Kirk Douglas’s chaotic appearance on ‘The Simpsons’: “I’m only going to give you two takes”
Kirk Douglas is one of the most influential movie stars in the history of Hollywood’s Golden Age and has given performances in classics like Spartacus and Paths of Glory that are guaranteed to be remembered by generations hence. However, the only thing more legendary than Douglas’ acting abilities was his ego, as he was notoriously known for being difficult to work with.
Douglas would often start feuds with other actors, and nearly got into fistcuffs during a dispute with John Wayne. Although some former A-listers manage to mellow once they move past their prime, Douglas hadn’t lost any of his haughtiness in the 1990s when he was asked to do a vocal cameo on The Simpsons.
Many celebrities considered appearing on The Simpsons to be a badge of honour, as the beloved animated show had featured guest roles by Leonard Nimoy, Albert Brooks, Glenn Close, Frank Weller, Sam McMurray, and Mark Hamill, among many others. However, it was Nancy Cartwright, the actress who has voiced Bart Simpson for nearly four decades, who revealed in her autobiography My Life as a Ten-Year-Old that getting Douglas to take the assignment seriously was an arduous process.
Although the recording process is quite technical and requires intense concentration, Douglas reportedly had his limo driver park outside to keep the vehicle running, as he was determined to only give “two takes” for any of his lines. The process got more challenging when Douglas refused to wear headphones while in the recording booth, which prevented director Josh Weinstein from communicating with him.
The responsibility was left to Cartwright to direct the three-time Oscar nominee, who had repeatedly flubbed the line “I changed all that” as “I charged all that”. Although the crew feared that Douglas would be infuriated if told he had been performing the line incorrectly, Cartwright managed to convince Douglas to break his “two take” rule when she “let out a huge fake sneeze” to intentionally cause a disruption.
It was after resetting that Cartwright was able to go over Douglas’s lines with him and finally get him to say them correctly. Even if Douglas clearly had no goddamn respect for the show or its cast and crew, his performance became part of The Simpsons’ history.
In ‘The Day The Violence Died’, Bart seeks out Chester J Lampwick (voiced by Douglas), the original creator of The Itchy and Scratchy Show, after discovering that he was not credited for his work. The subsequent lawsuits that emerge involving Roger Meyers Sr (Alex Rocco), the show’s presumed creator, lead to a chaotic situation in which The Itchy and Scratchy Show is nearly taken off the air when the network goes bankrupt. It was The Simpsons’ way of examining the combustible personalities in Hollywood and the fight for creative integrity.
What differentiates ‘The Day the Violence Died’ from many contemporary episodes of The Simpsons is the strategic use of vocal talent; instead of getting guest stars to voice exaggerated versions of themselves, the episode cast people like Douglas and Rocco to play original and unique characters. Douglas may not have thought much of it, but he was part of the ‘Golden Age’ of the most iconic animated show of all time.
