LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eight hundred episodes, 37 seasons, and one four-fingered family that refuses to age.
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.
“We’ve done 800 episodes, and I’m really glad we didn’t 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’s no question that was a big influence on the longevity.”
For Matt Selman, the current showrunner, the Simpsons’ 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’t really know the answer to that.”
Meanwhile, show creator Matt Groening views reaching nearly four decades’ worth of production as a triumph tinged with perfectionism.
“I’ve spent 38 years now trying to get them to draw the characters correctly,” Groening said. “We’ve got to figure out how to shift perspective and do it more cinematically and we’re always trying to improve.”
Episode 800, “Irrational Treasure,” airs Sunday on Fox.
The voices behind Springfield
Nancy Cartwright arrived at her 1987 audition expecting to read for Lisa Simpson. She had other ideas.
“Hi Matt. Nice to meet you. I was out there and I noticed that there’s Lisa, that’s fine, 8-year-old middle child, but then there’s this Bart,” Cartwright recalled saying. “I’d kind of like to do him.”
Groening agreed to the “switcheroo” immediately. “She completely channeled him,” he said.
Nearly four decades later, Cartwright notes that “there are still people that yet don’t know that it’s a woman that does the voice.”
The role has become inseparable from her identity. “It’s become such a part of my lifestyle. I’m used to doing it all the time, and I’m not looking forward to the day when we’re done,” she said.
Lisa Simpson’s defining characteristic emerged just as spontaneously. Animator David Silverman, who drew the original outline for the show’s iconic opening sequence, recalled a production meeting where the middle Simpson child lacked a signature moment.
“We don’t have a gag for Lisa, we have a gag for everybody else. What should we do for Lisa?” Silverman reflects. “And I suggested, ‘Well, maybe she’s in the band and maybe she plays a tuba.’ And so Jim (James L. Brooks) said, ‘Well, I don’t 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.’”
From controversy to institution
The show’s path to becoming a global institution was paved with early outrage. Groening remembers when Bart Simpson was deemed a threat to American classrooms — he relished every moment of it.
“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.”
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’s 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.”
As the internet arrived, so did a new breed of critic. Groening admits the “Comic Book Guy” character — Springfield’s perpetually dissatisfied nerd — was created as a direct response to early online fans declaring every new episode the “worst episode ever.”
“I like analysis and I like criticism,” Groening said. “But ‘That’s not funny’ and ‘That’s boring,’ that annoys me. Those are to me the laziest reactions you can get.”
His prediction for the show’s 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’s been going downhill for the last 500 years.”
Predictions, presidents and pop stars
The show’s supposed ability to predict the future — including a 2000 episode where Lisa inherits the presidency from “President Trump” — has become internet legend.
Jean offered a simple explanation: “Well, the predictions are accidental. We’re not from the future.”
But modern technology has turned prophecy into fraud, according to Selman.
“The predictions are all fake now,” Selman said. “They’re just done by AI. And people all go, ‘Oh my God, how do they do it?’ I throw up my hands in despair for the gullibility of mankind.”
Guest stars have become a hallmark of the series, from Michael Jackson to Lady Gaga to the Rolling Stones. Jackson’s 1991 appearance in “Stark Raving Dad” came after he cold-called Groening.
“I was working late in my office at 10 p.m. My phone rang … ‘Hi, this is Michael Jackson.’ And I hung up because, you know, it was obviously a prank. And he called back, ‘No, really, don’t hang up,’” Groening recalled.
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 U.S. presidents and I don’t think we’re ever going to do that,” Jean said.
‘The Simpsons’ in the streaming era
Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox brought “The Simpsons” to Disney+, introducing the show to new generations — and generating some exclusives not factored into the 800-episode count.
“The fact that ‘The Simpsons’ is on Disney+ has really exposed us to a new generation,” said Selman. “If it’s an 8- to 12-year-old’s favorite show for two or three years of their life before they move on to something else, that’s a big win for us.”
Streaming has also liberated the show from commercial constraints. “The thing that’s 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’re on the Fox network. But for the stuff for Disney, we go wild. And we can stretch out a little bit.”
No end in sight for ‘The Simpsons’
For Jean, the show’s greatest achievement is in the personal connections forged over decades. “I’ll have people come up to me and say, ‘My parents were splitting up. I was going through a bad time as a kid and your show got me through it.’ And I just would go, ‘Oh, this couldn’t mean more.’”
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, ‘What goals do you have?’ And I said, ‘I don’t 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.’ So I guess I can check that one off.”
“There’s no end in sight,” Jean said. “We’re gonna go to Season 40, at least. Full steam ahead.”
For Groening, the future remains as open-ended as the series itself: “Believe it or not, there’s still stories that we haven’t gotten around to that are just in my head that I want us to do.”