The Simpsons and Future Plans

Hi, Richard Herring here. Thanks for downloading my podcast. Now you may have heard on the gown upp news that I've not been very well. I'm feeling fine I'm sort of in the middle of treatment C very minor cancer. It's not curable, but it's completely treatable. So please don't worry about me. In the meantime, if you want to become a badger, this is an excellent time to support us at go faststrike. com slash badges. if you would like to buy a thank you Moriati t shirt from Rich and Alley's Craven News round, then head too fastter Stripe. com. and you should be able to find them on there. They're only going to be available for a couple of weeks print them all up at once when we find out what the demand is But if you enjoy that podcast, particularly, that's a great way to pay us back for that Look, I've still come to the Edinburgh fringe unless something that goes horrifly wrong in August I think that to the sixteenth and Go to ridichchain. comash for Hallispurg. you can see all the dates and the guests confirmed so far whoo are Mike Was't at Susie McCabe and Flo and Joan. there are some big names to come, I'm sure. I'm aiming very high with this and I will be giving some recommends of people you should be going to see at the fringe through interviews over the next few weeks as well Anyway, thank you very much Let's sit back. Thanks to all the lovely messages I've had from you guys and it's lovely to know how much these podcasts mean to you and that's worth more than money I mean, obviously doesn't keep us going, but thank you very much for the love you've been giving us I very much appreciate it and I'll do my best to carry on doing these until I get bored Anyway, sit back, relax and enjoy another podcast from the head and Mouth of AK Heric You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago? That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely more engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation We're a caste, and we put them right in front of you Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results. Acast Acast d. com slash advertise Hello, welcome to another remote Rahhala stpper this week I am joined by two men who are probably best known as Mr. Johnson in Outnumbered and Stan in Mr. Mom. . Very excited about that. It's Harry S and Tom Leopalold Yeah, you read the wrong credits there, sir.. Id like to be know by my most obscure credit. I mean Statin and Mr. Bom is pretty pretty impressive. Well, it's funny because one day when our daughters were little, they were screaming in the other room. I totally I've been a writer so long. I forgot I did all these acting jobs And I thought something had fallen on them. and I run in and they they're going dad Dad, is that you And it was mr. Mom was coming to go, Oh yeah yeah, So. It's nice that I don't think I'm still as I'm not recognizable anymore Yeah even in a mirror. exactly. Look, Harry has been on the show for and incredibly now seventy three years into your career, Harry, I just should That doesn't seem possible, but it it doesn't seem advisable. I seventy three years, I'm very. veryery great success as well, as we did discuss last time. Tom, people in the UK, as you say you're mainly known as a writer, they may not be aware of you by name, but they would certainly be aware of the many, many amazing shows you've been involved in Um, Lucky yeah. yeah Yeah. I mean, um Things like Seinfeld, Cers Um You've watched a lot with Chevy Chase, of course. Willingrace Yeah. And a lot of lot lot of shows You know notot quite on the same level, but Thrilled to have a gig, you know? Checks cash. Yeah, check the again again cash the check. Ccks cashed and yeah, you know Everything's good. Yeah, everything'. Yeah yeah. I've been very lucky to done all those things. and of course Work with Harry Shear. Yeah, well, at first Many years. Yeah, not for seventy three years, but for now No many of them. But we're working on it Yeah. we did write something, you know for the W brothers, but they had no timing those guys So how did you guys like first of all meet? I know you did a sketch show together in the late seventies or a pilot for a sketch shower in the late seventies. Yeah did how did you meet before that? Well, Tom, I was in a comedy group called The Credibility Gap And one of the members of it was a guy named Michael McKean No I'm aware of his work And he said, I've got this friend. Oh. and you kind of meet. and I put it off for a while But then Michael introduced us. and Tom was working as an actor, more than as a writer in LA in those days U But we just started making each other laugh and you know Yeah, we Mike and I met Micer And came up I grew up in Miami and I came up to acting school at seventeen. and they the very first two people I meet There had been two guys had already been to college for two years. they were nineteen, which was a big difference in those days. One was Michael McKeon and the other was Christopher Gest Amazing. They're nineteen, I'm seventeen and we made each other laugh and that's where I met Mike and And They didn't really care much for us. We did funny scenes and you're not supposed to be funny in acting class. You're supposed to be crying and doing, you know rolling on the