Nancy Cartwright: Super-Freakin' all the way home!
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Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening. It's me, Rob Lowe. This is literally today's really, really fun. I mean, I feel like sometimes I overuse the word legend and icon and Mount Rush. Because I'm blessed to have a lot of people who are extremely accomplished on the show. When you talk about an icon, like a face, a character that's recognized all over the planet.

I defy you to come up with somebody bigger than Bart Simpson. Might be the most famous human being ever.

I know he's a cartoon character. I know, but he's, but he's human to me. And I'll tell you else who he's human to Nancy Cartwright, who is with us today, who created Bart Simpson, but it's interesting. And we'll talk about this. She created him, but, but she also Matt Groening created him, but there's no Bart without her and there's no, but there's also no Bart without Matt. And it's an interesting dance and an interesting marriage. And we're going to learn a lot about that and voice acting and the

Her greatest accomplishment is she and I from the same hometown, Dayton, Ohio. So here we go. There was so much theater for us growing up outside of Hollywood. People always go, well, how did you decide you wanted to be an actor living in Dayton? But there was so much work if you were interested in the arts. I think it's important.

I think so. I think there was plenty there, but my heart kind of went into the speech team and doing competitive public speaking. I mean, learning how to do sales speeches and after dinner speeches and humorous interpretation, dramatic duo. My niche was children's theater. I brought home major trophies.

Like my brothers, I have two brothers and they were doing little league and football and stuff. And I'd bring home first place in humorous interpretation with a trophy that was as tall as me, you know? By the way, the title of the category, humorous interpretation is hilarious in and of itself. There's a lot of humor in that I found. I thought it extremely humorous. So funny. And then I also read, did you work at WING? That was our big A.

AM station. Yeah. What'd you do there? I was hired. Well, I was working at Friendly's. You remember Friendly Ice Cream? Do I remember Friendly's Ice Cream? Come on, baby. Come on. That was revolutionary when that shit opened up. That was my very first job, scooping ice cream and, you know, big beef cheeseburger specials, Friendly Fribbles, Claire's.

Clam bake special. He had to memorize all of the, you know, everything on the menu and the prices, everything. I fraternized with the customers a little bit too much because I was, I was working the tips, man. I was trying to work the tips. Yeah.

But they wouldn't leave. They wouldn't leave the bay. And so anyway, I kind of found out the hard way. But the manager, president general manager of WING radio came in and I knew him. His name is Jim Bennett. And Jim Bennett, his daughter was the same age as me. And we both went to St. Charles together.

And Wing Radio was right behind our house. Here I was working at Friendly's and our boss comes in 'cause he knew us from his daughter from school and he was the manager and he's saying, "What do you wanna do with your life?" And I said, "Well, I got a scholarship. "I'm gonna go to Ohio University. "I got a scholarship to go there." He says, "What do you wanna do with that?" And I said, "You know, I'm not quite sure. "But I'll figure it out, something in communication. "I really like connecting with people."

He says to me, you know, Nancy, why don't you come on up at Christmas time on your Christmas break? Come visit me and maybe we can get you to work at the radio station in the summertime.

I mean, it like handed me the job. So it was like incredible. Jim Bennett, like he's my hero. I saved a letter when I, after I worked there for two summers and I filled in for people that went on vacation. So I virtually learned every aspect. I did reception. It was really bad at reception. I mean, did you ever see the movie? She was one of my heroes. It was Judy Holiday. Did you ever see her? It's like,

One moment, please. I'll connect your call. And she like is using like this old fashioned plug in. Yeah. And she was pretending like she I think she had a crush on Rock Hudson, but it's like she was plugging in and trying to connect people up. And that's kind of what I felt like I was doing is like becoming all these different characters and stuff. And he said to me, we got to get you on the air. What if we put you on the air with the with the primetime DJ? Who was the DJ? Do you remember who the DJ was?

I had a total crush on him. He was old enough. He was way old enough to be at least my dad, but I'm thinking, was he old enough to be my grandfather? I think my dad. He was old enough to be my dad. Ken Warren.

It was Ken Warren. Lou, Steve Kirk, Kirky. Remember him? Oh, my God. Steve Kirk. Yeah. By the way, this we literally sound like we're describing a Christopher Guest movie. Totally. This is this radio station sounds like the caricature of a of a mid-level like it's WKRP in Cincinnati, but it's in Dayton. Yeah. Winging it in Dayton.

