Elizabeth Taylor's One-Word Simpsons Cameo Was Still Too 'Sexy' For The Show

Younger readers might be shocked to hear this, but back in the mid-90s "The Simpsons" was nothing short of a phenomenon. While it has now become a sort of incongruous TV specter, simultaneously forgotten but somehow still haunting the airwaves with new episodes, "The Simpsons" was once about as popular as TV shows get. After "Married with Children" helped put Fox on the map by proving dysfunctional TV families could work just as well as the more wholesome fare being offered elsewhere, things were perfectly primed for "The Simpsons" to dominate — and dominate it did.

"Simpsons" mania was a real and inexorable force during the height of the show's popularity, and not just in the US. As a BBC Two documentary for the show's ten-year anniversary explained, the series created a "bonanza," whereby its biggest breakout star, Bart Simpson, became fodder for global bootleggers — surely the clearest sign that the series had cemented its standing as a pop culture juggernaut. As creator Matt Groening explained it:

"One of the most delightful aspects of 'Simpsons'-mania in the early 1990s was how many different groups appropriated Bart Simpson. There were black Bart t-shirts, there was a t-shirt with Bart shaking hands with Nelson Mandela, there were Irish Bart t-shirts [...] It was amazing how many people could take this cute little guy and make him their own."

Of course, with all this success, the show that started with James L. Brooks telling Fox a little white lie could suddenly pull in some serious guest stars. As early as the first season, which ran from 1989 to 1990, "The Simpsons" was recruiting guests such as Albert Brooks and Kelsey Grammer. But the second season saw an influx of bonafide megastars, which would continue throughout the show's run.

During "The Simpsons" season 2, not only did the show manage to beat "The Cosby Show" in the ratings (the other biggest TV family at the time) it also attracted major guest stars. Season 2 featured the voices of Tony Bennett, Danny DeVito, James Earl Jones, and Ringo Starr. When season three debuted, the biggest guest yet, Michael Jackson, showed up in a substantial guest role (although the King of Pop used an alias). After that, the stars just kept coming. This was a huge deal even in terms of prime time TV, and especially for an animated series. As longtime "Simpsons" writer and former showrunner Al Jean told the BBC Two documentary:

"When I got my job on 'The Simpsons,' my partner and I joined because no one else we knew wanted the job. It was almost a dead-end in terms of animation was just totally dead on prime time; nothing had succeeded since 'The Flintstones' 20 years earlier."

The "partner" Jean refers to was his writing partner Mike Reiss, who also served as co-showrunner for the third and fourth seasons of "The Simpsons." By that time, the series had proven prime time animation was very much still capable of competing, and the guest stars were more impressive than they'd ever been.

Guests would often voice one-off characters that have been such a big part of "The Simpsons" throughout its run. Other times they would voice themselves. "The Simpsons" deeply offended Johnny Carson with their first cameo pitch, but eventually landed the legendary talk show host, who appeared as himself in the season four finale "Krusty Gets Kancelled." That same episode also saw the great Elizabeth Taylor guest star as herself. But the "Cleopatra" star had already lent her voice to the show earlier in the season.

"Lisa's First Word" was the tenth episode of "The Simpsons" fourth season. It saw the family attempting to coax Maggie into saying her first word, before Homer and Marge recall the story of the first time Lisa spoke. The episode gave us such classic gags as the horrific clown bed Homer builds for Bart ("If you should die before you wake!") and Homer's celebration of the fact that despite it not being easy to juggle a pregnant wife and troubled child he still "managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day." The episode even included a brief Johnny Carson appearance, though this version of the host was voiced by Harry Shearer doing his best Carson impersonation.

Like all the best "Simpsons" episodes, "Lisa's First Word" contains the perfect balance of humor and heart, and remains a classic flashback episode in the style of such legendary installments as "The Way We Was" and "And Maggie Makes Three" which has the most emotionally devastating finale of any single "Simpsons" episode. But "Lisa's First Word" also has a doozy of a finale, in which Maggie finally pulls out her pacifier after being put to bed by Homer, only to say her first word out of earshot of anyone but the audience: "Daddy." This moment also happens to feature the first appearance of Liz Taylor.

Longtime "Simpsons" writer and producer Mike Reiss recalled the recording session for Taylor's short cameo appearance in his book, "Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons." As it turns out, what was set to be the easiest recording session in the show's history actually encountered one very specific problem.

In his book, Mike Reiss offers decades-worth of insights, including his take on Elizabeth Taylor's brief but significant cameo as the voice of Maggie all the way back in 1992. Taylor was brought in to record one line. Actually, to be more specific, she was brought in to record one word: "Daddy." This, of course, was in the context of a baby speaking to her father for the first time, and therefore needed to be as sweet and heartwarming as possible. Unfortunately, Taylor wasn't initially able to distinguish between this more wholesome approach as a more, shall we say, alluring version. As Reiss writes:

"Liz created the biggest stir of any guest we've had on the show. Three hundred people packed our tiny studio to hear her record her one-word part: 'Daddy.' She had to do six takes because, as you can imagine, it kept coming out too sexy. We had to remind her she was a baby talking to her father, not hitting on him."

Of course, Taylor being a pro, and "The Simpsons" writers clearly not being willing to waste their one Liz Taylor line by having Maggie come across as inappropriately sexy, the line was eventually recorded to the production teams' satisfaction — but not before Taylor took the opportunity to actually hit on one of the three hundred people in the studio that day ...

Co-showrunner Al Jean recalled Liz Taylor's recording session in an Entertainment Weekly interview, where he remembered asking the veteran star for "a lot of takes." He continued:

"It's very hard to know what you want on one word, but she was really funny about it. After I said, 'Okay, we got it!' she said 'F**k you!' in the Maggie voice. She was kidding. Everybody laughed. She lived up to everything you would expect Elizabeth Taylor to be. She was very smart and funny."

But it wasn't just her line recording that impressed the "Simpsons" writers on the day. As Mike Reiss explained in his book:

"Liz did hit on one guy in the crowded room – our animation supervisor, David Silverman. 'Who is that?' she purred. Silverman was the handsomest guy in the room, but then, compared to Simpsons writers, Paul Giamatti would have also won that prize."

Ouch! What did Giamatti do to Mike Reiss? Anyway, Al Jean remembers Taylor asking Silverman "Where have these beautiful eyes been hiding all day?," which I'm sure Silverman wasn't expecting when he first signed on as a director for Fox's gamble of a prime time animated series.