floor being No feeleling rage at your parents. and we did se some Nack and British things like that And actually yeah I worked as an actor right then. I They wanted to hold me back at acting school. Which is, I think I'm the only person on earth that's ever been asked. I said, Well, you can't hold me back. I'm hoping it to Cherry Lane Theater in six months in Pomph Broadway shows up But that's where I met those guys And then through Mike I got to meet Harry and You know It was s. Comedy love at first sight Yeah. Yeah. well, and so I didn't know about this show. you did a show called The TV show, which is W it the first time spinal tap came together res so I don't know about. It was a pilot for a TV series and the premise was You're watching what It starts with a guy in a lazy boy chair with a remote and you're behind him and you're seeing him watching TV And he's got a channel changer So the beauty part of that show was it solved the real problem of sketch comedy, which is Three minutes of something very funny and no ending because on the TV show, we could just remote controlled switch away from the sketch before the bad ending So it was a whole broadcast day making fun of everything on TV. Right. And Tom was a major part of telethon. I don't know if if people here know what a telethon was. But they were long shows That's the fun part On television And they were for charities and they would just go on and on and on and they were kind of irritating and stupidly funny and we did want it to fight death because once we defeat that, all the rest of the diseases will be easy to kill. And Tom was one of the guests on the show And then that's the end of the show. we did spinal tap as a part of a take off on and then popular musical variety show in NBC called Midi Special and that was where Tap was born. It was a video, kind of an early video. Yes. I played A judge with a gorilla mask pounding a gavel In this video, I'm very proud of that. R And he said, I think the dialogue that's key because this was in the middle of a song So you' just got pounding stuff behind it. and the judge says, this court finds you guilty. How do you plead Guilty They didn't quite getess it. So none of those sketches get endings, but we have a whole show of just endings Tailings Yeah bls. And so that show never got picked up because it was just a pilot and didn't get picked up That's right. It aired on ABC, one of the three major networks late at night in the middle of the summer U It had a lot of really good people on it and it was very funny. but ABC and they're great stupid they're great boys excited not to pick it up Amazing. I mean, like when you think that then, you know, they never look back and think of the things they've missed, I guess, but You know, when you look at a the cast of that, it also included Rob Reiner as well. I think was was was Rob one of the actors in that as well. Rob was one of the actors. He was one of the producers, one of the writers. Yeah. Billy Crystal was in it. G Everybody Martin Maul was in it. Yeah We actually actually we did it Rob was in it too as we did the trial of Adolf Hitler. That's correct And Rob was playay Hitler with a cooke spoon around his neck in that leisure suit I remember. and Yeah, that's before the producer well no it was after the movie the producer and the Rob Rob is also the u the And spokesperson for the sponsor of the trial Radolf which was a petrole chemical and petroleum company And he was doing the commercial for it. and the last words in the commercial was Robert W Bob Bobby died of blood poisoning, but coulds yes. We as a company w mist it. Well, well, look, you know, these it's an alternate history, isn't it where something like that gets picked up and and becomes amazingly popular and then sometimes something it just u just disappears off the radar. but luckily it didn't put any of you off carrying on and so you were The rule of of thum to me in show businesses, you've just got to be have more persistence than the bastards Yes Yeah, resil insire. Yeah. Well. And so you've been working together on and off ever ever since. I wanted to talk to you Tom, before we get onto the latest project I was interested that you've this is quite this seems quite un this is this is away from work a little bit but I know Harry is connected to this that you are converted from Judaism to Catholicism, which seems like quite a quite a leap. Can you give me something if you? quuite a le in this conversation. I just wanted to get this in before I forgot, but no, no, I'm happy to talk about M It was quite a leap, all right? Yeah. And I must say that one of the greatest knights of my life was my best friend Harry B U of the list and my other friend Paul Schaefer, the piano the musical director for the David Letterman show. There's not known here? Yep And many other friends threw me at Tom Leopold's last day is a Jew roast where everybody came and tortured me in Harry You know came dressed in full rabbi regalia It with a big fur Hidic hat and try to perform an intervention to keep me from doing it. Kam. Kamala, you' killing your mother And Yeah, it really u You know, it just came about through an illness in the family one of my it through a series of kind of When I feel were sort of semi