You just naturally had a facility for voices from the beginning, clearly, obviously. Yeah, but you know what, Rob? I got to tell you, I didn't really know that. I didn't know it. Again, I just kind of did what I loved. And when I stood up there and I did these literature, you know, dramatic duo or mostly humorous interpretation and brought home big trophies, it's like,

When I opened my mouth and I did something and I put a voice to it, people laughed. And I started getting comments from the judges at these competitions saying things like, you've got a unique voice. You should do one of them literally said, you should do cartoons for a living. Wow. And I was like, wait a minute. What? Hold on. You mean people get paid to do that?

Cause it's not like Dayton is the animation capital of the world. You know what I mean? It's I was like, I never thought of that. I was a fan. I mean, I watched the Jetsons Flintstones wait till your father gets home. Yeah, sure. They're all the best. Yeah. The best of the best. Well, here I am working at that radio station and my boss tells me, says, so Nancy, this afternoon, we've got this woman from Warner brothers records. She's going to come in here and,

And she's going to be promoting music, obviously. But I thought you might want to meet her because she works at Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers? Wait a minute. That's Mel Blanc.

Oh, my gosh. She might know Bugs Bunny. She might know Tweety Bird. She might, wow, this is amazing. Would you like to meet her? And I said, yes, yes, that would be incredible. So at the right time, he introduced me to her. We spoke and she said, you know, it's not my area. I don't really know animation, but send me something. Send me a little sampling of what you do.

And I'm thinking, what I do, I do these speeches. Rob, okay, I put together a 13-minute demo tape. Oh my God, how many voices did you do? I listened to it.

And there's a sampling in my audio book. There's a little sampling and it's, it's so bad. It's so bad, but you know what? I didn't have anybody telling me that's not how you do it. That's not what you're supposed to do. There was no back off. I just, again, I did what I felt she wanted here. So it was these samplings and she ended up.

passing it around to different companies like Buena Vista, like Disney. But it kind of got around. And then she wrote me back and she had all these names and addresses of these references that I could call or get in touch with. And one of them, the very last one of them, was this name that I did not know from Adam. And it was Dawes Butler. And in the letter, she said, he's the voice of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Come on. And I'm like, wait a minute.

Roadrunner, he doesn't do a voice. And the coyote says nothing. Exactly. That's a good job to be the voice of somebody who's not talking. I like that job. I want to get that job. Getting paid to be speechless. Yeah. So...

Anyway, it just got the curiosity. I found out that he was Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw, Elroy Justin, Bobby Louis, Cogswell Cog. He does all these voices for like Hanna-Barbera, opposite side of town. So one day I just, I didn't say anything to anybody in my family. I went down to the basement. We had a rec room down there, picked up the second phone and I dialed this number and there was an outgoing message. And he left this really clever message sounding like a

a butler. This is Percival Pickles, Mr. Butler's butler. And I'd never heard anything like this before. We didn't have answering machines in Ohio just yet. Yeah, I remember that too. Yeah, this was all new. So I left a clever message in a Cockney accent and I told him to call me back. And long story short, I go into more detail in the book, but it's like he called me back.

And we hit it off like that. I mean, he became a fast friend and we just started to correspond. He would send me scripts in the mail and I'd record my voice once upon a time when we had little cassettes and it was a cassette player. And he'd give me a script that he wrote and he said, you know, put, lay this down on tape and let me hear what you got. And this went on for some time. And after a

Within that first year of going back to Ohio university, I'm realizing, wow, I've, I've got to somehow figure out how I can get to, to Los Angeles. I got to move. I want to be with him. I want to study with him. It's amazing that you got a mentor like that. I mean, it's,

It makes all the difference. I mean, and what I find is so interesting about your story is that, you know, you're making it up as you go along. The fact that your parents were like supported your dream, didn't say to you, how are you going to support yourself? It's that kind of ignorance is bliss thing that I that I super relate to. Like no one was telling you or me, hey, you know, 98 percent of the Screen Actors Guild, they don't even support themselves as an actor. You realize that? Yeah.

And the silly thing was I had no idea how I was going to do it. How am I going to get there? I laid out a map of Los Angeles, uh,

USC is way up here in the right-hand corner of the map and way down here by Beverly Hills where Dawes Butler lived is UCLA. I didn't think about money. I'm out of state. It's going to cost me like a gazillion dollars no matter where I go. But I didn't really think of that. I just started working. I think I did three jobs that summer. I worked for my dad in a printing company. I worked at WING Radio and I worked at Friendly's. I was saving every penny I could. I'd never even been on an airplane. This

This was like so new. This was so new for me. And I told my dad, I got the letter. Nobody opened it. It was from UCLA. I'm like, oh my God. And sure enough, I'd been accepted. I'm like, I guess I'm going to UCLA. Yeah, now you're going. Yeah, you're going no matter what now. And that was it. I just worked my butt off. And the whole family, well, not quite the whole family because my older siblings had kind of already moved out of the house. I'm number four of six kids.

