When I heard that the Just For Laughs festival landed a live script reading of The Simpsons, I bought tickets immediately. This would be a rare opportunity to see comic geniuses (or genii) at work! And they didn't disappoint.

With the like of Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, Matt Groening, Nancy Cartwright, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille and Yeardley Smith, everyone knew beforehand that they would enjoy the show. Missing was Marge's voice (Julie Kavner) and all-purpose voice-man Harry Shearer. Marge's voice was filled in very adequately by MacNeille, but some fraud guy did Flanders, Lenny, and some others. He (sorry guy!) sucked. But the show as a whole was great.

It started with series creator Groening talking a bit about the history of the show, then introduced a montage of funny moments to get everyone in the mood. After that, the stars came out and read Season 9's The Cartridge Family (it's the one where Homer buys a gun...you know, it starts with everyone at a soccer match). Funny stuff. Seeing the voices come out of people's mouths is astonishing. Seeing how quickly Castallaneta can switch between various voices is equally amazing. But Azaria stole the show, with great characters such as Moe, Apu, Snake and the generic shop-keeper guy.

The Q&A portion afterwards turned into a "do this voice" type of thing, where people yelled to hear specific characters. At this point in the show, the actors turned into the audience's puppets. We controlled them. Most of the characters were Azaria's (comic store guy, Prof. Frink, Spanish Bee). Other questions were askes (yes, there will be a Simpsons movie in the future), and some future plots were revealed. All in all, it was time very well spent. This was only the 4^th time this show has been performed, and if you ever get a chance to see it, do so. You won't regret it.