In 1993, “The Simpsons” tackled the issue of workers’ rights in its classic episode “Last Exit to Springfield.” In the episode, Homer Simpson becomes president of the union at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Only to lead his fellow workers to strike to save their dental plan, because Lisa needs braces.
On April 7th, the ever-topical animated series will address unions again, over 30 years later with “Night of the Living Wage.” Except this time Marge will be taking on a job to help cover the family’s veterinary bill. She starts to work for a ghost kitchen for the fictitious food delivery app “GimmeChow.”
When Marge realizes her fellow workers are grossly overworked and have had their overtime pay stolen, she leads them to unionize. A move that clearly upsets GimmeChow, and causes them to retaliate.“Night of the Living Wage” will simultaneously parody the rise in food delivery apps alongside FX’s hit series, “The Bear.”
Inspirations
“The idea came out of seeing how tech disruption is, for the most part, usually just a workaround trying to screw someone else,” said episode writer Cesar Mazariegos. “Turn your house into a hotel, your car into the cab and have them not pay insurance. We did a union episode years ago, about Homer’s union, which is beloved. But that’s a 30-year-old episode. What can we say about unionization today, especially when it’s being fought at every turn by these multibillion dollar companies? This felt like a fresh space to use, the idea of the ghost kitchen and these apps. We see the ease with which we can get deliveries. But what we don’t often see is people being screwed and penny pinched to death.”
Mazariegos, also recently served as a WGA strike captain during last year’s Writers Guild strike. He also drew inspiration from California for Proposition 22 in 2020. This proposal allowed app-based transportation and delivery companies to classify drivers as “independent contractors” instead of “employees.” This is an obvious case of companies trying to skirt any protections or benefits they may have to offer official employees.
“Seeing the wins that we got, that SAG got and now hopefully that IATSE will get, it feels like an incredible time to have been able to pull this episode off,” explains Mazariegos. “Our production staff did an amazing job on this episode. It’s very real for them, and for so many people in this town. Clearly everything isn’t back to normal just yet. [IATSE and the Teamsters] were there to support us and we’re there to support them also.”
Refining The Episode
While the story for “Night of the Living Wage” was conjured up before the Hollywood labor strikes, it was shelved as production halted. This worked out since it allowed writers to tweak the episode after the strikes ended.
“One of the things that we were looking at was how to update the story,” he said. “Originally was going to be an Amazon warehouse, but even that story is now ten years old. This felt much newer, there’s so much tech deception in the ghost kitchen space. Matt Selman, our executive producer, is a sucker for food and restaurant jokes.
“Night of the Living Wage,” will premier on Sunday, April 7, at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. You can watch a clip from the upcoming episode, along with the NSFW clip from “The Bear” that inspired it below:
