Transcript:Commentary:A Big Piece of Garbage

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Transcript of commentary for
"A Big Piece of Garbage"
Transcribed by	Svip
Commentary participants
David X. Cohen (DXC) Matt Groening (MG) Rich Moore (RM) Lewis Morton (LM) Susan Dietter (SD) John DiMaggio (JD)

• Note: One question mark in bold (?) means that the speaker was not identified by the transcriber.
• Note: Three question marks (???) means that the word in proximity to the question marks is a suggested word, but not necessarily correctly identified, or if there is no word near the question mark (a space away is not near), then no suggested word was provided.

Matt Groening: Hey, welcome back, everyone. This is Matt Groening.

Susan Dietter: This is Susan Dietter, I'm the director.

Lewis Morton: This is Lou Morton, I wrote the episode.

John DiMaggio: This is John DiMaggio, I play Bender and other characters.

David X. Cohen: I'm David Cohen, executive producer.

Rich Moore: And I am Rich Moore, the supervising director.

LM: That, I think, was the only joke used that year with the word "symposia" in it.

DXC: In the world– in the entire world. One of the only three uses of the word "symposia" even kinda in conversations that you...

[Farnsworth presents the Deathclock]

JD: Yeah...

MG: No, they actually sell a death clock, where you put in your birthday and it calculates the amount of seconds you have left to live. I bought it.

SD: How much do they charge for it?

MG: I can't remember, but I bought– that'll be really cool to have and I have bought it, and I entered my birthday and I watch it, and I got really depressed. Threw it away.

JD: Ah, Mr Bender's Wardrobe by Robotany 500. What's the– how do people pitch those jokes? Who–?

?: We just have—

JD: Is there a pool?

DXC: The writers just, on a slow day, once in a while, we just have all the writers sit around draw up a list of those and then– really, pretty hard to get one through; maybe we use one out of every twenty that are suggested, something like that.

JD: It's glee???.

MG: And the animation is so incredible. This is such a treat to look at, every week.

RM: Yay.

JD: Amen.

LM: Dave Herman again.

JD: Dave Herman as Wernstrom.

DXC: I like in that picture of the professor when he was young, the way he has orange hair, which tells that he is related to Fry. Nice touch there.

SD: Wernstrom is my mother's favourite character.

LM: He's come back a few times.

SD: [voice] "I just love Wernstrom". "So handsome".

JD: I just love the way Billy says, [professor] "oh, Wernstrom!" That's my favourite.

SD: Where did you get the name "Ogden"?

LM: I don't know...

DXC: Good answer.

LM: Interesting story about the name Ogden, now... I got nothing. Sorry, DVD buyers.

DXC: I love–

JD: The ship???!

DXC: I love the way Bender's hat balances on his antenna and rolls around here.

LM: This is another part of the script, where there is somewhere where there is a very long list of crappy wines that were not used.

JD: [Bender] "Big jug". [normal] Hey, actually, the actual voice of Ron Popeil!

LM: Real life Ron Popeil.

DXC: That's him.

LM: He came into record his voice and told us, "80 000 dollars".

RM: And still he eaten turkey jerky.

LM: Well, it's good, it's good turkey jerky, you can't–

RM: I'm not complaining.

SD: My brother in law told me yesterday that he bought the pasta maker by Ronco.

DXC: And? Say something good about him, because it's a friend of the show you're talking about.

SD: He hasn't gotten it in the mail yet, but he has great expectations of fresh pasta. It also makes dessert pasta.

?: Oh this is the greatest. But wait, there's more!

SD: I love this fish.

JD: Yeah, that's the best.

DXC: The fish is named Cinnamon after my cat Cinnamon, that I had when I was a young child.

?: Talk about a pasta maker.

JD: I love this, the look, just look at that! That's harsh.

LM: I love how hard they hit the fish.

SD: I can beat Cinnamon, my cat is named Booboo Kitty.

DXC: I'd say it's a tie.

JD: [deep] I never had a cat, 'cause I didn't like 'em.

?: So about that pasta maker...

LM: Man, I'm glad I didn't buy this DVD, because we're boring.

DXC: That's just Billy West rambling off script there, in a hilarious way.

JD: I think that's the fastest the professor has ever talked.

RM: And move.

JD: And moved! [professor mumbling]

?: It's one of those futuristic overhead projectors.

DXC: Hey, Rich Moore, Susie Dietter, why does that coffee stain look so familiar to me?

SD: Uh, I don't know.

?: Would that be...?

SD: The Rough Draft logo...

DXC: Ah, it's the logo of our animation studio, Rough Draft, snuck into that napkin.

JD: A coffee stain?

SD: Yeah...

JD: Kinda thing.

DXC: They couldn't afford a real logo.

JD: Aw, smearing.

RM: Now we made it worse.

SD: I love overhead projectors, they– we don't use them enough.

JD: Dave Herman did such a great job as Wernstrom in this episode. He does– he always does a great job.

LM: That looks like an Emmy, which, by the way, this episode was nominated for... an Emmy.

?: And won!

LM: And didn't win.

?: Didn't win?

?: Didn't win!

DXC: How dare they ???.

LM: We all dressed up as– in black tie, we went to the Emmy's. Not the real Emmy's, mind you, the technical Emmy's and sat there for three hours while they gave awards to like documentaries about prisons, and then us, they gave the award to some other show, and they made me sit there for another hour before they finished dinner.

DXC: It was King of the Hill, just come right out and admit it. We got beat by King of the Hill.

SD: How do you explain to your family and friends that it's not the real Emmy's? I found that very difficult. "It's not the real Emmy's".

DXC: You just tell them it's even better.

LM: I explained it like this–

MG: So good they don't televise it. Very exclusive.

?: Secret Emmy's.

LM: I– I explain it like this, it's the real Emmy's. And if you didnt' see me on TV, it's because you weren't watching closely enough.

DXC: Love the smell-o-scope, beautiful design.

JD: This black noise, it's one of the funniest things– ever. When he smells... when he finally smells the garbage.

RM: I think this is the first time we've ever been in that tower or–

SD: Yeah yeah.

Farnsworth: [episode] Urectum!

?: Hurray!

DXC: Because of that one joke, we've never been able to have our crew visit the planet Uranus. That originated from our universe.

SD: They can go to Urectum.

JD: Here it comes.

JD: The Funk-o-Meter That's the introduction of the Funk-o-Meter.

SD: We had to decide what was– what a Funk-o-Meter would look like. But we decided to go simple.

?: Good colour.

?: Oh but, Barney Cumar, they had at our colour department did win an Emmy for this episode.

SD: Was it this one?

DXC: Actually, it wasn't this one, it was—

?: ??? next episode.

SD: No, it was another one that I did, but it was– you know, the Internet. When are you guys gonna give Leela a nice boyfriend?

DXC: They all get jealous.

DXC: Our first trip to the Internet.

SD: I love this. I just laughed and laughed when saw this.

JD: Billy West as the– does a great narration for this part.

DXC: When we were first conceiving the series, Matt and I were both interested in doing things that were pro-environmental messages and we've been trying to do one of these episodes per year with these really nice environmental messages, of which this is one not sure it's really nice, but an environmental message.

SD: I saw a film-- didn't you see this when you were a kid? The same film.

DXC: The seagulls are really perfect.

JD: "You know the one I mean". Remember we had to cut that out? The joke there– "yeah we got it". You don't know still, people!

?: About another country?

JD: Oh yeah. [voice] You know the one.

JD: Haha, Maurice LaMarche... [voice] "with gusto".

JD: In Tijuana.

SD: Ew.

DXC: I love that expression on Fry's face, there.  ???.

DXC: I also like the way Leela's hair blows out of the way when she talks there.

SD: This is the first time Mayor Poopenmeyer was in the show, isn't it?

JD: David Herman once again.

DXC: Interesting thing about this episode, is that it– as originally written, correct me if I am wrong, Lou, it was much much longer, and it originally introduced the character of Cubert, the professor's clone, and I think, really, one night before we had to record it, it was ten pages too long, and there went Cubert for another season.

SD: That's right, wasn't he originally in the cold opening?

LM: Yep.

DXC: He was all over the place. And there was a whole bunch of stuff of how Cubert was embarrassed of his father, the professor and could they make up by the end and that kind of thing.

MG: I love this.

JD: It just takes its time.

JD: That's Billy– That's Billy West right there doing the—

LM: Our animation is great, but now we're going to look at this woman, blinking.

SD: First time for Morbo.

LM: First appearance for Morbo and Linda.

DXC: And this Maurice LaMarche as Morbo, and one of those things that's always been amusing; when he first did this voice, we thought, "oh, he's an alien, we'll lower the pitch, like electronically" when we added the show, so that'll it sound spooky and alien. But then Maurice saw what we did and this episode and all future episodes, he lowered his voice to match this impossibly lowered voice here. So we never had to change it again.

JD: That's pro-face.

SD: That's a 3D hologram.

DXC: I love the way he gets lit by it.

JD: So that's 3 dimensional animation within 2 dimensions?

SD: Oh yeah.

LM: Originally, there was a joke in there where the ball had a core of Ikea furniture, which I– which I– standards in practises decided they like Ikea's money,-–

SD: What about?

LM: We shouldn't slam their furniture–

DXC: And yet 3 season hence, there's another huge slam on Ikea, but...

LM: Is there? Oh great.

SD: I love it, it's funny.

DXC: Maybe they stopped advertising on Fox in the mean time.

JD: Armageddon.

SD: This movie wasn't out on tape, so we had to go to the theatre and remember what we saw and like went back to the studio and draw it.

DXC: How do you do that effect with the kinda 3D smoke around the garbage ball?

SD: That's 3D, that's– Rich?

RM: It's a—

SD: Particle thing?

RM: Particles, yeah.

SD: Ah, the garbage planet.

RM: I remember we had to figure which direction the stars would be panning in every shot.

SD: Yeah.

SD: That's my Beanie Baby.

JD: This is funny.

JD: A tribute to Homer.

DXC: How did we ever get permission to use that footage?!

SD: How did he get that soda can holder around his neck?

?: Oh you, Internet geeks.

MG: It's just so much fun to watch this, because the writing is so great and every step of the way, the show takes a leap upward. I love the writing, but I love the voices and I love the animation and the music and all together, it's just amazing. For such a show that's complete fantasy, how much you believe what's going on.

SD: I thought this was really clever, the way he turns the numbers upside down.

DXC: We did too, which is why used a similar joke again in the next season's Christmas episode. This is the first of two big sequences that are based on the shapes of these digital numbers.

LM: We eventual came to a point where we ran out of possible jokes to end act II. People screaming in terror. A very common thing to happen at the end of– for the second portion of....

JD: Some more Bender scatting.

SD: I love that atmosphere stuff, it was such a afterthought thing, but it turned out to be something so cool.

DXC: It's weird, because it's garbage, yet it's pretty, yet it looks like garbage.

SD: Prettiest garbage.

JD: I love how the—

DXC: Tress MacNeille plays Linda, the other– I love that cute laugh she does.

?: That guy's dumb.

DXC: Controversial joke among the writers, animators, everyone involved.

LM: I feel so bad about this myself now.

JD: Really, that was–?

DXC: Some people felt that was too dumb, even for Fry. ??? Just about right.

?: Others said, "wahoo, a joke about pooping!"

LM: This joke here– what professor's want and Chinese graduate students, really really shows how many ex-graduate students we have on our writing staff.

LM: More Armageddon.

DXC: Ah, one of the first–

?: Wanted to act like himself.

DXC: Yes, one of Zoidberg's first turns toward being starving, in addition to being a bad doctor.

DXC: Good sound effect.

SD: That was more 3D animation too.

SD: I love the professor's slippers.

JD: Yeah, what's the inspiration for the slippers? Anybody?

?: Nah.

MG: He was senile, he forgot to put on regular shoes and so–. What I love about the 3D animation is the way it combines with the 2D animation in a fairly seamless way. Most 3D animation is too slick and off putting to me, but this– this looks like 2D animation!

JD: It's pretty subtle, pretty subtle.

RM: We never wanted to call attention to it, so...

JD: Ah, the kitty litter.

?: That's great.

LM: Originally, at this point, in the script, there was a– they brought in the world's greatest pool player– or the universe's greatest pool player, Ogturest??? Fats??? to properly shoot the ball– to make the balls collide, so they would go into the sun. And he was cut, and instead of him we have a joke where Fry's too dumb to press a button. Which is much better.

DXC: It's ??? funny for how short and stupid it is.

DXC: That was Matt's suggestion, again late–

?: This is all 3D.

MG: That he misses the button?

DXC: Yeah.

MG: Yeah, the most obvious target.

DXC: Three huge rings around it.

LM: Ogturest??? Fats??? died, so that joke could live.

SD: Wow, this is cool.

DXC: This is another one of those things, when we wrote it, we had no idea whether you guys could do it, because we hadn't seen any of the animation at the time of writing this. And then we saw it, and we were blown away.

SD: And after Apollo 13, everybody knows about the slingshot effect.

?: Yeah, true.

?: True.

DXC: We were–

?: The what?!

SD: The slingshot–

DXC: Whenever a mayor makes a speech, it starts with "and so".

[Credits roll.]

DXC: Music here inspired by my favourite movie, Dr Strangelove.

?: Hey guys, the pasta maker's here.

JD: Ah yeah!

?: It just came.

JD: Ah, excellent. Dessert pasta.

SD: Chocolate pasta? Wait.

?: Yay.

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