I’VE BEEN CONDUCTING INTENSIVE RESEARCH for this book since I first started watching The Simpsons more than ten years ago. Now, admittedly, much of that research was an accidental by-product of the giddy entertainment of watching the show and trading favourite lines and references with friends and acquaintances. Still, I feel obliged, right off the top, to thank anyone and everyone who ever traded Simpsonalia with me over the years. Many of the lines, scenes and themes discussed on these pages would never have been etched so indelibly in my mind without those great conversations.
And now to more specific thanks, which begin with my brilliant wife, Ashley Bristowe, who, in addition to tolerating years of my Simpsonian babble is also my first, most compassionate and most exacting editor, not to mention the uncredited co-author of pretty much all of my best ideas (which almost always begin with or evolve through conversations with her). Thanks, Ash—without you, there simply wouldn’t be a book.
I also owe an enormous debt to Anne Collins, my fantastic editor. Without her patience, wisdom and occasional (and much-deserved) cries of enough! in the margins, this would be a much weaker book. Whatever excesses and errors remain are mine alone, and survive despite her valiant efforts. Thanks also to Craig Pyette, the designer Leah Springate and everyone else at Random House Canada for their tireless work. Further thanks to Ben Schafer at Da Capo Press in New York and Hannah Mac-Donald at Ebury Press in London for their editorial input.
I also have to thank a great many people for their assistance earlier in this book’s and/or this writer’s evolution: Iain Deans and A.G. Pasquella, my brothers-in-literary-arms, who were instrumental in convincing a deluded business student to embrace the writer’s life; Geoffrey S. Smith at Queen’s University, who taught me how to see the bigger picture buried in the trivialities of pop culture; Douglas Bell, my friend and reluctant mentor; Neil Morton, my daring editor (and great friend) at Shift, who conceived of and assigned the essay that got this whole project started; Sam Hiyate, who helped turn that essay into a viable book proposal; David Lavin, my steadfast agent, who helped sell the thing and continues to advocate tirelessly on its behalf; and finally my parents, John and Margo Turner, who bit their tongues and opened their wallets for years to keep this fledgling freelancer alive.
I’d also like to thank Ian Connacher, Martha Sharpe, Andrew Heintz-man, Carolyn Smart, Lynn Cunningham, David Hayes, George Russell, Laas Turnbull, Felix Vikhman, Greig Dymond, Barnaby Marshall, the McConnell and Bristowe clans, and anyone else I may have forgotten who has provided guidance, editorial support or financial assistance to this book.
In closing, gentle reader, I’d like to thank you. “What’s that?” you say? Me thanking you?
No, it’s not a misprint. For you see, I enjoyed writing this book as much as I hope you enjoyed reading it.