Last week saw a large amount of documentaries focusing on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Fifteen years ago, actor, director and producer Harry Shearer, known for his iconic roles in The Simpsons and Spinal Tap wrote and directed The Big Uneasy. The experts who investigated the 2005 flood in New Orleans tell what they learned–and what the major media never covered. New Orleans’ story not covered by out-of-towners.

Shearer attended UCLA as a political science major and was on the staff of its student paper. He also worked as a newscaster at KRLA, a top 40 radio station in Pasadena.

Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show. The program is a sequence of themed satirical news commentary segments, interspersed with music and sketch comedy, that takes aim at the “mega morons of the mighty media”. It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States.

The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes and by WWNO. On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called Songs of the Bushmen, consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on Le Show.

Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that “the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place” and that “everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people’s lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls ‘satirists’ don’t work that way.”

The Big Uneasy is full of data that points to The Army Corps of Engineers’ flawed practices and their impact on New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Shears’ project posits that faulty engineering, questionable decisions and complacency within the Army Corps of Engineers were the true culprits behind the levee failures and subsequent flooding that took place.

The film is currently streaming on YouTube and you can watch the full documentary below. Shearer will be attending the New Orleans premiere of his latest film, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues 7 p.m. Sept. 13 at the Broad Theater.