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Because good writing in a TV cartoon is so rare, I think the animation on The Simpsons is often overlooked.

If you mentioned Hanna-Barbera to people, they said, 'Oh yeah, Flintstone, Yogi, Scooby-Doo, Jetsons,' and that was pretty much it. We have characters with very high recognition factors and great films, but no organized plans for really making the most of them and increasing their value.

I grew up, obviously, watching tons of animation; Saturday morning cartoons or anything that we could get our hands on. And then when 'The Simpsons' premiered, that just kind of changed the landscape of everything. We hadn't had prime time animations since 'The Flintstones.'

When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time.

The success of 'The Simpsons' really opened doors. It showed that if you were working in animation you didn't necessarily have to be working in kids' television.

The Simpsons can go anywhere in the world and not worry about any budgetary issues. However, even when the show has had its run, I think the characters can go on in perpetuity.

It's a part of most actors to want to be in an animated feature; to extend the legacy of your career.

With 'Futurama,' I was just worried that somebody would beat us to it; it seemed so obvious that there should be an animated science fiction show set in the future. And one of the reasons why it's not, I learned, is that it's really, really difficult.

Especially in the last 10 years, the writing on animated shows has jumped by leaps and bounds.

There are certain economics involved in making a network TV show that you want to amortize the costs of that, so the more episodes you make, the cheaper they all are individually.