Hey all.

Well, I had a busy day today. On top of work, three essential DVD releases came out today. Lord of the Rings, Monty Pythons Life of Brian (I'm not paying $70 for the Criterion edition), and the Simpsons, season 3.

Needless to say, I've done a lot of TV watching today, and on the commentary of episode 1, season 3, Michael Jackson is a special guest.

The commentators said they put in a joke on Prince, but one of Michael Jackson's requirements was that they changed the name of the joke to Elvis.

He also went on to write Bart a number 1 hit, Do the Bartman. Other interesting facts was that he wanted to go under an alias name (John Jay Smith), and although he wanted to do the voice where he spoke, he wanted an alias Michael Jackson impersonator to do any singing.

Yep, no complex there.

You all suck.

What was the Elvis/Prince joke? Did it make it into the episode?

Yes.

To summarize the episode, Michael Jackson was a guest star, and he played the voice of a mental patient who thought he was Michael Jackson. He looked like a big fat white guy. Anyways, Homer gets committed and meets him, and believes it is Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson later is talking to Bart over the phone for various reason, and says he's Michael Jackson, and he's in a mental hospital.

Bart goes "uh-huh, and is Elvis there too?"

Jackson goes "He could be, it's a big hospital"

Anyways, I found another huge mention. There is a bonus easter egg commentary of this episode, and the guy talks about Prince for 2 minutes.

Turned out they had a really great script lined up, and they were going to make the guy that thought he was MJ think he was P, a sequel of sorts. Anyways, they were talking with Prince, and everything was going fine, and they mailed Prince the script. By coincidence, some other fan mailed Prince a Simpsons script which arrived first. Prince sent back to Groening these notes, and they were pretty much wardrobe notes saying what he wanted to where in each scene. But, it didn't match their script. When the confusion was sorted out, and he got the right script, he hated it, and wanted to do the other one. The Simpsons staff refused (and rightly so), and Prince cancelled the whole episode.

The creators said it was one of only about 3 scripts that they never used. Production of these scripts are expensive, so they don't discard them lightly.

That MJ episode was hilarious. I LOVE the Simpsons. If there's a pop-culture phenomenon I'm as obsessed with as I am with Prince, it's the Simpsons. Well, almost.

savoirfaire said:

Nothing to do with any complex.Contractually he wasn't allowed to sing.

Marrk said:

hmmm... didn't think about that. Thanks.

savoirfaire said:

You mean that was really MJ but he went under a different name. And imagine all the royalites from "Do The Bartman"!

And how great would it have been if Prince would have done an episode? Why didn't they just do the script the fan wrote, contact him, etc. I think if Prince didn't like their script, he is in the right.

VinnyM27 said:

You kidding me? Look, nothing would make me happier than to see Prince guest on the Simpsons, but what makes the Simpsons the great show it is, is the writing. Its writers have written for shows such as Taxi, Mary Tyler Moore, Frasier, James L. Brooks has won several oscars for his movies. The writers are the best out there, and they do countless re-writes in a collaborative effort to make the show as good as it is.

One Prince fan writing a script would never be as good, and I would have hated to see the Simpsons lose its integrity as a show just to secure Prince as a guest. Prince is allowed to dislike the script, just as the writers are allowed to refuse to change it.