyrics because she, I, she write like writing lyrics. Yeah. She's very good at that. do you play any instruments? Do you write lyrics? Yeah, I used to play a lot more instruments. I did bass and guitar but now I just sing yeah I'm a singer. I don't do a lot of songwriting, but I do some sometimes if I'm Oh, cool. if you play in town at all that I will come see you. Yeah. And we had seen I, so I will say we, we had, I I both just came back from Edinburgh and my niece Samantha, we went to the Fringe Festival this year. But I had gone the year before last year by myself and I saw Patty Harrison. I was already a huge fan from I think you should leave. And so her fringe show last. Ear had some singing in it. And I'd also seen some really funny sketches of her online where she sang. And so I was like, she can sing, and she could carry a tune and she's, and she gets the jokes. So as, Kara is this amazing singer, so when she composes a song, she has this great voice. In fact when we did last, when we did that Christmas episode, there was a song that Patty LaBelle was sang on it. And we had given Patty LaBelle this, demo track with Kara's voice on it. And Patti LaBelle was like, oh, who's that singing on? And Kara was like, oh my God. To have Patti LaBelle say, wow, girl, you can sing. Very impressive. But so that's another little exclusive, is that Patti Harrison will be singing some songs. Yeah. So we, so we had these great songs. We were so into them. Once Kara gave'em to us, we were listening to them over'cause they were just sounded so great. It is great with Kara. And then Patty came in and she had said she'd been taking singing lessons and it, because of this part, she has to sing at one point, like Grace Slick. And then another point she has to sing very sort of falsetto. And then she does like a Britney Spears thing. She has a Britney Spears and, it was just it really, she super blew us away. Complicated with the, so now then we were, when we heard Patty's version, it was so great. so good. Yeah, how wonderful. I cannot wait to see this episode. It sounds so intriguing to me. You're in for a treat with the music. please keep me posted. So I'll let our audience know when it does air. Yes. Now, Corky, you wrote now it was just the final season of Full House. Were you on the final season or more? I was actually. You wrote the last episode. I just remembered that. Now. That is so cool. Now you were on the last final season of Full House and then you went to The Simpsons, correct? Is that how it there was a couple of shows in between. No matter what. Jumping from something like Full House Respectable Bravo would've killed to be on, but to jump to the iconic Simpsons. That is amazing. How did you do that? Could you just tell a little bit about your life, about that time for the writers out there? Yeah, so Full House was one of my first shows that I was on. I'd been on a couple, I'd been on a show with my Matthew Perry just before that. That only lasted for I think maybe 13 episodes. And called Humphrey. just before friends. What was Humphrey about? I don't remember. Humphrey was about, it was supposed to be about a woman who gets a divorce and moves back in with her mother and her wisecracking. 21-year-old brother who was played by Matthew Perry, who also Matthew Perry's character worked at a, some kind of small local paper with Dan Schneider. At the time who was an actor? Wait. Dan Schneider as in Nickelodeon. Dan. S Yeah. Nickelodeon. Dan Schneider. Yes. Whoa. Okay. Just side note this is called pineapple. I learned this from Rose Catherine Pinkney, when you just just changed subjects. Pineapple. Dan Schneider for the writers out there to know, look up a little, what is it? Documentary. What was that documentary called? It was a Behind Closed Doors or back it's called, but yeah, he's an interesting guy. I'm sorry. I could just go for an hour on this, so let's not do that. Okay. Go ahead. Back to you, Yes. That was my first show before, even before that one was a show called birds of a Feather, Was that Nancy Steen? That was Nancy Steen who ran it? And it was Rosie O'Donnell and Melissa Gilbert. This is so fun. Hold the phone. How was Rosie? Rosie at the time, she was unhappy because she had signed up to do this show and then stuff got delayed and then she had done a league of their own. And so I think she was like, I'm beyond this. But she was contractually had to be on our show. And so she's very she's got a big personality. She's very funny. This is especially like young hungry Rosie, although, but she was a little grouchy because she didn't want to be on this show. She was always nice to me. But there would be like reports from, okay, she's made somebody else cry and, she was just not, she was unhappy. I'm just testing my memory. Was somebody in prison in that's what it was about. It was called it was based. Off of oh. No, wait. I might have called it Birds of a Feather. our show was actually called Stand By Your Man, and it was based on a show called Birds of a Feather, which was a big British hit. And it was actually Alan McKean, who was Tracy Oman's husband, was our executive producer of the two. Oh, that's cool. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, Tracy was all often there with her daughter Mable and her cute little dogs. But yeah, so it was about two sisters whose their husbands. I forget what they do. They do something where they end up in jail. It was some blue collar crime where they tried to sell stolen goods or some, I can't remember exactly their crime, but the story is basically about the one sister is like,'cause the one husband is the patio furniture, king of Paramus, that would be the Melissa Gilbert character. And then the other was Rosie O'Donnell, who was a little bit more rough and tumble But, so it was basically that those, the two husbands in prison and then the two sisters have to move in together. So those were your kind of first shows where you're getting your feet wet. Your what? You're a baby writer at this point, yeah. You're a baby writer. Yeah. And then, yeah, and then Home Free was the next one. And then after that I got on full House and I was very excited because Home Free and standby, your Man were both I think they were like 20 weeks of work and then, and back then you'd work for 20 weeks and then you couldn't work at all until the next staffing season. Now it's a little bit less, I think people produce all year round, but like back then it was like, there was only, there were like five weeks after the schedule was announced where you'd have to get a job and we called it, I don't even know if we have staffing season anymore, but that's what they used to call it. After the upfronts there would be staffing season and if you didn't get a job, you would not work until the next staffing season. So then to be on full house, which I was never a big fan of that show, but that show was guaranteed for two seasons. And I was like, oh my God. To have 22 episodes and then I'd get to go on a vacation for my hiatus and then come back. And knowing I had a job was an incredible luxury I was like, yeah, let's do it. And then, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. It wasn't creatively, challenging. the actors. Were all really nice. I will say that I Stamos is very nice and Bob Sge is funny and Dave Coulier is very sweet. And I, I loved Lori Locklin and. I, it was so funny because being in other writing rooms, we would make fun of the idea of the Olson twins then. But then when you're actually on a show with these two little 8-year-old girls, it's yeah, they're just so sweet. And they're, they tried so hard and they were so well behaved. And I think I remember you saying something to me once, or I was in a conversation where it's I forget how you said this. Something like if you wanna come say something about those two girls Just, stop. It became like, yeah. I couldn't. Just TV writers are just comedians in general, we, we're a sassy bunch. And nothing is sacred. And so people I probably did too, but now you're talking about these 8-year-old girls that I like and I care about, and I would worry about them,'cause we would get weird fan letters and sometimes you'd see people you'd see people react to them and be like, can I give you a hug? And they'd be like, no, watch that guy. It was really it's weird because they're children and that, that was, that came up a lot in general in full house. it was weird watching. We'd have to audition a lot of kids too. And that was a strange, that was strange for me too. I just remember thinking like, ugh, I don't know if I had a kid and I did have one. But I remember thinking, if you want, if they really showed interest in acting, maybe have'em do theater or something and then maybe later let them go into it. I once saw up in Calgary on set. The mom had a towel and the toddler would scream into the towel. I guess when he had too much energy or something, and it was like, I'm, I didn't like it. And I still think about it. And the minute you started talking about stuff, it came rushing back to me. people were pretty protective of, Mary Kate and Ashley and and all of them Jody and Candace, they were protective and Andrea, Kimmy I don't think there was any abuse in that way, but I do think they were overworked. Mary Kate and Ashley, we were overworked. I felt, you working on a TV show, that's hard work. And then we'd come back from a hiatus and I'd, say, what'd you do? And they'd be like, did a TV movie? And they were in demand. And I felt like a lot of the people who were supposed to be taking care of them it, it starts to be like very, they stand to make money too. And so it just gets, it just got really, I anyway, but I felt like they were a little bit overworked and Right. That I don't think there was any there's, there could be a lot worse things but the thing was, I, the how little kids do auditions, it's, it just feels. It just feels not good for their psyche to have to get up and be judged and not get hurt and all those, wait, didn't you once write a sketch, about a mom critiquing her daughter's art project. Didn't you do something like that? I did. I wrote a sketch about mom critiquing her kids, like jokes No, that wasn't a sketch. That was just a, that was a biography. it's his only way he would learn. Okay. So you're writing and you've got a really wonderful career going, but again, it's not Simpson's level. How did you get into the symptoms? But I do remember there was like this one show that I had I had, after Full house, I Mark Warren and Dennis Rinzler, who ran full house. They were like, they wanted to run another show, and they liked my work and I was still very new. And so they asked me if I wanted to like, work on their