So I just did everything that I could. And that's how I that's how I did it. I transferred to UCLA. I didn't know a soul. I was like, man, swimming upstream when everybody else was swimming down. It was that was a challenge. And what was your what was your first paying job in showbiz in Hollywood? In Hollywood, it was Gloria on Richie Rich.

And I did, and I had no agent. My dad flew out with me. Here I am on this airplane. You're how old now? I was 20. And I was just about 21. And my mom, sadly, this is a little...

this is kind of life. One of those, those life moments, my mom had been, had taken ill and she had been sick for a couple of years and I didn't know it. But when my dad picked me up at the end, like in June at, and I said goodbye to all my friends at Ohio university, they threw a big party. It was, it was a lovely goodbye. We got in the car to drive home. And, um, my dad had told me that we were going to the hospital cause my mom was back in the hospital. And, um,

What ended up happening was two weeks before we were to go fly together, the three of us, my mom had passed away from ovarian cancer. And I just, I'd never lost anyone in my family before. So this was a, I guess it was a shock, although I didn't really know it because cousins were saying to me,

What are you going to do? Are you still going to go? And I was like, yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, I'm going to go. It's like what my mom would want me to do. She really wanted me to do that. So yes, I'm going to go. And so that was it. I think I was the only, not only the only freshman, because I was a junior, but my

My dad stayed with me the entire time and we kind of hung on to each other, not physically, but emotionally hung on to each other. And he went with me to UCLA and stood in line with me so I could register for all my classes. And I look at that time, we rented a Ford Fiesta. We stayed at the Acapulco Motel. It cost him probably a week's paycheck. My dad was, he was my hero to seeing me through this. And

Um, good news is that we kind of, we, we hung together and then we were curious cause we're there kind of on this mission and we go driving and had his address. We were going to meet Dawes for lunch like the next day. So we go drive in and, um, drove into Beverly. What are we going to see? I mean, you're going to be guard dogs. Like how big is his house? Uh, gates, you know, or is it barbed wire? Hollywood mansion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, he kind of lived, they say, south of the tracks, like south of Wilshire Boulevard in a very, you know, just he raised four boys and a lovely conservative home. Just lovely. And I'm looking at my dad. Wow. OK. So then the next day we show up to meet him for lunch, knock on the door and Dawes opens the door. Oh, I'm five foot and about this much.

Dawes opens the door. He's four feet, 10 inches. He looks at me. He goes, well, don't just stand there looking at your old Leonard. Give me a hug. Man. Amazing. So Richie Rich is the first big pain. What's a voiceover audition like compared to an acting audition? The main thing is you don't have to worry about memorizing. Then when it comes to actually doing the job, no makeup, no wardrobe, you don't have to hit your mark.

It's like it sounds like it's easier, but on the other hand, it's like all you have is right here. It's all here. It's in your vocal cords. It's up here on the jawline. It's the formation of your teeth. Like what kind of teeth do people have? Look at people like...

Oh my gosh. Like, um, William Macy, you know, look at these teeth I have. They're like perfect teeth, but say I were to take like a, uh, somebody that inspired me was this little gal, uh,

She's a little gal in Mrs. Doubtfire that played the little girl. And she had a little split in her teeth. And she would talk like this. Mara Wilson. Mara Wilson, that's right. So I saw that movie because I was in L.A. at the time. And this was about a voiceover guy. And I was like captivated by what Robin Williams was doing. But Mara, that really...

You know, that's that, that, that stuck in my mind. I said, that's a voice that I could probably use, but you know, it's like, so Bart, Bart's pretty clean to do. Then you've got this guy and he's stuck way back in his throat right here. He's a, he's a throat ripper. Nelson. When I do Nelson, uh,

If I do him for a whole show, I'm a little tired at the end of the day. Pipes are a little sore. Not it doesn't hurt when I swallow or anything, but they're tight. I get over it pretty quickly. How long does it take you to record an episode of The Simpsons? Now, you talk about something you guys must have down to a science at this point.

Yeah, yeah. Man, in terms of picking a dream job, this is like such a score. Who doesn't want to do voiceovers? You know, because we would go in and we would do a table read on Thursdays that would take less than an hour. It'd take me longer to get there because I'm out in the valley. Table read is crucial because the writers, it's not really a rehearsal for the actors, right?

