# The Simpsons and Residual Payments **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 2, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009 "2015-03-02T13:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/1 "2015-03-02T13:52:35Z")
Can someone educate me on how residual payments for TV/Movie stars go? I always assumed that if you were in a TV or movie you were sent a residual check every time that something you appeared in was played. So every time Die Hard 2 is played (like it was this weekend) Bruce Willis gets a check in the mail. But as I was watching my 7 hour Simpsons marathon yesterday I realized that with FXX playing 10-12 episodes a shot, that the voice actors for the simpsons would make crazy money about every other day, but that doesn’t seem very economically prudent. Can anyone who is smarter/more educated in this than I explain this to me? Do each member of the cast get a shit ton of money now because of these re-runs? Is it less than I’m thinking? How do these things even work? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/2 "2015-03-02T14:24:04Z")
I’m sure someone with better knowledge will come along. I know that some of it is tied into contracts and some of it is governed by the [SAG agreement](http://www.sagaftra.org/content/residuals). What I really came to post was this recent article that says that former Mets pitcher Roger McDowell gets [$13.52](http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2015/02/25/roger-mcdowell-seinfeld-episode-royalties) every time his episode of Seinfeld is on. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/3 "2015-03-02T14:49:31Z")
The Simpsons main actors presently get $300,000 per episode ( after briefly getting $400,000 — then they took a pay cut: at least one actor was willing to take a greater pay cut in exchange for more residuals ); so unless they spend it all on blow, ought to be multi-millionaires by now. Which is fine by me, except I find it rancid when one of them plays a homeless person, or any other of the deserving poor. ---
**Author:** ![Fleetwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fleetwood/32/271_2.png) [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/4 "2015-03-02T15:29:04Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Which is fine by me, except I find it rancid when one of them plays a homeless person, or any other of the deserving poor. So should Hollywood include an actor’s wealth or status into account when casting a program or movie? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/5 "2015-03-02T15:31:32Z")
Of course. Also their sexual orientation, race, religion, citizenship and eye color! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/6 "2015-03-02T15:38:59Z")
I don’t think there’s an automatic residual. It’s something an actor will negotiate for along with the other aspects of the contract. There have been cases where actors don’t get residuals. Donald Sutherland is a famous example. When they were making _Animal House_, the producers wanted to lower the expenses of making the movie so they offered him ten thousand dollars plus a share of the movie’s future profits. But Sutherland didn’t think the movie would do very well and he wanted to get paid all his money up front in case it flopped. So he eventually signed a contract that paid him sixty thousand dollars but had no future residuals. Sutherland has said the residuals he turned down in that first offer would have paid him over twenty million dollars in the years since the movie was released. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/7 "2015-03-02T16:32:38Z")
No I am pretty sure residuals are automatic. My brother did a little bit non-speaking part once and they still had to buy out his residuals with a one time lump sum. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/8 "2015-03-02T16:37:56Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > What I really came to post was this recent article that says that former Mets pitcher Roger McDowell gets [$13.52](http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2015/02/25/roger-mcdowell-seinfeld-episode-royalties) every time his episode of Seinfeld is on. Which, in turn, reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry has hundreds of checks for something like $1.10 each from a commercial he did airing. Really, the answer could be similar though without the “small checks” angle. They could just be getting a somewhat nominal amount from the syndication airings to be paid out monthly or quarterly. Ten episodes could net a person $150 total, for instance. I’m just guessing though. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/9 "2015-03-02T16:38:25Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I’m sure someone with better knowledge will come along. I know that some of it is tied into contracts and some of it is governed by the [SAG agreement](http://www.sagaftra.org/content/residuals). > > What I really came to post was this recent article that says that former Mets pitcher Roger McDowell gets [$13.52](http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2015/02/25/roger-mcdowell-seinfeld-episode-royalties) every time his episode of Seinfeld is on. It’s this way of thinking that made me ask the question. The residual payments were all well and good when Fox was the only one showing episodes, and it was maybe an hour or so a night (plus I would assume since Fox owns the show the payment would be less), but now that it’s on cable, and in such numbers too, that the payments would be insane. The cast could work for damn free and just live off of the residuals. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/10 "2015-03-02T17:42:45Z")
IIRC the usual residual agreement was a decreasing scale. You’d get a set amount for the first few showings, then the amount decreases with additional repeats. I know that the old Standard Contract allowed for maybe 2 repeats total. This was renegotiated when cable, DVD, etc. became popular. I’m sure we have Dopers who are familiar with the current contract situation. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/11 "2015-03-02T18:25:54Z")
