Canned Air: A Tribute to Pop Culture · Evergreen Podcasts

Canned Air #555 A Conversation with Bill Kopp (Eek The Cat, Roger Rabbit, Mad Jack The Pirate, The Simpsons)

·1 hr 18 min·5 clips

Jeremy and Jack are genuinely excited to have Bill Kopp on. They frame him as one of those people whose name sits behind a lot of pop-culture history. The conversation starts with his early animation work on The Tracy Ullman Show, before The Simpsons became the giant it would turn into. From there it moves into his Tales from the Crypt finale, The Third Pig. The hosts also dig into the Roger Rabbit shorts and why that stretch mattered so much. Kopp remembers seeing Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in theaters and being blown away by the kitchen scene. That spark is what made him want in on that kind of animation. He says that is what pushed him to leave and go learn story at Disney. He was still young, around 25, and wanted more tools. He does not treat that decision like a mistake. Instead, he says the Disney stint is what let him get better at writing and story. In his telling, that growth is part of why he later invented other shows. The Roger Rabbit section turns into a real craft conversation. Kopp explains that each seven-minute storyboard got roughly a year and a half and a budget of about $3 million. He talks about watercolor backgrounds and the general top-shelf ambition of the project. The hosts remember Rollercoaster Rabbit and Tommy Trouble as the shorts that stuck with them. They also wonder out loud why the shorts never became a full series. Kopp says they made three, and then he left again after Warner Bros. hired him to write. The whole thing keeps moving by association, which fits the show and the kind of stories Kopp has to tell. By the end, it feels like a relaxed tour through an animation career built on curiosity, timing, and a willingness to keep learning.

As heard by us

A warm, wandering tour through a pivotal animation career.

Bill Kopp’s path through animation is the main thread here: early work on The Simpsons when it was on The Tracy Ullman Show, a writer-director-co-producer credit on the Tales from the Crypt finale The Third Pig, Roger Rabbit cartoon shorts work in the early nineties, and the…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want animation history told like a hangout, not a lecture, anchored by a guest who helped shape The Simpsons and Roger Rabbit.

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