The 500th is Here and A Thank You To My Readers

The day no one ever dreamed would happen is here. As I write this, we are just a few hours away from broadcasting the 500th episode of THE SIMPSONS. So much has been written and said about this event over the past two weeks, including my two cents here on this blog. I just wanted to share a few of my personal thoughts and memories about being a part of this.

The 500th Episode Celebration

It was fun, it was LOUD, it was star-studded, it was a very nice way to celebrate working on a part of television history for the past 8,118 days.

The 500th Episode Scoring Session

• Gunsmoke – Weekly Scripted Prime-Time Drama – 635 episodes
  final episode aired March 31, 1975
• Meet the Press – Weekly News/Talk – 4991 episodes – still running
• As the World Turns – Daily scripted Daytime Drama – 13,858 episodes
  final episode aired September 17, 2010
• The Tonight Show – Daily Late-Night Entertainment-Variety
  10,680 episodes – still running
• The Today Show – Daily Morning News/Talk/Entertainment
  17,937 episodes – still running
• The Simpsons – Weekly Scripted Prime-Time comedy – still running
  498 episodes (as of February 5, 2012)

As you can see from the above list, we are the baby of the group and in very lofty company. We spotted PABF07 “At Long Last Leave” on Friday, January 27, 2012. The episode is written by Michael Price and will air as the 500th episode of the series on Sunday, February 19, 2012 on FOX. Music-wise, there are 31 cues in the show including a couple of cues provided by a special musical guest and, as I’m sure you would expect, a special cue for a very special couch gag.

Starting “The Daughter Also Rises”

Episode #499 was spotted on Friday, January 20, 2012. Written by Rob LaZebnik, PABF06 “The Daughter Also Rises” will air on FOX on Sunday, February 12, 2012. Lisa is smitten with a new boy in town (guest-voiced by Michael Cera),
while Bart & Milhouse, inspired by The Mythcrackers television show (with voices from special guests stars Adam Savage & Jamie Hyneman), try to crack some of the myths they’ve heard about at Springfield Elementary for many years.

Musically speaking, we spotted 42 cues (!) in the episode, covering all the romance for Lisa and all the adventure for Bart & Milhouse.

Finishing “Politically Inept with Homer Simpson” & “The D’oh-cial Network” and Starting “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches”

2012 has been pretty busy right from the get-go.

We started off by airing PABF03 “Politically Inept with Homer Simpson” on January 8. We actually finished dubbing this episode back on December 13, so it was really nice to be so far ahead of the airdate. That luxury will be rapidly evaporating as we get deeper into 2012 and more episodes start airing back-to-back.

Starting “The D’oh-cial Network”

Well, we spotted our last episode for 2011 last Friday – PABF04 “The D’oh-cial Network”. Written by J. Stewart Burns, this will be the 11th episode of season 23, the 497th episode as we inch ever closer to 500. The episode is scheduled to air on FOX Sunday, January 15, 2012. The story revolves around Lisa founding her own social network on the Internet so as to broaden her base of friends.

Wrapping Up 2011

After working nearly non-stop since mid-October, this week slows down a little as we head into the Christmas/New Year’s period. We’ve been having many “finals” of late… last Friday we had our final scoring session of 2011 for PABF03 “Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson”; tonight (Tuesday, 12/13/11) we’ll have our final dub of the year working on “Politically Inept”; later this week We’ll have our final music spotting session for 2011 as we begin work on PABF04 “The D’oh-cial Network”. More details on that episode next time, after I’ve spotted it.

Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson (and other musings)

Sorry for the two-week hiatus from the blog. Between making so many new episodes in a row and spending quality time with my family for Thanksgiving, Simpsons Music 500 has had to take a bit of a backseat. Let me try to catch you up.

This past Friday (12/2/11), we spotted PABF03 “Politcally Inept, with Homer Simpson” in the afternoon and scored NABF18 “Holidays of Future Passed” in the evening. “Politically Inept” will air on Sunday, January 8, 2012 – the 10th episode of season 23, episode #496 as we inch closer to 500. The show was written by John Frink and will feature guest star Ted Nugent.

“The Ten-Per-Cent Solution” and “Holidays of Future Passed”

I’m a little behind in my reporting on the episodes we’re working on. I was afraid this would happen once we hit November “sweeps”. This is one of the times of the season where I’m juggling three, four or even five episodes at once in various stages of production. This past Monday we spotted NABF18 “Holidays of Future Passed” and scored PABF02 “The Ten-Per-Cent Solution”.

500th Episode Swag

As I mentioned in an earlier post, as if it weren’t enough that I love my job and I’m paid to do it, every once in a while the show lays a very nice gift on me. Since season 1, there has always been something to commemorate each season, and along the way there have been celebration gifts for various milestones like 100 episodes, 200 episodes, 10 years, 20 years, and others.