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Looking for some quality comedy entertainment to check out?
Who better to turn to for under-the-radar comedy recommendations than comedians?
But most audiences didnt come along for the weird, sometimes Oedipal, somewhat scatological ride.
One devoted fan of the oddball film is Mimi Pond.
Pond knows a thing or two about off-kilter storytelling.
Pond is drawn to work as unique and stylized as her own.
She also knows something about the difficulties of sharing your vision with others.
Pond wrote the first broadcast episode ofThe Simpsons,Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.
I was never invited to be on staff, and I never knew why for the longest time.
No one ever called me or explained to me or apologized or anything, shesaid in 2017.
She said she later heard Simon didnt want any women around because he was going through a divorce.
It had remained a boys club for a good long time.
By Ponds own admission, she may be too independent for a writers room anyway.
It hits all the nerd buttons perfectly, but not in a mean way.
Its a complete celebration of utter cheesiness.
I think I maybe went to the second Comic-Con ever, which was at UC San Diego.
I met Ray Bradbury.
I was like 13 or 14, and I was just like [gasps].
So I was kind of steeped in that atmosphere myself, in a way.
That made it cool.
They were just given a title.Thats true!
And she insists that he give her a hand massage.
Hector Jimenez is cooing in her ear from the other side, and its just so weird.
And you dont know: Is it sexual?
Is it not sexual?
Theres a lot of weirdly buried sexuality that I think has got to be solidly Mormon.
The whole movie is like,Tell me youre Mormon without telling me youre Mormon.
Very true.And the mothers modest lingerie line is just screamingly funny.
And any movie with Jennifer Coolidge, I mean, come on!
Im glad that it seems the national conversation is finally cluing in tohow great Jennifer Coolidgeis now.Yeah.
I was fortunate enough to see her at the Groundlings.
She did a night of comedy there of different sketches, and she was just utterly brilliant.
What is it about the Hesses work that intrigues you?They love peoples faces.
How much do aesthetics matter to you in comedy?Oh, I think its everything.
The details are everything and getting it just right.
Theyve gotten it just right with that house, the geodesic-dome house.
Its not the same thing as wanting it to be pretty.
And the specificity is everything.
I think thats what turns some people off about the movie.
Certain specifics just rubbed them the wrong way, maybe?Maybe people are just uncomfortable with tackiness.
I kind of revel in it as long as I dont have to personally live it myself.
Which is why I dont really participate in Hollywood anymore.
I hope he gets discovered at some point in the way that they have.
He is just such an exquisite creature of unbearable eccentricity.
He sounds like an American vampire.
I looked him up, and maybe then after that, I followed him onFacebook.
I mean, his voice is just, like, American Transylvanian.
I dont know how to put it.
I dont how they do it.
Id lose my mind.
The rest of them, no one had kids.
Well, the head writer did, but somehow she had worked something out.
How is theMitford projectgoing?Its been going well.
Its still only 1940, and Im already up to about 212 pages.
And they all went and did that.
Wow.Because theyd all just read the book, which came out in 1963.
Theyd all read it, and they didnt want to have anything to do with funeral directors.
So as a result, it just added immense amounts of fuel to the conspiracy theories that came later.
Theyre touchstones for everything major that happened in the 20th century.
From fascism to civil rights, they met everyone, and they went everywhere.
How often does that happen?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
