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<\/p>\nEight hundred episodes, 37 seasons, and one four-fingered family that refuses to age.<\/p>\n
As The Simpsons hits a milestone few series have ever glimpsed this weekend, the architects behind Springfield are reflecting on the choices that turned crude 1987 shorts from The Tracey Ullman Show into a cultural juggernaut.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve done 800 episodes, and I\u2019m really glad we didn\u2019t do a big overarching story,” said Al Jean, executive producer and former showrunner. “You always return to square one at the end of the show. And there\u2019s no question that was a big influence on the longevity.”<\/p>\n
For Matt Selman, the current showrunner, the Simpsons\u2019 refusal to age is a liberation that simultaneously raises questions about the weight of their long history: “Do these characters have the emotional memory of the 800 things that have happened to them? I don\u2019t really know the answer to that.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, show creator Matt Groening views reaching nearly four decades’ worth of production as a triumph tinged with perfectionism.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve spent 38 years now trying to get them to draw the characters correctly,” Groening said. “We\u2019ve got to figure out how to shift perspective and do it more cinematically and we\u2019re always trying to improve.”<\/p>\n
Episode 800, Irrational Treasure, airs Sunday (Monday NZT) in the US.<\/p>\n
The voices behind Springfield<\/p>\n
Nancy Cartwright arrived at her 1987 audition expecting to read for Lisa Simpson. She had other ideas.<\/p>\n
“Hi Matt. Nice to meet you. I was out there and I noticed that there\u2019s Lisa, that\u2019s fine, 8-year-old middle child, but then there\u2019s this Bart,” Cartwright recalled saying. “I\u2019d kind of like to do him.”<\/p>\n
Groening agreed to the “switcheroo” immediately. “She completely channelled him,” he said.<\/p>\n
Nearly four decades later, Cartwright notes that “there are still people that yet don\u2019t know that it\u2019s a woman that does the voice”. <\/p>\n
The role has become inseparable from her identity. “It\u2019s become such a part of my lifestyle. I\u2019m used to doing it all the time, and I\u2019m not looking forward to the day when we\u2019re done,” she said.<\/p>\n
Lisa Simpson\u2019s defining characteristic emerged just as spontaneously. Animator David Silverman, who drew the original outline for the show\u2019s iconic opening sequence, recalled a production meeting where the middle Simpson child lacked a signature moment.<\/p>\n
“We don\u2019t have a gag for Lisa, we have a gag for everybody else. What should we do for Lisa?” Silverman reflects. “And I suggested, \u2018Well, maybe she\u2019s in the band and maybe she plays a tuba’. And so Jim (James L. Brooks) said, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t know about the tuba but what if she played the baritone saxophone? In fact, what if she played it really well? That could be her character, she could be the genius kid of the family that nobody appreciates’.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lisa Simpson and Bart Simpson cut-outs on display (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n
From controversy to institution<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s path to becoming a global institution was paved with early outrage. Groening remembers when Bart Simpson was deemed a threat to American classrooms \u2014 he relished every moment of it.<\/p>\n
“That was the best move ever when the culture decided The Simpsons was too outrageous,” Groening said. “And if you wear a Bart Simpson Underachiever T-shirt to school, you got kicked out. That was the best thing for us.”<\/p>\n
When Fox executives asked whether the show targeted kids or adults, Groening said the creative team made an immediate choice that defined everything that followed. “We said it\u2019s for adults,” he recalled. “And that was the best instantaneous decision that we made because it meant that we could do a wide range of jokes.”<\/p>\n
As the internet arrived, so did a new breed of critic. Groening admits the “Comic Book Guy” character \u2014 Springfield\u2019s perpetually dissatisfied nerd \u2014 was created as a direct response to early online fans declaring every new episode the “worst episode ever”. <\/p>\n
“I like analysis and I like criticism,\u201d Groening said. “But \u2018That\u2019s not funny\u2019 and \u2018That\u2019s boring,\u2019 that annoys me. Those are to me the laziest reactions you can get.”<\/p>\n
His prediction for the show\u2019s future carries characteristic sarcasm. “Well, I can tell you this because we are time travelers,” Groening joked. “The Simpsons will be on in a thousand years. Still on. Unfortunately, fans are going to say the show\u2019s been going downhill for the last 500 years.”<\/p>\n
Predictions, presidents and pop stars<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s supposed ability to predict the future \u2014 including a 2000 episode where Lisa inherits the presidency from \u201cPresident Trump\u201d \u2014 has become internet legend.<\/p>\n
Jean offered a simple explanation: “Well, the predictions are accidental. We\u2019re not from the future.”<\/p>\n
But modern technology has turned prophecy into fraud, according to Selman.<\/p>\n
“The predictions are all fake now,” Selman said. “They\u2019re just done by AI. And people all go, \u2018Oh my God, how do they do it?\u2019 I throw up my hands in despair for the gullibility of mankind.”<\/p>\n
Guest stars have become a hallmark of the series, from Michael Jackson to Lady Gaga to the Rolling Stones. Jackson\u2019s 1991 appearance in Stark Raving Dad came after he cold-called Groening.<\/p>\n
“I was working late in my office at 10pm My phone rang \u2026 \u2018Hi, this is Michael Jackson.\u2019 And I hung up because, you know, it was obviously a prank. And he called back, \u2018No, really, don\u2019t hang up,\u2019” Groening recalled.<\/p>\n
While the show secured the King of Pop in Season 3, one prestigious group has consistently declined invitations to Springfield. “The ones that never said yes were US presidents and I don\u2019t think we\u2019re ever going to do that,” Jean said.<\/p>\n
The Simpsons in the streaming era<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox brought The Simpsons to Disney+, introducing the show to new generations \u2014 and generating some exclusives not factored into the 800-episode count.<\/p>\n
“The fact that The Simpsons is on Disney+ has really exposed us to a new generation,” said Selman. “If it\u2019s an 8- to 12-year-old\u2019s favorite show for two or three years of their life before they move on to something else, that\u2019s a big win for us.”<\/p>\n
Streaming has also liberated the show from commercial constraints. “The thing that\u2019s loosened up for us is the time, because things are tied to commercial breaks,” Groening said. “We still do three acts, or sometimes four acts, because we\u2019re on the Fox network. But for the stuff for Disney, we go wild. And we can stretch out a little bit.”<\/p>\n
No end in sight<\/p>\n
For Jean, the show\u2019s greatest achievement is in the personal connections forged over decades. “I\u2019ll have people come up to me and say, \u2018My parents were splitting up. I was going through a bad time as a kid and your show got me through it.\u2019 And I just would go, \u2018Oh, this couldn\u2019t mean more.\u2019”<\/p>\n
Silverman sees that same impact as the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition. “People often asked me when I wanted to be a cartoonist and animator and said, \u2018What goals do you have?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know. The only goal that I would love to see happen is to be involved in some animation project that makes a difference to people.\u2019 So I guess I can check that one off.”<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s no end in sight,” Jean said. “We\u2019re gonna go to Season 40, at least. Full steam ahead.”<\/p>\n
For Groening, the future remains as open-ended as the series itself: \u201cBelieve it or not, there\u2019s still stories that we haven\u2019t gotten around to that are just in my head that I want us to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight hundred episodes, 37 seasons, and one four-fingered family that refuses to age. As The Simpsons hits a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,417,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-284820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-television","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}