But the table reading is really for the writers. You're still doing table reads after all these years in The Simpsons. We are. No matter what, you still do them. There are 70 people. It's like three or four pages wide. It's like all these executives and their writers assistants and all the writers will have guest stars on there and people show up. They're doing it from their homes and we're live. We're doing it. And it's awesome. So the writers can get, you know, they get the original actors and if

somebody is out of town or they're out of the country and they're not there, or they have laryngitis or something has happened and they're not there. Um, Chris Edgerly or Tress McNeil will, will do a temp attempt voice for that, but come the record, um,

You know, that's a different setup. And we have the option of either doing it at home, you know, with a setup. And you've got to become an engineer, though. I'm not such a great engineer. You've got these great guys working with you. Right. It's got to be clean on my end. If you make a mistake and they don't get it, it's a lot of time wasted. But I still have the option of going in. And I like to go in. I don't care how busy the freeway is. You know, honestly, you have badass music.

And if you have a little snack pack with you and you don't get hungry, it's like, listen to a podcast. Listen, you know, entertain yourself on the way. That's the Fox lot. Yeah. Still on the Fox lot. And it's very, there's nobody there at the end. There are a couple engineers that are there and me and I'm, I'm there. And on, on my right will be a zoom setup with,

with the writer and the director and Al Jean is a show runner. Oftentimes he'll sit in and I'll get my notes and do my take, you know, about four takes per scene and we're off to the next one.

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When you first auditioned for Bart, what was your thinking? You're like, how did you come up with Bart? I mean, it sounds like such a general, obvious question, but how did you? Well, yeah, no, no, it's a great question. It is the obvious one, but it's smart because when I was called in from my agent, she said they're auditioning for, it's not really a show. It's like this

It's, it's, it's a Tracy Oman show, but it's not really part of her show. It's like, it's called an interstitial. I'd never heard that word before. It's also called a bumper, but it takes you from the show into a little animated little vignette and then into the commercial. And the same thing going back into her show, it goes from the commercial into the vignette and it's kind of as a segue. And I said, okay, so what's the part? Well, her name's Lisa Simpson. She's eight years old and she's the middle child. And that's all it says. Okay.

And I said, do you have a script? And he said, no, you'll get that when you go there. And I said, okay. So I pop in my favorite music, Rick James, Super Freak. Yes. It's like... I'm with you, too. I don't know why. I'm with you. It's because it's great. I just remember. That was the song, Super Freak. Amazing. Super Freak, baby. Yeah.

That's great. I am so not a super freak, but I love that music. So I'm going over the hill and I arrive and Matt Groening is in the room. I know that I'm going to meet him. And he, again, it didn't, it had no significance to me because it wasn't even a show. It was just this like interstitial. So next to Lisa's audition, I saw a little monologue with her. And, you know, it's like at that time, she really, she wasn't who she grew up to be, so to speak. Sure.

She mostly just fought with Bart. She and Bart were nemesis. And, um, so, but next to her was a picture of Bart and it said, 10 year old school, hating underachiever and proud of it. And I'm like, Oh,

Oh, baby, that's me. I want to do that. That's like, and I'd already been doing, I had already been doing like for six years. I was on eight Saturday morning. This is before, this is before the internet. This was before cable. We were doing satellite. It was all, it was all syndicated. It was all syndicated Saturday morning television. So I was doing things like Galaxy High and Pound Puppies and, yeah,

Popeye and son and you do snorks. She's amazing.

Daphne Snork, you know, and working with amazing actors that the general public would not know who these people are. People like Frank Welker and John Singleton and Penny Singleton, Joni Gerber, people that I had heard of because they did commercials. And when I worked at Wing Radio, I would look them up and find out who these people are. So did my little research, you know, and

Anyway, here I am with Matt Groening. And what was he like? Just just an affable guy, just like easygoing, just a regular dude. And the setup, they put him in an office space and it's like they didn't go out of their way at the time to kind of make this. It wasn't even it wasn't a recording booth. It was just an office.

And he sat opposite me and I said, hi, how you doing? He goes, hey, nice to meet you. I said, you know, they want me to read for Lisa, but I'd like to read for the kid. Is that okay? Can I do the kid? He goes, yeah, sure, sure, fine. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh my God, that's him. And he literally hired me on the spot. Come on. And I walked away. Yeah, he hired me on the spot. But again, Rob, I'm driving home.

super freaking all the way home. And it's like, no, it was just another job and it didn't mean anything. Nobody, nobody had any clue. Right. And the early stages of how we did it, it's like we did, we, we recorded it.

on the Tracy Ullman soundstage, way at the top in the engineer's booth, where the directors are seated with producers, and they got their headset on, and all the action is going on down on the floor with the three sets in front of them. And we would be up there while they're building the sets, and they're hammering away, bam, bam, bam. We don't...

