#80 What Is Mike Reiss From The Simpsons Doing Here?

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Looking to sound like you know what's going on in the world, pop culture, social strategy, comedy and other funny stuff. Well join the club and settle in for the Jeff Dwoskin show. It's not the podcast we deserve, but the podcast we all need with your host Jeff Dwoskin.

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Alright Al, so thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 80 Can you believe it? 80 episodes of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show. As always, I am your host Jeff Dwoskin. Great to be back episode 80. Can you believe it? I appreciate everyone who's been on this journey with me the whole time. And here we are. This episode is got everything. Drama, injury, comedy, drama, intrigue, all of it right here in Episode 80. Our guest today is Mike Reiss, Mike Reiss. That's right. television comedy writer, author, show runner writer and producer of The Simpsons The Simpsons. That's right. You know Mike Reiss's name because it came up a lot during episode 55. With Al Jean, the current show runner of The Simpsons, Al talked a lot about Mike. So what do we do? We went and got Mike to be on the show. Also, lots of great stories from Mike on The Simpsons, theCritic, the it's Gary Shandling show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, not necessarily the news, we talk all about his book and his podcast. It's amazing. You're gonna be excited the buckle up for this one. And that's coming up in just a few minutes.

Hopefully you caught last week's episode with Rebecca Metz, amazing episode, so many great stories. If you're new to the podcast, you have 79 Amazing episodes to catch up on. We're always welcoming new folks to the podcast. So we're excited to have you. We have six more episodes this calendar year, and they're all planned out and they're all spectacular. We're gonna close out 2021 Huge, you're gonna be glad you came along for the ride.

I mentioned earlier, Episode 55. With Al Jean, it's a great bookend to this episode with Mike Reiss. Both of them were original writers with The Simpsons. Both of them have served as showrunner of The Simpsons. They have so many great stories and Mike and I talk a lot about his book Springfield Confidential: joke secrets and outright lies from a lifetime of writing for The Simpsons. [phone ringing] Who is calling?

2:37

Hello, hold for Mr. Burns, please.

Hello, Jeff.

Hello. Hey, you have that Mike Reiss on the show with his new total diamond oval, or some sort of serial book or whatever you kids have nowadays?

2:50

Yes. Mike Reiss is here. I'm glad word is getting out. Yeah, he wrote Springfield confidential. Tell all book about working on The Simpsons. Are you concerned that he may have shared one or two stories about you that he shouldn't have?

3:03

No. On the contrary, there isn't nearly enough about me in the book, too many omissions?

3:08

What do you think was missing?

3:10

I mean, there was the time I had tried to have that Homer Simpson's don't put down

3:14

Ah, yeah, that terrible Mr. Homer Simpson, is that really there was a

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time when I made that poor Lisa Simpson girl cry when I was trying to use the technology about recycling to kill more marine life and during that would have helped hundreds of human I couldn't agree more. Because there was also the time that I stole trillion dollars. Give it all to Fidel Castro or their donation sir. And of course the time I tried to block out the sun. People always worried about me being upset over one child crying. I was going to make them all cry. Would have been excellent. Excellent. Then Sue, for obvious reasons. I'm demanding a reprint who must focus on me. I'd say you've done more than enough for this town of Springfield. In fact, I say well traveled down to this Mike Reiss fellows hellsten do so immediately in person be very effective. Well, yes, Smith has come. Oh, I can't move my legs. Smithers, you'll have to be my legs. Allow me to mount to my trusty steed. giggy up sir. will insist on a reprint and call it burns confidential. Sounds like a page turner sir. We ride.

4:15

Oh, boy. It sounds like I gotta remember to warn Mike Reiss about this one may write that down. So I don't forget.

In the meantime, it's time for the social media tip. This is the part of the show where I share a little bit of my social media knowledge with yes and stuff I heard on the street some 411 up our social game together. This week. Twitter is all abuzz about Twitter blue for $2.99 a month. You can put bookmarks into categories. You can change your app icon you can change the color of your Twitter profile. You can have up to 30 seconds to realize you made a mistake on your tweets and update it and fix it all for $2.99 little track you can also delete a tweet and Just fix it and resend it. It's not like once you send it tweet, it's done in stone. It's not it's very doable. You can change app icons. I think the only thing that might be a great kind of cool benefit to the 299 a month is you get early access to some future Twitter features. My friend who has it did not fall in love with it right away, so I'm holding off on it. But if you tried Twitter blue, if you're paying $2.99 a month, let me know on Twitter what you think I'll share it with the group later. Check it out, don't check it out. But if you think those features speak to you $2.99 It's not that bad to help amplify your social media experience. And that's the social media tip.

I do want to take a quick second and thank Li for buying me five coffiees from buy me a coffee and helping support the show. Thank you Li, I'm drinking them right now. And cheers to you.

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I'm also so excited to finally share my conversation with you that I had with Mike Reiss. If you love the Simpsons, you're in for a wild ride so many great stories we go deep into Krusty the Clown and the late great Jackie Mason and all the great work he did on The Simpsons so many stories away to enjoy

excited to introduce you to my guest today writer producer showrunner podcaster Entertainment Weekly when he ran the Simpsons in season four without gene called The Simpsons The greatest season of The Greatest Show in history. He was also named a missionary of joy by Pope Francis. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show comedic icon Mike Reiss.

10:11

Hi. Great to be here. Thank you. Am I your first non Michigan guest on this?

10:16

No, no, no, I, I open it up to the world. Wow. I'm just

10:20

live from Detroit. Okay, that's very broad minded.

10:23

Yeah, my guests can be from anywhere. So, Mike, you have such a rich history in the world of comedy. I'm interested to know like, how did this all start? We can start like in Harvard, and some of that was rooted in your partnership without Jean began,

10:39

I can even go backwards. I'm even gonna go so far back. You're gonna go cheese, man. Well just start again. I used to watch this show biography on a&e every day and biography no matter who they covered. It was just sort of some guy when he was five years old saw the thing and goes, that's for me. So David Copperfield saw a magic show when he was a kid and goes, I want to do that. And Charles Lindbergh saw a plane fly over his farm and said, I want to do that. And that's it. It goes back so early. I think with most people that you can grant a teacher's or someone they met. It's just sort of born in them. And that was it. When I was a kid, I used to watch The Ed Sullivan Show with my family, which makes me like 1000 years old, but I would see the comedians, and that's what I focused on. They would give you a variety of different acts. And I always go, Oh, I love these comedians. And the weird thing was even at, like five or six years old, I'd be thinking, when a comedian would tell a joke, I go, I wish I wrote that. I never wanted to be in the comedian. I wanted to be I always figured there was the guy right backstage, banging it out at a typewriter. I said, I want to be that guy.

