Executive producer Al Jean, November 29, 2010:
THR: Will there be a third chopper gag?
Jean: I think at that point you’re becoming stale. I believe that something is only funny twice.
The Simpsons, December 12, 2010:
Al Jean
Harry Shearer Phones It In
Unlucky message boarder “JowTSJY” was forced to attend a table reading for an upcoming episode wherein Marge becomes a foodie, and he shared his horrifying ordeal with the good people at Simpsons Collector Sector with photographic evidence.
Some interesting observations:
Five of the six main voice actors were in attendance: Dan Castellaneta, Yeardley Smith, Nancy Cartwright, Julie Kavner, and Hank Azaria. Tress MacNeille and Pamela Hayden were also providing their voice acting skills, while Harry Shearer was represented by a speaker phone in the middle of the table. I was informed that Harry Shearer rarely attended the table reads, instead “phoning it in” from home. In fact, I was also informed that Shearer rarely came in to record his lines in the studio. He does that from home over the phone, too!
To be fair, he’s in a different recording studio using ISDN, but it’s still funny to imagine Harry Shearer as Charlie from Charlie’s Angels.
At 10AM the table read began as a man (whose name I didn’t catch) announced that The Simpsons had been renewed for its 23rd season. During the table read, this man narrated the non-dialogue portions of the script
Presumably, this man is showrunner Al Jean, who mysteriously doesn’t appear in any of the photos. That guy is craftier than Arthur C. Korn.
On our way back across the Fox lot, we saw Nancy Cartwright driving away in her Lexus. Her license plate read “4EVER10,” a reference to the fact Bart never ages. Someone mentioned that her old license plate used to read “I DO BART.” If that’s true, I can understand why she changed it!
hahahaha 
[Simpsons Collector Sector via No Homers Club]
Simpsons Momentarily Subversive
If you were one of the people watching The Simpsons last night (sucker), you may have noticed something a little different about the opening sequence!
The “couch gag,” if one could call it that, was storyboarded and directed by the pseudonymous Britain street artist known as Banksy, whose distinctive graffiti has shown up across the UK and the US, and whose work has been auctioned off for millions of dollars to limousine liberal luminaries like Brangelina.
Showrunner-for-life Al Jean told the New York Times he seeked out the ostensibly underground (despite having a publicist) “art terrorist” and asked him, via a series of messengers, if he’d do the opening, later receiving the storyboards without ever meeting the mystery man. Although 5% was cut out by request of Fox Broadcast & Standards, Jean insists the final product was as close as possible to Banksy’s original intention.
The response has been enormous – Banksy became a “Trending Topic” on Twitter last night (which is, like, super-important and stuff) and there are currently hundreds of news stories about it – which I’m sure makes up for the 29% decline in ratings from last week. It’s to quantify these things, but I think it’s safe to presume this will get more attention than other recent Simpsons “viral” stunts, from the godawful Ke$ha thing to the Itchy & Scratchy parody of Koyaanisqatsi (in the old days, The Simpsons usually generated buzz with actual episodes instead of context-free YouTube clips, but I guess that’s the way things are now in the New Media Landscape).
Season 23 Maybe Not Confirmed After All???
Last month, we were in a funk, because at Comic-Con executive producer Al Jean said they were writing a 2011 Christmas episode featuring Homer and Marge as grandparents, which would apparently confirm a 23rd season.
But in a recent interview, Jean jokingly suggests otherwise:
My math could be incorrect, but I believe your 500th episode will be airing this season. Are there plans for an extended special to celebrate this milestone?
Al Jean: I’m afraid your math is incorrect. Our current record schedule will take us to episode 493, so if Fox wants 500, then I’m afraid they will have to pick up season 23, hint, hint.
NOW I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE 
[MovieWeb.com]
CONAN SNUBBED???
