Josh Weinstein

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Josh Weinstein (born May 5, 1966) is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons.

Weinstein and Bill Oakley became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans High School; Weinstein then attended Stanford University and was editor-in-chief of the Stanford Chaparral.

He worked on several short-term media projects, including writing for the variety show Sunday Best, but was then unemployed for a long period. Weinstein and Oakley eventually penned a spec script for Seinfeld, after which they wrote "Marge Gets a Job", an episode of The Simpsons.

Subsequently, the two were hired to write for the show on a permanent basis in 1992.

After they wrote episodes such as "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)", "Bart vs. Australia" and "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", the two were appointed executive producers and showrunners for the seventh and eighth seasons of the show.

They attempted to include several emotional episodes focusing on the Simpson family, as well as several high-concept episodes such as "Homer's Enemy", "Two Bad Neighbors" and "The Principal and the Pauper", winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for their work. After they left The Simpsons, Oakley and Weinstein created Mission Hill.

The show was plagued by promotional issues and was swiftly canceled, but in subsequent years has gone on to develop a cult following.

They worked as consulting producers on Futurama, then created The Mullets in 2003.

The two wrote several unsuccessful TV pilots, and were due to serve as showrunners on Sit Down, Shut Up in 2009.

Oakley left the project over a contract dispute, but Weinstein remained until it was canceled.

He co-produced and wrote for Futurama again during its Comedy Central revival, winning an Emmy in 2011.

Since 2013, Weinstein has served as showrunner for the CBBC series Strange Hill High, and in 2015, Danger Mouse.

He has also served as a writer for Season Two of Gravity Falls, co-writing nine of the season's episodes.

In 2018, Weinstein co-developed the Netflix animated series Disenchantment with creator Matt Groening, of which he and Oakley are currently serving as co-showrunners.

Weinstein is married to journalist Lisa Simmons.

Early life

Weinstein was born and raised in Washington, D.C. to Rosa and Harris Weinstein. His mother is the director of the Himmelfarb Mobile University which provides education for the elderly, while his father is a lawyer for Covington & Burling. He has a brother, Jacob, and a sister, Teme. Weinstein attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., where he met and became best friends with Bill Oakley in the eighth grade. The two created the school humor magazine The Alban Antic in 1983. He later attended Stanford University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Chaparral. Weinstein is an honorary member of the Harvard Lampoon as he worked on some of Lampoon's parody publications with Oakley over the summers between course years.

Personal life

Weinstein married Lisa Simmons, a West Coast editor of Cosmopolitan, in a Jewish ceremony in 1995. They have two children, Molly and Simon, both born in 1999.

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Career

Despite writing several spec scripts for shows including Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman, Weinstein did not land a job on a major comedy network; he returned to Washington, D.C., where he appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman. He served as a copywriter for an ad agency, assisting in the creation of print ads for companies such as IKEA. Oakley and Weinstein wrote for local comedy organizations, such as Gross National Product, in their free time. After being hired to write for a game show on Ha!, they moved to New York City in 1989, where Denis Leary appeared on the network to write for a variety of shows. Both authors also wrote for the National Lampoon and Spy. Spy's editor was hired by NBC to handle Sunday Best, and he brought Oakley and Weinstein with him to Los Angeles in 1991. They were unemployed for a long time when the show was cancelled after three episodes.

They wrote a Seinfeld spec script that was well-received after replacing their agent. Al Jean and Mike Reiss, showrunners of The Simpsons, were among those who loved it. There were no openings at the time, but Oakley and Weinstein were hired to write the article "Marge Gets a Job," based on Conan O'Brien's concept. The episode appeared as part of season four. Diane English's Seinfeld script and The Simpsons episode piqued her interest, and they were given a job on a sitcom. They were told that Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky were leaving The Simpsons and rejoining the writing staff on a permanent basis in 1992, during the third season of the show. They began as story editors. They were quiet and ill, being in the same room as "ten of the best minds in comedy" at the time, but they grew to joke with confidence. They wrote their scripts together, learning side by side at a computer. They were published on "Marge in Chains," the fictionalization of their first episode as staff writers. The first draft of the script was based on study into women in prison conducted by Oakley and Weinstein, making it "slightly more realistic" than the final version of the film, which had many realistic elements removed.

