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The Simpsons' executive producer discusses controversy on the show. (:48)
 

Discusses The Simpsons movie and the show. Full Interview. (12:12)
 

Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome James L. Brooks to this program. His prolific career in television and film is a remarkable resume of award-winning work - TV shows like "Mary Tyler Moore," "Rhoda," "Taxi," and of course "The Simpsons." And films like "Broadcast News," "Jerry McGuire," "As Good As It Gets." This weekend, you can catch his latest project, a film adaptation of one of TV's longest-running shows, "The Simpsons." Here now, a scene from "The Simpsons" movie.

[Clip]

Tavis: (Laughs) Mr. Brooks, nice to see you.

James L. Brooks: Good to see you.

Tavis: Glad to have you here. I wish I had something like a real trophy or something to present you. You've received Academy Awards and everything else. I wanted to create a trophy that I would present to you as the Clandestine Award of the year, because I can't find out nothing about this movie. All I know is that Homer is trying to save the world from something that he has done, but you guys have kept a lid on what this thing is all about.

Brooks: It's so amazing, when you just try and keep a little private while you're doing the work, it becomes shocking. But stuff is starting to come out. We know that Schwarzenegger is president of the United States in this movie, and so stuff is coming out.

Tavis: Why is it important for a movie like this - this was not the case with "Terms of Endearment" or anything else you've worked on. Why on a project like this is it important to keep that lid of secrecy on it?

Brooks: Well, it started just as sort of a goof. Like we put out false plot lines, we have a fan core base, and it was sort of fun to play with. And then just the nature of an animation movie, where you're always changing it - we're in the very final stages right now, and I just came from just two new lines in a scene. And things that you can't quite do in a live action picture, you can do in animation. So it did change, it was changing all the time, so I'm glad we kept our mouths shut.

Tavis: (Laughs) Have you ever worked on a project that is more anticipated by the fan base? I can't imagine it.

Brooks: No, never, never. Never anything like it. Like I said, part of this experience has been like sightseeing for me. There's nothing like it.

Tavis: Without going into the details of the script, since you obviously going to do that, but when you're in these production meetings trying to find out where to take this script, for something that's been around as long as "The Simpsons" has been around - this is obviously "The Simpsons" movie - but for something that's been around for that long that's so familiar to its fan base, do you struggle with how to put this thing out there and what it ought to be?

Brooks: Well, we started very informally, and everybody who worked on the movie has worked on the show - it's all homegrown. But we started out by saying we want to be true to ourselves, we want to be The Simpsons, and we want to do something that's worth doing a movie about. So that's the two rules we started with.

Tavis: Take me back to the very beginning, and why it is that somebody thought that something like this - obviously they were right - but that something like this could work on TV, and could work for any significant period of time.

Brooks: Well I think the key is that the Fox Network was brand new and newly desperate, so that the climate was right for new ideas. And we had this variety show, "The Tracy Ullman Show," and we had these little nuggets which turned out to be "The Simpsons" in a very primitive form. Just 20 second cartoons, but we'd be there with an audience doing our variety show and we'd see what kind of laughs these small pieces that Matt Groening did were getting.

Tavis: Let me ask you what you - this is a strange question, but I want to get at something here. A hundred years from now, when we're not around and they look back at television in this era, what is "The Simpsons" going to say to them about American television then? I raise that only because this is not just a cartoon; it's not just an animated series.

It's had all kind of commentary, all kind of social commentary and political commentary and economic commentary - you guys have been very good about that over the years. What's this going to say to people a hundred years from now about America and about American television then?

Brooks: I'll tell you what, the biggest impact I ever had personally from the show was I was watching with my kids and their grandparents in the early days of the show, and we all laughed at something different - but we all laughed. I think that was true. I think just the notion of dysfunctional family had people embrace us. I think that was true.

And then we just got a license to fool around early on, and I think all that is part of it. We're never self-conscious. There are things that strike us as funny, but it's never anything that we have a statement to make or that's what we're there for. We're there to have fun. Just trying to be true to our characters.

Tavis: You surprised that something like this could, in fact, last this long? And how much longer (unintelligible) this last?

Brooks: Oh, my God. This is the truth, and I don't know why it's the truth. About five years ago, it started to slow down for us, where are stories going to come from? And then we hit something where we got over a hump, and I don't know how. There was one season where we were saying, "My God, we did that, we did that, we did that," and then all of a sudden we broke through. And we talk about it. We don't know what it meant that we did.

Tavis: I would assume - you tell me - that there's nothing else, with all that you've done, nothing else in your career that's even similar to what this experience has been.

Brooks: No, it's - no. But when you have an experience like this, it's sort of not yours. You're sort of serving it. The thing is so much bigger than any of us that you end up - first of all, we have a culture where we're safe. When we do a television show, we don't need certain approvals, we're sort of left alone at this stage of the game.

And we all - and that's getting tougher and tougher, so we all appreciate the freedom, and we appreciate the security of it.

Tavis: The flip side of that freedom and that security is that there are any number of times, if one looks back on this series, there are any number of times where the controversies you guys have created for yourselves could have doomed this project. To your point, you didn't just get over the hump creatively, but you got over the hump of the controversy that this show has stepped in a number of times. What do you make, looking back on those moments?