Back in 1993, when David Letterman headed over to CBS to start The Late Show, The Simpsons paid tribute with a not-very-funny couch gag (see screenshot here). Why didn’t they do a similar tribute when famous Simpsons alum Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show??? And don’t give me that “they couldn’t because it started in June” B.S. excuse. Also why did they choose Letterman over Conan for a not-funny-at-all segment last night?? (Don’t give me that “because Letterman has the Top 10 list” crap.) These two things add up to one conclusion: The Simpsons is snubbing Conan!!! What is the reason? A source tells rubbercat.net/simpsons that producer Al Jean has had it in for Conan ever since Conan gave him a wedgie during a staff meeting in ’92… No denial from Jean as of yet… Developing…
Producers Not Hiding Any Terrible Secrets, Tried To Stop Tell-All Book Anyway
Al Jean, executive producer and current showrunner:
“Nobody’s perfect,” Mr. Jean said in a telephone interview. “But I don’t think we have terrible secrets to hide.”
John Ortved, author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History:
The story ran in the August 2007 issue, and by the fall I’d signed on with Faber and Faber to expand the material into a book. When word of this got out, [executive producer James L.] Brooks sent a letter to every current Simpsons employee, and all the former ones he thought mattered, asking them not to speak to me. The writers’ agents sent denial after denial for interview requests and eventually stopped responding altogether. When I asked a mutual acquaintance to put in a query with Ari Emanuel, chief of the Endeavor agency (now WME Entertainment) – where many of the Simpsons writers were represented – Emanuel told my friend he couldn’t even begin to talk about it. James L. Brooks was on the warpath.
Nobody Wants To Hire Simpsons Writers
Newsarama tried to stealthily ask showrunner Al Jean why he’s been showrunner for the past nine years, and he answered that the writers haven’t been getting offers to work on other comedies and that comedy might finally be back on the upswing. I guess all those Judd Apatow-produced movies and animated comedies (some of them not created by Seth MacFarlane) and single-camera sitcoms like Arrested Development and The Office that have popped up in the past couple of years were actually part of a downswing?
Nrama: But haven’t you always had a philosophy of keeping the writers rotating? It kept new blood flowing.
Jean: Well, it was never a philosophy. There were two dynamics at work. In the 1990’s, there were a lot of comedies on the air. People who were on ‘The Simpsons’ got all these offers to work elsewhere. So they would leave, often to head their own projects. So we’d replace them.
This decade, unfortunately, comedy has not been doing so well. If people are doing a good job, then I keep them. So it doesn’t rotate as much. Still, I’m encouraged by this year’s ratings. Comedy might be back on the upswing. ‘American Family’ has started off really well.
The Simpsons is Four Times Better Than The Daily Show
After twenty years on the air, it should be hard to come up with fresh, new ideas for the show, right? Not so, says executive producer Al Jean:
If you look at The Daily Show, which is obviously on daily, I mean, they’re still hilarious after ten years. And we’re only on weekly, so we really have the liberty of picking and choosing the ideas that we turn into episodes. The world is a very interesting place and The Simpsons is a great way to view it.
See, The Daily Show comes on four times a week and it’s hilarious. Well, what if you took only the best parts of those four episodes and crammed them into one episode a week? That would be four times as hilarious, and that’s what The Simpsons is, supposedly. [TV Squad]
Homer Votes For Change, Al Jean Becomes Showrunner-For-Life
In the opening of the upcoming annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode, Homer attempts to vote for Barack Obama, remarking that “it’s time for change,” but his EVIL ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE marks it as a vote for John McCain. A scuffle ensues, and the machine ends up killing him. (SPOILER ALERT: The previous two sentences may have contained spoilers).
In an eerie parallel, Al Jean has entered his eighth consecutive season of running the show, more than any other showrunner’s “term of office” in the show’s history. If his two years co-running the show with Mike Reiss during seasons 3 and 4 are taken into account, Jean will have been a showrunner for half the show’s run by the end of this season. Is it time for change? Even Homer thinks so. [Wonkette]
Simpsons Writer Has Non-Horrible Taste In Music
In a fan Q+A, The Office writer-actor Mindy Kaling (Kelly) namedrops Simpsons writer Danny Chun, who was apparently “raving about Hot Chip and Vampire Weekend like fifteen years ago.” Given Mike Scully’s love for NRBQ and Al Jean’s love for on-the-nose musical montages, Chun needs to be promoted to executive producer immediately. [Office Tally]