William Lloyd Oakley (born February 27, 1966) is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Oakley and Josh Weinstein became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans School; Oakley then attended Harvard University and was Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon. He worked on several short-term media projects, including writing for the variety show Sunday Best, but was then unemployed for a long period.
Oakley and Weinstein eventually penned a spec script for Seinfeld, after which they wrote The Simpsons episode "Marge Gets a Job". The two were hired to write for the show on a permanent basis in 1992. After writing episodes such as "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)", "Bart vs. Australia" and "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", the two were appointed executive producers and showrunners for the seventh and eighth seasons of the show. They attempted to include several emotional episodes focusing on the Simpson family, as well as several high-concept episodes such as "Two Bad Neighbors", "Homer's Enemy" and "The Principal and the Pauper", winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for their work.
After they left The Simpsons, Oakley and Weinstein created Mission Hill. The show was plagued by promotional issues and was swiftly canceled. They worked as consulting producers on Futurama, then created The Mullets in 2003. The two wrote several unsuccessful TV pilots, and were due to serve as showrunners on Sit Down, Shut Up in 2009. Oakley left the project over a contract dispute. He has since written for The Cleveland Show and Portlandia, without Weinstein. He also served as co-executive producer and writer on Portlandia, sharing a Writers Guild of America Award with his fellow writers in 2013. In 2018, Oakley reunited with Weinstein as co-executive producer on Disenchantment, Matt Groening's animated series for Netflix. Oakley is married to fellow writer Rachel Pulido.
Early life
William Lloyd Oakley was born on February 27, 1966, in Westminster, Maryland, and raised on a farm in Union Bridge, Maryland. He was a fan of Mad magazine from an early age, which helped shape his comic sensibility. Such would be the length of their partnership; the two often finish each other's sentences. Oakley later attended Harvard University, where he wrote for and served as Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon, He graduated in 1988 after studying American history.
Career
Oakley did not land a job on a major comedy series, as previous Harvard graduates who wrote for the Lampoon had done, despite writing numerous spec scripts for shows such as Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman; he thus moved back home. Their Seinfeld script and The Simpsons episode caught the attention of Diane English, and they were offered a job on a sitcom. Before they accepted this job, they were told that Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky were leaving The Simpsons, and then joined the writing staff on a permanent basis in 1992, in the third season of that show. Oakley recalls the show's unique relation with the fledgling Fox network: "Jim Brooks negotiated this remarkable contract for The Simpsons, which was that the Fox network executives could never have any involvement... You didn't have to worry about pleasing the audience. We were just trying to please ourselves." They were initially quiet and felt "intimidated", being in the same room as "10 of the greatest minds in comedy", but eventually started pitching jokes with confidence.
After season four, most of the original staff left the show. Before David Mirkin arrived to take over as showrunner for season five, Oakley, Weinstein, O'Brien and Dan McGrath were the only writers working on the show and spent a month mapping out most of the season's episodes. "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)", "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", the show's 100th episode "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" and "Lady Bouvier's Lover". For season six they wrote "Sideshow Bob Roberts", basing much of the episode on the Watergate scandal, in which they had a great interest. They also wrote "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy", and "Bart vs. Australia". The writing staff wanted to do an episode in which the Simpsons family traveled to a foreign country; they selected Australia because they thought that everyone in Australia had a good sense of humor and "would get the jokes", with the episode being intentionally inaccurate. The episode proved somewhat controversial; some Australian fans said the episode was a mockery of their country. Shortly after it had aired, the Simpsons staff received over a hundred letters from Australians who were insulted by the episode. The pair wrote the two-part episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", which was initially proposed by series creator Matt Groening. While deciding who the culprit was, Oakley and Weinstein pitched Barney Gumble because he was a character that could go to jail and it could change the dynamic of the show. Mirkin suggested Maggie because he felt it was funnier and wanted the culprit to be a family member. Oakley and Weinstein were initially unsure about having Maggie as the culprit, and it was decided that the episode would end with Maggie shifting her eyes and making it look like it was not a complete accident.