pilot. And so it was just me, those two, and me, and they were paying me under the table. And of course at that time I was like, yeah, oh, I'm just, I'm totally I hope I don't get anybody in trouble with that. But they weren't paying me very much. But I, but I was basically, I went to the casting and I, it was just us three rewriting and like at one point, one of'em went on vacation and I kept working. This was on a hiatus, and then the other one went on a vacation and I kept working with the other one and I was like. I know they aren't making what I'm making. They were show writers and but I was like, this is a really great experience. And that was, we did, we were writing this show, the Parenthood, which was Robert Townsend, and it was a predominantly black show. That was really great.'cause then we, and we had a writer's room that was predominantly black writers. that was a really great experience because it was just, it was interesting to I felt like the black community is so supportive. So many people would come out to and I think also because Robert Townsend was such a lightning rod for all these talented people, but, yeah. So we did that and then Mark and Dennis wanted to do this other show called Nick Freno, licensed teacher, and I helped them with that. And they were always like, if people wanted to leave, they could leave. But when I came to them and said, okay, I've got this opportunity to work on another show I'd like to leave after this year. They were like, and it was actually a show by David Stern, who was a Simpson's writer. He had a show called Manhattan Man, which is about I dunno, superhero. It was really great pilot, I remember. And they were like, oh no, you can't go Warner Brothers won't let you go. And it was like, I was, I don't know. I was really upset because I felt like I didn't believe them, that it was Warner Brothers. I think they didn't wanna let me go, and they just knew I was too much of a wimp to. To make a stink. So I stayed and then that year my mother was dying. And so I was on this show and I was going home and it was really awful. And I told myself the next year if I'm not on a good show that I love, that I really love, I'm not gonna take the thing. and Brian Scully was on Nick Freno with me, and he went on to go work with his brother, Mike Scully, who was running The Simpsons. And and he, I, and part of it, I don't know if he knew that I was like, stuck on the show. I didn't want to be on and that I, and then they kept it was like Nick Reno at the time was like last place, but then they still somehow got renewed. I was like, Ugh. And I and then. Brian came to me and told me, he said, my brother's running the Simpsons, and he was very nice to me. And he said I know that I don't wanna bug my brother and, but I know that he will take at least one person that I recommend. And so I've thought long and hard about this and I recommend you. And so I was blown away. And I met with Mike and I really liked him, and we hit it off and he liked my scripts and he made it sound like, yeah I think this is gonna work. And then that was when the whole Phil Hartman thing happened. so I had this interview and then Two months went by. And normally if you don't hear in two months, But they were like, no we've had a, terrible thing happened their brains must have been scrambled. And for the for the listeners, Phil Hartman, the wonderful Phil Hartman actor Saturday Night Live News Radio. News Radio Groundlings was murdered by his wife in their home while their children were there. So that was a pretty big shakeup. Did you get a phone call? Did you get an email? What did you get letting you know that you were staffed? staffing season was over and all the shows were staffed, so I was like, oh, I guess I'm just gonna not work And I'm trying to remember. It was getting close to June and uh, then my agent said no they said yes. And that was it. I think I remember you saying it could have been a couple years in, or it could have been three days in, I'm not sure. But I remember you saying I'm happy I don't have to have another job for the rest of my life. You were so happy over there. I was I remember being very and I still am, but at the time I remember wanting to be very conscious of the fact that this might be my good old days. Oh, that just, this is what I wanted to like, not have to look back and go you know what? That was the best time I wanted to like, think this is it happening right now. Did your mom get to see you be on staff at The Simpsons? I no,'cause she died in that other show. I remember she passed away and then I was like, okay, I just gotta, we're the last place show. she died in October, and I'm like, I just have a few more weeks left and then we'll be done. And then they're like, guess what? We gotta back nine. was like, celebrating and I was like, excuse me. And I go into my office and crying, like why would they renew this show? I like to think that your mom was the connection for you to get the dream job. I think she probably was manipulating some things up there but mostly I don't wanna discount the actions of Brian Scully. Thank you, Brian. Kai, when did you realize your mom was such a big deal? I think I realized from a fairly early age.'cause whenever I would go with her to I don't know, like some event or something and ComicCon or anything like that. Something, yeah. But Comic Con's a good example. But uh, where we would meet a lot of people. And then, the conversation would be like, oh, what do you do? And she's oh, I write for The Simpsons. And everyone would go, oh, wow. Even if they were just feigning interest, they at least knew that was something super cool to, to go oh wow. About. And I think I I picked up on that. But yeah, seeing her on Comic-Con panels I was, I loved Comic Con. I still love Comic-Con. But yeah, we're big Comic-Con fans. Yeah. A thing I really liked seeing her be such a big deal there. Everyone was like, oh, hey, I want to hear what she has to say. I want to ask her some questions. And I realized, yeah, she's a big deal. Wow. I'm on a panel with big, big deal. Yeah. People who are big deal. You're a really good mooch. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, wow, Matt Graney is a big deal. And she's sitting next to him Kind of the flip side of that when did you notice that Kai would had a talent for writing and now that you say about those little improvs, I see where it was probably forming for you, but was it even earlier? I will say, because Kai would fight wanting to be a writer. But even like when he was really young, like three he had to go to speech therapy because at three they want little kids to be understood by strangers. Like 75% of what a kid says should be understood by strangers. But the pediatrician was like, I don't really understand him. So he had to go to speech therapy. So at one point she showed him a thing and she goes, see, like what he saying here it, it's because she said it's like a bulldozer. And he was saying no front loader, but he was saying it like trunk loader. Like he had he kind hard time saying he is Fs. Oh, okay. And so I think he was just learning words out of order, because usually at three years old kids, early on they say very one, they say one syllable words and they're not really saying big full sentences. And he was saying three or four syllable words. Usually they would go for the simple things and get their mouth muscles more into it, and then they would start forming sentences. He was skipping the, getting the word formation. And he was at one point I just, he was telling me a story and I subtitled it for the speech therapist'cause she couldn't hear it. I could hear it because people who knew,'cause I knew what he was saying. And then when she realized, oh my God he's telling a whole story, which like, it was a little advanced and I felt like it also just his sense of story, even at a, on a very. Primary level. I felt like he gets it. Like even knowing he would start like, what's up time? And then I remember when he was nine, his teacher giving me that poem of about the, and it was so beautifully written about the winter and the forest and he showed it to me and I was like, wait, he Kai wrote this? And he's yeah. And like the teacher himself was also like, this he's his way with words is so great. And interesting thing about that poem is it makes the form of a, if you just look at the words that formed a tree,'cause the, and basically I guess'cause as lines were just getting wider and then they get. Then there's this short little thing, and I was like, is was that the assignment? And he was like, no, that's just what he did. you didn't even know that you were doing that? No. I think I probably wanted to make a tree also. And I'm not, I'm sure you went on vacations and stuff, but you're a California kid and you're writing that's very deep writing about the winter in the forest. Yeah. I don't have many forests, don't have many winters. All of this was just from my imagination. This is what I think a forest is that's a writer. Hey, Kai, back in the day, I don't know if you know this after an improv show that, your mother and I were in or a class we used to get in Mark Dean's van Steve Martin's van and hit Sunset Boulevard. And and we also danced at places like the Crush Club and the Boss Club. What was that? The Boss Club? It was like at the place called Imperial Gardens. That would, and it was like on Thursday or Wednesday nights, it was like, it was all Springsteen songs that, yeah, I think I had my very first, we weren't big drinkers or anything like that, but I think I had my first you dropped a, a sa you dropped something into a beer, a boiler maker or something like that. Saki slammer. Yeah. I don't, I, I never did that, but I do remember seeing that. Yeah. Okay. I believe you. I never drank at all. tell me about young Hollywood Kai. What are the kids doing? What are the cool places? what do your friends do for fun? Are you quiet? Do you do house parties? I gotta say, I think me and my friends are pretty boring to be honest. Sometimes we do go out for drinks or something, but we, I'm gonna be honest, I don't know a lot of good clubs at the moment. we'll mainly just hang out at each other's places, each other's houses, whatever. we'll just call or talk to each other on the online, on the Innerwebs. I think a lot of that probably comes from the pandemic as well. I'm so glad you brought that up because I also wanna talk to you about this. you've gone through a pandemic. There was a rider strike And there was one prior to that. I can't do the math as I don't know if you were alive you were like three years old or something like that. Oh yeah. During that first, another strike. The last strike. But the last