{"id":719,"date":"2016-10-10T09:42:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T16:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/?p=719"},"modified":"2016-10-10T09:43:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T16:43:01","slug":"finding-aid-for-the-george-meyer-simpsons-script-files-1990-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/2016\/10\/10\/finding-aid-for-the-george-meyer-simpsons-script-files-1990-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Aid for the George Meyer Simpsons script files, 1990-2004"},"content":{"rendered":"

I chose to examine the Finding Aid for the George Meyer The\u00a0<\/em>Simpsons<\/em> script files. The physical collection is held at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA.\u00ad The collection is an all-inclusive seventy-eight box file on all of George Meyers work on The Simpsons<\/em>. The boxes contain script files for the television program from its second season through its sixth. They also include story notes, outlines, and various drafts of scripts written by Meyer.<\/p>\n

There is a short biography included on the site before it delves into the manuscripts themselves. This biography of Meyer helps to put the rest of the site into context and allows the viewer to understand what inspired his creative process and the subject matter of his writings for The Simpsons<\/em>. The biography tells of how Meyer graduated from Harvard in 1978 and was accepted into medical school but never enrolled. During his time at Harvard he began professionally writing for Lampoon<\/em> and, shortly thereafter, took a job writing for the David Letterman Show<\/em>. It goes on to detail how Meyer created some of Letterman\u2019s signature bits which, with a knowledge of his work, can be deemed to have inspire aspects of plot lines in The Simpsons<\/em>. He then took a few more writing jobs including one at Saturday Night Live<\/em> and writing a magazine before he ultimately settled down and began to write the life of Homer Simpson. Using the biographical information that is provided in combination with a knowledge of The Simpsons<\/em> and the rest of the collection, one can put together a narrative that can of Meyer\u2019s artistic process and the key points in his life combined with the information gleaned from the collection.<\/p>\n

Viewing the collection itself, one is presented with a vast array of scripts, story notes, and outlines from the show. The arrangement of the files appear haphazard because they are organized alphabetically rather than chronologically. A chronological list of the items would help clean up the appearance of the information and allow the reader to peruse it more readily. Additionally, it would shed light on Meyer\u2019s development as a writer throughout his tenure with the show. Furthermore, beyond titles of documents and limited descriptions, the finding aid does not provide the viewer with extensive information of the works. The fact that so much is left wanting from the viewing of this collection takes away the ability of the viewer to construct an accurate narrative of Meyer\u2019s work in context with his life.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this finding aid does an average job in presenting the viewer with information from George Meyer\u2019s tenure as a writer for The Simpsons<\/em>. While a lot of from his life can be learned from reading the biographical section, it remains difficult to accurately follow and put his work into context with his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I chose to examine the Finding Aid for the George Meyer The\u00a0Simpsons script files. The physical collection is held at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA.\u00ad The collection … Continue reading “Finding Aid for the George Meyer Simpsons script files, 1990-2004”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}