Talking Simpsons - The Dan McGrath Interview

Talking Simpsons

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Film History, Lisa, Maggie, Comedy Interviews, Homer, Simpsons, Talkingsimpsons, Bart, Marge, Comedy, Thesimpsons, Springfield, Krusty, Tv & Film

4.3 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We were saddened to hear about the passing of Simpsons writer Dan McGrath, who wrote the episodes "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" and "Bart of Darkness," and also co-wrote the Treehouse of Horror Segments "The Devil and Homer Simpson" and "Time & Punishment." Back in August of 2018, we were able to interview Dan, and because this podcast has never been available outside of our Patreon, we've decided to make it free for all to hear. So listen in, and celebrate the life of Dan McGrath: a writer who brought so much to The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, hooy, hoy, everybody. It's me, Bob Macky, and who is here with you today, as always.
0:17.2	Hey, Henry Gilbert. Hello. And, you know, normally, we would be very happy to bring out some Patreon content onto the free feed that's never been heard before. But unfortunately, we're doing this in some pretty sad circumstances because Simpsons writer, Dan McGrath, has passed away. And you're going to hear our interview from way back in the day from August of 2018 when we were lucky enough and fortunate enough to talk to Dan
0:38.1	McGrath about his career. It's hard to believe it was seven years ago now that we did it and also
0:42.3	the eerie timing that this was like we posted, recorded a month ahead of time, but we just posted
0:48.5	the Bart of Darkness podcast. And I had listened back to it and to listen to all the great
0:54.8	stories he told about working on that. And, you know, I also was thinking I would love
0:59.7	people to hear this because I could be wrong, but I looked a couple times like on, on
1:05.4	internet searches. I don't know if Dan McGrath did other interviews than ours. There's not one
1:10.6	readily available if you'd look for one.
1:13.1	Yeah, I'm honestly not sure he did. And Bill Oakley posted that Dan McGrath would be very tickled by all of the inaccuracies in his obituaries. So I feel like we have the true story of Dan McGrath that he was nice enough to give us a very giving guy. and we should say that when our interview was over,
1:27.4	he contacted you afterwards
1:29.0	because he had another story to tell you
1:30.2	that he wanted to be part of the interview. So that's included in this interview as well. Yeah, it's spliced in there so you wouldn't know it, but I believe it's his chili, the chilly story, I believe, from a part of darkness is in there. Yeah. And I, you know, yeah, I wish we'd interviewed him like 10 more times,
1:46.3	but it was just to have these stories because he's not on the commentaries. He didn't do
1:51.5	written interviews that I could find like it was. And it was a shock. He was only 61 when he
1:56.5	passed away. It was a real shock. Yes, super tragic. We're very sad to see him go.
2:01.3	So up next, you're going to hear
2:02.6	our full interview with him, complete with
2:04.6	the original intro, so that'll give a little more context
2:06.7	as to when we recorded it and a little more
2:08.7	about the career of Dan McGrath before
2:10.6	we start talking to him. So please enjoy
	...

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