> [@Fleetwood](#): > > So should Hollywood include an actor’s wealth or status into account when casting a program or movie? They could select an actor or actress who needs the work. Dan Castellaneta played a homeless guy on _How I met Your Mother._ Even had he given his fee to a real homeless guy, it remains as dubious as had Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mitt Romney dressed up as cheery hobos in a sketch designed to raise money for some worthy cause. Hollywood always has had a problem depicting the wretched of the earth, from earnest left-wingers from the 1930s on acclaiming them as heroic backdrop for the fascinating struggles of the director’s surrogate in focus, to the snarling denizens who hover around burning oil-cans for warmth in the grittier versions of the future, to the failsafe default of happy-go-lucky scamps, quite content with a good meal inside them — there was an episode of _Monk_ where a trio of tramps had wandered in from the Great Depression. Sitcoms moved rather from plain folks — _Married With Children_, _Newhart_, _According To Jim_, latterly _Mike And Molly_ — to the very rich — _Friends_, _Rules Of Engagement_, _How I Met Your Mother_, _Two And A Half Men_ — partly because poverty is excessively boring, but also because being without money cares enables people have the time and lack of restrictions needed to engage in wacky hijinks and cross-talking misunderstandings — yet they could avoid openly mocking the destitute with such juxtapositions. Sitcoms which satirized the very rich, such as _The Powers That Be_ seem less successful than those who laugh at the misery of the dispossessed. If they weren’t using the latter as comic fodder they could be aligning themselves with those who wish beneficial change for those homeless. If Hollywood wishes to portray the lives of the urban poor as one long spree of good times and conviviality that is their affair, but engaging multimillionaires to play that poor is just off. Should you get the charming Nicolle Kidman suffering endlessly as a Parisian washerwoman in an adaption _inspired by the writings of Emile Zola_, or the cast of a Dance Reality show making a serious film portraying cotton-pickers, _inspired by the writings of B. Traven_ the distance between the two — equally valid — realities, would come off as exploitative and patronizing. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/12 "2015-03-02T18:34:07Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > They could select an actor or actress who needs the work. > > Dan Castellaneta played a homeless guy on _How I met Your Mother._ Even had he given his fee to a real homeless guy, it remains as dubious as had Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mitt Romney dressed up as cheery hobos in a sketch designed to raise money for some worthy cause. > > Hollywood always has had a problem depicting the wretched of the earth, from earnest left-wingers from the 1930s on acclaiming them as heroic backdrop for the fascinating struggles of the director’s surrogate in focus, to the snarling denizens who hover around burning oil-cans for warmth in the grittier versions of the future, to the failsafe default of happy-go-lucky scamps, quite content with a good meal inside them — there was an episode of _Monk_ where a trio of tramps had wandered in from the Great Depression. > > Sitcoms moved rather from plain folks — _Married With Children_, _Newhart_, _According To Jim_, latterly _Mike And Molly_ — to the very rich — _Friends_, _Rules Of Engagement_, _How I Met Your Mother_, _Two And A Half Men_ — partly because poverty is excessively boring, but also because being without money cares enables people have the time and lack of restrictions needed to engage in wacky hijinks and cross-talking misunderstandings — yet they could avoid openly mocking the destitute with such juxtapositions. > > Sitcoms which satirized the very rich, such as _The Powers That Be_ seem less successful than those who laugh at the misery of the dispossessed. If they weren’t using the latter as comic fodder they could be aligning themselves with those who wish beneficial change for those homeless. > If Hollywood wishes to portray the lives of the urban poor as one long spree of good times and conviviality that is their affair, but engaging multimillionaires to play that poor is just off. Should you get the charming Nicolle Kidman suffering endlessly as a Parisian washerwoman in an adaption _inspired by the writings of Emile Zola_, or the cast of a Dance Reality show making a serious film portraying cotton-pickers, _inspired by the writings of B. Traven_ the distance between the two — equally valid — realities, would come off as exploitative and patronizing. Being an actor is a job, not a charity. They should give the job to someone who will portray it the way it should be portrayed and that is by someone who is a professional actor. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/13 "2015-03-02T18:45:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There have been cases where actors don’t get residuals. Donald Sutherland is a famous example. When they were making _Animal House_, the producers wanted to lower the expenses of making the movie so they offered him ten thousand dollars plus a share of the movie’s future profits. But Sutherland didn’t think the movie would do very well and he wanted to get paid all his money up front in case it flopped. So he eventually signed a contract that paid him sixty thousand dollars but had no future residuals. > > Sutherland has said the residuals he turned down in that first offer would have paid him over twenty million dollars in the years since the movie was released. There’s a similar plot point in **Inside Llewyn Davis**. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/14 "2015-03-02T18:51:19Z")
How do Netflix and Hulu and the like change the situation? Am I increasing Matthew Perry’s bank account when I binge-watch Friends on Netflix? Or did the cast members get a negotiated one-time payout to have available through streaming? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/15 "2015-03-02T18:55:26Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > If Hollywood wishes to portray the lives of the urban poor as one long spree of good times and conviviality that is their affair, but engaging multimillionaires to play that poor is just off. Should you get the charming Nicolle Kidman suffering endlessly as a Parisian washerwoman in an adaption _inspired by the writings of Emile Zola_, or the cast of a Dance Reality show making a serious film portraying cotton-pickers, _inspired by the writings of B. Traven_ the distance between the two — equally valid — realities, would come off as exploitative and patronizing. Bullshit. Only the poor can play the poor? You have to be kidding me. They’re actors - with the exception of a few like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, they have had to work their way up in a profession that can be very cut-throat and under-paying. So what if they are now millionaires. Baseball is America’s Sport - does that mean millionaires can’t play it because most of us Merkins aren’t? ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/16 "2015-03-02T19:00:29Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Baseball is America’s Sport - does that mean millionaires can’t play it because most of us Merkins aren’t? No, but that does mean if you make a movie ABOUT baseball you can only bring in baseball players to act in it, while paying them the same wages as an actor, so the money just gets transferred between millionaires. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/17 "2015-03-02T19:08:04Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Sitcoms moved rather from plain folks — _Married With Children_, _Newhart_, _According To Jim_, latterly _Mike And Molly_ — to the very rich — _Friends_, _Rules Of Engagement_, _How I Met Your Mother_, _Two And A Half Men_ — partly because poverty is excessively boring, but also because being without money cares enables people have the time and lack of restrictions needed to engage in wacky hijinks and cross-talking misunderstandings — yet they could avoid openly mocking the destitute with such juxtapositions. You kinda defeated your own argument there, considering Mike and Molly is on the air right now, and Friends, HIMYM, and Two and Half Men aren’t. And one of the most popular shows right now is called “Two Broke Girls.” ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/18 "2015-03-02T19:17:32Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Bullshit. Only the poor can play the poor? You have to be kidding me. They’re actors - with the exception of a few like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, they have had to work their way up in a profession that can be very cut-throat and under-paying. So what if they are now millionaires. Baseball is America’s Sport - does that mean millionaires can’t play it because most of us Merkins aren’t? Damn Brits like Anthony Hopkins taking away good-paying roles for decent hard-working American psychopathic cannibal murderers. As for the OP and residuals, the answer in general is it depends. The cast of Star Wars famously signed away the rights to any of the marketing of the films, so that the stars didn’t get a single buck from the toy sales, lunchboxes, etc. Carrie Fisher famously joked to George Lucas that “Every time I look in the mirror I have to send you a check for a couple of bucks.” Wild guess, but I’m thinking for Simpsons they worked out some sort of lump sum rather than a percentage. I’m sure the specific answer is out there somewhere as it seems every four years or so the renegotiation of the contracts becomes fairly public. As for Netflix, Hulu, etc., I don’t think airings there are any sort of a per viewership residual. Neither Fox NOR Netflix gets an extra dollar if I watch Firefly once or 20 straight times, so it stands to reason there wouldn’t be any calculation to remit to the actors. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/19 "2015-03-02T19:18:40Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > If Hollywood wishes to portray the lives of the urban poor as one long spree of good times and conviviality that is their affair, but engaging multimillionaires to play that poor is just off. Should you get the charming Nicolle Kidman suffering endlessly as a Parisian washerwoman in an adaption _inspired by the writings of Emile Zola_, or the cast of a Dance Reality show making a serious film portraying cotton-pickers, _inspired by the writings of B. Traven_ the distance between the two — equally valid — realities, would come off as exploitative and patronizing. Oh, geez… talk about getting your panties in a self-righteous twist over nothing. So by your logic, only actual veterans should play soldiers? Or only medical pros should play doctors in movies? That’s kind of the point of you know… acting. It’s all fantasy, and it happens that acting is a fairly highly paid profession when you get to the major network TV and movie ranks. So to use the ultimate example, how pissed are you that Oprah Winfrey plays slaves and other poor people? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009/20 "2015-03-02T19:58:29Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > You kinda defeated your own argument there, considering Mike and Molly is on the air right now, and Friends, HIMYM, and Two and Half Men aren’t. I said latterly for _Mike and Molly_. > [@](#): > > And one of the most popular shows right now is called “Two Broke Girls.” Those girls aren’t that broke. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-simpsons-and-residual-payments/714009.md?page=2)