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American Prestige

E229 - How The Simpsons Reshaped American Comedy w/ Alan Siegel

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

History, Politics, News

4.8705 Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get much more content. Don’t forget to vote for AP in the 2025 Signal Awards! In a break from the (overtly) political, Derek and Danny are joined by The Ringer’s Alan Siegel to talk about his new book Stupid TV: Be More Funny, a cultural history of The Simpsons and how it changed American comedy. They discuss how a bunch of Harvard Lampoon alumni turned the show into art, the role of Fox and Rupert Murdoch in promoting a show that mocked them both, how Bart Simpson once terrified America’s parents (and George H.W. Bush), the show’s postmodern worldview, and the moment The Simpsons went from anti-establishment to establishment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to American Prestige.

0:03.2

To listen ad-free, you can subscribe at AmericanPestigepod.com.

0:08.3

Find the link in our show notes.

0:11.2

Hey, Jack, I'm seeing your business everywhere.

0:14.0

Have you got a new marketing person or something?

0:15.9

You could say I've got a new secret weapon for print.

0:18.4

Print?

0:19.1

Oh, vista print, right?

1:06.9

That's not a secret. How did you know? Come on. Custom posters, branded mugs, stylish flyers. Only one place prints all that. Vista print. Yeah, I got business cards, stickers, t-shirts, booklets, signage, even photo books from my last holiday. Print everything for your business with Vistaprint. If you you need it, we print it at Vistaprint.co.uk. Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome to I'm Danny.

1:09.8

Here, as always, with my friend and comrade Derek Davidson,

1:11.5

and we are very excited to welcome to the podcast today. Alan Siegel, Alan's a senior writer at the Ringer, one of my favorite podcast

1:17.6

networks. Shout out to my boy, Was. And he's also the author of the recently released Stupid TV,

1:24.2

Be More Funny, How the Golden Era of the Simpsons changed television and America forever.

1:29.5

Alan, thank you so much for joining us.

1:31.3

Thanks for having me, guys.

1:32.7

So I imagine that your relationship with The Simpsons is similar to my relationship to The Simpsons,

1:38.4

which is that we were growing up in the 90s and we were obviously watching it and really did shape our humor.

1:43.8

So how did you come to write this book?

1:46.5

Because there's been some stuff written on The Simpsons,

1:49.9

but it's surprisingly kind of still fertile territory.

1:53.7

So how did you come to write this book?

1:55.9

And why The Simpsons of all potential things?

...

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