As showrunner
Oakley and Weinstein were appointed executive producers and showrunners of the seventh and eighth seasons. They were chosen partly because they had been with the show since the third season and understood many of its dynamics. They wanted to produce Treehouse of Horror episodes, episodes about Sideshow Bob, Itchy & Scratchy and several "format-bending" episodes such as "22 Short Films About Springfield", for which Oakley wrote the Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers scene, the latter being his favorite character. Oakley wrote the scene in one afternoon and the finished product resembles almost exactly its first draft. The scene is frequently cited as one of the show's greatest moments and decades later would become a pervasive Internet meme. Oakley stated in 2021 he believed it was the most famous thing he had written and one of his favorites. Their preferred choice of guest stars were those with unique and interesting voices, and several of their guest stars were "old grizzled men with distinctive voices" such as R. Lee Ermey, Donald Sutherland, Kirk Douglas and Lawrence Tierney. Oakley considered season three to be the single greatest comedic season of television ever produced and so attempted to recreate the feel of that season for the two he ran, By the close of the episode, Grimes, a hard working and persevering "real American hero," is relegated to the role of antagonist; the viewer is intended to be pleased that Homer has emerged victorious. Oakley says the episode was "hyper-meta" and focused on "parodying to some degree the Homer we don't like. That's one of the things that episode is supposed to illustrate – 'Homer gone wrong'. Although, I would argue that in 'Homer's Enemy' he's not even really even all that excessively stupid or immature, actually." When the episode was first broadcast, many fans felt it was too dark, unfunny and that Homer was portrayed as overly bad-mannered. On the DVD commentary, Weinstein considers this episode one of the most controversial of the seasons he ran, as it involves sharp observational humor which many fans "didn't get." Weinstein said that the episode is often misunderstood. Many audiences expected a political satire, while the writers made special effort to keep the parody apolitical. Oakley stresses that "it's not a political attack, it's a personal attack!", and instead of criticizing Bush for his policies, the episode pokes fun at his "crotchetiness". Oakley described the episode as a companion piece to "Homer's Enemy", in that a character is juxtaposed alongside Homer and does not get along with him.
Oakley considered working on the show to be similar to working in a bubble due to the lack of interference from the Fox network's executives, as is commonplace on other shows. the staff rejected the idea and instead created the episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", inserting the one-time character Roy, with no explanation as to who he was, or why he was living with the family, as a reference to the executive's proposal. The episode, which marked the point at which The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones for the number of episodes produced for an animated series, was named by the BBC as one of the ten most memorable episodes of the show. They noted "the writers used the opportunity to pay tribute to the art of animation and rail against network interference in their show." The intrusion of the network censors was limited: the normal procedure is for an episode's script to be sent to the censor and then faxed back with a list of lines and words that should be substituted, causing limited problems, as often the offending lines are removed or changed for comedic purposes after animation. The episode "Homer's Phobia" drew the censor's objections. Its script came back with two pages of notes about almost every single line. The censors stated that they did not like the use of the word "gay", or the discussion of homosexuality at all, and closed with a paragraph which stated that "the topic and substance of this episode are unacceptable for broadcast". The censor problems ultimately came to nothing; when the episode came back from animation in South Korea, the then-Fox president had just been fired and replaced, with the censors being replaced as well. The new censors sent back merely one line: "acceptable for broadcast".
Leaving the show
Oakley and Weinstein stood down as showrunners after season eight because they "didn't want to break [the show]." Oakley said: "We always said we'd never do a joke that we'd done before." "The Principal and the Pauper" and "Lisa the Simpson". "The Principal and the Pauper" was negatively received due to the sudden revelation that long-time character Seymour Skinner was actually an imposter. For example, in his book Planet Simpson, Chris Turner describes "The Principal and the Pauper" as the "broadcast that marked [the] abrupt plunge" from The Simpsons<nowiki>'</nowiki> "Golden Age", which he says began in the middle of the show's third season. He calls the episode "[one of] the weakest episodes in Simpsons history". As such, Oakley considers it the most controversial episode from his tenure as executive producer. He and Weinstein advise viewers to treat "The Principal and the Pauper" as an "experiment". They surmise that the negative reception was partly due to the fact that it was not immediately apparent to viewers that this was such an episode (as opposed to, for example, "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"). They describe the ending of the episode as an attempt to reset the continuity and allow fans to consider the episode on its own. "Lisa the Simpson" was their final involvement with the show. The duo wanted to end on a good note—Weinstein stated that the episode "was meant to embody the humor, depth, and emotions of The Simpsons,"—and they were pleased with the result.
