PITTSBURGH — Other than being a little older than you remember, or being out of costume, most of the celebrities at Steel City Con look like the people you see in the movies and on TV.
Nancy Cartwright, even though she has blonde hair, is not yellow. And she's not a 10-year-old boy.
She's not Bart Simpson.
Cartwright has been voicing the mischievous icon from "The Simpsons" since it launched as a sketch piece on "The Tracey Allman Show" in 1987. On Dec. 17, 1989, it premiered as a half-hour sitcom on Fox and now, with 34 seasons and 745 episodes, it is the longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running scripted primetime series.
The 65-year-old Dayton, Ohio, native, who ad libbed one of Bart's famous lines, "Eat my shorts!" has never grown tired of being Bart, partly because she's more than just Bart. She voices Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, Kearney, Database and baby Maggie. She's also the voice of Chuckie in "Rugrats" and "All Grown Up!" (since 2002), Daffney Gillfin in "Snorks," Rufus in "Kim Possible," Mindy in "Animaniacs," and more.
This weekend, she sets foot in Pittsburgh for the first time to appear at Steel City Con along with Kelsey Grammer, Michael C. Hall, Dolphin Lundgren and many more.
Q. What is it like for you to attend a convention like Steel City Con? Can you walk around without people knowing who you are?
A. It's the funniest thing, but I do feel like, with all the social media and the attention I get from my postings, I am still pretty anonymous. There are 8 billion people on this planet and I used to think the world revolved around Miss Cartwright but it definitely is not true, and I can still pretty much go anywhere and most people don't know who I am. I just kind of blend in.
Occasionally, there will be a follower or a fan and they will recognize me. But I also find that people are so kind, they're hesitant to come up to me. They're very respectful. But sitting in a restaurant, for example, I've got radar and I can sense when I'm recognized sometimes. When I finish my meal, I'll go by that table and say [in Bart's voice], "HEY, WHAT'S HAPPENIN', MAN!" and they're just like, "Whaaaaa!"
Q. That must be a lot of fun.
A. It's as fun for me as it is for them. The fans are the ocean that keeps this boat afloat. Where would I be without all the fans that love the show?
Q. So, when you're at one of these conventions, do people want you to do the voice?
A. Oh, sure they do. Absolutely. And you know what, back in 2008, 2007, when I was touring internationally and speaking to audiences, I started realizing pretty quickly that it's a little upsetting for the audience to have me come out and start speaking to them, and if I don't stay right from the start [in Bart's voice] "Hi, I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?!" there is tension. It's not what I'm saying. They're sort of stuck goin', "Do the voice! We want to hear the voice!" So, I do and it kind of melts [the tension], and melds us together, if you will.
Q. Yeah, you're doing it to me right now, actually, when you do that voice. So, when you first auditioned, what were their thoughts on a woman doing Bart?
A. You know what, I don't think Matt [Groening] had any idea. Matt was a comic-strip writer, and he didn't know anything from animation. That's where Jim Brooks came in, and because of all of his success with "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Taxi, and after that doing films, he knew that three-act sitcom structure.
Matt sort of knew a structure, but it wasn't quite the same as doing it for television and a whole script, so when I came in to audition, actually for Lisa Simpson, he was very open to anything, and I'm telling you, there were not like long lines. Mike Myers and Jim Carrey were not in line in front of me, like, ready to audition. I was the only one there at that time and I went in to read for Lisa, and I saw also the audition piece for Bart. And between the two of them, there is no way I was ever going to do Lisa.
She was like "8-year-old middle child" and that's about all it said. And then for Bart, it was an "underachieving, school-hating 10-year-old kid," and it just pulled at my heartstrings. Who wouldn't want to do that? So, I went in and I said, "Is it OK if I read for Bart instead of Lisa?" and he was like, "OK, that's fine." I could tell he was totally laid-back and cool. And I went 'Blah b-blah b-blah b-blah" and he said "Omigod, that's it!" He hired me right on the spot.
Q. So they weren't thinking they needed a 10-year-old kid for this?
A. I think they might've known that that wouldn't have worked right away. Look at the history of female voiceover actresses. "Crusader Rabbit," that was Lucille Bliss. She also did Olive Oil and Betty Boop. Then, June Foray, of course, did Rocky J. Squirrel. And Bartholomew J. Simpson, that's a tip of the hat to Jay Ward ["Crusader Rabbit" and "Rocky & Bullwinkle" creator].
Q. So when you were a little kid, were you constantly doing voices?
A. You know, actually, the earliest I remember, it wasn't so much doing voices as I was just entertaining people. OK, this is a truism here: My parents subscribed to Reader's Digest and there was this regular article that would come out called Laughter is the Best Medicine.
I remember looking forward to reading that because it would have the stupid jokes in there, and I would memorize it and say it to my family and relatives and friends, and people would laugh. And then, I don't know how this started, but I started doing sound effects — sounds like motorboat, cement mixer, dripping faucet — and that was the thing that got my heart like, "Wow, I can make people laugh," and so I from that moment on I continued to do things that would make people laugh.
Q. When you went in that day, did you think the show had potential?
A. Oh, heavens no. The opposite. What I was told about the audition was that it was for a 30-second interstitial to connect the show, "The Tracey Ullman Show," to the commercial. So, I thought "Wow, this isn't even a show, it sounds like it's no big deal."
I think, honestly, that kind of served me well in a way because I didn't put a lot of significance on it. It's just like it was another audition, so I went in a little bit laissez-faire about it in a way, and I did it and it made him laugh, and look what happened because of it. So, I thought, "OK, this is just this interstitial thing, no big deal," but after we did like 47 of them or something, they decided to pick it up and do it as a half-hour sitcom and that's when it was like, "Wow."
But it wasn't like we were going to be a hit. It was more like, "There is nothing like this on television right now. There is no primetime animation," and I was old enough to have lived through primetime animation. "The Flintstones" were primetime at one point. "Jonny Quest" was a primetime show. So, when they picked it up in 1989, it was really different and that's the thing that's stuck. Not that we were gonna be a hit, believe me. The negotiations were nerve-racking. I mean, losing sleep, and every two years we were doing a negotiation, and getting all the psychosomatic illnesses that go with that. That was all a part of it.
Q. So, why do you think it's lasted this long? How does it stay fresh for everybody?
A. I think nobody wants to be the one who gets rid of Bart Simpson. I don't think anyone wants to fire Bart, you know what I mean, and Homer and Marge and Lisa and Maggie. They don't want to be the network that pulls the plug on the show. That's one philosophy.
Another one is that it still holds its own. Now there are 8-year-olds who are avid watchers of it on Disney+, because all of it can be streamed. The statistics went up during COVID, because people were marathoning their favorite shows, and now families were watching "The Simpsons," all of them together. You have an 18-year-old, a 15-year-old, an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old watching it with their mom and dad who watched it when they were kids. It has that staying power that I just think will go on forever.
Q. What was it like for your kids growing up with Bart as a mom?
A. This may surprise you but they weren't introduced to it until ... well, Lucy was born almost at the bowling alley where the premiere episode aired. Her birthday is Dec. 19 and it aired on Dec. 17, in 1989. And I was right for plucking, man. My water broke the next night, and then Jack came about two years later, so when the show went on the air, Lucy was an infant and Jack wasn't born yet. So, early on in their childhood, they didn't even know about the show and, in fact, my husband and I would VHS record it.
We weren't even watching it because it was on at 8 o'clock and I was passed out in bed by then. We would watch it later the next day on VHS. The kids at school told them and they were like, they just really wanted me to be their mom. That's the way it should be.
I tried to read stories to them [with voices] when they were little, but both of them, simultaneously, threw their hands over their ears: "No mommy, no mommy, just be mommy!" They didn't like me doing voices when I was reading "The Giving Tree" or "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" or whatever I was reading to them.
Q. Eventually, they became really proud of it, right, and showed you off to their friends?
A. Um, you know what, they never really did that. I'm just their mom. I wear a totally different hat with my kids, but now that my son, he's 31 and he's got two kids of his own, even with his daughter who is 6 1/2 , I'm not doing voices for her either. I just want to be her nana, and she'll figure it out soon enough.
She watches "Rugrats," they don't really watch "The Simpsons," and I don't really mind at all. I don't care. This is my family and if she discovers that and is interested in it, she can interview me someday for her radio show.
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Cartwright will be at Steel City Con, at the Monroeville Convention Center, on Saturday and Sunday. Hours are 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Prices are $32 on Friday, $50 on Saturday, $35 on Sunday and $72 for three-day pass; steelcitycon.com.