supernatural. That's right adjective, supernatural experience. I was very proud be Jew. I mean you just don't get this funny not being Jewish. It just doesn't matter. You know, So I consider myself very much, very much still very Jewish. Yeah. And so it just came about through But we were never barit food and I'm one of three boys and my parents really only joined a synagogue to audition for the shows. They put up So they heard Temple Bethem was doing my fair lady. they joined Temple Bethem. Theyd get parts. You know, remember seeing my father singing Get Me to the church on time wearing one of those really tall Yamkas, you know? So then when the show was over, we never went back But so yeah, and it it's been a wonderful part of my life. been very comforting and I cly learn more about Judaism than I ever knew being Jewish, you know So it's been a real comfort and And if the than God our daughter recovered and Oh great. But I'm thinking of converting back at the end in case I want to kill myself because you're not allowed to kill yourself As a Catholic. So I want I don't think at this point the Jews would take me back. Oh we take you back. What If you're Jewish, you're allowed, you' allowed to kill yourself if you're Jewish, but not as a Catholic. I didn't know the Jews were Yeah as lacks on theoo You can't get tattooed but you can kill yourself. But you can get tattooed, you just can't get buried How can it? Yeah Okay, if you're tatooed, you cannot be buried in a Jewy cemetery. Actually, somebody asked me if I wanted to be buried or creamy. I thought carbon need would really be urn turnurn into a beverage.ust turn into a lovely, sparkly Beverage is something. Well fridge they can do that now they can turn you into liquid that's it's not yet legal, but I was talking to someone who they can do it on the past. Yeah Well they can so you can they can they can take you down the toilet basically when you're done. So that's good So we'll look at for that. hopefully a long way away for that You've got social dialed in Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago? That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely more engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation. We're a cast, and we put them right in front of you Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results. Acast Acast. com slash advertise Let's talk about the project that you're doing right now, which I know again, it's quite a long running proroject, okay, isn't it? it's now called hereere comes Jay Edgar. But in the nineteen nineties you did a version of it called J Edgar. Is it markarkedably different or is it the same It just took us thirty years to add two words. Yeah We get the exclamation point because because that'll always put people in the sea. It worked for Oklahoma Yeah, we did it as a radio play for public radio in the States And then we did it as a staged reading at the Aspen comomedy Festival I think we helped kill the comedy festival they don't have it anymore U and then we went through this torturous parade of meetings and things with executives who loved it but didn or didn't love it enough or and other reasons. I mean, They The road to getting anything made is winding and torturous and you have to live a medically proper life so you live long enough to actually see it getting done. that's what will be done. Yes. And we' always even way back when we were dreaming of we had Kelsey Grammer playing J. Edgar Hoover who E in our country, people don't remember was the headav ofy FBI for forty, fifty years And his he because he played Jaggar and C and Glyde Tollson his air quotes Lifetime assistance was played byoh the great John Goodman and Chris Gess was in it, Mike Mcee and all our buddies And u We always hoped to do it in London. We always thought that would be the hippest thing you know, to do to And then let America They were so you know, we're too hip for them and bring them, you know, let's get those If they're too good to start here. Let's we have to have them over here. Yeah. And we so we had several fallal starts at getting it produced on the London stage Uh, which u will be the subject of a book But, you know, we're very fortunate that Good Good luck fell upon us and we're doing this production at the Kings Head Theatre in Neslington starting july sixteenth and going through the sixteenth or eighteenth of August. with a wonderful company that stars Brian Batt. Maybe people know him mostost from Madmen. who Yes He's wonderful. They played the closer gay man in Madmen. We have a great director, Josh Shapiro Chap, Seyour. I'm Jack Symour,cuse Uh, but well afterward hit he can . He can Gentile his name up a little. Yeah. No, it's really been a thrilling experience. We're about halfway through rehearsals And to see, I mean, this thing has been in our heads And on, you know, various pieces of computer paper for a long time and to see it finally spring to life in the hands of such talented people beautiful cast and wonderful production team is really It makes us so move that we can't be funny for the moment And what was it about J. Edgar Hver? I mean, obviously he is a An amazing. because he's, you know stamping down on all sorts of immoral practicesices as he would see it wasil himself being a