Brooks: I don't know, there was one time when the senior President Bush and his wife were critical of the show, and I didn't take it seriously. And one time, I forget why, I was on a receiving line where the senior Bushes were standing. And I said to the then-first lady some joke about it. And she just looked at me, stony, and I never quite grasped that somebody could seriously have issue with us until that moment.

Tavis: But it's not just them. This thing is - the covers of magazines and talk shows, there have been these seminal, controversial moments throughout this series' history that you guys - you survived it.

Brooks: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah. As he knocks on wood. (Laughter) How is it that you have - I want to get inside of James Brooks for just a second. We'll set "The Simpsons" aside for the moment. How is it that you have crafted this career that is so varied? Projects that are so disparate. There is no comparison between "The Simpsons" and "Terms of Endearment" or any of the other stuff I mentioned earlier that you've done. But you've crafted this career that's allowed you to touch a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's so full of stuff. How have you done that?

Brooks: I was very lucky early on to just have some success on television. On a television series, a writer gives a writer control of it. So in the days of the "Mary Tyler Moore Show," before that "Room 222," I really had a chance to try my ideas, and you get spoiled in a hurry. But television still does that. Television - I always say there's no better job than a television series that's working.

I've had both kinds, but when it's working, it's the best job in the world. And so you get used to doing things you care about, and you get spoiled because it seems normal to do things you really care about. And I always have a thing that don't put anything in the bank as far as the next opportunity you get - there is no bank account.

Use success for your next thing whenever you can - all of it. So I've ended up with things that were successful and not successful, but at 3:00 in the morning when you're working on something, it's tough enough. It's so much better if you care.

Tavis: There's so much commentary - and deservedly so, legitimate commentary - about "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Taxi" and the other series that you've been a part of, but you mentioned something a moment ago that I want to go back to, because there's not enough commentary about it, number one; number two, I wish I could see it in reruns.

But number three, I remember as a very young kid - and I didn't even get all the social commentary in it at the time, but I remember being struck by the fact as a child that there was a TV series on television that had people in it that looked like me - "Room 222." Tell me about that series.

Brooks: Well, I think "Julia" had started just -

Tavis: Exactly.

Brooks: - a few months before us, and that was the first series in American television -

Tavis: With Diahann Carroll.

Brooks: - African American starring in it, yeah. And then we came right behind it, and there were, at that time, network notes that if you send them today you'd be abhorrent. But I worked with a guy named Gene Reynolds who was my boss and hired me to do the pilot, and insisted that I go to a Los Angeles high school, I think for six months to do research, which also became a pattern for me throughout my life.

And he fought those fights, and we got the show on that we cared about. And when you do six months of research, the big thing you get out of it besides facts is that you know your constituency. You've been around the teachers, you've been around the kids, so they're on your mind when you're doing it and it's some guard against b.s.

Tavis: What did you learn from that experience so early in your creative career about the issue of diversity and inclusion in television? Because it was very, very innovative at that time.

Brooks: Well, the pilot show - there's an African American teacher helping an African American kid, and the big argument was - at that time, that sensitive time, and not an ignorant argument at that time - have him help a White kid. And that was the first fight we had.

Tavis: And the fight was why is the Black kid helping the White kid?

Brooks: No, why is the Black teacher helping a Black kid? He should help a White kid so everybody responds to him and does that. And when we didn't do what they said there, it just freed us up, because diversity - I think we were committed to diversity amongst the African Americans in the show from each other.

At that time, there was this everybody the same, and everybody - if you're doing it, I don't even think they had the term political correctness, but everybody had to be in lock step doing this, and we didn't do that. So it was freeing.

Tavis: There's so many people in this town who, of course, would love to be James L. Brooks - that is to say -

Brooks: Oh, not if they really know me. (Laughter)

Tavis: Not if they really knew you? I'd beg to differ on that, but I hear your point. That is to say, they would love to have the kind of career that allows them to produce projects that they care about, that are meaningful to them. The problem with that is, as you well know, there is no one size fits all. There is no script, there is no particular piece of advice that you can necessarily give that allows somebody to become you. So when people do ask you about your journey and what you have to offer them in terms of advice, what do you find yourself saying repeatedly?

Brooks: If it's about directing?

Tavis: Yeah, exactly - directing, producing.

Brooks: Change your socks several times (laughter) during the course of the day. It gives you an edge that you can't believe. (Laughter)

Tavis: Yeah, that's -

Brooks: I swear to God, it works.

Tavis: I don't know whether to take him seriously or not. (Laughter)

Brooks: It was advice that I got that really - because the idea is you're doing these extraordinarily long days and you're supposed to be the energy source for everybody else. Change your socks.

Tavis: Okay, well, you know what? I don't know whether to take him seriously or not, but if it worked for him it might just work for you. His name, of course, is James L. Brooks. I love meeting people whose names - and of course I knew what he looked like, but it's always fascinating to see people whose names you see across the screen all the time. You say, that's James L. Brooks. Well, there he is. Nice to have you on the program.

Brooks: A pleasure.

Tavis: All the best - not that you need it - with "The Simpsons" movie.

Brooks: Okay, thank you.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight.