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John Swartzwelder (born November 16, 1950) is a writer for the animated television series The Simpsons and a published author. He is credited with writing the largest number of Simpsons episodes. John was one of several writers recruited to The Simpsons from the pages of George Meyer's Army Man magazine.

Career

Before working on The Simpsons, Swartzwelder had a long career in advertising, after which he began writing for Saturday Night Live during the 1985–86 season. While working at SNL, he met George Meyer. After Meyer quit, he created Army Man and recruited Swartzwelder to help him write the magazine. Along with Meyer, he was recruited to write for The Simpsons because one of their readers was Sam Simon, one of the shows original executive producers.

Although Swartzwelder has refused to participate in any Simpsons DVD commentaries, the show's staff discuss his antics during these commentaries. It has been reported that he will be in the commentary for an episode on the 9th season DVD set.

Beginning with the show's sixth season, Swartzwelder no longer attended rewrites with the rest of the staff, having been given special dispensation to send in his drafts from home and let the other writers revise them. This was a result of a newly implemented policy which banished smoking in the writer's room.

According to his longtime collaborators on The Simpsons, Al Jean and Mike Reiss, Swartzwelder is a huge fan of Preston Sturges films and loves "anything old-timey American." This vaguely defined aesthetic presents itself in many of the episodes he has written, in the form of wandering hobos, Prohibition-era speakeasies, carnies, 19th-century baseball players, aging Western movie stars, and Sicilian gangsters.

According to the DVD commentaries, he used to write episodes while sitting at a booth in his favorite restaurant "drinking copious amounts of coffee and smoking endless cigarettes" (Matt Groening). When California passed an anti-smoking law, Swartzwelder bought a diner booth and installed it in his house, allowing him to smoke and write in peace.

It was also pointed out during the Season Four commentary for the episode "The Front", that his identity is heavily debated amongst Simpsons fans on the internet because he's the most prolific writer of The Simpsons and never appears on any of the commentaries. It had been theorized by fans that John Swartzwelder is just a pseudonym for writers refusing to take writing credit for their episode.

In a Season Eight commentary, it was pointed out that Swartzwelder thought that using a thesaurus was 'cheating'.

He is also a staunch libertarian as well as a gun rights advocate, and despite having written many of the environmentally driven episodes, he is described as an "anti-environmentalist." During the commentary of "The Old Man and the Lisa" one staff member related a story of Swartzwelder going on an extended diatribe about how there is more rainforest on Earth now than there has ever been since the beginning of time.

In 2004, following a short break from writing scripts, he wrote his first novel, The Time Machine Did It (ISBN 0-9755799-0-8). It was followed by Double Wonderful (ISBN 0-9755799-2-4) in 2005 and How I Conquered Your Planet (ISBN 0-9755799-4-0) in 2006.

The Simpsons' 16th season was the first in which no episodes were authored by Swartzwelder. It was confirmed that he would return for the 17th season, but this season also had no episodes penned by him. He has returned though, as he is credited as one of the eleven writers working on The Simpsons Movie.

Appearances on The Simpsons

Swartzwelder has been animated in the background of several episodes. His animated likeness resembles David Crosby; Matt Groening said during the commentary of "Bart the Fink" that anytime that it appears that David Crosby is in a scene for no reason, it is really John Swartzwelder. Some of the episodes in which John Swartzwelder appears include:

• Springfield is right next to "Swartzwelder County".
• In the episode "The Day the Violence Died", John Swartzwelder is one of the "surprise witnesses" called by Lionel Hutz. Others include Ralph Wiggum, a man with a dummy, and Santa Claus on crutches.
• In the episode "Bart the Fink", he is one of the attendees at Krusty's fake funeral.
• In the episode "Home Sweet Homediddly Dum Doodily", the animators paid homage to Swartzwelder with a statue of him (on a horse) outside a courthouse.
• In "Bart After Dark", he can be seen as one of the clients watching the show in the Burlesque House.
• In the episode "Hurricane Neddy" John Swartzwelder's name can be briefly seen during the fanfare of Ned Flanders' return from a mental institution. Behind Barney Gumble a sign says "Free John Swartzwelder".
• In the episode "The Front", Lisa and Bart read a book entitled How to Get Rich Writing Cartoons which is written by John Swartzwelder.
• Springfield is also home to the "Mt. Swartzwelder Historic Cider Mill".
• In "Thank God It's Doomsday", John is guest on a blimp that crashes during a Krusty Special dedicated to Specials.

