George Meyer has been a writer for The Simpsons on and off since its first season. Mike Scully, one of the primary showrunners, calls Meyer “the best comedy writer in Hollywood,” while writer Jon Vitti says Meyer “exerts as much influence on the show as anyone can without being one of the creators.”

He did a great interview with The Believer. Here’s the link.

The interviewer, Eric Spitznagel, is clearly a huge fan. And he asks a great question:

BLVR: I’ve heard pretty convincing arguments that Frank Grimes was a turning point for the show. Before he came along, The Simpsons had a clear moral center. The world was full of heartbreak and misery, but people were still ultimately good. Post-Grimes, there were no longer consequences. Characters stopped adhering to a shared code of humanity. Now more than ever, bad things happen to good people, and the stupid and evil inevitably prevail.

[A long and uncomfortable pause.]

GM: We may have gone too far.

Meyer worked on the episode this clip is from, though I don’t know if he actually wrote it, per se.