The bulk of the original staff left the show after season four. Oakley, Weinstein, O'Brien, and Dan McGrath were the only writers on the show at the time before David Mirkin took over as showrunner for season five, and they spent a month mapping out the majority of the season's episodes. Oakley and Weinstein wrote many episodes for season five, including "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Gambling"), "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy," the show's 100th episode "Sweel Seymour Skinner's Lover" and "Lady Bouvier's Lover." They wrote "Sideshow Bob Roberts," basing a large part of the Watergate affair, which was a point of enormous concern for them, as well as "Grampa vs." "Bart vs. Australia" and "Inadequacy" and "Bart vs. Australia" are two stories. The writing staff wanted to produce an episode in which the Simpsons family was heading to a foreign country; they selected Australia because they felt that everyone in Australia had a good sense of humor and "would get the jokes." The episode was intentionally misleading. The episode was a bit tumultuous; some Australians thought it was a sarcastic of their country. The Simpsons staff received over a hundred letters from Australians who were mocked by the show just shy of airing them. The pair co-produced the two-part series "Who Shot Mr."

Burns?

"," was first suggested by series creator Matt Groening. Oakley and Weinstein suggested Barney Gumble because he was a person who could go to prison and could change the show's dynamic. Mirkin suggested Maggie because he thought it was amusing and wanted the perpetrator to be a family friend. At first, Oakley and Weinstein were uncertain about her Maggie, but it was decided that the episode would end with Maggie shifting her eyes and making it seem as if it was not a complete accident.

The seventh and eighth seasons' executive producers and showrunners of Oakley and Weinstein. They were chosen partially because they had been with the show since the third season and understood many of the show's dynamics. All aspects of the show's production are handled by the showrunner. Each episode takes ten months to produce, so the showrunner must "oversee several different episodes in different stages of production at the same time," including head writer, animators, editors, and composers. Two script-rewriting rooms were often set in motion at the same time, delegating leadership in the rooms to writers such as Steve Tompkins and David Cohen. Mirkin, who had suggested that the two take over, remained on the show in an advisory capacity, aiding Oakley and Weinstein with technological aspects such as editing and sound mixing. Many of the episodes were supposed to be realistic ones that focused more on the five members of the Simpson family and explored their feelings and emotions toward each other when they took over the show. They wanted to produce Treehouse Horror episodes, episodes about Sideshow Bob, Itchy & Scratchy, and several "format-bending" episodes, including "22 Short Films About Springfield," for which Weinstein conceived the scene starring Comic Book Guy and Milhouse Van Houten. They aimed for "at least two episodes per season that pushed the envelope," [and] extended the definition of what an episode might be like." Both seasons they produced, they used this style. Several episodes were focused on secondary characters, but in which new topics, such as divorce, were explored, were explored in season eight. Many of their guest stars, including R. Lee Ermey, Donald Sutherland, Kirk Douglas, and Lawrence Tierney, were among their most popular and interesting voices, and many of their guest stars were "old grizzled guys with distinctive voices," as shown by R. Lee Ermey, Donald Sutherland, Kirk Douglas, and Lawrence Tierney. Oakley considered season three to be the single best comedic season ever produced, and so aimed to recreate the feel of the two seasons he ran, emphasizing stories with real emotions and situations as well as some off-the-wall episodes. "We loved Homer the way he was in the second and third seasons." We intentionally used that as our model. Dimwitted, loving, hyperenthusiastic, and a parody of the American father, drawn with real emotions but then ostensibly amplified. This was exemplified in "Mother Simpson," "Lisa the Iconoclast," "Diddly-Dum-Doodly," and a few others. I.e. In some of the less realistic episodes, e.g. We'd definitely treat this stricture with a certain degree of latitude, especially the one that was Swartzwelder's."