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I am. That's awesome.

11:55

I'll say when I went to Harvard, I went to Harvard, because I knew they had a humor magazine. But I never thought that would be a career. I never in a million years thought I'd be doing it for a living because I never met anyone who did it. I just thought I wanted to be a comedy writer the way other kids want to be an astronaut or be a football quarterback. It was just, that was my dream. But the reality was, I go to Harvard, I'd write for the humor magazine. And then I become a funny bank or something like that. The guy who had a few jokes when he was breaking 100 For you, the fact that I wound up in comedy is just kind of beyond a dream come true.

12:36

And a loss for the banking industry?

12:39

Well, you know, you don't want a funny banker, you know, because they start to print their own money or thinking, hey, I can give him $95 instead of 100. So it is for the best

12:51

hate going back to that Sullivan show for a second. Can you remember any of the specific comics that inspired you that you were on?

12:57

Yes. I mean, it's almost embarrassing to save these days, I saw Woody Allen when I was a kid. And I just thought this guy gets me. I just I felt so in sync with the jokes. And again, I'm a five year old kid in Connecticut. And I may not be the only five year old Woody Allen got, but I just said that's the kind of comedy I like. So it was him. He was the one I really like. And then there was another key moment I got to tell the story, which was, again, when I was a kid, there was a beloved national iconic guy named Red Skelton who had a variety show sketch comedy show, and he was on the air for I think, 23 years, and the family would all watch him. It's Red Skelton every Wednesday night. And I remember thinking at about age seven or eight, this guy sucks. I said, I'm eight and I'm funnier than this guy. And that's a big moment when you sort of realize, Oh, I'm better than someone who's doing it professionally. And that the thing everyone tells you is great is not necessarily great. And I only mentioned this story because I told it once at work. And George Meyer one of the other Simpsons writers want me to eat the same thing. He saw Red Skelton as a kid and said I'm better than him. So I don't know how many comedians read skeleton launched with his general suckiness

14:20

think I ever read skeletons mediocrity? It's so funny that you don't pull punches. No, I love that about yours. So what is it about Harvard that so many funny people come out of Harvard? Well, people gotta

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understand that it's not like I you know, funny people come out of Harvard the way great comedians come out of the ghetto. It's not like it's a nurturing environment. Ever hilarious place to be Harvard, I got to say and I do say the book is one of my least favorite places on earth. And if a giant sinkhole swallowed it up tomorrow, I drive up there and try and shake hands with the sinkhole and can graduated. I just hated Harvard and again, they had this humor magazine news produced so many terrific comedy writers but they are basically people who are running for cover from Harvard seeking any getaway your sanctuary from this unfunny, pretentious suck up unfriendly institution. What's happened over the years is that and Harvard just come to me and said, T. There's all you lampoon guys who've achieved such great success, and you never give money to Harvard. And it's like, yeah, you suck, and we hate you. And then when the Harvard land playing pool ran into some financial difficulties, they asked all their former alumni if they would contribute, and something like 97% of living alumni contributed money to the Lampoon. So we know what we like. So again, I I can only give credit to Harvard producing these funny people because Harvard had the Lampoon as precious as the Lampoon is to them. It's such a great culture. They've only been antagonistic to it over the years. They've only wanted to shut it down over the years. And if you know the, the movie animal house that was one of the writers was a Harvard Lampoon guy and the relationship between Harvard and the Harvard Lampoon was like the relationship between Faber College and the animal house doing Delta house. How old is that reference that's going on? 45 years old.

16:28

He's a classic. So it's, it's all good. It's always gonna stand it. Harvard is where you met our gene. Correct.

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I met him first week of school. I, you know, I went there to join the humor magazine. I had no real plans or dreams beyond that, and now went there at age 16. To be a doctor. He had skipped two grades. He was a math major. And freshman week, I had my door open. And we had a rocking chair in the room. And owl said, he just walked by he goes, Can I rock in your chair? And we said, Okay. And he came in and just rocked in my chair. And that was an owl likes a rocking chair. And that's how I met him. And we became very quick friends. And he saw me join the human magazine. He saw me join the Lampoon and said, That looks like fun. And again, it would it had gotten me to Harvard. Owl had no intention of joining the Lampoon. But he just put his massive brain to it. And he got on he got on right away without really a lot of struggle

17:28

to have you had such a career together, right? I mean, you you went from place to place to place. Was it an actual, like business relationship, the writing team, or did you just happen to go to all the same work at the same places

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and all? I guess we were a team. You know, we were roommates. Sophomore year he had gotten on the Lampoon, I never thought about writing with him. I don't think he thought about writing with me. But we were roommates. And we had bunk beds. And it was one night I just started for we all fell asleep. I was talking about magic books I had as a kid and Al said, Oh, I had the same magic book. It was a book called spooky magic. And we started kidding around about it. And it turned into an article. And it's the first thing we wrote together. And that was the article that got us discovered by National Lampoon magazine. They read that and they call the Harvard Lampoon said we just read your article in Harvard Lampoon, we loved it. They said, he read the Harvard Lampoon, they said, Well, we we've been reading it for years, and we just never saw anything funny before. So that was it. So we got hired off this article, spooky magic and 20 years later, when we formed a production company, we call it spooky magic. But that was it. They we had written that one thing together. And then we wrote almost everything separately. And but they hired us at at the National Lampoon as a team. And then they brought us out to Hollywood as a team. It is a business arrangement. When you hire a team in Hollywood, you pay them as one person, you know, starting writers get an amount of money, a weekly salary, and they started, they come in at scale. I don't know what it is anymore, but it's the lowest amount you can legally pay a person. And Al and I were splitting that for the first several years. And that was it. We would just go from place to place being hired as a team and we wrote together for 16 years wrote every every line we ever wrote, We did it together as a team

19:29

point a team Mike, is it Mike and Al or Al and MIke?

19:34

Funny you will ask that and that for about 15 years, it was my canal. And it slowly became Al and Mike I could see al just achieving dominance over me, which is fine. You know, he was better at it. It was I think I'm the more outgoing guy. I'm the more fun guy to be around. So hey, Mike and Al are here. But then as we went on, we got more and more responsibility and Al is much more responsible than us. And suddenly we became Al and Mike. And now we're just out. I'm just Al's friend. Yeah, it's

20:07

the same issues and John Lennon Paul McCartney had and Paul wanted to be McCartney Lennon.

20:14

That's right. They couldn't split that. You know, we do have a very Lennon McCartney relationship. It sounds super arrogant to say that but just there's always one guy in the team who wants to explore and change and let's do different things and biard and the other guys always think that just keep working hard. We've got a good deal here. And so that was it. Al Azhar McCartney, I was Lenin and he was the guy that made all the money and I'm the guy they somebody wants to shoot.

20:44

So you guys wrote together on a million fun projects, stuff that I grew up watching, you know, not necessarily the news, you know, that show, HBO? Okay. Yeah, I definitely watched that. It's one of the first news parody shows that I can recall.

20:59

It's really, you know, I'm sure means nothing to most people out there. But look it up. It's on YouTube. And I never even thought to watch it again. Because it was a topical news sketch show. And I thought it must aged terribly. But somebody probably illegally put every episode up on YouTube. And it's really funny, it stayed. It's still really funny to watch. It was a sketch show that came out the same time that MTV got big. And so we said, Alright, let's do political. Let's do the daily show at the pace of a rock video. So it moves very fast and a lot of quick cuts and that kind of thing.

21:40

I remember Stewart paying him but the one thing that I remember very specifically, is from watching ceramide going oh, Rich. Ah, this is Rich all from not necessarily the news. Yeah, a very talented guy. And then he did sledge hammer. And he did an episode of Charles in Charge that's got it in surprise. It's not the top of the list.

22:01

By the way, we Alan, I wrote a Charles in Charge, and got a terrible show. Terrible show. And we wrote a script. And they said, Now we don't like this write another one, which you know, you're not supposed to do they paid for one, though. We wrote a second complete script out of which they used one line. And it wasn't even a joke. They use the straight line. So that was it. That's our contribution to Charles in Charge. All right.

22:27

Well, you wouldn't want to take much more credit for Scott. The and then you worked for Johnny Carson, the Tonight Show. That's exciting. That was very exciting. And you took credit for writing the worst Carnac ever? Yes, I

22:41

did is I'll tell that story real quickly, which was when Al and I were working at the tight shell, we had to write 60 jokes a day, we had a quota. And it was just a terrible system. Because I think we could have written 15 great jokes a day, but instead pre wrote six the crappy jokes. You know, maybe 10 were good and 50 suck, but they just wanted that number. So one of those 60 Terrible current acts I wrote went on the air and it bombed utterly. It just, it didn't even it didn't even bomb it was just sort of played to silence like the audience was waiting. They kept thinking, well, a joke must be coming. Because we know that wasn't a joke. It was disastrous. And then six months later, Johnny Carson is doing cardiac again. And I go down and I see on the cue cards. They gave him that same joke. I don't know what clerical error was. But he goes out he does that joke. And it got a huge laugh. And it was like it was such a wake up call for me going, you know, I didn't add it now for about 10 years. I go I don't get comedy at all. There are no rules to this than a joke. You know, it was like a perfect science experiment. Same audience, same comedian, same room, and one night it bombed and the other night they loved it. And by the way, I'm with the audience that hated the joke. It was a terrible joke.

24:05

Maybe it was just the way he delivered it. He added a certain pause maybe there was something in the news that people connected to differently

24:11

it's got to be there's gotta be a million variables

24:15

and then from there scary Shandling show Correct. love that show.

24:19

That's nice. And you sure you mean that? Like people always tell me they love it and then we find out. Oh, they meant The Larry Sanders Show.

24:26

No, no, I mean both. This is the one we broke the fourth wall. No, I love that one. I love the theme song. Everything about it. It's a classic. Yeah, I thought all the Garry Shandling stuff Larry Sanders was a brilliant show as well, but it's Garry Shandling show was great.

24:40

He was yeah, it was a brilliant guy and he was a John Lennon he was a guy just always wanted to do something different and change TV with every project and very meticulous a hard man to work for very difficult boss, which was still bad because he's a very, very nice man.

24:59

He He was one of the comedians I remember because my parents would watch and I loved Gary Chapman. There's like one, you know, certain jokes always stick out in your head. He's like, Oh, is it Porsche or Porsche? Porsche? Okay, I was driving my toe. Like that was decades ago. And it's just like that was just one of those things. I just always remember his stand up. So I always enjoyed his shows a lot. But that led you to the Simpsons.

25:21

Yes, it did. Yes. It's a amazing story where I don't know if Al and his interview talked about it. We were working at its Garry Shandling show, which was the next of the lowest rated show on TV. It was 99 out of 100. And we were going on summer break and Alan's libelled, the showrunner and Gary Shandling had created a new show called The boys and it was set at the Friars Club, and he just, he had a cast of old comedians in it, which is just what I love, and just what I want to write for, and Alan wouldn't hire us, he wouldn't hire us for the boys. And he hired our friends, Max and Tom and Max and Tom had another job offer, which was to work on a new show called The Simpsons, the summer gig. And they turned down the Simpsons to work on the boys. And we got the consolation prize. We worked on The Simpsons over the summer, and I gotta say, I was so ashamed. I mean, you can it's very hard to get in the mindset of what people thought of a cartoon Joe in 1988. cartoons were just she stupid Saturday morning entertainment. And so I took this job, because I had nothing better and I'm working on The Simpsons that first season and I didn't tell anyone what I was doing. I literally just said, Oh, I'm taking time off because I was so embarrassed to be writing for a cartoon. And then of course, the Simpsons they feud. Well, it was just the summer job. So I go back to its Garry Shandling show. I'm again working on the next little lowest rated show on TV Simpsons debuted to the highest ratings in the history of the Fox network. So it was an instant hit. Not a lot of historians get that right. It was it was a hit from episode one. And meanwhile, I had another six months working for Garry Shandling on a show that not only was nobody watching, but at that point it had been cancelled. So we were sitting there, we're working like 90 100 hours a week making this show that no one would ever see except you I guess

27:26

you personally thank you then. Yeah, thank you.

27:30

That's it. I wish we could have dedicated the shows to you. We could have done jokes about your family.

27:36

I would have loved that would have been so special. So once the Simpsons was a success, you could then tell your family and friends that you were working on a cartoon, correct? Yeah. Had you watched any of the stuff from The Tracey Ullman Show, right? Yes.

27:50

Oh, yeah. I knew that the shorts very well. I like the shorts. And that was it. I was a big fan of Sam Simon, co creator of the show. I'd seen his name for years and years on shows. I love taxi and cheers and that kind of like, it's nice. And his name was Sam Simon. I saw I assumed he's like 50 or 60 years old. And I go in to meet with him. And he's my age. He was like two years older. He was just a child prodigy of comedy. And he's running the show taxi at age 23. So he's an amazing town. And I was a huge fan of Matt graining. It was an underground cartoonist in LA and I used to read his comic. So it was fun to be doing it and the job that summer Allen, I wrote three, the first six episodes and you know, we would kick around ideas with Sam Simon a Mac reining in their trailer, they didn't even have a real office. All we had was a trailer. And it was just fun. We never thought it would turn it into anything. We I tell the story too much, but I'll tell it maybe this will be the last time ever. It was a couple of weeks before the show came on. I was sitting in the trailer with the other writers. I said, How long do you think this show's gonna last? And everyone said six weeks? That was it. Aaron? Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks? Sam Simon said, you know, mind you, we'd made 13. And we didn't think we'd even get to show them all. And Sam was the most optimistic. He said, Look, I think they're going to let a show 13 But don't worry, no one's ever going to see it. It won't hurt your career.

29:24

That's funny. Looking back now that we've just passed 700 episodes. Yeah. Entering season 33 and 34 are a blocked in. That's funny. Nobody saw

29:35

it coming. And maybe that maybe that was the key to the success. The shell was we were just having fun. And I think it kind of came across that way.

29:44

It was interesting reading the book. I didn't know I knew Sam Simon had left the show. I never understood why it was interesting that the press and everyone gave Matt graining all the credit and that just cause some real internal issues there between them. I was there was interesting one of the many interesting stories in Springfield confidential by Mike Reiss.

30:05

I wrote a book about my first 30 years at the Simpsons, mostly to get a right to get the story straight out there. So I just told all those tales and the amazing thing was it came out and some it was an Israeli critic said, you hit all the dirt and I go, What do you mean? He goes, there must be scandal. There must be dirt I got and it wasn't till that moment. It hit me. No, there's no dirt. We had a little it was a little rocky at the start. Because Damn, Simon did not get along with Matt graining. I think Matt Craig got along fine with Sam Simon. He's one of the most affable men in the world. But Sam, we, you know, was a handful. He was a difficult man and a brilliant, difficult guy. So that's one scandal. And then eight years later, we had one bad day. And that's it. We had no other trouble. No other friction in 33 years of The Simpsons, and that's, I think the reason the show's been going for 33 years is everybody gets along and everybody respects each other's talent.

31:07

It's amazing. So you are your show runner with our for season three and four. Correct. Season Four being the greatest season of The Greatest Show in History According to Entertainment Weekly.

31:17

Now my do I'm sorry, I have so many stories here it was. Alan, I both we thought well season three we did pretty good. We like those show season four. We got it slipping. That wasn't such a good year. We you know, we worked like dogs to make season four. And I remember going to visit my parents at Christmas and the Entertainment Weekly year end review came out and they said season for The Simpsons The show is going down l it's not what it used to be. In case you're wondering when people started saying Simpsons is not what it used to be. It was season four, The Simpsons. Entertainment Weekly said that ruin my holiday made me feel the whole last year had been a waste. And then it was like 20 years later, they suddenly are calling it the greatest show in TV has the greatest season in history. And it's like, well, thanks, this feels great. After ruining my Christmas,

32:12

I feel like shows are judged very harshly while they're happening. And a lot of times upon reflection, the brilliance can be seen because the you take away the expectations, take it for what it is and enjoy it. So that's great. But also here's my question, okay, the season three season four top of the game, but then you leave right? And you go and you start the critic which I know both you and our just love that show. And it's a good show. That's what I mean. You're not upset that you created that show and laughed. That was a good decision. You've created some magic with Jon Lovitz. But what did it take to leave? Why would you leave the Simpsons in the first place?

32:49

In the early days, The Simpsons, everybody left as soon as they could. The show was just brutally hard. The hours were really long. In the two years I ran the show I gained 70 pounds. I developed a heart murmur. I went to the doctor, you just worked day and night so I couldn't even have a doctor's appointment until after I'd stopped running the show. And I go to the doctor and he says you wait 239 And I go well, that's what Homer weighs. I couldn't believe that. That's how I dedicated my job. I gained enough weight that I was actually turning into Homer Simpson for the longest time yeah, you quit the show as soon as you could and so fam Simon ran it for two years Alan I did it for two years they Merkin two years Oakley mind theme ran it for two years that seemed to be all a human being, too. And then what happened is Mike Sculley took over the show, he goes, this is not a workable environment. And he was you know, he's a brilliant writer, but he was like Henry Ford, he just said, Let's make this let's run this a little better. You know, let's run this like a factory instead of a boutique. And he just put in systems to making this the show where suddenly we weren't worried. You know, we're working 50 hours a week instead of 100 hours a week and suddenly nobody quit the shithole anymore. And this is sort of and this is he set up a bottle where when algae you know, he worked for four years running the show we've seen superhuman and then algae and came back and replaced him and it's been added I think, for 22 years now it's a job you can do forever.

34:30

So in your book you describe the Simpsons is 95% Isn't writing is rewriting correct. So with all the rewrites upon rewrites upon relies upon rewrites, how does it go from the pitch to all these rewrites and like, still maintain the coherency?