one, because I remember that one too. Yeah. So that's two strikes in a pandemic. What does that do to a young person? What do you think about the future? Whether it's just, what do you think about the future personally about us as humanity? Tough question. Or even the industry, whatever you feel comfortable talking about. For sure. I think one more strike and I'm out. But besides that, I think the future as always is pretty uncertain. Though certain things make it look more grim than I think it would turn out to be turn out to be. I think the industry, I think it'll recover, in some way. I think we'll loop back around maybe. Yeah. It's, you hope it does,'cause it always does it swings back and forth. But and when it does, it's always in a way that you never quite were able to predict. And then sometimes I think maybe it won't. But, I think we've talked about this of the idea of what is success, I feel like Kai and I now I really feel like Kai and I are I really would like to partner with him more in the future. And if I think about something beyond The Simpsons now, I know that even if the. Industry bounces back. I know that I probably will never be on anything as successful as The Simpsons. So in that regard, you think then why would you even try to do anything else? But we just cut back from the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. Yeah. And it really is a wonderful thing. I, you're writing audience out there. I will highly suggest, it's a trek, but it is such a wonderful thing. It's, first of all, the city is this incredible. Weird little castle town. It's, yeah, the streets are confusing and bad, but they're so cool. And cobblestones and alleyway And Kai was, he really embraced the the thing of like, when going with the flow, more like when people flyer you,'cause everybody's flyering and he would look and I will say that the two favorite shows that we saw were ones that he discovered just by. Taking every flyer and looking at them and going, oh, this one sounds good. And the things we saw this really great thing called Space Hippo, and it was like that was so good. This, there were a duo from Japan, although the guy's American and the girl is Japanese and he wrote the story and she, and they were these shadow puppets. Yeah. They all, it was all shadow puppets and they had some music and they had like over a thousand shadow puppets and they just told this story, which was very sweet. And it was funny. Funny. Yeah. It was almost to an extent like a storybook. But you really felt for if, when a character died. There was like an audible Aww. Yeah. From the audience. It was like watching, it was watching live animation. Yeah.'cause also they're both like, they're just switching back and forth between two spotlights, between characters and They're doing the voices, but the guy is speaking in English and the woman is speaking in Japanese for the characters that she does. But even still, you love those characters even if you can't understand them. they also make up alien languages too. Even last year I had seen this incredible play called The Outrun and I remember I was in this little theater in Edinburgh and I was like, it was a big theater actually. In as far as the Edinburgh theaters go, maybe 200 seats. It was so successful to me in that it was such a brilliantly done play and it looked like there, it sold out as far as the people there, but it's not gonna be, who knows? It's things, a lot of things happen from Edinburgh flea ag and baby Reindeer and fly to the Concords. Stomp, all these things came from Edinburgh, but maybe not. And that is the thing in the end, you have to love what you're doing And you have to like, that is the, that could be the success is if you did a Space Hippo, you did this show, and you created this magic moment where 50 people in this tiny room saw this thing and were moved by this thing and. It was this incredible moment. That's what you have to be in it for and hope that other things follow, because who knows what's gonna happen in the future with this industry This ought to say that the future of writing and the industry and just, I guess creativity at large is still pretty bright. You just need to look in the right places and expand your definition of what success is. thank you guys so much for spending so much time and giving so much of your story to the listeners of the Writer's Hangout. I had the best time. I hope you did too. Yeah, this was super fun. Thanks for having us. It was really fun. It was fun to, to yeah, to do this together and to definitely and to, and to talk to you, Sandy. And we should definitely have dinner I hope our dinner didn't have anything to do with the fire starting. I don't think so. Yeah. Because it would be bad if we plan another dinner and birds again. The chances aren't zero. Just be careful if it happens again. We'll have to think about, maybe we should be lunch people And that's a wrap for the Writer's Hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your positive feedback will help us keep the show going so we can continue bringing you more future episodes. Remember, keep writing. The world needs your stories. The Writers Hangout is sponsored by the Page International Screenwriting Awards, with executive producer Kristen Overn, producer Sandy Adamides, and myself, Terry Sampson. And our music is composed by Ethan Stoller.