At this rate Harry Shearer is going to wear out our “Simpsons Alumni” category, but I guess you can’t keep a funny man down.  Besides, there’s simply too much awesome in this interview to just bury it in tomorrow’s Reading Digest.  In it he talks about why liberal talk radio can’t get a foothold, the processes of comedy, and his upcoming documentary about Hurricane Katrina (which he hopes to have ready in time for the fifth anniversary next year).

The whole thing is a fun read, but two quotes jumped out at me.  In reverse order (bold mine to denote questions):

It’s all dandy until you get censor notes from the network.

Funny, in the “Unplugged” Spinal Tap Tour last spring, during one of the comedy parts of the show, Michael McKean had gotten a hold of the censor notes from NBC of what they would have to do to show “This Is Spinal Tap” on NBC — and he reads them out. That stuff is always funny. There was a legendary book an old gag writer named Leonard Stern wrote, he worked for Jackie Gleason and Steve Allen and those guys, and I think he worked on “My Favorite Martian.” The script note he got from the network one day, next to a particular line, became the title of his book. And the note was, “a Martian wouldn’t say this.” You just can’t do better than that.

A friend of mine saw that show and said the reading of the NBC censor list was funny as hell.  Wish I’d gone.  Also, this sent my heart aflutter:

How would you rate the current writing on “The Simpsons”?

Umm, no comment.

You don’t need to comment, Mr. Shearer; we’ll do it for you.