Emmy Spotlight: Rob Oliver

Where were you when you found out your episode was nominated and what was your initial reaction?

I was sitting with my wife Diana, having my morning coffee, listening to my teenage boys lovingly bicker, when The Simpsons’ writer and co-showrunner Matt Selman texted me four words: “CONGRATS ON EMMY NOM.”  I was ecstatic—for myself, for our show and especially for my crew, who all did fantastic work to make this episode an extraordinary one. After pulling out some old dance moves that my kids absolutely do NOT endorse, I shared the news with my main team—all of them super-talented: assistant director Dane Romley, lead timer Carlton Batten, and lead background layout artist Leasa Eisele. Even though my nominated episode is one of the strongest I’ve ever done, I knew the competition this year was extremely tough, so I was worried we would miss out. Ultimately, I’m so pleased that this episode is being recognized. It seriously is one of the BEST EPISODES EVER!!!

How long have you worked on the show and what is your background? 

I’ve been with The Simpsons for almost 24 years (choke, gasp!). And I still love it so much! I’m a little kid doing what I love. As an adult, my entire life has revolved around this show. After graduating from high school in 1995, I started working on The Simpsons in 1996 as a character layout artist. I met my wife in 1998 at The Simpsons’ 200th episode party at the House of Blues, became an assistant director in 2004 when my first son was born, and became a director in 2006 when my second son was born. 

I hadn’t gone to school for animation; heck, I hadn’t even considered animation as a possibility! However, way back in the summer of ’96, my cousin Jen and her husband Tim Bailey (a stellar director on The Simpsons) invited me out to Burbank. They showed me around the studio where Tim was drawing backgrounds on The Simpsons. I learned from Tim and other artists for a while, then I moved from Owosso, Michigan, to Los Angeles and turned in a character test. Amazingly, I got hired! I’ve learned everything I know from some of the greatest minds in animation, on the job. I quickly discovered I LOVE animating and telling stories through animation!

As a kid, in the beautiful small town of Owosso, I was always drawing—I created my own comic strips and books in 5th grade; I turned in homework with more doodles in the margins than homework on the page; and I was always drawing pictures from MAD magazine, copying the very different styles of all the very different artists they used. Some of the biggest influences in my childhood were Monty Python, MAD magazine, Zucker brothers’ films, SNL, The Far Side, and Calvin & Hobbes.

What was your favorite part of working on this episode?

One of my favorite parts was the unique table read. This is an epic three-story episode that covers three different tales of Thanksgiving: the first in Old Plymouth, the second in modern times, and the third on a spaceship in the future. In Act 1, titled “A-Gobble-ypto” (based on the movie Apocalypto), many of our Springfield regulars—including the Simpson family—are turkeys. They even speak like turkeys! This meant that the actors weren’t speaking; they were gobbling. Needless to say, it was a hilarious run-through of the script. The packed room was rolling on the floor as the actors communicated through Homer- and Marge-like gobbles. Just imagine Grampa Simpson rambling on and on—as he is known to do—but gobbling as a turkey!  Or Homer rolling his eyes and muttering “stupid Flanders” in incoherent turkey gobbles.

Did you face any creative challenges on this episode? If so, how did you address them?

I do not have enough superlatives for this episode! I LOVED working on it! Right when we got Dan Vebber’s script, we knew it was great! As for the challenges we faced, there were many:

• Designing our regular Springfield world and all its inhabitants as turkeys and pilgrims in Old Plymouth and its surrounding forests.

• Figuring out how to animate the turkeys “talking”. We ultimately settled on small beak movements with no lip assignment or any tongue action.

• Dealing with a completely white space devoid of any details in the 2nd act—a story loosely based on the Black Mirror episode “White Christmas”.

• Figuring out creative camera angles to tell the story of a small, virtual Marge compared to the large (life-size) real Marge.

• Creating a CG Simpsons’ house and CG robot-made-of-kitchen-appliances and showing virtual Marge’s view as she traveled through the house.

• Creating true suspense in Act 3 by developing an understated, cute-then-threatening way to animate the cranberry jelly monster—based loosely on the movie Life.

• Finally, connecting the three stories in a more subtle way than just the Thanksgiving theme. To do this, Matt Selman pushed for one specific thread through all the stories: the cranberries. In Act 1, we see a pilgrim woman preparing cranberries in a cauldron; in Act 2 we see virtual Marge preparing cranberries for Thanksgiving dinner using Bog Queen Jellied Cranberry Sauce (with an image of the pilgrim woman from Act 1); and in Act 3 we see Bart & Milhouse find a Bog Queen can in the food storage area of the spaceship they’re on. It is that cranberry sauce that comes to life and wreaks havoc on the ship and its crew. In the denouement on an alien planet (a bog planet, dotted with cranberries), there is a Thanksgiving feast at which they eat the cranberry monster.

Why do you think this particular episode resonated with viewers?

This episode has it all: a ton of humor, serious suspense, amazing artistry, superb acting, and all-around exceptional quality. And it has Milhouse’s deflated arm! Comedy gold!! My entire crew stepped up and did something every single one of us can be proud of. So, so proud!

What are your top highlights from working on the show (not specific to this episode)?

• First and foremost:  Making myself and others laugh!

• Collaborating with creative geniuses! We have some of the most fun and funny people working on creating the best animated sitcom we can.

• Directing such great episodes as “Barthood”, “The Town”, “The Serfsons”, “Holidays of Future Passed”, “Blazed & Confused”, “Gone Boy”, “Treehouse of Horror XXIV”, “Mad about the Toy”, and “Thanksgiving of Horror”, among others. I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish with each of these. So unique and great.

• Digitally painting an entire gallery’s worth of artwork for my episode “Mad about the Toy”.  I immersed myself in the character of Philip Hefflin—developing a style and approach for my paintings and creating a “Hefflin” signature to go on my artwork. And it was all paintings of the man Philip Hefflin was infatuated with: Grampa Simpson as a young army man. A major influence for the style and the colors was the artist Peter Max, whom I met when I was young. I spent months on the paintings, loving every minute of it. 

• Directing a commercial for the Renault Kangoo car. It was a live-action/animation hybrid. It shot in Spain, and I got to travel there for the shoot. I drew on a monitor and showed the live-action director and the crew how the characters would fit into the shots and how we needed to adjust. It was a lot of fun! And as a bonus: Several years later, my family and I were vacationing in Croatia, and we were visiting Krka National Park. Near our car we happened upon a Renault Kangoo (same light blue color as we used for the commercial). It had a Simpsons sticker on the back!

• I was extremely proud of the job we did on my episode “Holidays of Future Passed”. As we were working on the storyboards and conceptual phase of the episode, my younger son was diagnosed with leukemia. As you would expect, my world was thrown into turmoil. I wanted, however, to continue working on the episode—I had already devoted a lot of time to it, and I knew it was going to be therapeutic for me. I ended up storyboarding a good deal of it from my son’s hospital room. As I was hopping around between home, the hospital and the studio, my crew knew that I was only going to be in the office for a certain few hours each day. In the end, we put together an amazing episode!! And, as a kicker, it earned us a nomination for an Emmy. Even though I didn’t win, I found it incredibly rewarding to have that episode recognized by my superiors and my peers. I loved being able to pour all my creative energies into something like that. It really WAS therapeutic!