“David Mirkin – A Writer I Love
It doesn’t take much to love David Mirkin. Just look at his credits and you’ll realize that you’ve loved him for years on “Three’s Company,” “Newhart,” and “The Simpsons,” as well as his own iconic series “Get a Life,” to name just a few. David is also a popular director in both features and television, making him more than a triple threat.
I was lucky enough to have David lecture to a class I taught called “The Entertainment Industry Seminar” and he was a major hit because his practical advice was encased in the humorous delivery that is his trademark.
Conversation with a Writer I Love:
Neely: David, I’m so glad you agreed to talk to me.
For a while there, we kept bumping into one another – like at the TEDX conference. Have you been to any of the others?
David: I have not. Savannah used to go those, but once they got really big and really crowded, it became less of an interest of ours. I still watch the videos online which is about the easiest way to do that.
Neely: I think TED is a very interesting concept – sort of like an “after school special” for grown-ups, but I always end up with a headache.
David: That one where we saw each other was really kind of Ted-Light. It wasn’t quite the quality of the ones that are now crazily expensive. It didn’t use to be that expensive and crowded. As I said, a lot of them end up online so you can get the best of them. People who are big networking fans enjoy it but when the numbers grew to such a large extent, it was less appealing. I don’t run in the direction of large crowds of people very often.
Neely: Before TED, and I guess it was an anticipatory headache, we had been to a Renaissance Weekend…
David: …Ohmy god.
Neely: ..precisely. By the third day my head was just throbbing and all I wanted to do was go home… take a bottle of aspirin and just go home. The other thing, of course, was that the TEDX we went to a USC cost us $50. The full price for TED is like $7,500.
David: That’s right. It just went through the roof. It used to be just a couple of thousand and then it doubled and tripled. They also have started to have it on video, even if you paid for the conference. People love it, but it’s not my kind of thing. I find my technology on my various feeds from the internet and watch the videos as they become available.
Neely: I do have a friend who is often an invited speaker and I’m wondering if you know her - Emily Levine. I really love her and her take on things. Emily has a background much like yours in that she started in comedy, both stand-up and writing.
David: I don’t know her but I’ve probably run into her at some point.
Neely: Let’s start in the present. I noticed that you have several feature projects in development. Can you talk about any of them?
David: I can’t talk too much about them for various reasons, but I am very excited about the Richard Branson biopic “Losing My Virginity.” It’s a great combination of an action film, because there are a lot of the balloon and boat crashes mixed in with a really fascinating story about how to make a billion dollars without being a big jerk (both laugh).
Neely: How really cool. How did you get attached to that?
David: In some ways it’s the flip side of the “Social Network” where there was a lot of intrigue an dirty tricks involved in that startup. Richard started his magazine when he was 15 or 16, and I’ve talked to people he was in business with at that age and through his early career and he’s still friendly with all of them. So he’s been able to move forward, be very successful and still have people speak well of him. I think it’s a good flip side to the “Social Network” that you can also make a billion dollars without screwing everyone.
Neely: How did you get attached to that film?
David: The producers sent me a copy of his book Losing My Viriginity: How I Survived, Had Fun and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way. I read it and really liked it and had a very interesting, cool, visual kinetic take on it. I then met with Richard and we really hit it off; he really loved the take too. And we went from there.
Neely: I notice on a lot of the other features you have in development right now that you’re also going to direct them Are you going to direct this one?
David: Yeah. I’m attached as a writer/director on this.
Neely: Would you say that your present focus is more on directing or are you still firmly planted in the writing world?
David: Everything always come from writing. If there’s a great script that I haven’t written and I have take on it as a director, I always consider that. But it really starts with the writing and the writing has to move me or be something I can rewrite and put into a voice I’m comfortable with. It all starts there, but then, in the early part of my career, it was the same thing. When you have a vision of something and even if you haven’t written it or if you’ve just rewritten it or added to it a bit, you then want to protect what that is. So really, directing is just a means of protecting the writing.
Neely: You come by that naturally and you have great predecessors in terms of that feeling, Billy Wilder, foremost among them.