"Homer's Enemy," an episode meant to "push the envelope conceptually," was one of the company's most popular episodes. Oakley's initial idea for "Homer's Enemy" was first suggested for Homer's Enemy, who believed that Homer should have an enemy. This developed to the idea of a "real world" coworker who might either love or hate Homer. The writers chose the latter because they expected it would have amusing results. Frank Grimes, a man who has been forced to work hard all his life but has no evidence to show for it, was dismayed and disgusted by Homer's popularity and comfort despite his inherent laziness and inability. "Homer's Enemy" discusses the potentials of a realistic character with a strong work ethic embedded alongside Homer in a professional setting. Homer is portrayed as an everyman and the embodiment of the American spirit in the episode; however, in some scenes, his negative attributes and silliness are prominently displayed. Grimes, a hardworking and tenacious "real American hero," is relegated to the role of antagonist in this episode; the viewer is likely to be delighted that Homer has come victorious. Oakley claims the episode was "hyper-meta" and concentrated on "parodying to a degree for a Homer we don't like. That's one of the things that the episode is supposed to show — "Homer gone wrong." However, I would argue that in "Homer's Enemy" he isn't even all that stupid or immature, as they say. "What if a realistic life, normal people, and dealing with him?" Weinstein said. I know this episode is tense and divisive, but I still love it. It seems that it would happen if a real, slightly amusing human being had to deal with Homer. There was some discussion [on NoHomers.net] about the death [we just did it because (a) it's really funny and disappointing, (2) we like the fact that "sometimes, you can't win"—the whole Frank Grimes episode is a study in dissatisfaction and can be life and death—being Homer Simpson could be very difficult and life-threatening, as Frank Grimes later learned." Many viewers thought it was too dark, unfunny, and that Homer was depicted as overly bad-mannered when it first premiered. Weinstein calls this episode one of the season's most popular, because it includes a lot of punditivity that many viewers "didn't get." Weinstein also addresses a "generation gap"—the episode was originally condemned by viewers but it has since become a favorite among fans of the series.

Homer also appeared on "Two Bad Neighbors," which brings a reference to the show's rivalry with the Bushes in the early 1990s. Weinstein said that the episode is often misunderstanded. Many readers anticipated a political parody, but the writers made an attempt to keep the parody apolitical. Oakley emphasizes that "it's not a partisan attack; it's a personal attack." "The episode instead of blaming Bush for his plans, mocks his "crotchetiness." In that a character is juxtaposed alongside Homer and does not get along with him, Oakley said the episode is a companion piece to "Homer's Enemy."

According to the lack of interference from the Fox network's executives, working on the show is similar to being in a bubble, as is commonplace on other shows. "The great thing about The Simpsons was that we were able to get away with everything," Weinstein wrote. So there weren't any episodes we didn't like to do that we couldn't do." And "Two Bad Neighbors" and "Homer's Enemy" were among the bizarre high-concept ones we managed to get on the radio because there were no network executives around to block us." Given the network's limited input, when an executive recommended that the staff stick with the Simpsons so as to "liven up the show," the staff turned to the episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show," including the one-time character Roy, with no hint at the executive's or whether he was living with the family as a tribute to the executive's suggestion. The Simpsons won the number of episodes made for an animated series for the first time, according to the BBC, this episode was one of the ten most memorable episodes of the series. "The writers used the opportunity to pay homage to the art of animation and rail against network interference in their exhibition," they said. The intrusion of the network censors was limited: the normal procedure for an episode's script to be censored and then faxed back with a list of lines and words that may have been substituted, causing limited difficulties because so often the offending lines were deleted or changed for comedic purposes after animation. The censor's objections were triggered by the episode "Homer's Phobia." Its script returned two pages with notes on nearly every single line. The censors said that they did not like the use of the word "gay" or the discussion of homosexuality at all, and that "the subject and content of this episode are unsuitable for broadcasting." When the episode returned from animation in South Korea, the censorship issues were reduced to nothing, and the then-Fox president had just been fired and installed, with the censors also being changed. Just one line was sent back by the new censors: "acceptable for broadcasting."

After season eight, Oakley and Weinstein sat down as showrunners because they "didn't want to break [the show]"" instead. "We'd never do a joke that we'd never do" we'd never do a joke that we'd never do before," Oakley said. According to the viewers, the showrunner should not stay for more than two seasons. Oakley said that at least two episodes from season eight would have been rewritten, and that toward the end, they would have been "treading water." They were listed as consulting producers for season nine, which was in the early writing stages, while focusing on post-production of season 8. Oakley said they contributed "somewhere between 0 and 1%" of the season, but they did not bother with the scripts' table readings. "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," "The Principal and the Pauper," and "Lisa the Simpson" were three episodes that were carried over from season eight, which aired as part of season nine. "The Principal and the Pauper" was poorly received until it was revealed that Seymour Skinner, a long-serving character, was actually an imposter. For example, Chris Turner's book Planet Simpsons' "Broadcast That Marked [the] abrupt decline" from The Simpsons' "Golden Age," which he says began in the middle of the show's third season. "One of" the episode's "worst episodes in Simpsons history, according to the singer. As a result, they regard it as the most contentious of their tenure as executive producers. The Principal and the Pauper" should be treated by the artist and Oakley as a "experiment." The negative reception was partially due to the fact that it was not immediately apparent to viewers that this was not an episode (as opposed to, for example, "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"). The ending of the episode is described as an effort to reestablish continuity and encourage viewers to consider the episode on its own. This was their last appearance on the show, "Lisa the Simpson." The pair wanted to end on a positive note—Weinstein said that the episode was supposed to portray "the humor, depth, and emotions of The Simpsons"—and they were delighted with the end result.

Weinstein received three Emmy awards for his role on The Simpsons, as well as sharing them with the other producers. In 1997, Weinstein, the showrunner and executive producer, received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less). The award was given to "Treehouse of Horror VI" this year. The staff hoped that the 3D animation sequence "Homer3" would have given it the edge. Pinky and the Brain lost to Pinky and the Brain in the episode. Oakley expressed regret for not releasing an episode with a more emotional motive, such as "Mother Simpson." The show received the Peabody Award in 1996, during season seven. In 1995 and 1998, Weinstein awarded "Lisa's Wedding" and "Trash of the Titans" respectively. The Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics was given to Oakley and Weinstein, as well as the show's composer Alf Clausen for writing "Seor Burns" from "Who Shot Mr. Burns. Part Two (Part Two): "Part Two" is a film that was based on a video.

Many of the episodes starring Oakley and Weinstein are regarded as one of the best on the show. For example, Entertainment Weekly published six episodes ("Homer's Phobia," "A Fish Called Selma," "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"), "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" and "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase") as well as one episode (Who Shot Mr.

Burns?")

This is part of the show's top 25 best episodes, according to the show's list of the show's top episodes. The episode "You Only Move Twice" from season eight "could be the best Simpsons episode of all time," according to IGN's Robert Canning. "Marge vs. the Monorail" is at least tied in my book, "Marge vs. the Monorail." With "22 Short Films About Springfield" and "Simpsons Spin-off Showcase," A. O. Scott characterized their period as "reaching[ing] a pinnacle of zany self-reference." Weinstein considers the line "Too crazy for Boy's Town" as his "too much of a boy for Crazy Town" from the episode "Treehouse of Horror VII" to be his favorite joke contribution to the series. The two are well-known among the show's followers, and in the early days of the internet, Oakley read and participated in fan discussions of the show on newsgroups such as alt.tv.simpsons. They took part in two question-and-answer sessions on the fan message board NoHomes.net in 2005 and 2006.

The Simpsons and Brownstein's families built Mission Hill in 1997, a tribute to Andy French, a young, lazy, 24-year-old cartoonist, and sold it to The WB in fall 1999. In 1998, they marketed the show as "a mature, 'Simpsons' style sensibility." They were designed to bring the show about mature topics affecting young adults, which were too young for The Simpsons. When the first episode was completed, the network was impressed and ordered 13 episodes; they ordered five more. "The audience we're going for is one that is sophisticated, has a keen sense of humor, and is very savvy in animation," Oakley explained. [But] this episode is definitely not one in which a large number of people don't get it. It's not designed, built, or even installed a punch line. It's observational comedic humor. It's jokes told in a strange way, whether in the background or with a strange sound effect." The show was marred by "public relations" issues, implying that it was "tarnished" from the start. The show's poorly edited two-minute promotional video, which was sent to advertisers in April 1999 for the annual upfronts, was poorly received. The upfronts were irrelevant, according to Oakley and Weinstein, who were told that it did not matter. In addition, since no episodes were completed in time, journalists were unlikely to see anything of the program at the network's schedule presentation in July. "For seven months, the only picture people had of the show was based on a two-minute tape that looked awful," Weinstein wrote to the Washington Post. Before they even noticed it, six major newspapers panned it. The pilot received mainly critical feedback from publications like The Deseret News, as well as a positive review in Variety. In addition, the show was compelled to rename The Downtowners due to its closeness to an MTV display. All of these factors conspirated to make the show receive little interest, and there were only a few commercials on it. "I don't know exactly why America doesn't know about this show," Weinstein said. It's like Teen People was out in the fall preview, but we're not even in it." Mission Hill came at a time when animated television shows were still flooded; some of the responses could be traced back to its genre.

The show was aired on Friday, a night on which the WB had never broadcast before, at 8:00 p.m., a time when Oakley felt was unnecessary, and aired in front of The Wayans Bros., The Jamie Foxx Show, and The Steve Harvey Show, which Oakley found "incompatible." The show's poor reviews and ratings of an average of 1.8 million led to its swift cancellation. Oakley said that the pair had been "very naive" in conceving the show and that it "would've been better on cable" because it would never have appealed to a large audience due to the subject matter. The 13 complete episodes were later shown on Cartoon Network's adult swim block, and the show earned a worldwide following. The WB eventually released the film on DVD after lobbying from Oakley and Weinstein.

The two consultants worked on Futurama from 2001 to 2002. They were on the radio for two-and-a-half days a week, including comedies and assisting with stories. They appeared on "That's Lobstertainment," the most significant of which were filmed. and "Roswell That Ends Well." In 2003, they introduced The Mullets for UPN. Several television pilots have been written and directed by Oakley and Weinstein. They include a CBS dramedy titled 22 Birthdays, Business Class, a comedy for NBC starring two traveling salesmen, The Funkhousers, an off-the-wall comedy for ABC about a close-knit family with a knit family who was led by Frank Oz and The Ruling Class for Fox, about a high school class who all got along, regardless of their ethnic group. They have produced two feature film screenplays: The Optimist for New Line Cinema, in which Seann William Scott was supposed to appear as a man born with no unhappiness gene, and Ruprecht, a Disney-related comedy.

In 2009, Weinstein was supposed to work with Oakley as an executive producer on the Fox animated television series Sit Down, Shut Up, which was created by Mitchell Hurwitz. The programme, which was based on an Australian program, featured cartoon characters with live-action backgrounds. Oakley, on the other hand, resigned from his show due to a labour dispute between the employees and Sony Pictures. Sony refused to hire a writer who had worked within the complete terms of the Writers Guild of America. Weinstein continued to work on the program until it was cancelled after 13 episodes. Following its revival on Comedy Central in 2010, Weinstein returned to Futurama to be as a writer and co-executive producer on its sixth and seventh seasons.

He wrote the episodes "That Darn Katz!

"Law and Oracle," "All the President's Heads," "A Farewell to Arms," "Viva Mars Vegas," and T.: The Terrestrial. In 2011, Weinstein received another Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for the Futurama show "The Late Philip J. Fry," which was nominated for "The Tip of the Zoidberg" again. He received an Annie Award nomination for writing "A Farewell to Arms" in 2011, as well as a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Outstanding Animation for writing "A Farewell to Arms" in 2013.

Weinstein co-created, produced, and wrote the animated comedy-mystery film Strange Hill High for British children's channel CBBC in 2013. Weinstein inserted the showrunner and writer's room for the series, but not so on American television shows like The Simpsons. The show uses the animation technique hypervynorama, which is a blend of puppetry and CGI. Weinstein, the unsuccessful pilot they originally created for CBS as a pilot for Bravo, will also work with Oakley to co-write and co-executive produce 22 Birthdays. Doug Liman and Dave Bartis will both be co-executive producers.

Weinstein enjoyed a burger and fries after a discussion with host Danny Malin in August 2022. Weinstein had been a long time YouTube fan, and when Malin was in the United States they arranged the meet up.

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