Fan theories are kind of our thing. We talk about them on this podcast and in our articles. We even created After Hours, a whole series dedicated to fleshing out even the most unrealistic interpretations of our favorite TV shows and movies. But rarely do the creators of the pop culture we love reach out to us about our theories.

A few months ago we released an After Hours episode where we presented some pretty out-there speculations about the Simpsons universe. We thought Bart, Lisa and Marge represented Freud's id, ego and superego, and we thought the universe as a whole was populated by thousands of clones. Little did we know how wrong we were.

We thought they were fun what-ifs, but long-time Simpsons writer Mike Reiss emailed us to tell us our theories were pure fantasy. So we thought we'd have him on the podcast! Mike along with Simpsons writer Jeff Martin sit down with Jack O'Brien, Dan O'Brien and Michael Swaim for a long discussion about Simpsons fan theories and the origins of some of our favorite episodes and jokes.

Throw on your headphones and click play above, go here to subscribe on iTunes, or download it here.

Footnotes:

Every Episode of The Simpsons

List of Simpsons Scholarly Articles