A writer and producer of “The Simpsons,” the longest-running TV sitcom in American history, spoke in front of a capacity crowd in the Durham Great Hall of the Memorial Union on Thursday and kept the laughs rolling for a full hour.

Mike Reiss, a Harvard-educated comedian, has written 10 episodes of the animated show, as well as 2007’s “The Simpsons Movie.” He also created the less-popular but cult-favorite shows “The Critic” and “Queer Duck.”

Reiss started on “The Simpsons” when it began in 1989. Currently on its 19th season, the program has been running almost as long as – in some cases longer than – most ISU students have been alive.

Reiss said he was amazed the show, which returned to TV just after the writers’ strike, is still on the air after all these years.

“We came back on the air with a new episode, and we were the No. 2-rated show on TV for the week, after ‘CSI: Boone,'” Reiss said. “It was a great episode. It turns out the victim was bored to death.”

The show has begun to repeat itself after 19 years, Reiss said, citing as an example Lisa Simpson’s change to vegetarianism and later to Buddhism.

“If the show keeps going,” he said, “we’ll make her a lesbian, and then a cannibal, and then we’ll send her to the University of Iowa.”

“The Simpsons” is famous for featuring a gamut of celebrity voices on the program. However, Reiss said the show has never succeeded in getting a U.S. president to come on the show. Bill Clinton considered, but Reiss said the former president told the show’s producers that he “would never do anything that would disgrace the office of the president.”

“Sometimes, they write the jokes for us,” Reiss said.

Reiss’ favorite character to write for on “The Simpsons” is Grandpa Simpson, the reason for which he said had to do with the ubiquity of the show. An audience consisting of kids and adults are watching the show, he said, but the elderly never watch it.

“When we make fun of Grandpa, we are not offending one viewer,” he said.

He then joked that the show’s ratings keep going up because the only people who don’t watch the show keep dying.

In the brief question-and-answer period that followed his speech, Reiss said he was a fan of the “other” animated sitcom on Fox, “Family Guy.”

“I think of ‘Family Guy’ as ‘The Simpsons’ after three beers,” he said. “As opposed to ‘King of the Hill,’ which is like ‘The Simpsons’ after a series of strokes.”

Before leaving the podium, Reiss said he was happy to speak to the crowd.

“That’s how much I hate L.A. – I’m happy to be in Ames, Iowa, in the middle of the f—king winter.”