In her book Stephen Hawking: A Biography, Kristen Larsen wrote that Hawking almost missed his recording session, as his wheelchair broke down two days before his flight to Los Angeles, where the recording took place. In order to make the necessary repairs, Hawking’s graduate assistant Chris Burgoyne, aided by a technician, worked a 36-hour shift. Hawking was 40 minutes late when he arrived in Los Angeles. When he met the Simpsons staff, he apologized, saying “Sorry for being late.”

Aerosmith was the first band to make a guest appearance on the show. According to Al Jean, they later found out that part of the reason why Aerosmith agreed to appear was the drink being called the “Flaming Moe.” In the original script, Moe tempted the band to play by offering them free beer, but the band members asked that the joke be changed. The writers changed the line to “free pickled eggs.” ( Via )

Ken Griffey, Jr. did not understand his line “there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited” and got quite frustrated when he was recording it. ( Via )

All of the players were cooperative except for José Canseco, who was intimidating. He disliked his original part and insisted it be rewritten, and the writers grudgingly made him as heroic as possible. He was originally slated to wake up in bed with Edna Krabappel and miss the game, but Canseco’s then-wife, Esther Haddad, objected. He disliked his caricature, stating that “the animation looked nothing like [him],” but that he found the acting was very easy. When asked in 2007 about his part by the San Jose Mercury News, he responded, “that was 100 years ago,” hung up the phone, and did not answer any of the paper’s subsequent calls for an interview about his guest spot.

That is the most charming old person story ever, as well as a fascinating behind the scenes look at the making of a classic episode of television. Here are 12 other notable — sometimes good, sometimes bad — recording sessions with celebrities in the Simpsons‘ long, celebrated run.

In the final scene of the episode, Borgnine plays the guitar and sings campfire songs with the children. Borgnine was a guitar player in real life, so he brought his own guitar with him to the recording studio. Borgnine apologized because he felt that he was not being able to sing very well, but Nancy Cartwright thought his voice “added to the authenticity of his character.” Hank Azaria commented that Borgnine “had no idea what the hell he was doing. He’s a good actor, and he read his lines just fine, but he had no idea what the show was, no idea what we were doing.” ( Via )

Whenever I hear a new bit of information, my brain does the following: 1) “boobs?”; and 2) “is there a way this can be tied into something Simpsons-related?” I regret nothing. Yesterday, when I read that actor Ernest Borgnine had died , my first thought wasn’t of his Oscar-winning role in Marty or The Wild Bunch, but to that time when he played himself in “Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood.” On the Wikipedia page for that episode, it says:

According to [writer] Matt Selman, Hawking was very humble regarding the episode’s jokes about him, and stated that he “took a lot of shots” at himself. The only note that Hawking gave regarding the script was that he did not want to be portrayed as drunk in the episode’s last scene, in which he is discussing astronomy with Homer in Moe’s Tavern…Some of Hawking’s lines were difficult to record. In particular, the word “Fruitopia” was difficult for Hawking’s computer to “put together” correctly, and it “took forever” to make the word sound right from the voice synthesizer. (Via)

On one occasion, it turned out that a joke written for [Mel] Gibson actually did happen in real life. The writing staff wanted Gibson to say that he would urinate behind a dumpster, because it sounded like it would not be a classy thing to do for a movie star. He had, however, already done that during a couple of film premieres because he can feel trapped in a public toilet with a lot of fans. Gibson was surprised the writers knew about the story, but it turned out to be a coincidence. (Via)

The Simpsons fans and that she would be in “big trouble” if she did not get Cartwright’s autograph. (Via)

Nancy Cartwright was a huge fan of Meryl Streep and she assumed that Streep would record her lines individually, but all of their recordings were done together. Streep showed up alone with no entourage at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles at 2:30 p.m., where she recorded her parts with Cartwright. Streep was continually doing many different versions of her lines. Cartwright said in an interview with the Pantagraph that she really wanted Streep’s autograph, but was afraid to ask for it. After the recording session, Streep tapped Cartwright on the shoulder, and said her kids were big The Simpsons fans and that she would be in “big trouble” if she did not get Cartwright’s autograph. (Via)

Originally, Courtney Love and Hole were wanted for this episode, but they declined. According to the DVD commentary, an unnamed group had said that if Courtney Love was in the episode, they would not be. An Entertainment Weekly article revealed that the group was Sonic Youth. It was thought that Love would appear in the episode because she had recently done a movie with James L. Brooks, but she never responded to the request. Love was wanted specifically for one joke which would be in an exchange between her and Homer: Courtney Love: Hi Homer! I’m a big fan, Courtney Love.

Homer: Homer Grateful! However, she did not appear and the joke was reworded for Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins: Billy Corgan: Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins.

Homer: Homer Simpson, smiling politely. (Via)