Recording up here. You guys, can you knock it off? Give us 10 minutes. It took us two hours to record one minute. What? Yeah, that was ridiculous. And I'm like, are you kidding me? These people have no idea what they're doing. Yeah, because you were a pro. You'd come from like actual shows and here you get on The Simpsons and they know what the hell is going on.

No, I was so full of myself, but I was smart enough to know to keep my big trap shut. I didn't say anything. I kept my yap shut and kind of let this thing unfold.

I was pregnant. I was pregnant at the time and we're kind of like, they'd have carpet, like moving carpet rugs, like stapled to the walls because it was glass and it would vibrate. So they had to muffle that sound. And there's Dan and Yardley and Julie and I are crammed in this small room, just doing, checking our armpits. Like what's going on here. What was James L. Brooks around at all for any of this? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. He,

he didn't come to the records. Matt would be there. Sam would, would be there. And then an engineer with a portable, it was just a portable unit doing it on a, on a reel to reel. And we're just standing behind one microphone, taking our turns, you know, in front of the mic, but no James L. Brooks, like,

This guy, his track record was stellar. You know, he created Mary Tyler Moore and Taxi and he went on to do as good as it gets and broadcast news and... Terms of measurement. Oh, yeah. Just producer. You know, he produced Jerry Maguire. It's like this guy and his value because you get Matt Groening, who was a comic artist, right?

just like not graphic novels for, you know, for youth. It's just, he did this strip called life in hell and Matt, or excuse me, Jim really loved this, loved it. And he wanted to take that and develop that and,

into this little vignette, but Matt didn't want to go for that. He said, just give me, rumor has it, it took him 15 minutes to come up with this nice, normal family, right? - "Life in Hell," it was in the LA Weekly. I remember reading it and the characters have the same eyes. I remember the first time I saw "The Simpsons,"

I was like, oh, yeah, this is it looks like the rabbit from from life in hell with the with the vaguely slightly cross areas, a slightly cross eyed eyes. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And he was so smart and he was inspired by those 50s black and white TV shows.

You know, I knew nothing of this at the time. I just went in and auditioned and did my job and just let it go. It was very easy to audition for voiceovers and I would just forget about it. I'd move on and do, you know, go to a job, do another thing.

In the book, in the audio book, I actually went back and Dawes' sons have been so helpful to me. Paul and Charles have been so helpful to me. And they gave me, they said, we came across, this is after their dad passed away. Nancy, we've got this treasure chest full of these audio tapes that you used to send them. Do you want them?

I'm like, are you kidding? He said, no, no, I just have to come get him. So I got him. So I've got these little clips of Dawes Butler talking to a 19-year-old Nancy Cartwright and

why do you see this is doors? How you do it? And, and you hear, and then they sit and then I've got me responding to him and man, talk about, this is like an outer body experience. When I listened to me from back then, I don't sound like me at all. I sound like my, like my daughter, like my, like my daughter, maybe. I know. I find that like, uh,

kind of disconcerting really coming across old interviews or something when I'm 19. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then you're like, oh, Jesus, how did I ever make anything happen? Yeah, but it's like, hi, Daz. Hi, Daz. It's me. I just wanted to say thank you so much. And I had this like kind of a breathy quality. What is that really? Did they come on? That's not me. That can't be me.

What do you think happens to our voices? Why do our voices change like that? Is it just aging or is it experience? Because anyone out there, if they ever come across a recording of themselves as much, much younger, they're like, wait, that doesn't sound anything like me. Why has it changed, do you think?

You know what I think it is? This is, nobody's asked me, I'm sending you a t-shirt. Nobody's asked me this question before. I think what that is, is confidence. I think what happens is when you, through life, you know, if you're going to hire a 20 year old to be a personal assistant, they don't have a lot of experience doing that. You hire somebody that's like 30 something, they've got some, they've got some knocks. They know a little bit more about life. I think the same thing. It's like,

I got some experience underneath my belt. And it's like, listen to how I'm talking right now. I certainly didn't sound like this when I was talking to Dawes Butler, but I was, I felt like I could do this. I could do this. And I just kept on going and he never made me feel bad. It was always the opposite. He says, that was good. You know, I gave you, that was challenging. That was an alien. I didn't know how you were going to sound like an alien to send you another one.

