John Swartzwelder, a writer for The Simpsons, used to write episodes while sitting in a booth at a coffee shop, drinking copious amounts of coffee and smoking endless cigarettes. When California passed an anti-smoking law in 1998, he bought the booth and installed it in his house so he could keep writing the same way.
The Simpsons Writer Who Bought a Diner Booth
John Swartzwelder is a legend among Simpsons fans, though most couldn't pick him out of a lineup. The notoriously reclusive writer penned 59 episodes of the show—more than any other writer in its history—and he did it all from a coffee shop booth while chain-smoking and mainlining caffeine.
His process was beautifully simple: show up at the diner, slide into his regular booth, order coffee, light a cigarette, and write. Then do it again. And again. For hours.
California Had Other Plans
In 1998, California's Smoke-Free Workplace Law went into effect, banning smoking in restaurants and bars. For most people, this meant stepping outside for a cigarette. For Swartzwelder, it meant the death of his entire creative process.
His solution? Buy the booth.
Swartzwelder purchased his favorite diner booth and had it installed in his house. Now he could smoke all he wanted while writing, surrounded by the same cracked vinyl and coffee-stained laminate that had fueled some of television's greatest comedy.
The Most Prolific Simpsons Writer You've Never Seen
Swartzwelder's credits read like a greatest-hits compilation:
- "Homer at the Bat" (the softball episode with MLB stars)
- "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge"
- "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" (the Prohibition episode)
- "Homer's Enemy" (Frank Grimes)
- "You Only Move Twice" (Hank Scorpio)
Fellow writers describe his scripts as arriving nearly perfect, requiring minimal rewrites. His jokes were so good that the writers' room had a rule: "If it's a Swartzwelder script, don't touch it."
The Ghost of Springfield
Despite his outsized influence on the show, Swartzwelder has given exactly one interview in his entire career—a 2021 email exchange with The New Yorker. He doesn't do publicity. He doesn't attend events. He doesn't even like having his photo taken; most images of him are from the 1990s.
When asked about his writing process in that rare interview, he compared first drafts to "a bad kid. But it is your kid." His approach was to write fast, get it all down, then revise extensively.
The diner booth method apparently worked. After leaving The Simpsons, Swartzwelder went on to write a series of absurdist detective novels featuring a hard-boiled PI named Frank Burly. The books have titles like The Time Machine Did It and How I Conquered Your Planet.
Somewhere, probably in a house with a diner booth in it, Swartzwelder is still writing. Just don't expect him to tell you about it.