Joel Cohen is an Emmy award-winning writer and associate producer of The Simpsons. He’s also a keynote speaker at the Red Hat Summit this June. Enjoy this sneak preview of Joel, and then join us in Boston to hear more from him about The Simpsons and keeping innovation alive for 420 episodes over two decades.
The Simpsons has been on for 20 years now. What does the team do to keep creativity alive for that long?
I look forward to talking about this more at the Summit, but basically it is a lot of brainstorming, building on ideas, constantly pushing ourselves to find new, previously un-mined veins for stories and jokes, and shamelessly ripping off other people’s ideas (somehow this last one is the easiest).
How did you wander from a career in sales to writing for The Simpsons and other shows and movies?
A question my parents have asked me repeatedly, although when they ask, they are more sneering and judgmental.