She's a little older than you. You know, try this one. Get a partner. Get one of your friends from the speech team, you know, to do the guy. And you guys do a duo. I want to hear you play off of somebody. That's the care that he took for me. It's just like Cinderella story, Rob. Did you ever meet Mel Blanc?

I did. What was that like? He was really an interesting character. You know, they, he did not like carrots. First of all, he never, he didn't like carrots and he had to eat them all the time. He was allergic to carrots. And at one point in time, he was, he was a smoker, right? He smoked a lot. And his son, they, they didn't want him doing this. And so he, he got to a point where

He was breathing oxygen and he couldn't smoke. He told me one, the doctor wanted him to go on oxygen. This is, this is what I've heard. Secondhand. I didn't hear this from Mel blank, you know, but he carried around an oxygen thing, but the guy was relentless. He just did it. He was, he was into his eighties when he passed away.

And George O'Hanlon, who was George Jetson, get this. He was in his 90s. Still doing it, man. Still doing it. June Foray, two months shy of her 100th birthday. And she's still doing these voices of Witch Hazel and Granny Smurf. I think she did. And she was Natasha Fatale on Bullwinkle. And she was Rocky J. Squirrel, like 100 years old.

Oh, man, they're still doing it. Incredible. Mel Blanc, I mean, he's got to be, that's got to be the ultimate of ultimate. Those characters are just beyond belief. Well, he was like, they dubbed him the man of a thousand voices because he was a business guy. He was a very smart businessman and he was the first guy to ever get credit for voice characterizations, colon, Mel Blanc.

Dawes Butler didn't get it. June for Ray didn't get it. He, he raised the bar for everyone and opened the door so that the screen actors guild would then start to represent and give credit to voice actors. So Mel Blake did that. That's just amazing. Yeah. He was definitely a pioneer and Dawes Butler with all the things that he did and

What Dawes showed me was that like Dawes would do one character, but turn it into three characters simply by making him from a different part of the country.

Wow. Just genius. And I went, wow. So I can do this is Bart Simpson. So if I'm Bart Simpson, I'm just talking like this. But if I want to put him in the South, I could do it like that. Or I could make him from England. And this is not Bart Simpson because I'm a Brit. You know, it's amazing. You must have done every iteration.

of Bart imaginable at this point. Don't you think? I mean, is there a situation that Bart has not been in that you can imagine? You know, we've done over well over 700 episodes, 100 episodes, 730 something by now, and I've had

Like, I don't know, 500 guests on the show. Every iteration. No, but they keep pumping them out, Rob. And they're still great. It's incredible. And it's and thanks. Yeah. And Al Jean is a genius. I mean, that he's still running the show and with that kind of authority and with that kind of vision. And it's still fresh as ever. I mean, it's.

I mean, The Simpsons is an amazing thing. You know, how long do you think The Simpsons will go? It's like, what do you think ends up going longer, Saturday Night Live or The Simpsons? That's a good Vegas bet, don't you think? Well, this is a great question. Saturday Night Live actually has been on longer than The Simpsons, but...

It's improv. So that's the difference. And 60 Minutes, same thing, but that's news. So Simpsons has got the Guinness Book of World Record for the longest running scripted show in the history of television. Boom. Mic drop.

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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount. Terms and conditions apply. Was there ever an issue with the fact that Bart was played by you, who was a woman? And I remember in the early days, like the first year, they didn't want people to know about that for some reason. Am I imagining this or is that right?

dude, you've done your homework. I'm impressed. You know, it was totally fine. They made it very clear to us that the stars of the show were the animated characters. It was Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa, and Silent Maggie. It was like, these were the stars of the show. And it totally made sense to me. And actually, I was very pregnant at the time with my firstborn baby, Lucy. And...

I wasn't much into going on and kind of promoting the show. I was in brand new mother mode. Yeah. And yeah, so that was fine by me. But after a while, I mean, when the show...

Well, after we've been on for four or five years, it's like the cat was out of the bag and people got curious and people were wanting to meet with us and talk to us. And it was very I think it was quite organic, actually, in the way that it rolled out. Do you remember the first time you saw Bart on a T-shirt? I do. And it was a little bit like.

