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Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons by Mike Reiss is a memoir of the Emmy award-winning writer. Mr. Reiss has been on the show almost since the very beginning.

I picked up this book that appeared in the Little Free Library I steward. As a big fan of The Simpsons, since they first appeared on TV, this seemed to be the perfect book to take with me on vacation.

Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss delivered exactly what it promises, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, how the show started, how it’s made, some dirt (but not too much), little stories about the famous guest stars, and how some of the famous lines came about. And there’s big-time name dropping which, to his credit, Mr. Reiss fully acknowledges.

You don’t have to be a fan of the show to enjoy this book. Even if you’re just interested in TV writing, entertainment, or the process of making a cartoon series you’ll find this book informative.

At several places, this book made me chuckle out loud, a very rare occurrence. Even though I haven’t watched the show in a while, I was very familiar with many of the episodes described in the book. It took me back, and I could hear the soundtrack in my head.

Mr. Reiss is very generous giving credit to those who helped him along the way. He does take credit where credit is due, and is very proud, rightfully, of several jokes he wrote that have entered Simpsons’ lore. His bit about Groundskeeper Willie teaching French, calling the students “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” even made it official in Oxford quotation dictionaries, and was used as a slur in the Australian Parliament, and in serious publications such as The Times and The Daily Telegraph. ( )

Excellent. Laugh out loud good! I loved it. ( )

SPRINGFIELD CONFIDENTIAL is chock full of exactly what every Simpson fan would want-behind the scenes information, (so to speak, it's a cartoon), a little background on the main writer and all the others, a bit of name dropping, (and maybe a little dirt?), on the hundreds of guest stars, and finally, the stories about how certain jokes came about. It's a quick, breezy, informative and fun book.

Mike Reiss has been writing for The Simpsons from almost day one. He and everyone else on the show never thought it would last, but here we are right now, with The Simpsons being the longest running primetime scripted series to ever run in the history of television. With that many years under his belt, you can bet Mike has a lot of information for the die-hard fans and the causal fans alike. Things like the fact that one episode of the show takes 9 months from the idea to the airing. The show is written here in the U.S., but it's animated in South Korea. (Who knew?) There's some celebrity mentions as well, but I'll leave those nuggets for those of you who are interested enough to check out the book.



Being from Springfield, (MA, which is NOT the home of The Simpsons show, darn it!), I've been a fan of the show since it had a short spot on The Tracey Ullman Show, back in the day. Boy has it improved since then! I believe that I've always been smart enough to realize that I don't get all of the jokes in every episode, (Mike Reiss reads Voltaire, for heaven's sakes, I do NOT). But I do think I'm smart enough to get most of them, and that's why I've stuck with the show for all these years. If you want to know how Homer got his name or how Krusty's dad became Rabbi Krufstofski, you'll have to read this book!



Highly recommended for serious fans of the show, and for the casual fan that wants to know more!

*Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This is it.* ( )

As a huge fan of The Simpsons, I was really looking forward to reading this book. I was excited to learn the inside workings of the cast and crew. It was there, but there was a lot of fluff in between. This book definitely seemed to be more about the author than the actual show. His jokes were a bit too much for me. I wish he would have split this book into two - his own witty biography and a book about the show. ( )

You like The Simpsons. Everyone likes The Simpsons. Nobody doesn’t like The Simpsons. If you say you don’t like The Simpsons, you’re wrong.

It’s a fast read. It’s got the Simpsons-style humor (some of it’s more Dad jokes than I expected). It tells stories of behind the scenes stuff, how writing the TV show works (spoiler: it’s as unexciting as you think it is). Mike Reiss isn’t a terribly interesting individual by himself, but the things he’s seen make him interesting.

You won’t find any secret to The Simpsons success here (spoiler: there is none, except maybe the lack of studio interference) but there is an amusing recounting of his years. There’s even talk about The Critic, but it doesn’t feel like there’s enough detail, which would be my biggest gripe.

It’s a trip down memory lane for us old folks who were there when it premiered. Good for trivia night. I can’t say anything bad about this book, but I can’t say much exceptional about it. It’s a memoir, and in the top three of memoirs I’ve read. ( )