David: That’s right. It all started back then and those are the heroes. It’s so funny having a hero, pretty much since childhood, be Woody Allen and yet he’s still getting Academy Award nominations. That’s certainly a great career.
Neely: Well that’s an excellent segue because I think I would be completely remiss if we didn’t start our conversation with “The Simpsons.” Your comparison of Woody Allen as a childhood idol who’s still active certainly resonates. My son, who’s an adult now, grew up with “The Simpsons.” It may not be the same as Woody Allen but it’s something that has crossed many generations.
David: It has. And you know, it’s a similar thing. You’re talking about somebody who influenced me when I was still in high school or maybe right before, where I was just blown away by his writing.
Going back a bit. The first writing that really blew me away when I was a child was “The Dick Van Dyke Show” as a series. I recognized that as something smarter than anything else on television at the time. And it’s held up in (television) history as something that was absolutely brilliant. Suddenly something incredibly smart was speaking to me and that led to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” which was another thing that blew me away. And that was Jim Brooks, with Alan Burns at that time, just doing this amazing series. And following Jim’s career as he went on to “Taxi,” which was another series I studied very seriously when I was trying to learn to write. And obviously then “The Simpsons.” The whole reason “The Simpsons” exist and has the freedom that it does is thanks to Jim Brooks.
Neely: When did you start on the show and how long have you been associated with it?
David: I’ve been there over 20 years. The first time I worked with Jim Brooks, “The Simpsons” were on “The Tracey Ullman Show,” as those little minute interstitials and I was asked to be a guest writer on her show. It was a big thrill for me that Jim Brooks liked my work on “Newhart” and asked me to come over and write a couple of sketches for that show. So I met Jim at that point and really enjoyed working with him. Then when “The Simpsons” was starting up as a half hour, I was asked to join it then, but by then I had my own project in development, the show that became “Get a Life.” So I actually didn’t come on to “The Simpsons” until the end of 1992. So it’s just about 20 years now.
Neely: I’ve also noticed that so many of the writers have started with “The Simpsons,” gone off to other things and then returned, oftentimes repeating that cycle several times. How does that work?
David: When I was asked to take over “The Simpsons” in 1992 and become the showrunner, I had to pretty much rebuild the entire staff from the ground up because it’s such a difficult show and there’s no hiatus like there is on other television shows – every other television show has about a three month hiatus where you can rest up. “The Simpsons,” as opposed to having a hiatus, because it takes 9 months to do one episode, literally six months of the year we’re working on two seasons simultaneously. Right now we’re still finishing up shows that are airing this season while we’re busy writing next season. We’re always about a year back. So the same time we’re working on this season, we’re also working on the Halloween show for next season, things like that. So people burn out very seriously. When I came in, I started something new. I had wanted to keep George Meyer, who I had worked with on “The Edge,” my sketch show. I was a fan of his. So we worked out a thing where George could come in two or three days a week so he wouldn’t be as burned out. I did the same thing with Al Jean and Mike Reis, I worked it out so they could come in a day a week. And that was all just something I had. I had worked with Al and Mike on “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” where I was doing a day a week. It’s something that’s been around in the business a while. David Lloyd was like that on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” where I don’t think he was there all the time.
Neely: Phoef Sutton talked about how he did that on “Cheers” as well (even going so far as to negotiate his own contracts in the third person).
David: I had been one day a week on “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show,” I was one day a week at the beginning of “Larry Sanders.” I managed to do this consulting things where you help with the rewrites and give outside advice. And so I started doing that on “The Simpsons” to keep people around who we liked. Then when I stopped running the show, I never left, I’ve never left “The Simpsons” in the 20 years, I became one of the people who was doing one or two days and I could go off and direct a movies and work on other series and still, because each show takes nine months from start to finish, I could still have input on every episode of every season.
Neely: That also answers the question I was going to ask next, which was how many times have your recycled onto the show? You’ve never cycled off.
David: Never cycled off. There have been some people who have completely left and then come back. Actually, Al and Mike went off and had a deal with Disney. I think they were completely gone during that time, but I almost can’t remember. There might have been a short period where they were gone, but then the did return. But I, myself, never took such a chance. I made sure to be there consistently. I was always able to work it out even if I had to go off to direct a movie for three months and really be gone for three months, that’s still only three months out of the nine month process. I still had the opportunity to come back and contribute.
Neely: Well also, clearly, one thing that works on that particular show is that you may be working nine months in advance, but it seems that just prior to putting it on the air you’re tweaking to get something in there that is very current.
David: It’s quite entertaining how many people we kill by referencing them (Neely laughs) and then they’re dead right before the show goes on and we have to rush and change the reference. So, yeah, things in the world do change in the nine months and the lucky thing is that “The Simpsons” have 16 mouth shapes so it’s very easy to change what they say (Neely laughs again and again). We continue the rewrite process up to about 2 weeks before it hits the air. Sometimes it’s tighter than that. Sometimes we’ve done things in less than a week in advance. An idea will hit us or a new reference will hit us and we can put something in the show, a small little thing, very quickly. And we keep that up so that even though it may have generated an early idea nine months ago, by the time it’s on the air it still feels like it’s referencing what’s going on in the moment.
Neely: I’m not sure there’s anyone in the world, well, maybe America, who hasn’t seen at least one episode of “The Simpsons.” Do you have a favorite character? Parents always say (falsetto voice) “Oh I love all my children equally.” Well no. they don’t.
David: As a writer, there’s almost nobody more fun to write for than Homer because he’s such a fascinating combination of things. He’s so just naturally funny and for a negative-thinking person like me, he’s an incredibly positive, resilient idiot and that’s exciting. And he’s not always an idiot. He may have trouble figuring out how to open up a door, how to operate a door, but at the same time he can name all the justices of the Supreme Court and have great detils about each one. So he’s incredibly varied in terms of what I call flexible reality. Homer also has flexible intelligence that goes way up and way down depending on his mood, depending on the situation, depending on the body of knowledge that he’s interacting with. So it’s really fun to write someone who’s changing all the time, is that resilient to everything. He actually is quite posititve no matter how many times he gets knocked down. He’s instantly enthusiastic about a new subject – dangerously enthusiastic about a new subject. Even after all this time he’s still surprising to write for which is why he’s my favorite character.
Neely: What about a favorite (several) episode – written by you or by others?
David: Now those are the children and you love ‘em all and which ones you like the most change as time goes on. The episode that I wrote about “Deep Space Homer” holds a special place for me. First of all because it was a difficult birth; it was controversial at that time. There was some concern that it seemed like a big idea to send Homer into space. I never saw it that way. Coming from an engineering background and literally an aerospace background, it wasn’t really far from the truth at all. Just because there was that kind of discussion and that kind of resisistence made it more exciting to me. I thrive when there’s that kind of resistance. My greatest successes have come in the face of reisistence. I usually think I’m on to something good if an idea’s upsetting. I have to admit that there were some writers who were nervous about it, they weren’t really ones that made me nervous. I mean the writers loved it and supported it from the beginning – George Meyer and Conan O’Brien and Mike and Al, and then because there was some discussion about whether this was a proper thing to do, Jim Brooks, who was incredibly busy the first year I was running the show and he was not around. He was working on a film and he took the time to read my script and he loved it. So that was a major thing that came in, no question about it it. That was part of the excitement aobut it – it had some controversy to it and it also had my favorite guest starts of all time – James Taylor, who’s this dear friend of mine and it turned out to be a terrific use of him and he was hilarious in it; and Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, who was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met did the show. And then it became one of the most popular shows that we ever did and it also became a favorite show of NASA who uses it in their training. Astronaut Ed Liu liked it so much that he asked me to send him a copy of it up in space. So it was before we had any DVDs of “The Simpsons,” so I burned a DVD at home and then it got sent up in one of those Russian supply ships and then Ed sent me back a picture of that DVD floating in the cabin in front of Earth in the background. So there were a lot of things associated with that episode that make it very very special to me. I was thrilled with how well received it was. I really was.
Neely: That’s an incredible story and it opens something up that is a deviations but it’s something I didn’t know about you. And that’s your engineering and aerospace background. Can you elaborate on that?
