For this week I chose to explore a Finding Aid related the George Meyer’s script files in reference to Seasons 2-6 (1990-2004) of long-running television comedy, The Simpsons. The physical collection of scripts is . stored off-site at the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF) at UCLA. The physical collection contains script files, story notes, outlines, and/or various script drafts written or co-authored by Meyer. In addition the collection also contains a photocopied version of The Simpsons character design guidelines.
George Meyer’s Background
George Meyer’s writing background starts during his sophomore year at Harvard where he joined the writing staff of The Lampoon and established many important long-term relationships. In 1981 he transitioned to writing for the David Letterman Show and eventually ended up writing for Saturday Night Live as well. Meyer ended up writing for The Simpsons in late 1981, a few months before the show premiered, and eventually went on to become an executive producer for the show. This short biography which was presented in the finding aid helps paint a picture of how Meyer’s early writing experiences might have helped contribute to his writing style for The Simpsons.
Finding Aid Organization
The finding aid is organized alphabetically, an inconvenience since a chronological order would better allow someone to analyze how the writing style might’ve changed/incorporated current events of those times.
It starts out by listing a Censor Notes file based on 1989-1996. This is relevant to showing what factors Meyer’s was unable to incorporate/work around during those times, but because it is only limited to a time-frame of 7 years it isn’t helpful for any scripts past 1996. To form a good narrative analysis one would have to examine two categories of Meyer’s scripts, those within the Censor Notes time period and those after it in order to understand if there was writing style change.
Next the finding guide lists a character design guide and episode guide for seasons 1-9 within box 77. An analyst can use this to draw conclusions regarding how character designs might’ve shifted throughout various season changes as well as to the thought processes and insights used in creating various characters, settings, and season narratives.
The rest of the collection, which features the main bulk of files, contains script files featuring various drafts and outlines for the Season 2-6 episodes. The finding guide only mentions a brief annotation and writer note for each of these.
Improvement Recommendations
If I were to personally recommend some improvements to the finding guide I would recommend first and foremost to organize it chronologically. My reasoning for this is because this kind of format makes it easier to see what kind of writing style shifts might’ve occurred based on any current events for those time periods. Another suggestion I would make would be to feature maybe a brief episode synopsis note in the annotation section. This additional context can help shape a contextual frame for what each episode pertained to. In addition this ties back to the chronological order where a viewer can then piece together possible season arching narratives.
Very thoughtful blog post! Though I did not write on this finding aid, I could clearly tell every information I need to know, especially because you’ve organized the post clearly with an intro, background, organization, and improvement. I agree with you, I believe ordering in chronological order would have suited this collection the best.
I really enjoyed how your blog post had clearly defined sections because it created very nice organization within the post! I didn’t look at this particular Finding Aid but I felt like I had a good understanding of its contents; I would have liked to know more about some cause and effect situations that could be construed from the contents, but all-around very informative.
I really liked the way you divided up your blog into sections of topic, I think it is super interesting to remember that show ideas have to come from something and that his experiences and relationships with family and friends crafted ideas to create this entertaining comedy. Even though The Simpsons is just a mindless show it is so interesting how the writer puts such development into each character and season. Very well done!
Nice breakdown! I agree with you that the reorganization of an archive can help us understand it’s contents differently. What perspectives do you think we are missing from this archive?
Great job on the blog! I really liked how you organized your blog into different sections, which I thought made your blog very straight-to-the-point and easy to understand. I also agree with you on the order of the finding guide. I’m surprised to see that many of the finding aids had their collections organized alphabetically.