Whoa. Whoa. There are also those insane bootlegs. They're clearly bootlegs. An unsanctioned Burt Simpsons. Have you ever seen any of those? What are your thoughts on those? Oh, yeah. Rasta Bart. I remember going to some islands and I bought the T-shirt and I brought it back for Matt Groening thinking like he'd never had it. This guy has the largest collection of bootlegs, but he laughs about it. Matt Groening laughs about it. Wow.

That's amazing. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, you can't go anywhere without there being Bart. It's kind of a funny thing. It's like I'm him, but I'm not him. I don't look like, I don't have nine spikes on the top of my head. I'm not, my skin is pinkish. You know, I've got nice cheekbones. I've got a chin. You have a chin. He does not.

So it's a little bit weird. And I've always, I've kind of always had this viewpoint about it, that it's me, but it's not me. And it kind of keeps me that much separated from completely owning that guy. And he's not mine. He's not mine to own. I mean, Matt's genius is,

And Jim, the collaboration and Sam of what they did to create the show together, you could see it's a very collaborative art form. Yeah. But even to this day, and it's actually served me well because I can go anywhere and be this anonymous celebrity and nobody knows who I am. Do you ever break out the voice just just as a throw down sometimes?

Well, embarrassingly, and yes, I do sometimes do it, but I've been caught unawares when I will say to somebody, say it's a host at a restaurant and I'll bring up the subject. I used to do this. I would go up and say, hey, just curious, like, because they're also waiting. They're saying, no, we don't have any. It's like 45 minutes and they're just standing there. So I get into a conversation with them. How long have you worked here? Oh, wow. You've been here a year and a half. Really? Is it usually like this at night? Yeah.

So like, do you watch, do you ever get time to watch TV at night? It's a very subtle bridge, you know, transition. I see where you're headed. What do you watch? Have you ever watched a Simpsons? Have you ever heard of the Simpsons? Oh yeah. But sometimes it's backfired. They go, no, I don't watch TV. No, I don't watch TV at night. They have no idea. Oh, well then you wouldn't care that I'm the voice of art. Yeah. No, probably not. That's amazing. There's egg on my face.

But most of the time, Rob, I got to tell you, most of the time when I say it, I go, hi, what's happening, man? Oh my God. Some people, their knees buckle. Their knees buckle. I was in, I was doing, I was doing a tour for one woman show and I was in the UK and I was at one of the, I think it was called the White Horse Festival.

It wasn't Buckingham Palace, but you could actually go up and stand right next to the guy with the bearskin hat and the red uniform on. And I sidled up to this guy and I was just standing there at attention like him. And he's being very professional and people are taking pictures of others doing the same thing. So it was not unusual what I was doing. And then I just said to him, hi, I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you? The guy's knees, bam, toppled under him. He like was dead.

on the ground. That's so amazing. So great. And I took off, man, like a bat out of hell. Miss Cartwright, Miss Cartwright, wait. Please, please, I want to ask you a question. That's so great. Well, listen, Bart made the Time Magazine's most influential people of the century, I think, right? Yeah, that was like, wait, what, really? I love the notion you're talking about. You know...

It's it's you, but it's not you is such an interesting dynamic. And I'm fascinated with that because I've talked to Paul McCartney and people like about Beatles songs. And yeah. And I was talking to Francis Ford Coppola about the Godfathers.

When something is as iconic as Bart Simpson is, Godfathers, McCartney songs, and everybody who's created those things or a part of them all say the same thing. They're them, but they're not them. And it's such an interesting, such an interesting dynamic. Wow. Because you create it and then it goes out into the world and then the world accepts it and runs with it. And then it becomes of the world. It belongs to God.

The fans of Bart Simpson. Bart belongs to the people. Well, that's right. And Rob, I'm sure you can relate with the body of work that you've done and the diverse characters that you have played, like from one side of the spectrum to the other. And you kind of look like them. There's a very similar kind of...

thing. Hair may be a little bit different. The body size, the muscles, they're all in the right places, you know? Listen, I see you. I work on the Fox lot doing 911 Lone Star. I come in as the Simpsons stage. Every day I look up and there's Bart looking down at me. Yeah. And it's funny, but there is that. There's a different... I look at it and I go, ah, there we are again. That's cool. It's...

Right. Well, it is a point of pride. I have to admit it is a point of pride, but it's like I don't let's just say my size seven and five eights head is not getting any bigger. It's like I've already got a big enough head as it is. Sorry, mom. But it's like I think it keeps me grounded.

Kind of keeps me real. And I and I just I love every second of it. I love my job. I love doing him. I love it when people ask me to do is what it never gets old. Right. You know, I bet I treasure it. I do. You know, particularly in today's world, you you bring the number one thing is you you bring people happiness. I mean, that's I mean, you know, you see Bart and you're happy. I mean, it's impossible not to be happy.

Hearing Bart, seeing Bart. I mean, you know, I remember the first time I saw The Simpsons. By the way, I'm thinking back to the first time I saw The Simpsons. It feels like a billion years ago. Like so much so that I go, wait a minute, that can't possibly have been 1984.

I feel like it was 1988, the first time I saw The Simpsons. And it's true. You guys came on in 87, I think. I was 17 different human beings then. I know. This is my third or fourth lifetime since that thing aired. Ironically, today is my daughter's birthday. And my water broke. It was at the premiere party.

And it was the Christmas episode. And they showed that one. They bring home number eight, Santa's little helper. They introduce that dog to the family. So I went to the premiere party and my baby was due any time. And I was dressed up in a satin jumpsuit with a red band around my belly. And I looked like a bowling pin. I did it on purpose just for fun. And here, you know, I threw a gutter ball and I think...

That night, that next night, I think it was my water broke. And today is my daughter's birthday. 32 years ago, I wrote her this card and said, 32 years ago, Lucy, I was giving birth to you. That's, yep. That's amazing. Amazing. Well, I'm so glad that you took time on your daughter's birthday to come in and be with me. This was, it was great. It was so much fun. Yeah. And I hope you do another podcast.

60,000 episodes of the Simpsons. I hope you're doing Bart when you're a hundred. I think you will be. Oh, thanks. The oldest living animated voice on the planet. It's been such a pleasure. You are a sweetheart, man. I I've enjoyed this so much. And, uh,

You know, when I come back, when I'm a hundred, I hope you have me back on your show again. We'll book it now. Let's, let's, let's, let's put it in our books for your hundredth birthday. We'll have you for sure. All right, guys. That was so much fun. I'm inspired to try my hand at voiceover acting. No, I'm not. I'm going to stay with what I'm doing, but that was, that was amazing. I love how great is the, that Bart Simpson is her, but not her.

I feel like I've done mushrooms. The world has opened up. It's a concept I'm going to contemplate today in my meditation. Anyway, now it is time to check the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Beep.

Hey, Rob. This is Kevin from Ontario, Canada, calling. My question is, I know you're a big sports fan. I'm a big sports fan as well. I love figuring out rosters and all-star teams and things like that. So my question for you is this. If you were to construct a movie and you could pick anybody in the world, only living,

Who would be the director? Who would be the composer? Who would be your first co-star and second co-star? And what would the genre be? And you can throw in any extras you want there, but those are the bases. What would be the perfect movie that you would be in? Thank you. Wow, that's such a good question. So fun. Oh, my gosh. And equally as hard to answer as who's your starting five all time in movies.

basketball or who's the best infield if you could pick it which i do all the time this is what i do on the set of 911 lone star i sit around with my my friends on the crew and we have these conversations so okay here we go and i kind of think like is it martin scorsese directing is it spielberg directing is it paul thomas anderson there's so many different people it could be

And you're never going to go wrong with a lot of them. So I'm just going to go with what my instinct at the moment told me. So it's not even about what would make the best movie, really. It's about what I want to do. So with that being said, I want Paul Thomas Anderson to direct the movie. I want it to star me and Daniel Day-Lewis. I want Living, so Ennio Morricone is out. And John Barry is out for score.

God, that's a tough one. I mean, I just had Danny Elfman on the podcast. Maybe it's he kind of I can't feel like he kind of vibe with Paul Thomas Anderson, although I'm a big, lush, romantic score guy. I don't know. You know, I got to go with Hans Zimmer. I got to go with Hans Zimmer. I'm sorry. And we need a co-star, I think. Do we do Jennifer Lawrence? Do we do Jennifer Lawrence? Me, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence.

I'd go see that movie. I'd be in that movie. And then you didn't talk about writing, but somebody's got to write the damn thing. Oh, no. Paul Thomas Anderson writes everything. So we're done. He's a true auteur. He's a director writer. I love it. I didn't have to go through the Sophie's choice of is it Steve Zalian or is it Aaron Sorkin or Alec Roth? It's perfect. We saved us. That was fun. Thank you. That's a good movie. Now we've got to figure out what the title of that movie is. Somebody call into the lowdown line.

With title ideas for this movie, please. And then I'll go pitch it in Hollywood. Thanks. I hope you have as much fun as I do. And we will see you next week. Much more fun ahead on Literally.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn, and the music is by Devin Tory Bryant. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and we'll see you next week.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply.