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The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Episode 28530th January 2025 • Verbal Diorama • Verbal Diorama
00:00:00 00:47:16

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In 1992, US President George H.W. Bush famously remarked, during a speech at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, that the American family needs to be “a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.”

The longest-running American animated series, longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in seasons and individual episodes. The Simpsons is, quite frankly, a phenomenon, and the long-awaited The Simpsons Movie took nearly two decades to come to fruition, as fans eagerly anticipated a feature film adaptation of their beloved show.

But despite being a long-running, beloved show, the making of the movie wasn't easy, and it faced numerous rewrites, with the script being revised over a hundred times before its release. Many iconic characters from the series made appearances, with a total of over 320 characters included throughout the movie, with creator Matt Groening aiming to create a cinematic experience that would appeal to both long-time fans and newcomers to the franchise.

But appealing to newcomers led to many fan-favourite characters being omitted from the script, and somehow Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rainier Wolfcastle exist within the same universe? But who copied whom? I guess we'll never truly know...

I would love to hear your thoughts on The Simpsons Movie (2007) !

Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! I won the Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards recently. I am beyond thrilled, and hugely grateful to the Ear Worthy team. It means so much to me to be recognised by a fellow indie outlet, and congratulations to all the other winners!

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Transcripts

Speaker B:

Hi everyone. I'm Em and welcome to Verbal diorama, episode 285, the Simpsons Movie.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't that remembers when do the Bartman came out. Welcome as always to Verbal Diorama.

Whether you are a brand new listener to this podcast, whether you are a regular returning listener, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of the Simpsons Movie.

animation in Animation Season:

Stop motion, CGI and traditional 2D hand drawn animation. And also a mix of all of the above. I don't discriminate when it comes to animation. I try to make animation season as varied as possible.

In the past, I've featured animation studios like Leica, Aardman, Disney, Dreamworks, Sony Animation, Pixar Studio, Ghibli, Cartoon Saloon, even studios that are no longer with us, like Fox Animation, Blue sky, and Don Bluth Studios. One of the mantras of Herbal Diorama has always been that animation is not a genre. No matter what Netflix might tell you. It is not a genre.

It is an art form. It is a medium by which to express, by which to tell a story. And some of the greatest stories ever told have been animated.

It's just that most people think, and this is another one of the mantras, that animation is just for children when it's really not. And the Simpsons movie is proof of that.

Because the Simpsons has always been for everyone, whether you are a child, even though they don't really want children to be watching it. If you are a child, if you are a grown up, everyone can enjoy and love the Simpsons. In many ways, animation is the perfect art form.

It is capable of depicting anyone or anything. There are no limitations, unlike live action cinema.

And this is one of the reasons why animation season is so important to me and so important to this podcast.

And one of the things I want to do more than anything is to highlight these incredible animated movies that you may have discounted for whatever reason, but you shouldn't. And you definitely shouldn't discount the Simpsons movie.

But before I jump into that, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast and has listened to and supported this podcast. This podcast is almost six years old. In a couple of weeks time, this podcast will be six.

And it's just such a humbling and incredible experience to have been doing this podcast for six years. It means so much to have your ears and to have you listening to this podcast.

It doesn't even matter if you've listened to every episode or not, even if this is your first episode. I'm genuinely so grateful. This podcast is a labor of love and I do it for me. But I also do it for you.

And without you, I would literally just be here talking to myself. Sometimes I'm pretty certain that that I am talking to myself. However, I do get some lovely comments from people who do listen.

So I know there are people out there who do listen. But doing a podcast on your own, sometimes it does feel a little bit like you're kind of shouting into the ether so.

isten to this podcast. So, in:

The chance to pay to see the show they normally watch for free. Here's the trailer for the Simpsons movie.

Speaker B:

Lisa Simpson finally convinces the locals of Springfield to clean up the toxic lake Springfield. And everyone agrees to prohibit pollution from the water. Meanwhile, Homer Simpson saves a pig from being killed at Krusty Burger and adopts it.

After two days, the pig fills up a silo with its excrement, and having nowhere else to put it, Homer dumps the silo into the lake, polluting it.

President Arnold Schwarzenegger blindly chooses to put a dome over Springfield to contain the ecological disaster that is Springfield and trap the population. The residents of the town discover who the culprit is and.

And an angry mob descends on Evergreen Terrace, forcing the whole Simpson family to escape through a portal in Maggie's sandbox and seek sanctuary in Alaska because it's not part of the United States. When the president then blindly chooses to blow up Springfield, Marge discovers the news and races back to Springfield without Homer to try to help.

But naturally, Homer does come back. Let's run through the cast of this movie. Now this is a cast where a lot of the actors actually have multiple roles.

However, I'm just going to limit it to the main role that they play in this movie.

And obviously all of the other roles are available on IMDb, but we have Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson, Julie Kavanagh as Marge Simpson, Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson, Yardley Smith as Lisa Simpson, Hank Azaria as Mo Sislak, Harry Shearer as Mr.

Burns, Pamela Hayden as Milhouse Van Houten, Albert Brooks as Russ Cargill and Tom Hanks as Himself and Billy Joe Armstrong, Frank Edwin Wright III and Michael Pritchard, the members of Green Day, also as themselves. The Simpsons movie has a screenplay by James L.

Simpsons by Matt Groening. In:

bush famously remarked during his speech at the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters that the American family needed to be a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.

The longest running American animated series, longest running American sitcom, and the longest running American scripted primetime television series, both in seasons and individual episodes. The Simpsons is quite frankly a phenomenon, and it started as all things do, with humble beginnings.

In:

s, who approached Groening in:

After debuting in:

The animation was produced domestically at Klasky Chupo, the same animation studio who made Rugrats as well as of the famous Nickelodeon cartoon series with Wes Archer, David Silverman and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season. Klaski Chupo had also done the title sequence for the Tracy Alton Show. James L.

Brooks asked the studio to produce and animate the original one minute shorts featuring the characters, and the first three seasons of the Simpsons were all animated by Klasky Shupo. They also produced do the Bartman.

he height of Simpson Mania In:

His younger sisters were Lisa and Maggie. His older siblings Patty and Mark weren't included in the family, unless you count Patty Bouvier.

But it's been long rumored that Bart is based on a mix of Mark and himself, but called Bart as an anagram of brat.

They live in Springfield, but it's a long running joke as to exactly where Springfield is in mainland usa, with its geography and surroundings changing to fit storylines such as random coasts, deserts, mountain ranges or farmland. Now really, the Simpsons is something that I expect pretty much everyone in the world knows or knows of.

And while the number of viewers has decreased significantly over the last 35 years, fans of the Simpsons have favorite seasons, favorite characters, and favorite long running gags.

And a movie version of any TV show has to tread that fine line between keeping fans happy and being understandable for anyone who maybe hasn't seen an episode of the Simpsons, which I don't know if anyone hasn't seen an episode of the Simpsons, but please let me know if you're listening and you've never seen an episode of the Simpsons.

Long time fans probably would have loved to see the main antagonist in this movie being Hank Scorpio, one of the most popular one time characters in the show. From season 8, episode 2, you only move twice and there was a time when Hank Scorpio was the main antagonist.

But like a lot of decisions on this movie in jokes were removed to make the movie more accessible to everyone. But why did a Simpsons movie take so long to actually come to the big screen?

The short answer is, surprisingly, for something as big as the Simpsons development hell. But the long answer is there's always more to it than that.

So the Simpsons was a phenomenon in the early 90s, and very early on talk started happening about a movie adaptation, but creator Matt Groening always saw it as the perfect end to the TV series. But the ratings kept going up, which is no bad thing really when your show is literally the most successful show at the time.

By the time the fourth season came around, the Simpsons was firing on all cylinders, with many considering seasons four to eight the best the show has ever been. Camp Crusty the fourth season premiere was written by James L.

Brooks, who suggested the episode be considered for a feature film, coincidentally also the last episode to be animated by Klasky Shoupo before Gracie Films moved its domestic animation production to Film Roman.

But they struggled to make more of Camp Krusty than a regular TV episode and other ideas like Simp Stasia, a Simpsons version of Fantasia and a movie version of Treehouse of Horror just never went anywhere. Even a Troy McClure movie was suggested. You may remember him from previous appearances on this podcast.

dden death of Phil Hartman in:

Al Jean would also pitch the Bonfire of the Manatees, which would end up becoming a season 17 episode, but the idea of this feature length Simpsons adventure kept humming, but they didn't have the staff to produce both a weekly TV series and a movie. But it was something that could be solved. You could always hire new people.

inally got the green light in:

And Silverman had been involved with the show since the very beginning, animating all of the original short Simpsons cartoons that aired on the Tracey Ullman show and animating the very first season of the show. He went on to serve as director of animation for several years and co directed Monsters Inc. For Pixar alongside Lee Unkrich.

iting creative differences in:

Simon was credited as co creating the show, developing its sensibility and its humor, but he also locked women out of the writing team.

s Roasting on an open fire in:

Brooks and the production company Gracie Films before leaving the Simpsons. He negotiated a deal that saw him receive a share of the show's profits every year, particularly from home media, and an executive producer credit.

ving worked on the show since:

from:

But there would be some people missing. They wouldn't have Conan O'Brien, nor would they have Brad Bird due to time limitations and him working on the Incredibles and Ratatouille for Pixar.

ovie, officially signed on in:

At the same time, the team was also working on regular Simpsons episodes, and while they were very much rivals in the animated series world, south park actually provided a little bit of inspiration to the Simpsons team. Now, I have done an episode on south park, bigger, longer and uncut. That's episode 189.

That movie came out in:

And the very first ideas for the Simpsons movie also contained multiple musical numbers, which over time just got shorter and shorter. The musical numbers were dropped, and then the idea was just completely scrapped.

But what wasn't scrapped was the idea that the plot of the Simpsons Movie was always going to be cinematic, bigger than a TV episode, and the team wanted it to be something fans would want to go to the cinema to experience.

ully at a writer's retreat in:

nother town in a TV series in:

But that didn't mean there wasn't concerns over having a dome in the movie.

cane Katrina in the summer of:

fine. Another pitch from that:

A similar plot to:

Matt Groening vetoed this more self aware approach for the film, but elements of this plot would make it into the Simpsons game, which was released on various consoles to coincide with the movie's release.

Remarkably, though, while the movie was greenlit by 20th Century Fox, the Simpsons producers had a very important clause in their deal with Fox that at any point they could abandon the production of the Simpsons movie if they felt the screenplay wasn't working. It's pretty unprecedented control of a movie's production that the screenwriters could legally stop production at any time.

Matt Groening would later say that while it was important to have that control, they were probably never going to actually use it.

But having that control gave them the necessary comfort that they could pull the plug if they were unhappy, and Fox were willing to give them that control. The Simpsons was, after all, one of the most lucrative TV shows on their network.

The eventual plot point of Homer adopting a pig and having to dispose of piggy poops was suggested by Matt Graney, which would eventually become an environmental message was inspired by a real story of the pig manure issues of a real town. The script was split into seven sections, with seven writers each contributing 25 pages per section.

The writing team met a month later to amalgamate all the sections into one cohesive story. Naturally, it didn't quite end up that way.

The writers would take four years to finish it, and the script would end up being rewritten over 100 times right up to a week before release. So they were still rewriting scenes and getting scenes reanimated up to a week before this movie came out.

Those rewrites also took account of test screenings and also time to keep the film to a trim 87 minutes. That meant some celebrity cameos, including Isla Fisher, Minnie Driver, Kelsey Grammer as Sideshow Bob, and Erin Brockovich.

Herself were also cut from the movie.

The cameo by Green Day happened due to them receiving word that Green Day would like to be in the TV show the day they were writing that particular scene for the movie. Negotiations with the band took 18 months. Tom Hanks, on the other hand, took one phone call to agree to be in the movie.

Groening completely rejected the idea to make the Simpsons movie either CG Animation or Live Action, wanting it to be a tribute to hand drawn animation. The animation production was split across several studios worldwide.

Akon in Seoul, South Korea, Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California and Film Roman in Burbank, California. And all of these companies had previously worked on the series.

Storyboarding, character designs, backdrop layout, general animation and animatics were all produced in America, much like the TV show. Before sending the animation to the producers, the companies would finish camera work in betweening and digital ink and paint.

This was also the first animated feature to use Toon Boom, which streamlined production and allowed for multiple scenes to be fully animated before getting completely cut from the movie.

And one of the things they wanted to do with this movie was they wanted to make it cinematic not only in scope, but also to take advantage of the technology that the TV series simply didn't have the means to.

Such as when the mob prepares to lynch Homer, the camera pans across the face of almost every minor character or bit player to have appeared in the TV series, more than 320 of them.

Matt Groening has said that they made an effort to include every known available character in the movie with 98 of them having dialogue and the majority of those in the crowd being well known characters rather than just generic extras series Regular voice performers, Dan Castellanetta, Julie Kavanagh, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer reprise their multiple roles. Also returning were Tress McNeil, Pamela Hayden, Marsha Wallace, Maggie Roswell, Russie Taylor and Carl Weider got in supporting roles.

Albert Brooks was cast to play Russ Cargill, the primary antagonist, and he was going to originally play Hank Scorpio again for about a week, but then the character was removed from the movie and he ended up playing this new character, Russ Cargill instead.

Originally Russ Cargill was a pear shaped pot bellied guy with a high waist, no shoulders, a big nose and a receding hairline based on Donald Rumsfeld before the character was redesigned into the Russ Cargill we see on screen.

The Disney style animated love sequence between Homer and Marge was supervised by Lauren McMullen who now works at Walt Disney Animation Studios and The team at the Simpsons Movie were very careful to not copy anything from the quote unquote evil corporation, including making sure the deer looked dissimilar to Bambi and ensuring there were no spots.

And because this movie was constantly chopping and changing things, removing scenes, adding scenes, the production was exhausting for members of the cast, many of whom had to redo lines over and over and over again as scripts continued to change.

Julie Kavanagh would end up recording 100 takes of Marge's emotional video message to Homer, and they were recording movie lines at the same time as recording series lines. The sheer scope of changes on this movie as they were going through it is phenomenal.

And many of the changes were made simply because they wanted to appeal to all audiences and not just fans of the show.

One idea to have Milhouse as Lisa's love interest was quashed for a new character, Colin, because the audience might not be familiar with Milhouse's longtime crush on Lisa. Colin himself was also a late addition to the story.

Even the prophetic scene in church was originally supposed to be Marge, until it became apparent that having Grandpa Abe would probably be better because then Marge could be the one to decipher the message.

That was also a strain on poor Julie Kavanagh, who also recorded Marge going crazy in church before all of those vocals were ultimately removed from the movie.

And out of the over 100 drafts of the script on this movie, one particular area that proved the biggest headache was the one in the hotel room when the family decides to go to Alaska.

And the writers gravitated towards the Alaskan adventure for multiple reasons, but mostly the whole we're staying in Alaska and we're never going back to America joke, but also visually, that the characters in Snow would look cool and Homer could have jokes with the dogs. Still, many changes and cuts were made along the way, including a song about Alaska with music by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.

The partnership of Homer and Bart would remain the crux of the movie, though, and the scene where Homer dares Bart to ride naked on his skateboard was Matt Groening's idea, and Mike Scully had the idea of showing Bart's penis for two seconds.

Storyboard artist Martin Archer was credited for devising the way to cover Bart's genitals with different things in an Austin Powers esque masking sequence before they are briefly exposed to the viewer.

While it was agreed that the gag would be funny, the team didn't want to be hit with an R rating for nudity because the gag was supposed to be non sexual and just silly and they needed to retain that PG13 rating. They were ultimately able to get away with the joke because it wasn't live action and nor was it a grown up's genitals.

And who knew that after all of the years of Rainier Wolfcastle being the de facto Simpsons version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger actually exists in the Simpsons universe, meaning that both Schwarzenegger and Wolf Castle have been living in the same world all along. But who's copying who? I guess we'll never know now.

Keanu has never starred in the Simpsons, but this is a really lovely way to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference for this episode, which is a part of this podcast where I try to link Keanu Reeves to any movie that I feature on this podcast, purely because every movie should feature Keanu Reeves in some small way.

And although he's never actually physically starred in the Simpsons, he has been mentioned twice in some Simpsons books, once in the Homer book and then again in Flanders book Faith. Keanu is also one of the people in Ned's list of laudable lefties.

John Wick, though, has appeared in the season 35 episode Iron Marge, not voiced by Keanu, but voiced by Hank Azaria.

The episode opens with Bart watching a John wick movie at 3am and in the film, John Wick goes to an Assassins Only Frozen treats and asks to try some Mango Mayhem.

As he goes to taste it, a bad guy enters the ice cream parlor and tells Wick that he's going to scream for ice cream, but John Wick informs him that it's actually gelato. A fight ensues and John Wick naturally kills the bad guy.

So considering they got all of these writers, showrunners and actors back for the Simpsons movie who work on the Simpsons TV show, one person who they didn't ask back was TV series composer Alf Clausen. He wasn't asked to score the movie. Instead, James L. Brooks asked his friend, legendary composer Hans Zimmerman.

Zimmer would use Danny Elfman's opening theme music but create new music for each family member, notably Homer, Bart and Marge. Green Day would also record their own version of the theme song, which was released as a single.

Now, when it came to marketing this movie, there was very little in the way of marketing for the Simpsons movie, and this was primarily because the plot was constantly in flux. 70% of the things in an early trailer ended up being removed from the finished movie.

The only thing that could be used and was was Spider Pig and Spider Pig was all over the marketing for this movie, but otherwise the makers of the Simpsons just kind of assumed that if you're a fan of the Simpsons, you don't know what an episode of the Simpsons is going to contain. So why would you need to know what the movie version of the Simpsons contains?

But to promote this movie,:

And one of the reasons that the Simpsons is set in Springfield is because Springfield is such a popular name for towns in the US and 16 Springfields across the country competed to host the US premiere, with Springfield, Minnesota dropping out a few months before the winner was announced.

July:

The Simpsons Movie opened at number one at the domestic US box office, dropping to second in its second week as The Bourne Ultimatum took the number one spot. It would stay in the US box office top ten for five weeks.

Interestingly, when it was shown on FX and on the Canadian channel Global, Bart's Naked Skateboard Ride through the town is shortened so you don't see Bart riding through the hedge with his genitals covered, then uncovered when he skates past the open section. And nor do you see Bart crash into the restaurant where Ned Flanders and his sons are eating, and nor do you get the whole bountiful penis joke.

On fx, the sequence was shown only the open space where Bart's genitals were shown is covered with a sensor box that reads European version only.

And considering there was so much material cut from this movie, there wasn't much in the way of deleted scenes on the DVD and Blu Ray releases, with only six deleted scenes included on its $75 million budget, the Simpsons Movie grossed $183.1 million domestically in the U.S. and $353.3 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $536.4 million. It made its budget back in the first week of release in the U.S.

it wildly outperformed the $40 million opening weekend that Fox had anticipated.

It became the record holder for the highest grossing opening weekend for a non CG animated film and for a film based on a TV series, surpassing Mission Impossible 2. It was also the third highest grossing opening weekend for an animated film at the time.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the Simpsons Movie has a rating of 87%, and the critical consensus reads the Simpsons Movie contains the hearty laughs, biting satire and honest portrayal of an American family that makes the show so popular, and it boasts slicker animation and polished writing that harkens back to the show's glory days. While the cast received praise for their performances, criticism was levied for the movie just feeling like an extended episode of the show.

At the 35th Annie Awards, the film was nominated in four Best Animated Feature Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Writing in an Animated Feature Production, and voice Acting in an Animated Feature production for Julie Kavanagh. All four awards would be won by Ratatouille.

It was nominated for Best Animated Feature film at the 65th Golden Globes and nominated for the BAFTA for Best Animated Film, but it also lost both of those to Ratatouille as well. And if you stay and watch the end credits of the movie, you'll see that baby Maggie's first word is sequel.

No official green light has been issued for a second Simpsons movie, but ideas have been floating around for several years and the movie has been discussed vaguely and of course, since this movie. The corporate overlords have since bought Fox and with it the Simpsons, and Disney loves to take full advantage of an existing ip.

They've produced several Disney plus shorts of varying quality since acquiring the Simpsons, including Playdate With Destiny, the Force Awakens from its nap, and Rogue. Not quite one.

A season 26 episode that featured Homer and the family being taken by Kang and Kodos to Regale 7 was originally slated to air in season 24, but it was held back while it was considered as a possible movie idea. Kang and Kodos were originally going to be in the end credits of this movie, but they were removed after a test screening.

And as far as a sequel to the Simpsons is Concerned, fans waited 18 years for the first one. This year they'll have waited 18 years for the second one, so maybe they can wait a little bit longer.

So I think we can all agree that the Itchy and Scratchy movie was the defining event of our generation.

And opening the movie with Itchy and Scratchy was a great move to tell longtime fans that yes, this is the Simpsons you know and love, but it also struggles to be the Simpsons we know and love.

ved so much from that initial:

I used to watch it as a kid, early season stuff, but apart from catching the odd dinner time episode on Channel 4 or the odd hangover episode on a Sunday morning, it was never really a huge part of my life.

Family Guy was actually a little bit more in all honesty, but even I know who Hank Scorpio is because he's one of those iconic one off characters that's really memorable. He would mean a hell of a lot more to the fans than Russ Cargill does, and to a non fan that doesn't matter.

It's the same with having Arnold Schwarzenegger as the President. Yes, it's a funny gag that non fans will understand as a funny gag.

But but Raelia Wolfcastle is right there and again, just like Troy McClure, an iconic character and in giving this movie a plot involving an environmental disaster, the writers really couldn't give Lisa more to do than fall in love with an Irish boy. The plot of this movie could have been Lisa's movie saying this, the majority of the jokes are funny and the material about Marge and Homer is cheap.

Genuinely sentimental fan service can be a problem with movie adaptations of any existing IP and callbacks are used sparingly in this movie. Undoubtedly the biggest nod is Homer jumping over the Springfield gorge, which he actually finally manages to do.

Taking the Simpsons out of Springfield was always going to be contentious, but overall this movie does what it intended to do to satisfy fans and possibly create new ones who somehow didn't know this was a long running TV show. The Simpsons movie was inevitable. A good Simpsons movie never was, but there was very little risk involved and very little danger of this bombing.

So I personally feel like this movie could have gone harder than it did. Maybe it needed to be a little bit more like South Park. Bigger, longer and uncut.

And knowing how much was changed and cut over the production sort of makes me wonder why. Why were they so unsure about certain jokes, certain cameos.

Why couldn't a team of the best writers and showrunners who know this show inside and out be that little bit more certain?

And I've spoken on this podcast a few times about large teams of writers and how the end result is usually a bit of a mishmash and a bit of a movie by committee. Hello, the Flintstones. But I do genuinely like this movie as it pertains to being an extended episode of the Simpsons.

I think it's a fun, funny movie with some great animation and great callbacks, but it could have done more with these iconic characters that goes way beyond an extended episode of the Simpsons.

A Treehouse of horror movie would for me go some way towards that Simpsons esque humor and characters, but really maxing out the levels of acceptability.

d movie coming out in the mid:

Will we get another?

I guess it's all down to the evil corporation, but like this movie says at the end, a lot of people worked hard on this film and all they ask is for you to memorize their names and possibly listen to a podcast about it. Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the Simpsons movie and thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

If you want to help and see this podcast grow, there are several ways you can do that. You could tell your friends and family about this podcast, especially if they're a big fan of the Simpsons.

You can leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast. And you can find me. I am at Verbal diorama all over social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue sky, letterboxd.

You can find me, you can follow me, you can share posts and like posts. It all helps with a little bit of visibility for this podcast.

And if you like this episode on the Simpsons Movie, you might also like the episode that I did on South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut, which I kind of feel like is overall a bit of a better movie than this.

But I think that's only because south park as an entity really loves to take risks and South Park Big and Longer and Uncut is a bit more risky, but I think that risk pays off a little bit more than the Simpsons movie did. And the Simpsons movie should have had songs in it and I'm sad that they removed them. As always, give me feedback on my recommendations.

Let me know what you think. So for the next episode. Somebody once told me that they enjoyed my episode Far Far Away that I did on the original Shrek.

Four years it's taken to get from the swamp by royal decree to visit Princess Fiona's dear mum and dad.

The king and queen are far, far away, which is very far, far and away for what's often deemed one of the best sequels ever made and inevitable after the success of Shrek. You don't need to hold out for a hero because your fairy godmother is here and happiness is but a download away.

Join me next episode for the history and legacy of of Shrek 2. And if you enjoy this podcast and you get value out of what I do, you can choose to support the show financially if you wish.

Because although it's free to listen to a podcast, it is not free to make a podcast. And I am very grateful that I have some wonderful people who do choose to support this podcast financially.

They help to pay for software, subscriptions, services, equipment, you name it, they helped me to buy it. And you are under no obligation.

But if you have some spare pennies and you want to help support an indie podcast creator, you can do that one of two ways. You can go to verbal diorama.com tips and you can give a one off tip.

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If you want to get in touch, you can email verbaldioramail.com you can also go to verbaldiorama.com you can find all old episodes of the podcast and a little contact form as well. And you can also find bits that I do@filmstories.co.uk too. And finally. Bye.

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