It was quite amusing hearing these guys who are quite accomplished in their own right asking Stan all sorts of fannish questions like "If the Watcher is never supposed to interfere, how come he interferes all the time?" and "What Marvel character that hasn't had a movie yet would you like to see have a movie?" and "Did you really work standing up?" and so on.
Stan was pretty funny, too. When they told him that Michael Chabon had been on the show, he said, jokingly, "What did he say about me?", and again at the end of the episode, they thanked him for coming, and he said, "No, really, what did Chabon say about me?"
Another interesting thing was that they were discussing John Schwartzwelder, who has written many episodes of The Simpsons, but who is famously reclusive - one guy who'd been with the show 18 years said he'd never met him - and someone said to Stan "Schwartzwelder is kind of our Steve Ditko" and Stan didn't have anything to say on the subject of Steve Ditko for some reason.
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*the season when I finally gave up and quit watching the show religiously (although I do continue to watch it sporadically)
Sometimes I think that they're a victim of their own success - the formula has worked so well that they can't change it - instead they end up doing the same round of stories - "The family goes to another country", "Homer tries a new job", "They meet a famous person or someone voiced by a famous person", and so on. I mean, in twenty-one years, Maggie should be out of college by now. Of course, it's far too late to change the formula now.
That's funny. I really should get around to reading Cavalier and Clay one of these days. Think its on my shelves somewhere.
Stan didn't have anything to say on the subject of Steve Ditko for some reason.
There's a lightweight TV personality in the UK who loves comics and he made a doco about Ditko called In Search of Steve Ditko" that had an interview with Stan. It's well worth seeking out. Jonathan Ross and his buddy Neil Gaiman actually get to talk to the reclusive Ditko, but not on camera.
If you can't get hold of the programme, this article gives a good run-down and analysis of its contents. Rilstone is a commentator I particularly enjoy.
And I've also downgraded The Simpsons from "must see" to "must see if its on when I'm sitting on the couch". It's still great though.
It's been on for 21 years? I remember the hoo haa when it broke 12 seasons! To be fair, its a pretty expansive formula. Exploring all the possibilities of diligent, sometimes bored housewife, klutz working Joe husband, freakishly intelligent tweenie and naughty schoolboy (and all their interrelationships) covers a lot of ground, not to mention the rest of the characters, including Comicbook Guy.
And if it wasn't about a suburban middle-class family, it wouldn't be The Simpsons. I think we're lucky they are still making them, even if it doesn't actually surprise us anymore.
Oh, sure, and to be fair, most shows become formulaic if they last long enough. I mean, I loves me some old old-school Doctor Who, but I wouldn't care to stop and count how many of those old stories could be summed up in the three words "base under siege".
"All your base are belong to... Who?"