I mean,'s a cross dresser is he is is he is was he a positive gay as gay person as well It was a homophobic homosexual. Yeah, yeah So was it was what what attracted you to? It's a musical as well, right? So it's like a comedy musical Musical It's musical class. Yeah. he was a terrible person and des deserves this. He deserves our musical. No that you know, it struck us that the The way to deal with a subject like this is not to spend three hours or two and a half hours. being doleful and sad and angry it's to make nonstop fun of this guy. and all the damage that he did because he was reallyally a fearsome character. He was Pbably the most powerful person in America for half a century. five presidents in a row tried to get rid of him. and he intimidated the ball because he had Secret files, this was being business, was collecting secret files on everybody Um and and that's how he stayed in power Yeah And so does that is there? I mean, obviously if you wrote it in the nineties, it wouldn't directly resonate with what's going on now, but obviously that has a little flavor of It sure happens to. It does. So is that is that is that played up in the in the modern version or is do we ar have we let people figure that out. Yeah. We actually have a song lyric where we're He the conceit is that he's dying at the very beginning of the show and very much like a Christmas carol Hes he's shown his life You know, he's taken through his his life. And his mother sings that Someday your name will be up on a building. You know, this is the great is great achievement And the building as you did Tagar Hoover building is being shut down right now Yeah, That's a coincidence. Yeah So timing not everything. But yes, he's on his deathbed and he's dreaming his life and because He was a gay man of a certain era. He's dreaming his life as a classic musical comedy Yes It's a great idea. Yeah. It's a very good idea. And his his lifetime assistant quotes air quotes as he has to refer to Clyde Toulson, which is all true. were they were life partners They meet in the men's room of the store Cub and they sing the lovely ballad once upon a face which is the love song and and the thing is the music is so moving and hooky and And humibable wul B thelete composer was the late Peter Matt who who did all of Barbara Streison's first records with no Coward's piano player, how he ended up Singing to our level we willll never know. but we're so grateful because the melodies are are gorgeous and humable. on top of our goofy lyrics and it really' at times quite moving and it's a love story, really about u, you know Terrible guy. Yeah. by a wonderful actor who you can't help but love Brian Yeah. it sounds amazing and I love the fact that it's You know, it's sort of a project you're returning to and that there's life in something that, you know, you've done it before and then finding new life in it. it's It's it's really moving and wonderful. It's good it's good to get it O there ye. it's an exceptional stroke of good fortune And we're hoping that people u in London who see it, like it and that it, uh has a life even beyond this moment Yeah And is it is it your your roles within this just as as writers? I know you wrote it pretty quickly this just as writers Yeah. Well ye, you're just a podcaster. just It could sound like we're just ushers. But are you able to enjoy the process because you're obviously there at rehearsals, but you're yeah yeah. Oh yeah it's such a thrill to see it brring to life And you know, every once in a while we'll have a notion of either something that should be cut because it's takes too long or something that would make it funnier. I mean, the whole job is to slim it down and make it as funny as humanly possible Yeah, it sounds it's terrific. It says's the king's head from July to August. so Do get along and see that if you can. it does sound terrific Um, And yeah, I did you wrote it in a couple of weeks though. I think I read somewhere. Is that right the main body of it? Yes. And we wanted to make sure that it was really good So we're gonna do write it in a week and a half but no, let's give people their money as worth two weeks. Give it the full two weeks, which I think our audience deserves. Yeah. It just came it just like Jager himself, it came very quickly No, it flos. It really when you're lucky and you get the right subject and you get the right partner U it's amazing how something could flow like that. Yeah, yeah But two weeks to write, thirty two years to get ono the London They so you know it's It's an overnight success. Yes,es.s I mean it is it's so interesting as a writer. you know, A, it's interesting to hear you talking about It's crazy to me that either of you could have any shows that don't get picked up at any point in your. was so much this is So often like everything, even a painter or something, there's paintings you never sell that you love more than anything And this has been something that my favorite thing of all time that hadn't It got done, but it got done as a stage reading and on the radio a comedy festival, but only as a stage reading But to see it with costumes and wonderful choreography Yeah It really is a gift. It's just a wonderful gift for us. You know, it is it's such an up and down thing isnt again, even for people like you who you'dout You outside, you'd go these guys are because you wrote a film together that I know and Harry took his name off because they ended up using two words of what he'd written, but Tom left his name on Yeah let my not time I wanted my mother to have the poster. That's good. You know, I love my mother But the and we brought another movie, which has not yet been done. the thing is for executives in show business There are only two words that matter. And one of them is much easier to say than the other. And that's no. Yes But you know, it's sort of, I mean, it's both upsetting and slightly gives writers slight hope, I think to think, okay, well, you know, don't Don't be put down by the knocks, you know, just as you say, so much of it is about persistence and just carrying on and seeing where seeing what seeing where things get to. So it's And you know, I mean, there are people who get into this business who U spend some time in it and get discouraged by it decide to do something, you know, maybe lawn care And then there are people like us who can't help ourselves. This is what we have to do Yes so This is what we do. And we can't do lawn care I can do you can you can edge. can You can . Yeah, you can M I can't even do that. Yeah. R. Well, it also helps not to have any other So you really are stuck in one place. Yeah U All right, well let's have a little look at some of the other stuff that well that Harry's been up to in the last ten years since I spoke to you and I thought I wondered some I was just interested in you working with Chevy Chase who obviously is quite a controversial bigigger Um, But you seem to have gotten with him well as as what did you did you see the recent documentary Tvy asking me? Oh yeah. ye. Yeah, sure, I did.'m I'm in constant tsch with Teby. Tevby is a good friend. I care about him quite a lot. He gave me really my first Big break. I mean, I started writing Chris Gesson and I started writing for the Lampoon magazine which was a big thing at the time, the nineteen seventy one or two. And I met Chevy there and Bill Murray there and Gil Radner and Belushci and all them Th people. And u Joh Bu. John Baluci. Jim Baluci, I met much later Yeah.. I wasn't ready to meet Jim Balushci early I had him growing up to. You got to prepare. Yeah. So I much surey before all that and up And then when he got Overnight say He, u He asked me to write his first two TV specials And I'll never forget I was He had just become biggest star in the country and I was at an after party for Saturday night Lve And know you guys are doing good Saturday our li as well, that's right. Yeah. Good luck with. Good luck with that. It's quite there qu it's good actually It's good, it's good, but yeah anyway, just give it a chance. G a chance. And u and He was left that first year and he came over to me at this party and He had known Chris Gston who I'd known, and Chris has always been very flattering. And he walked over to me and he said sat down next to me, and he just looked at me and he said, I hear you're the funniest guy And I said, Yeah And that's all I said and he thought that was hilarious Then I just said, Yeah, Yeah. And I didn't try to be funny. and from there he said, lookook, I want you to write this to T be special. And that was a big jump for me career wise because it was He was the hottest starar in the country, really So I have nothing but affection for him in this latest documentary I don't know that I would have advised him to do it Ban, but in Thinking about it afterwards, I thought, you know, A Harry, my generation have a certain view of Jevin But the younger generation adores them. they grew up watching National Lampoon Christmas vacations and those movies meet a lot of people and he was very funny and so U I love the guy. He was great to me. you the old sub business phrase. He was always very nice to me. I people said about Jerry Lewis and I'm sure people said about You know, Mussolini too Mussolini guy was always nice to me. I don't know Black Eye in the press is all about little Yeah lovevely dinners. Auston was great. Yeah. But so I u But I don't know why he didn't really need to do that thing. but on the other hand, I thought it was sort of brave to kind of just sit there in that horrible lighting withithout any hairpiece and just be himself. I kind of admired it, admired for it Yeah, I think you know, in the end because there's lots of, obviously there's lots of stories and they cover them a bit in that documentary and There's bits about him that you can sort of see this shharp side to him and often it's him attempting to be funny. I think sometimes it doesn't come out quite like that. But I think by the end of that documentary you do there's, you know, you see a vulnerable side of him that I Yeah he had a very rough childhood. Yeah. And those kind of things are the kind of things that really make me not regret having never been famous Yeah. I think, you know, I hate to see What a documentary on me would be like You know, or any of us really, you know, it's like it's There's plenty to pick at. I do want to point out Chevy wasn't the only person who said that Tom was the funniest person in the room. We had a mutual friend who was a showrunner in a lot