Awards and critical reaction
Oakley won three Emmys for his work on The Simpsons, and shared them with the other producers. The previous year, "Treehouse of Horror VI" was submitted for the award. The staff felt the 3D animation sequence "Homer³" would have given it the edge. The episode eventually lost to Pinky and the Brain. Oakley later expressed regret about not submitting an episode with a more emotionally driven plot, such as "Mother Simpson". In 1996, during season seven, the show received a Peabody Award. Oakley shared the awards for "Lisa's Wedding" and "Trash of the Titans" in 1995 and 1998 respectively. Oakley and Weinstein themselves were nominated, along with the show's composer Alf Clausen, for the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics for writing "Señor Burns" from "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)". Robert Canning of IGN said the episode "You Only Move Twice" from season eight "may well be the greatest Simpsons episode of all time. In my book, it's at least tied," with "Marge vs. the Monorail". A. O. Scott described their era as "reach[ing] a pinnacle of zany self-reference with '22 Short Films About Springfield' and 'Simpsons Spin-off Showcase'." The two are popular amongst the show's fans, They pitched the show in 1998 "as an animated series for young adults with a sophisticated, <nowiki>'</nowiki>Simpsons<nowiki>'</nowiki>-style sensibility." They aimed to make the show about realistic issues affecting young adults, which were too mature for The Simpsons. The network was impressed and initially ordered 13 episodes; they ordered five more once the first was completed. The 13 completed episodes were later aired on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block and the show garnered a worldwide cult following. After lobbying from Oakley and Weinstein, the WB eventually released the series on DVD. Oakley and Weinstein have written and produced several television pilots. These include a CBS dramedy entitled 22 Birthdays, Business Class, a comedy for NBC about two traveling salesmen, The Funkhousers, an off-the-wall comedy for ABC about a close-knit family which was directed by Frank Oz and The Ruling Class for Fox, about a high school class who all got along, regardless of their social group. They have written two feature film screenplays: The Optimist for New Line Cinema, in which Seann William Scott was slated to star as a man born with no unhappiness gene, and Ruprecht, a Santa Claus-related comedy for Disney.
Along with Weinstein, Oakley was to serve as an executive producer on the Fox television series Sit Down, Shut Up in 2009. Oakley ended his involvement with the show due to a contract dispute between the staff and Sony Pictures. Sony refused to offer a contract which operated under the complete terms of the Writers Guild of America. Weinstein continued working on the show. His two subsequent projects have been without Weinstein. In late 2009, NBC commissioned a pilot for Oakley's sitcom about "the youngest judge in a circuit courthouse." He wrote the 2010 episode of The Cleveland Show "Gone with the Wind". Amongst other projects, Oakley planned a live-action show where the characters are all robots, which would be made by the same people who produce the children's show Yo Gabba Gabba!. He and his fellow writers shared the Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series in 2013. Oakley and Weinstein teamed up again to co-write and co-executive produce 22 Birthdays, the failed pilot they originally produced for CBS, as a pilot for Bravo. It was slated to air in 2013. Oakley subsequently worked on as a co-executive producer on the Matt Groening-created series Disenchantment. This led The Wrap to christen him "the Gordon Ramsay of fast food". He created the annual Steamie Awards to credit what he felt were the best items he reviewed each year in various categories.
In 2022, Audible released Oakley's original sci-fi comedy Space: 1969, starring Natasha Lyonne and a full cast.
Personal life
Oakley and his wife Rachel Pulido have two daughters Mary and Bitsy, He and his family live in Portland, Oregon. She is of Mexican heritage. Pulido wrote the episode "Grade School Confidential", and the Bumblebee Man segment of "22 Short Films About Springfield".