Jay Steven Kogen

Weirdest was Micheal Jackson who wouldn't let us use his name and we had to hire a guy to sing for him because he wasn't allowed to sing. He asked for 20 cases of evian water and a room full of room heaters and he never drank the water or went to the room.

We had to fight hard for Homer falling down the canyon in Bart the Daredevil and it worked well. My favorite was getting put in the ambulance then it crashing and him falling down again.

I also remember pitching a joke for one of the treehouse of horror episodes where Burns is taking Homer's brains out of his head and puts it on his own with the brain stem hanging down and says "Look at me! I'm Davey Crockett!" and then laughing at my own joke(which I never do and is not considered good form) for five minutes, falling on the floor and possibly farting. Embarrassing but true.

On Conan's first day a pigeon flew threw a window and died in his office. I tried to convince him that somehow that was good luck.

Originally he was gay and black. And we actually drew him purple in his first show. But we thought it was too much so we just kept him gay.

I wrote (with my partner Wallace Wolodarsky) the episodes that introduced OTTO, BURNS, SMITHERS, ABE SIMPSON, KANG AND KODOS, HIBBERT, NICK RIVERA, FRINK, and hundreds more. My favs are Kang and Kodos because I drew them.

Phil was a pal of mine from the Groundlings improv group in L.A. I saw him the night before he died. It was a tragedy. Horrible. Phil's voice is pretty distinctive. Hard to replace. Easy to make new characters so, we just let it go. (I created Lionel Hutz)

I was there at the very beginning and left after a few years thinking... "how long can this go?"

They are timeless. I would parody all the ends of shows like mash and the sopranos but keep the simpsons alive and well at the end.

My partner Wally threw a cup of mashed potatoes onto the ceiling tiles and they stuck as a clump there. The potatoes remained there for many many years.