of sit comomes in Hollywood and and Tom would always be in the room as part of those shows and everybody who was in involved in that would walk away going T Leopalold, the funniest guy in the. So than you. Well, I mean, this again, the CV attests to that. I mean and it's such a broad range of you know, it's important and fantastic shows. I mean on that on that though Harry, I mean, I think you, having had this long career, I mean, I think with Jhevy it's he was so he became so famous and so successful And then I think it becomes difficult to cope If you don't maintain that level, nobody's going to maintain that level of fame out their whole career, I guess, you know? Well, I never wanted to be famous in my twenties. No. I'd just seen so many people who had these meteoric rises and then you know, sitting twenty, thirty years later going, where didd everybody go U so, you know, I thought A bit of patience was a good thing. Now I've had to have more patience than that But God Still, I think it's worked out Yeah. mean, it's a difficult bance and also, you're a child st as well that' thin, Th those are people becoming famous in their twenties and people becoming famous as kids often have a very rocky L because it's so hard to cope with the changes, isn't it? I think, you know, so it' I was very, very lucky. I was a child actor. I was never a star. Okay. I was a working child actor and I worked with probably the the greatest comedian of the mid and late twentieth century, Jack Benny in America.. So I had a wonderful experience. I didn't have and I had very sane parents. So I didn't have any of the problems that child actors are known to have And then when I got to be a teenager, I just thought, okay, I'll put that away. That was fun. I'm going to have a serious life And then I was so wrong, I scrambled back just as fast as I could Um And well let's have a look you've also of course Spiner Tap two came out. the last couple of years, which how was that experience? I obviously it's really clouded for us all by what happened to Rob Reiner afterwards Yeah But but I think How was the decision to go back to doing more Spon up againain, there's that big, you know, it's such a success or such a kind of haallllowed film. Did you have any And I know you've done bits and pieces throughout the years with the characters, but was was it was it a big decision to go back to it? and did you think right decision? It was full of trepidation. Yeah. We all felt like man, we'd struck light we got found lightning in a bottle once What are the odds that it's going to happen again Um they they reason it happened is because I just got tired of us being robbed blind by the company that owned the movie. and I engaged in legal action. and resulted in us getting the rights back. And so, you know, after a while, we just thought, well Well, I don't know. well, I don't know, well, I don't know. Okay And so that was the that was the process pretty much word for word Yeah, I mean, and also I guess because of the the legend of it, you are I mean, the The guest stars in the film are pretty omega really. It'd be all you know, I I've always been a fan of Palm the parties. to know to even know him a little bit and to watch him in that movie do something that most Comic people can't do, which is improvise in a scene T me. A lot of people can do it, a lot of people can. But he's a musician. He comes from a totally different background. He', you know He just walks in and does it as if he does it every day of his life. It was amazing to watch. And he's a lovely guy. And Nelson John as well. And Elson John. Yes as well Yeah. well, you know, it's u yeah, it's um, I mean, you know, we can go We and sadly we're all getting to an age where we are losing people one way or another and there are Obviously James Burrows is just passed on who's. You were involved in our guest Tom quite a lot? Yes, I loveved Jimmy very much. She was very kind to me and I learned a lot from him. He was a really Really nice man and so talented And I actually as a young actor One of the first things I ever said when his father was the wrote the book for G and dolls. Aorth. Very famous person Great musical guys and dolls. And I actually years before I met Jimmy, I had audition for a pilot that Abor did I must have been nineteen or twenty or something So That was a funny little bonding moment, but I worked with Jimmy many, many times, of course on Cheers and the act honored me by asking me to come to different beginnings of shows he was developing to Now he didn't need any help, but he for one little I might offer So and he was a wonderful, sweet down to earth guy and very much missed Nice, kind man Um Yeah, I mean, obviously it's we will lose people. losing Rob. I mean, I'd interviewed Rob a few years ago And he did he did seem like a, you know, absolutely terrific very open. It was actually just the announced on the podcast that you would doing spinal tap to. So it was around about that time. So you know that again is just sort of I mean, the horror of the loss is part of it isn't I suppose, but also just the loss of that of that man who I think had so much more left to give though as well. Yeah, I knew him for quite a while. really liked him as a person. I described him in a piece for the Times as a mench, which is a Jewish word meaning just a proper human you know, in every way intelligent and caring and all of that Um We also were in business together, which, you know, It's a whole different thing But as a person, I just thought the world of Rob. Panny was fny S And of course, now that I'm Catholic, I don't know what mench means anymore. So maybe walk me through that a little bit later. I'll see you on Saturday. Did Catholics have a word for somebody who's a good guy? I don't know. That a good guy. Good guy I love I love it Well I I hope you'll stay being Catholic. You can't I think you can't It's good to hedge your bets with relations. you know, it's like ye so far so good. But I don't know It's a day to day. Yeah, it's a day to day thing Do you think when you get to heaven, they go, look, I was half the time. I was you're lot and half the time I was wrong. Well, you know, it When you when you end? Catholic guilt, to Jewish guilt. Iess it's pretty hard to get out of bed in the morning. tell you that. I could't imagine that I dont know It m makes no difference. And very quickly Harry, the Simpsons seems to be Carrying on there's another film in the pipeline is there for the Simpsons That's what I hear. Yeah You still u still enjoying? I know there's been some gain, it's one of these things, isn't it? where where you do something for for for a very long time. My daughter watchatches the Simpsons pretty much every morning. So she's and just on a loop. so she's been through all is it thirty six, thirty eight? I don't know how many ses you probably know better than me. thirty seven. thirty seven, Yeah. so it's she's been through them all a few times. I mean I notot as familiar with Series twenty onwardoods I have to say though I do catch catch the other one. Well, neither am I. I work on it Oh. No, I mean, it's it's it's been a great gift. I I stayed away from series television because I never wanted to be one character every week for seven, eight, ten years I love doing multiple characters, different characters. And what attracted me to the Simpsons and still does is the opportunity to do Somebody counted it up and it's like more than twenty Yeah, differentnt characters and they still are adding new ones all the time And that's That's what I find interesting in the challenge and the fun And you know, and also I guess because it's not. I mean, I think people would would I guess we do recognize you in the street, but it's it's Probably not from the Simpsons because obviously you're not your face isn't in the Simpsons. so There's a sort of anonymity to being on the most successful TV show that it's the best way of being famous I can imagine. And And they're paying you okay now I know there were some problems over the page We'll discuss that after that It's say I'm happy to do all of your work that less than I get? I do. I'd say five hundred dollars a week. I'll do it for a few if that's's that's what I'm going for. There's an AI to anybody that's willing to work for do it for less. Okay Harry fall off his wallet the other day I caught him just some time But it's a horrible situation. a neckbreaker. Yeah. And obviously you're very good friends as we've is cleaar through all this and you still It can often when again, within friendships and within partnerships, within writening partnerships, if someone has a a different level of success for something that could cause issues is it seems to not have done so for But you Tom that you're working with someone who who's in the most.' the second place to hear him sure in here.'s nobody to play in the same band comically, you know, he's mix metaphor I mean, that, you know it's it's never been anything but incredible fun. Yeah So it's, you know It's a joy. D, you know, I like the guy. What are you gonna to do? When you're sitting in a room with somebody and you're making each other laugh helplessly, you're not thinking about, well, he's done this and I've done that You' just in the moment of my God We're so lucky to be able to get paid for Yeah. And I had no idea you've done all these things, Har is you should read my book. I really should look in your cur. Well, I should write my book But ye Yeah that would be That would be the way to do it. That would be the first step. But a friendship that's, you know, where it's sort of fifty Yeah fifty sixty years between fifty and sixty years ongoing Yeah Yeah, enough is enough You looks so much like. I do. I do. I'm thinking of going to Paraguay to do wonderful work down there And when you say down there You don't need your face. No, I don't. I mean down there. Yeah. ye And so let's we'll just finally ask you what I mean I guess we're hoping here comes J Edgar does does fantastically well here in the UK and then you take it worldwide. Yep Absolutely. abolutely I mean, it's a it's you know The It's such a mixture of things. It' a it's a jolly U pune filmed musical comedy about a very dangerous person in public life and how U careful we have to be about letting something like that happen again And it's full of laughs. atful song very, very good song. So it's It's a lot of fun Yeah, good. it might be too late to stop happening again, but I think as long as we can Yeah as we can as long as we can laugh.