[Interview: The Pat Sajak Show]

 From: Raymond Chen
 Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994

Another interview with Yeardley Smith

[Editorial comments: Be forewarned. This is a pretty bad interview. This appears to be a relatively early one in her career, because she was nervous throughout, and her hair needed work.]

Date: Unknown, but it's probably sometime in 1991.
Program: 'The Pat Sajak Show'.
Host/Interviewer: Unknown. Looks vaguely like the guy from `Studs'.

Host: ... at 8pm on Fox. Watch this clip.

% Clip from ``Moaning Lisa'' starting from ``Every day at noon a bell
% rings, and they herd us in here to feeding time.'' through the food
% fight, ending with Lisa receiving a ball of mashed potatoes full in
% the face. Freeze-frame on the starchy facial.

Studio audience: (applause and cheering)

H: (introducing) Yeardley Smith.

% The band plays some traditional bad talk show music that you play
% while the guest (in this case, Yeardley Smith) comes out from behind
% the curtain and walks to the talking area. She is wearing a white
% blouse, covered by a black jacket, black slacks, black shoes (with
% heels), and a black hairclip. Her hair (long) is puffed up in front,
% kind of wavy, draped across her shoulders and down her back.

SA: (applause and loud whistling)

% The host shakes her hand and kisses her on the cheek, then shows
% her to her seat next to the previous guest, whom she kisses on
% the cheek. Yeardley was really nervous, or make-up did a horrible
% job, because her face looks kind of greasy.

I'm so glad you're here.

Yeardley Smith: Thanks.

SA: (quiet chuckles)

H: The Simpsons is a *great* show.

YS: Yes.

SA: (quiet chuckles)

H: Just great.

YS: (chuckles)

H: I grew up watching cartoons. Did you do that?

YS: Yes, I did.

H: Yeah.

YS: I loved, but I loved cartoons that had great visuals, like I loved Mighty Mouse, I loved, um, The Flintstones, I loved The Jetsons, I didn't like Rocky and Bullwinkle, I'm probably the only person in the world who didn't.

% Yeardley is talking a mile a minute. She's really nervous.

H: Why didn't you like it?

YS: Because there is nothing to see.

H: Yeah.

YS: I mean it was jokes jokes jokes, you know,

H: Yeah.

YS: and to me there was no set, I mean, Mighty Mouse had a set, he had a city, he flew through this entire city, even if it was the same one,

H: (uninintelligible)

YS: every frame.

H: He was a cartoon, you now.

YS: (gasping for breath) Yeah, I know. (laughs) But he had, like, he had a costume, he had `things', he had props.

H: Yeah, props are important for a cartoon.

YS: It was big, it was colorful, it was nice.

% Yeardley is so incredibly nervous. She's talking ninety million
% words a minute. The host tries to get a word in edgewise, but she
% just keeps on going!

H: Did you watch Underdog? I used to watch Underdog.

YS: I *loved* Underdog. He was so sad.

% She says `He was so sad' in that concerned sort of way.

H: And his girlfriend was... (pauses to let YS answer the trivial question)

YS: (still carried away by her previous sentence) Oh!

H: (realizing that she's not going to answer the trivial question) Sweet Polly Purebred.

YS: Yes! Oh, and she was.

H: That's a great cartoon. Did you, uh, The Simpsons is...

SA: (more laughs)

H: They all love your voice.

YS: (somewhat annoyed) Mm hm. This happens a lot. Yes.

H: They pause and think, (in high-pitched voice) ``She sounds kind of funny.''

YS: (in high-pitched voice) ``Does she really talk like that?''

SA: (much laughter)

H: Well, let's ask. (to audience) Does she really... Of course you do.

YS: Yes.

H: Because it's your voice.

% During this brief pause, Yeardley seems to have calmed down.

H: Um, growing up watching those cartoons, and then we see The Simpsons, which is such a different cartoon. What do you think the success of The Simpsons is all about?

YS: Well, I think, um, a lot of it is, I guess, that, we really have a lot of leeway. We're able to tell the truth in a way that you can't tell with real people. I think because it's animated, you um, you have enough of a barrier to say things that... people might find offensive or be sort of appalled, or the censors would go (deep voice) `no way', (back to normal) you know, because it's animated.

H: Yeah.

YS: And I think, I mean, we get away with much...

H: Yes.

YS: ... but it's really , we're, I mean, we're not the Brady Bunch; we're a little sick...

SA: (laughter)

YS: ... and it's really funny! (laughs)

SA: (smattering of applause)

H: You personally are a little sick.

YS: Yes, personally, yes, mm hm.

H: Because, I, and that's real, because I know you have this thing about horror films. You've been in a couple...

% Yeardley interrupts and starts to talk fast again...

YS: Oh I do, yes, I did this um Stephen King film, this Maximum Overdrive, and I can't bear horror films; when I was a kid, I was such a sissy, and I never went unless I was dragged, dragged, kicking and screaming. And um, when I finally made one, it was so funny, because, do you ever see these guys with bottles of, you know, blood, not really blood, but chemicals that they've mixed up, and they're squirting it all over the wall, and they spend trying to figure out how to make this person look like his arm was cut off with globular globs of who-knows-what, and you just... (high-pitched) eewwwwwwwww...

SA: (smattering of laughter)

YS: (back to normal) ... I mean, it's like recipes; it was funny.

H: So have you become a fan of horror films? Is it...

YS: No.

H: ... easier for you to watch?

YS: No.

H: You hate them.

YS: I hate them still.

H: When you're, um, when you're doing The Simpsons, is there room for the actors to improvise, or...

YS: Yes.

H: ... are all the lines scripted?

YS: Uh, well, all of the lines scripted, but um... We do the voices first, and then they animate, so in case we're (mild sarcasm) incredibly brilliant then they can (chuckles at her own little joke) slip it in. We're not tied to a picture... already...

% She sort of can't figure out how to end the sentence and just lets
% it trail off. The host notices that she's sort of lost her train
% of thought and breaks the silence.

H: You, in a cartoon, it's not as personal, I think, if you get cut out of a scene, if the scene doesn't work and they cut you out...

YS: Oh yeah?

H: ... of it. Oh, it is? (laughs) Whoa!

YS: (laughs) No, it's out...

H: Okay. It, not, but I mean, you and I both...

YS: Yes.

H: ... as actors have been cut out.

YS: Absolutely. And sometimes... you're grateful. And sometimes... it's really sad.

% She says `it's really sad' in that really sad sort of way.

H: (chuckles)

YS: (chuckling) Like, I did (chuckles), I actually played Roseanne Barr uh in She Devil seventeen years before you see her, because in the beginning of the book, the book starts out or something, where, you know, she's a young girl, and you see how she met her husband, and, you know, he knocked her up, and he had to marry her...

SA: (laughter)

YS: ... and so it was Christmas Eve and it was terrible, so they shot that segment with me and a guy who was a dead ringer for Ed Begley, Jr. You have seen such a likeness in your life.

H: Ed Begley, Jr., Junior.

YS: Junior, Junior, and, he, it was incredible. So we shot this whole thing and they cut the first twelve minutes of the film, so all my, (interrupting herself) actually, it wasn't embarrassing for because it happens all the time, so you go `okay', but all my friends were calling up and going, ``But Yeardley, I told all my friends' friends' friends...'', and then they watch the film and they go, ``Yeah yeah, I bet she's the one in the back, uh huh, the one buying the Snickers bar with her back to us that you can't see?'' They don't really believe that you're an actor? It's quite funny.

% I guess you had to be there, because her funny story is greeted
% with silence. Maybe because it all went by so fast. Or she just
% needs to work on her storytelling skills.

H: Sometimes you get laughs, sometimes you get laughs off of things that other people don't get laughs off. Is it because of the way you talk?

YS: I, I think sometimes. I have the worst time on the telephone. When, when I call up, for instance, once I tried to order Life Magazine over the phone, subscription?

SA: (brief laughter as the audience anticipates the punch line)

YS: They hung up on me. They said, ``You have to be eighteen.'' I said, ``I'm twenty.'' [prophetic line that --rjc] They said, ``Uh-huh.'' And the on me!

SA: (laughter)

YS: And I call back times! They would have to do with me. And all the time, people call up and they go, (as if talking to a child) ``Is your mother home?''

SA: (laughter)

YS: ``Can I talk to the lady of the house?'' I'm like... And sometimes it's great, 'cause if it's that mail-order advertising thing, you know, sometimes they call up and they want to sell you a subscription, you go...

H: Oh, and call .

YS: Uh huh, and you go, (baby-voice a la Carol Kane) ``No, she's not home, and I don't know when she'll be back.''

SA: (laughter and extended applause)

H: You uh... You do these great baby voices and children's voices, but, how old are you?

YS: I'm old. (giggles)

H: (to the other guest) Are you allowed to say that? Is that rude? Ann, is that rude for me to ask that?

YS: I'm twenty-five.

H: Okay. And, and...

SA: (quiet whispers, then laughter)

H: There was murmur there.

YS: I know! There was a (whispers) ``This person thought I was twelve.''

H: But a twelve.

YS: Yeah.

H: And you got married this year.

YS: I did. I got married on New Year's Day.

H: Oh, congratulations.

SA: (extended cheers and applause)

YS: (clutches her heart)

H: You grab, uh, it's so cute, you grab your heart, is that because he still makes your heart flutter like that?

YS: Oh, yes!

H: Or is that because you have angina or...

YS: Or heartburn. (pretending to complain about the food backstage) ``That shrimp, please!''

H: (chuckles) How was the wedding?

YS: Oh, it was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was, um, everybody sort of questioned why we get married on New Year's Day, and of course, the avid sports fans wouldn't come, because they had to watch the Rose Bowl or whatever that is (giggles) on that day.

H: It's a football game, but that's not important right now.

YS: (giggles) It was totally irrelevant to us, but we got married in Washington D.C., where I grew up, and it was wonderful. It had rained all week, and it was a beautiful, clear, crisp day on that day, and um, everybody was kind of mellow, you thought they'd be totally tired out and sick of parties, but um, it was small enough, it was about 65 people, so that everybody was just really relaxed, and we had taken dance lessons at Arthur Murray, and I have to say, we were great, and people .

SA: (laughter)

YS: It was . It was great!

H: I wish I had been invited, but you didn't think of me at all.

YS: No, I'm sorry. (giggles)

H: Maybe like at the ten-year, when you do the vow...

YS: Well, we're going to get married again.

H: Are you? Here in L.A.?

YS: (teasing) Maybe.

H: In case it didn't stick the first time, or what?

YS: (laughs) No, just because, isn't that a, like a nice, romantic thing to do?

H: You should do it as often as you can.

YS: Every decade.

H: Congratulations on your wedding, that's great.

YS: Thank you.

H: Big congratulations on The Simpsons, I enjoy it, and I love what you're doing on it, so...

YS: Oh, thanks.

H: Thanks for coming.

YS: It's a pleasure.

SA: (applause and cheering)

H: We'll be back after these messages.

% And they break for a commercial.