David: As I always say, I started off like most comedy writers as an electronics engineer. (Neely chortles) That was the background of my family. My father was a computer engineer in the 50s and into the 60s, although he died in 1962. It wasn’t a very good career choice being around those very first computers. So I’m a tech head, a tech geek and tech freak and I love that, I always did growing up. And I love filmmaking at the same time but I loved the technical aspect of it. I was studying that as much as I was studying the artistic aspect of it. But in my family, it was really a belief that, yeah, you want to be a filmmaker, you want to be a writer, but that’s just dreaming. You could never possibly do something that would make you that happy. You have to be realistic and becoming an electronics engineer was a realistic way to go. So I went to Drexel University which was a really wonderful university for engineering. Luckily they had this work/study program. You went to school for six months and then you worked for six months. I got to work at a place called the Aeronautics Federal Experiental Center (AFEC) and it was working with digital radar systems. I used to go up and fly through thunderstorms to find out why planes crashed in thunderstorms.
Neely: (Neely explodes with laughter) You’re kidding!
David: Nah. I used to do that. But anyway, being an engineer and finding out what it was like, I got to find out first hand while I was in school just how much I hated. I enjoyed designing something once, but I didn’t like repeating the process. Once you design one circuit and one piece of equipment, it’s really just minimal variations to create anything – a television, a stereo system, a ham radio… It became repetitive to me and I got over it very quickly. And by the way, I would also say that this is a cycle that has repeated itself even in television where I don’t like to continually repeat things. That’s the great thing about “The Simpsons,” because you try to keep it different. Every week is something different. It can be a horror show or a romantic comedy, it could be a science fiction; it can be a murder mystery. We do every single for so we keep it alive and try to keep it fresh that way. And that really stimulates my brain in the proper way. I could very easily funk out if I am doing the same thing repetitively. So knowing that I disliked it while I was in school, I was able to quickly come and continue in school out here at Loyola and try my hand at film because making no money doing something I loved I learned very early was going to be better than making a good living doing something not fulfilling. So that’s how that background happened.
Neely: Going back to “The Simpsons,” how many showrunners have you had on the show?
David: It’s hard to… It started out with Jim Brooks running it with Sam Simon in the beginning; then Al and Mike and then it was me, I was the first solo showrunner I guess, and then there was a team after me, then Mike Scully and then Al Jean again, this time by himself. And that’s where we are now.
Neely: How is the room run?
David: When I was running the show, it was one room. On shows that I’ve done, I have a tendency to control most things where I sort of have to be in the room pretty much for every moment. If we’re working on a specific joke and then I have to leave the room, they can keep working on that joke and maybe one after it. All the time it’s very pleasant and I’ll come back in the room and they’ll have something brilliant and so funny and I wasn’t part of its creation, it really makes me laugh – like you get to be an audience for a second. But if I’m gone any longer than that, they’ll instantly, and it’s just the nature of writers, they’ll start to take it in another direction that I didn’t want it to go. And I’m not saying that my direction is better than theirs or vice versa, it’s just that when you run the show, that’s the thing you get. You get to choose every direction it’s going to go. So now, I think from about the time of Phil Oakley and Josh Weinstein, who were the team after me, at some point in time it broke into two rooms and Mike Scully kept the two rooms. So now there’s multiple rooms working simultaneously and that’s a little bit different. But when I was running it, it was just the one room with me and if I had to go direct the actors, all the writing would stop; if I had to go edit the episodes, all the writing would stop. The reason that was difficult, was that meant that if it was just one room going, there were a couple of nights a week you would go to 2 a.m. and that’s kind of true of every great show – it generally goes to the wee hours of the morning. And, again, because there’s no time off on “The Simpsons,” that would create burn out. So having the two rooms makes it so that those wee hour things don’t happen so often and it’s a much more reasonable time schedule. But when I was there, we were just all in a room and going beat by beat. I could tell you even more specifically how many days you spent on story, and how many days they’d spend writing the script and then how many days rewriting the script and then there would be another rewrite at the animatic and then another rewrite at the color. It’s a long process but would give you some really amazing results.
Neely: You also wrote the screenplay for “The Simpsons Movie,” as well as a couple of the songs. Who came up with the idea of doing the movie and are there plans for another?
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.” – Oscar Wilde