Reclusiveness

Swartzwelder has yet to be featured in a Simpsons DVD commentary, and he has refused to even acknowledge this fact on a commentary, even when offered to have a mic brought to him just to utter the word "No". On the commentary for Krusty Gets Kancelled, one of the writers pretended to be him as a joke. But as far as is known, he will not be on any DVD commentaries.

However, recent news of the Ninth Season DVD Commentary Tracks have prompted that John Swartzwelder will be doing a commentary for The Cartridge Family. The news was a recent release on TV Shows on DVD. Due to the episode's topic firearms, because of his stauch Liberatarian ties, this episode would be an exception for him to do a commentary. However, some fans are skeptical about his participation.

The Simpsons episodes by Swartzwelder

Here is a listing of every episode Swartzwelder has written for the show (to date):

• "Bart the General" (7G05) (1990)
• "The Call of the Simpsons" (7G07) (1990)
• "Life on the Fast Lane" (7G11) (1990)
• "The Crepes of Wrath" (7G13) (1990)
• "Treehouse of Horror" (7F04) (1990)
• "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish" (7F01) (1990)
• "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" (7F09) (1990)
• "Bart Gets Hit by a Car" (7F10) (1991)
• "The War of the Simpsons" (7F20) (1991)
• "Bart the Murderer" (8F03) (1991)
• "Treehouse of Horror II" (8F02) (1991)
• "Homer at the Bat" (8F13) (1992)
• "Dog of Death" (8F17) (1992)
• "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" (8F23) (1992)
• "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie" (9F03) (1992)
• "Whacking Day" (9F18) (1993)
• "Krusty Gets Kancelled" (9F19) (1993)
• "Rosebud" (1F01) (1993)
• "Homer the Vigilante" (1F09) (1994)
• "Bart Gets Famous" (1F11) (1994)
• "Bart Gets an Elephant" (1F15) (1994)
• "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" (1F19) (1994)
• "Itchy & Scratchy Land" (2F01) (1994)
• "Homer the Great" (2F09) (1995)
• "Bart's Comet" (2F11) (1995)
• "Homie the Clown" (2F12) (1995)
• "Radioactive Man" (2F17) (1995)
• "Treehouse of Horror VI" (3F04) (1995)
• "Bart the Fink" (3F12) (1996)
• "Homer the Smithers" (3F14) (1996)
• "The Day the Violence Died" (3F16) (1996)
• "You Only Move Twice" (3F23) (1996)
• "Mountain of Madness" (4F10) (1997)
• "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" (4F15) (1997)
• "The Old Man and the Lisa" (4F17) (1997)
• "Homer's Enemy" (4F19) (1997)
• "The Cartridge Family" (5F01) (1997)
• "Bart Carny" (5F08) (1998)
• "King of the Hill" (5F16) (1998)
• "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" (5F21) (1998)
• "Homer Simpson in: "Kidney Trouble"" (AABF04) (1998)
• "Homer to the Max" (AABF09) (1999)
• "Maximum Homerdrive" (AABF13) (1999)
• "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" (AABF17) (1999)
• "Take My Wife, Sleaze" (BABF05) (1999)
• "The Mansion Family" (BABF08) (2000)
• "Kill the Alligator and Run" (BABF16) (2000)
• "A Tale of Two Springfields" (BABF20) (2000)
• "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" (CABF02) (2000)
• "Hungry, Hungry Homer" (CABF09) (2001)
• "Simpson Safari" (CABF13) (2001)
• "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love" (CABF18) (2001)
• "The Lastest Gun in the West" (DABF07) (2002)
• "I Am Furious Yellow" (DABF13) (2002)
• "The Sweetest Apu" (DABF14) (2002)
• "The Frying Game" (DABF16) (2002)
• "Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington" (EABF09) (2003)
• "Treehouse of Horror XIV" (EABF21) (2003)
• "The Regina Monologues" (EABF22) (2003)

External links

• John Swartzwelder at IMDb

• 1950 births
• Living people
• Saturday Night Live writers
• The Simpsons writers
• Television writers