34:46

I guess, because it's always been gang written. One thing to know is almost every show is written that way it seems unfeasible that every sitcom is written by a group of people sitting in a room through, it's not written by one guy or one person writes the script and then six people sitting in a room, rewrite it line by line over and over again. And somehow it turns into if it's done right, that becomes kind of cohesive, watchable show. It amazes me more to watch a show like Frasier. I mean, at least the Simpsons it's a an archaic and moves fast. And you know, I always said, No one person can write an episode of The Simpsons or requires 10 brains and 10 different backgrounds of writers and people who know a lot of different things, contributing to the show and specializing in different kinds of comedy, but I watch different shows where I go, how did AGang write some beautifully crafted farcical episode of Frasier something like that, but that's how it's done. It's a little miracle. It works

35:53

that way. Very interesting. Very interesting. And it's it is amazing. I was fascinated by the whole concept of is always a joke. Yeah. What's the longest you've ever had to work to get the perfect joke, the story probably

36:05

I tell in the book where I won't do the whole setup. But we needed a funny way to resolve a whole plot of an episode. It's the episode where Lisa becomes Little Miss Springfield, and we needed something Homer had done wrong, that invalidated Lisa from being Little Miss Springfield. And it had to be a funny mistake, but an innocent mistake, nothing we would hate home or for and we just spent hours. I mean, I feel like it was three or four hours writing. Oh, and it had to be funny to that. And to be funny, and you know, we'd spend hours to the point where you think we're never going to get it or that joke doesn't exist. And then it was around two in the morning, a writer who really never talked at all he would spoke up very little just said about this. He said on the form, there's the box it says do not write this box and Homer writes okay in it, and we got home. That's it. Everybody go. You know, we weren't even I don't think anyone even said thank you, or that's good. It's just, oh, we can go home

37:11

now as silent acceptance. I like I like that. All you

37:15

think about when you work on TV to take a TV job, and this is how I rank every job I ever had is how close to my house is it? And how bad are the hours? You know, I'm proud of my career. But the dream job would have been a show across the street from me where we work three hours a day.

37:34

I think that's everyone's strange. Yeah, I

37:36

guess so. But that said, I, I would rather be on a shit show. It's in my apartment building than on a great show. That's three subway stops away.

37:45

I think that's completely reasonable. Okay, good. Who are your favorite guest stars on the

37:50

show? Oh, that's a great question. I'd love Kelsey Grammer. I think anybody we bring back a lot is someone we really love. So the regular guys like that Kelsey Grammer and Jackie Mason just jacket. Hasan is crushed this father. We did an episode where we killed him. It goes well, that's the end of me. I got no, it's not turned off. He's been back at least three or four times since then. And the guy's 92 And he's still a voice on The Simpsons, but I liked him. I like Leonard Nimoy Leonard Nimoy, there are certain people who just get the joke and they know they're making fun of them, and they can do it. So he was great. And Richard Dean Anderson, the guy who played MacGyver, I remember he was so funny. He was so clever and funny. And the ad libbed a bunch of jokes that blend in the script. And, you know, here's Richard Dean Anderson, nobody ever gave him a chance to be funny, you know, he just got to be handsome and MacGyver. So I really liked that. And as I mentioned in the book, I think we've had 800 guest stars on the show and there's there's maybe for nobody light, we're just unpleasant kind of egotistical. We're leaving the mind that people who can act if they're really trying

39:04

the Leonard Nimoy episode if we're talking about the Marge versus the monorail is one of my favorite episodes, because I always thought it was about Detroit, the monorail how gene kind of shot that down.

39:17

I think I know Conan O'Brien came in with the idea. It was the famous John swartzwelder, who I think contributed a lot of ideas because he's from Seattle, which had had built a monorail that nobody really us. So that was that was a lot of grounding, I think came from that as well. It was

39:35

interesting story in your book where you talked about algae and having like this Rolodex memory of every episode and every joke. Yeah, when I was talking now, and I said something to him later on reflection, because anything I threw at me was like, Oh, that would that episode was this and this and that and had every detail across 32 seasons and all those episodes. And you mentioned in your book because I was like, okay, it wasn't it's known.

39:57

Should I tell that so I'm gonna tell that story. I hate that I'm that guy. But here we go. I'm going to tell it where I pitched the joke once where Grandpa says, I want to watch TV and they said, who died and or I want to watch something else at the nursing home and they said, who died made you boss? And he goes, Fred, we see a dead guy, Fred on the ground holding the TV remote. And I tell this joke, everyone in the room laughs and that's how a joke gets in the script. And then owl said, I think we did that. And he says the the, the writers assistant, pull up script seven F 21. Now that's a we have every script archived. And so al didn't say pull up the one where grandpa gets up boat or something like that. He got pull up seven F 21, which means the 21st episode of season 721 years ago, and she pulls up the script on screen it goes go to page 3132 33. There's the joke. Let's keep pitching was like we're all looking at him. And he doesn't, I would have at least done a victory lap. I think I would have run around the building once. Look how smart I am. But that would just it's the way Google doesn't ask for applause when it comes up with something.

41:07

I think sometimes when people can do stuff like that they don't realize everyone can't like so that's incredible. So what was it like working with Izzy worked with Conan O'Brien Judd Apatow. Brad Bird has some big names that came through the Simpsons. It's a good thing

41:21

at the Simpsons like people go, isn't it? Great? We're gonna Simpson Oh, do you feel great? Or they think you know, I get a big head about it. But it's like when you work at the show. You're always working with people so much better than you. You know, you got to be crazy to get an inflated ego. So that's it. You know, Judd Apatow. I've known judge since he was 20 years old and he's, he's just great. He's better. He's 100 times better at the job than I am. And it's like, I'm always just honored. Oh, he knows my name. I can be in the room with Judd Apatow. Same thing with Conan O'Brien again, I met him when he was a sophomore in college and I got well this is the funniest man I ever met my life and I'm glad I get to hang around with him. So that's it. It's just a pleasure and an honor to be able to be friends with these guys. But to know, there's people much better than you you can work harder, you know, you can feel like you're at the top of your game and then say, oh, geez, I have to work a lot harder just to be you know, in the same league these people with Brad Bird you know, we didn't even know what he did. The Simpsons animation studio is way across la it's the opposite end of La from where we write the show, and we just knew Brad was there. He was just there he never almost never directed an episode or something. He was just consulting but we would screen an episode and they were it'd be great episode but then we got wow that shot is great. And they always got Brad Bird was always the one thing Brad contributed to the episode we all sat up and looked at.

42:57

That's pretty cool. Back to Jackie Mason for a second and Krusty the Clown had so much Jewishness get kind of injected into the Simpsons because he's not just Jewish. He's orthodox.

43:07

He is Orthodox Jewish. It's it was funny. It was Jay Cogan, tamale wala darsky came in with the idea that crossly the cut, you know, we've established Krusty the Clown, he was just this silly clown. He couldn't read. That's something that kind of went by the wayside, but he was illiterate. And they came in with this story idea that Krusty the Clown is Jewish and he's the son of an orthodox rabbi. He was basically the plot of the movie, The Jazz Singer. I think people notice this venerable old movie was the first I think talking film The Jazz Singer. It's been remade four or five times since then. And they said Krusty the Clown with the jazz singer. And I remember the bosses were not loving the idea. They were not Sam Simon was not biting for it. And then Al said, Oh, Chris, these real name could be Krestovsky. And it especially me, James L. Brooks, laughs so hard. He just that killed them. And sometimes that's all you need is one great joke to help sell a premise. And I know that probably that episode would never have been done if Howe had made that one joke now Jean, of course, was the token Catholic or stab? He's not Jewish at all. And so that was it. Once we had the premise going, it was Sam Simon, who said let's it was always Sam's idea. Let's get the details. Right. Nobody used to care about that stuff in TV, but like when they took in the Albanian exchange student Sam said, let's get all the Albanian correct I'm sure we would have just written gibberish and nobody would have known but we had consultants come in and coach us in Albanian for so it was the same thing with that to do cross the the clown orthodox rabbi Father, we had three rabbis on the payroll that we just helping us write the script and especially, you know, the last half of the show is a debate on the nature of Judaism and comedy. And, you know, we have to call the rabbi and say, Are there any clowns in the Book of Leviticus? And so that was it. So it remains there really scholarly debate at the end of that episode.

45:19

It's a great episode. It's it's there's some funny things I always think like when you do Jewish humor, non Jews probably laugh but there's always when it's aimed at when he goes home or that Mel Brooks is Jewish. It's just things like that. It just it's so funny and kind of bringing it all together with Sammy Davis Jr.

45:36

Yeah, it's great. And Mel Brooks, I think was from Cogan and wala darsky and Sammy Davis, Jr. Came from Sam sign and I think he just happened to be reading Sammy Davis Jr's memoirs that week, instead, I got the quote, I've got it. So that was it. A lot of people contributed, if you're interested, the Jewish angle very often on The Simpsons does come in from our Jean Valjean, the Irish Catholic kid, and he just he's the one that validates, you know, Judaism is funny, because he does know this stuff. He doesn't have the context. He just goes this is funny. That's funny. I like I love the word Mandrake sounds funny to me. So he's the one that gives it the stamp. It's what Jackie Mason always says that his act which was he said, Gentiles love my routines and Jews always go to Jewish.

46:29

Exactly. And then press he gets Bar Mitzvah because he wants a his star on the Jewish Walk of Fame and Springfield.

46:38

That was it. It was that episode just for fans in the show. The original premise was crusty gets Bar Mitzvah because his father dies. And it gives them sort of a spiritual awakening. And I think we had that all written. And then someone said, Why are we killing Rabbi Krestovsky everybody likes that character. So we rewrote it, and then we wound up killing Rabbi Krestovsky like 12 seasons later, so he was a marked man is going to die. But he got to 12 years stay of execution there.

47:07

But that was fine. And then you had Mr. T in that episode, and he said, I pity the shul who wrote that because that's just great stuff.

47:14

I have a guest that was Joel Cohen, who wrote that episode came up with the story. I'm pretty sure that that's really funny. Joel Coleman is one of those guys, nobody, nobody you know, he's not a famous guy. Even amongst Simpsons writers. He's not famous, like John swartzwelder Conan, but he may be the funniest man in the world. He just thinks of more jokes. While we're still working on the premise. He's already spit out three jokes and amazingly clever, fast guy and again, he's the kind of guy that keeps you from getting too big and ego at

47:46

the show and then intermarriage with he marries Anne Hathaway or is that the one that was she won the Emmy for?

47:52

Yes, she did. She won that everybody I wasn't there that week. Everybody fell in love with her to every once in a while a guest star comes in in the cry the the writers just just go nuts in there slipped away. I did not get to tell you a funny story. It was a I worked on a movie called robots. None of this has come up. But I'm the guy who fixes a lot of animated movies people have seen I'm the secret kind of ghostwriter on all the Ice Age movies and Despicable Me and we worked on some movie robots, and I'm watching it. They know the movie was in rough form. And I'm watching the lead robot and he's not funny at all. And I said I said to the producers, I don't know who's playing the lead robot, but I'll bet you cast someone handsome instead of someone funny. And they said it's Ewan McGregor. Go I knew it. And I said, I literally said to them, Look, don't pay me take my fire may take my salary and hire Ben Stiller instead for that role. Now my salary wouldn't come close to paying for Ben Stiller. But that's how serious I was. And the female lead in that movie was that hilarious actress Halle Berry and Halle Berry would come in every week and just be not funny, you know, great actress, but she was so not funny. And some people just, you know, part of what's great about Halle Berry is looking at Halle Berry. And just hearing her didn't sound like much of anything, but the producers were just so smitten with her every week when she'd come in, they kept you know, she'd record and they were in love with it, and then they'd listened to it later go, Oh, that's not too good. Those are kind of the kind of punches I don't pull. I probably shouldn't have told that story. Because I know Halle Berry is a big fan of your podcast.

49:40

She is he's one of my top fans. I can pray for them. I did want to kind of say you did I did enjoy the Israel episode as well. When he took the Simpsons with Ned Flanders to Israel. I thought that was really funny. And Sacha Baron Cohen was hilarious. But the funniest thing in that episode is because when you're in Israel, everything is So historic and everything you're looking around and you're just like, oh, wow, history everywhere. So when Marge says so historic for all we know Jesus got given a talk in conference room. See, yeah, that's

50:11

a great joke. It tells you something about Simpsons to that episode was conceived and written by again, an Irish Catholic writer who'd never set foot in Israel. He just had the idea. No, it was a good idea. And my only contribution to the show was that they had written the part of the Israeli tour guide, and I said, Oh, get Sacha Baron Cohen. I said, people don't know. But when he's doing bore I had, he's actually speaking Hebrew with people. He's pretending he's speaking Kazak. He's speaking Hebrew. So he knows the Hebrew and we got them and it was like a six minute part. And he just had lived for six hours, he went on and on and on. He was so brilliant, but he threw in a lot of Hebrew. So we had to get some super Jew in to listen to all the tapes, just to make sure he wasn't swearing or saying anything we couldn't use on the show. But that was great. I think

51:05

you played like in the episode they play a second take of Jews being thrown out of Spain. Yeah, that riff.

51:13

I mean, it's shocking stuff. It's I think it's there's a holocaust joke in there. But he made it funny. And I talk in the book, I think people may know this. Everybody in the world loves the Simpsons every 71 countries love The Simpsons until the Simpsons come to their country, and suddenly it's not so funny anymore. So Simpsons went to France and the French cancelled us and Simpsons went to Australia and we were condemned in the Australian Parliament. But the Simpsons went to Israel, they went nuts for it. They loved that episode, and that character, the Sacha Baron Cohen tour guide characters like a national hero in Israel.

51:54

So Vani it's, that's, that's great. Because they can take a joke.

51:57

They can take a joke there. They have a very brutal sense of humor there. So yeah, they really enjoyed that.

52:04

So speaking of Israel, but in higher sense, traveling, you do a lot of traveling. Yes, I do. You try. You've been to over 130 countries. And you started a podcast called What am I doing here?

52:18

I like it. You just Jude up the title. Yeah. I'm doing here.

52:23

And it's a it's it's a great podcast. Thank you. It's a lot of fun to listen to. It's short, it's there. 15 minutes ish. But you pack a lot in, you pack a lot of jokes in but I guess that's what we could come to expect from the writer of The Simpsons, what kind of led you down the path of sitting down and finally kind of creating a podcast other than everyone's doing podcasts?

52:45

That I mean, that was a big turn, in fact, was just checked. There. Were there are 2 million podcasts out there to tell people I'm doing a podcast, like telling people I write email. Isn't that exciting? I sent an email the other day, I just travel a lot. And the two things I think that are interesting about my travel is I go the places nobody wants to go. I've been to Iraq, and I've been to Chernobyl. I've been in North Korea. And the interesting thing is, I don't want to go there. I don't want to go to any of these places. I have a wife who loves to travel and I love my wife. And if I want to see her, I have to follow her to Libya and Tunisia and places like that. I've followed my Gentile wife to 28 Muslim countries. And so I would go into work and just tell the stories every week. You know, I work one day a week at the Simpsons now, I work every Wednesday and it will go what you do this week, Mike and I would say Oh, I went to Cambodia, or you know, I was in Ghana, something like that. And it was finally one of the I'll tell this, I wasn't gonna say this. One of the Simpsons writers said, you got to do a podcast about this. You got to just tell these stories because you do a podcast because I know everybody in the podcast business, like okay, so I bought, I wrote the scripts, and I bought a couple grand worth of microphones and sound equipment, and I've recorded them and produced these episodes, and I send them to the guy I got. Alright, so who do you know in the podcast is this he goes, I don't know, anyone is just talking like a big shot. But that was it. I started making these and it's not like most other podcasts. I mean, it is tightly scripted. It's not Anthony Bourdain, or Rick Steves. It's not just general travel stories. I only tell the really funny really insane travel stories. That's why it's short. Sometimes I like I spent three weeks in Sudan. Now nobody goes to Sudan. But I went there. I spent three weeks there and I was able to get seven minutes out of that seven minutes of funny story. So that's it. It's, it's a lifetime a kind of funny, crazy weird travel boil down to 15 minutes a week. And it's, as they say, I mean, I tell the stories, but I have voice actors playing people from different countries. My wife who drags me on the trips plays herself. And I think it's funny and it definitely moves very fast. And I have a producer who cuts out every pause. So I'll record something that takes 17 minutes and then by the time it hits the air, it's 12 minutes it barrels along. I help people listen to it. It's called What am I doing here? And it's everywhere you get podcasts.

55:42

It is funny, and I will say everyone listening start with episode 11 which is the toilet episode. Oh, good for you. Okay, that one resonated with me. My wife when we ever we go on vacation immediately gets backed up. She can't go we would be in Disneyworld. We went east to go to Disneyworld a lot. And that was a joke. We're looking for pool. It's just kind of a running thing where she just immediately can't so I'm listening to this that Episode Episode 11. I was just like, This is so funny. It's a great episode to start. Any of them are great. But like that one I found to be personally Uber hilarious.

56:20

Yeah, if I could say one thing I like about the podcast as it's come up a few times that I don't really have any filters. So I tell him things in the podcast that you just that are true, but nobody has the nerve to say so. The fact that you don't you if you take a week long trip overseas, you're not going to poop now that's everybody experiences that but nobody even discusses it with each other and it certainly never in a travel books up. Yeah, I got an episode out of pooping overseas and the different toilets you encounter. But then there are things like the the Northern Lights, which we traveled twice in different countries to see the Northern Light. The Northern Lights suck. They suck and nobody will tell you that they'll all come back. Oh, it's a miracle. Oh, what a wonder. They look like nothing. Um, but I'm the only one saying it.

57:17

I think it was your wife that said Tommy trouble cause a tummy trouble. Yeah, he

57:22

she called diarrhea tummy trouble. My cute. Well, I

57:25

had I had tummy trouble when I was in Israel. And we're about to get on the plane to go home, which is everyone was saying it's an hour. And so this is why I always tell people you go with you travel. You bring Imodium ad? Yeah. It's like the only thing you need when you travel

57:42

them to sponsor the kit. Yeah, no,

57:45

right. Alright, so awesome. Podcast says cool. I think it's great being able to turn in and you're already past the pod fade. Most podcasts don't last more than eight episodes. And you blown past that.

57:55

So it won't go. It's never it's not going to run 10 years, I recorded 31 of them. And I'm about near the end, I think so. Listen to it now. Get it now. It's not going to go it won't be there in a couple of years. It's just I'm only telling true stories that are funny.

58:16

And they are funny. So everyone, definitely check that out. And then you have you read children's books as well. Yeah, Marie, save Christmas. Huge. Polio. Looks like Lincoln. Sounds fascinating.

58:26

It's out there there. Okay, I I liked it. You know, you're when you're writing for TV, as we discussed, it's 10 people in a room going over every line. And it was just somebody I realized, like 20 years ago, I'm gonna write a children's book. And you know, they're only 1000 words long, and I'll write it and they'll either publish it or they won't. And it was funny. My first book was how Marie saved Christmas that got rejected by every publisher in America. And they all read it. It was all personalized rejections. And I finally found one more publisher. And they published the book. And it's its first week, it outsold Harry Potter and outsold a brand new Harry Potter book. And I wound up selling it 9000 copies is considered best selling children's book, and amerisave Christmas salt 100,000 copies. And everyone everyone else had read it and said no thing. So I've written 20 children's books, and it's all like that, I get an idea. And I just write it and I mail it out. And maybe they'll print and maybe they will.

59:31

That's great, though. That's awesome. This Simpsons I asked our gene this question, I'll ask you the same question is when it eventually does end how in your mind should it end?

59:40

You know, we've been thinking about it since season two, and we got to wrap this up. And I swear I've never heard heard a good idea. I never heard a good way to wrap it up. And when you think about it, almost every final episode of every series sucks Seinfeld, you know, they almost never did a bad episode. And then did a horrendously bad wrap up. Cheers had a bad finale and Frasier I don't even remember how that ended. last episodes are hard. I don't know. I don't know how to land. But you know, now with every show, and especially with cartoons, they don't exactly and I mean, it'll go off the air and then they'll reboot it in five years, and there's always time to do them. Certainly, we'll make another movie and maybe they'll do teenage Simpsons. I mean, that's something we barely touched on. So I think it will just keep coming in common for a long time beyond it finally getting cancelled.

1:00:40

Mike, how can people keep up with you on the socials? Listen to the podcast.

1:00:44

I'll pitch it one more time. What am I doing here? Everybody gets the title wrong. What am I doing? Here? You go. I'm only on Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter. I I'm just there to write I try to challenge myself. I try and write one good joke. Every day @MikeReissWriter, Mike Reiss writer, Reiss is spelled: Reiss and nobody's ever reached out to me on Twitter didn't get a response. So I read everything. And I write back to everyone

1:01:15

my social media advice would be to get on Instagram, because I think with the travel podcast, it's the perfect kind of medium for it. Because you can do pictures from the trips that relate to the episodes and promote the episodes.

1:01:30

Yeah, I should do that I didn't even want to be on. I'll tell you. I'm hoping this is the last boring story I tell, which was for years, people were telling me hey, I follow you on Twitter. And I would always go, I'm not on Twitter. I don't do any social media. You know, I'm old. And they kept saying I love you on Twitter. And I finally go on Twitter and turn off. There I am. And some guy is not only posting as me, but he's, he's posting photos for my vacations and all this stuff. And he had friended my wife on Facebook, and was sort of keeping on top of my schedule. And I wouldn't let him keep doing it because he was doing a really nice job. Except he wasn't funny. It would just be me, you know, sledding in Colorado and be by Greece was saying sledding is fun. And I go, I can't so I track the guy down. I said, Would you mind terribly if I took over my own Twitter account? He said, Well, if you think he can do it, and that's how I got on Twitter. And so I've been on ever since. And it's fun. It's a it's a little exercise and a challenge for myself. But I'm just there putting jokes up. You won't ever see a picture of what you know what I had for lunch or something like that,

1:02:47

though. I bet it would be amazing to see you. Definitely think about the Instagram idea though. for that. Yeah. Okay. Well, I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me. It's

1:02:59

I loved the bikes by talking to you tonight. I didn't have to go to an Off Broadway show. So I really am grateful to you.

1:03:08

That's amazing. But perhaps I can use that quote in a thank you so much. It's really been great. I loved all the stories everyone check out what am I doing here? Mike Reiss has podcasts Springfield confidential his book and get it on Amazon. Google it all. Check it out. Mike, thank you so much.

1:03:27

It was great fun. Thank you.

1:03:29

All right. How amazing was Mike Reiss everyone. So fun. I warned you. It's gonna be great. So many amazing stories. Mike does not hold back. loved every second of it. Of course check out The Simpsons, of course check out Mike's book, Springfield confidential, and get on Amazon anywhere books are sold. And definitely check out Mike's podcast. What am I doing here with Mike Reiss? It is a hilarious travel podcast like we talked about. It's short, sweet and super funny. So add that to your list. You will not regret it.

Well, the interview is over. So that means we are nearing the end of the podcast episode 80 is nearing completion. But it's not done yet. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, we have one more exciting piece of the podcast laughed. That's right. A trending hashtag from the family of hashtags. It hashtag around up download the absolutely always free hashtag roundup app for your Google Android phone or Apple iPhone. It's totally free and you'll receive a push notification every time a new game starts. Also follow us on Twitter at hashtag roundup play along and one day one of your tweets may show up on a future episode of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show fame and fortune awaits you. This week's hashtag is Simpsons themed. Did you see that coming? I bet you did. Hashtag that Simpsons a song the alt mash up between the Simpsons and a song title brought to us by musical hashtags a weekly Game On hashtag round up, head on over to Twitter after you're inspired by all the tweets I'm about to read you tweet your own hashtag The Simpsons the song I'll look for it, as always retweet the tweeters that are retweeted at Jeff Dwoskin show. Also, they're listed in the show notes show him some love. One day you'll make the list and you'll want them to show you love. So start laying those karma trails now. Alright, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, hashtag The Simpsons song cowabunga style wake me up before you go. No tears of Krusty the Clown. I will always love Appu and no not gonna do that. Barbara Howell doe a deer a female deer. i Some kissing Santas little help or I'll be home or for Christmas. Nothing compares to stew. Is there some amazing hashtag The Simpsons a song mashup tweets, but it doesn't stop there. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. Don't not stop it'll soon be here. Achy Breaky bark. The pleasure principle Skinner burns, baby burns, excellent. Bohemian Rhapsody its grain in man. Hallelujah it's granted man. Give my regards to borrow away. Take me home or tonight and the final hashtag The Simpsons a song tweets in the midnight hour. She cried Mo Mo Mo right good promote and good for all of you and hashtag Simpsons a song tweeters fabulous job all round got a few of those Diddy's in my head for a while now I'm sure. Well, here we are everyone. At the end of yet another episode of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin Show episode 80 has come and gone. But let us be thankful that it happened. Thanks again to my special guests, Mike Reiss, and thanks to my other special guests, Casey Ryan Plott or his amazing voice work earlier in the show. And of course, I would never forget. Thanks to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

1:07:34

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Go repeat everything you heard and sound like a genius. Catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai