‘The Simpsons’ surprise series finale explained

The Simpsons he did it. After 35 years, TV’s longest-running sitcom has aired its series finale.

Make that “series finale”. There will be more episodes — after all, it’s the 36th season premiere — but “Bart’s Day” is The Simpsons‘ takes on what an ending might look like, satirizing not only the idea that the show could ever end, but the concept of series finales in general. It’s proof that after all these years, The Simpsons can still find new ways to subvert both the sitcom form and viewer expectations.

Inspired by the season ten parody clip show “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular”, “Bart’s Birthday” is formatted as a hosted special. But instead of just showing clips from the past and making up fake ones — although there are some of those — host Conan O’Brien is introducing a brand new AI-written episode designed to be the series finale. The episode-within-an-episode mostly follows Bart as he watches the show’s characters go through clichéd, overly sentimental ending-type lines with ever-increasing consternation. The result is an irreverent, mega-meta, sneaky touch The Simpsons episode that is both gloriously landmark and unlike anything the show has done before. Earlier this week, while still tweaking the final version of the episode, showrunner Matt Selman, the person largely responsible for the show’s recent revival, explained what the hell the writers were thinking.

When you write for The Simpsonsyou get asked a lot about what a final episode might be like. It’s a tough question for Selman, who has been working on the show since 1998, because he believes The Simpsons “It was never built to have a final episode.” As a comparison, he points out Groundhog Daywhere each episode resets. “It can go on forever because it doesn’t have a hard canon or dense continuity,” he says. More than that, The Simpsons was “meant to reject the notion of banal endings”. So when asked about a possible ending, he usually said that there wasn’t really an answer.

After the 2023 strikes, when Selman managed to make the press, he found himself in Australia and was asked the same old question. But this time, during an interview, he hit him: “What if we did a fake ending that mocks endings, wrapping things up, but then dismisses it in a The Simpsons– How? When Selman returned to LA, he spoke with Mike Price, who has worked on the show since 2003, and writer Jessica Conrad, who has been there since 2020. They thought about what Fox would actually do if there was a The Simpsons finale and landed on the idea of ​​a grand, star-studded celebration that would serve as a meta-elimination of showbiz’s self-mythologizing and poke fun at the reverence some fans have for a certain era of the show. And to promote the case of the latter, they knew exactly what star to bring.

Photo: Fox

In “Bart’s Birthday,” Conan O’Brien hosts the final celebration, as did Phil Hartman’s Troy McClure in “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular.” Conan, who worked The Simpsons for two seasons and wrote what is generally considered one of the show’s great episodes, “Marge Vs. the Monorail,” represents the show’s so-called golden age, and the writers were interested in poking fun at that symbolic power. They roast Conan, giving him a requisite dig at his wig hair and having him make jokes like, “It’s an honor to be here for the series finale of The Simpsons. They knew I was right for the job because I hosted the last episode of three of my own shows…and counting.”

This role was always written for Conan, but there was a certain risk that he would be offended. Selman says, however, that Conan was “smart enough and funny enough to know that he was 100 percent the best person to tell this story.”

Photo: Fox

While Conan’s role is central to the episode’s conceit, the vast majority of the cameos in “Bart’s Birthday” are just animated audience members. This meant the show didn’t have to ask their permission, although Fox Legal had the writers give Conan the line: “This theater is filled with many celebrities who have appeared on The Simpsons over the years, who came to say goodbye. I took you to scale then; we get you for free tonight!” (However, Seth Rogen had to give permission because the show used his laugh from an earlier episode.) Tom Hanks reprized his role as himself in The Simpsons Movieeven improvising a line, and for the episode within the episode, the AI ​​had John Cena appear as himself, which struck Selman as the type of stunt star the show would try to get for a finale .

However, there was a cameo even Selman and the writers did not anticipate. Historically, on the rare occasions that Maggie has spoken on the show, stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster have been brought in, but in the original version of this episode, series regular Nancy Cartwright said a Maggie line (“What’s up with his ass?” ). When I pointed this out to Selman, he realized it was a missed opportunity for an episode so focused on elevating the show’s legacy. That was just it six days before the episode aired, which Selman called “not too late” to text his producers to see how much a last-minute change would cost. On Thursday afternoon, Amy Sedaris came to record the final cut.

Photo: Fox

Coming off the 2023 strikes, where AI was a major topic, the writers saw this as the perfect time to step in. “AI is good at regurgitation, but not at imagination,” says Selman. So they envisioned feeding the AI ​​every series finale and having it spit out the least imaginative episode possible, full of characters repeating finale clichés.

For example, Principal Skinner announces that he is leaving to become the principal of a school in Sacramento as “a delightful mid-season replacement,” adding, “I’ll no doubt find a whole new cast of eclectic characters to interact with, and also Groundskeeper. Willie will be my roommate.” Bittersweet music plays as Skinner says, “I’m gonna miss this place,” as he turns off the lights, a nod to the classic The Mary Tyler Moore Show final. The episode continues in this fashion, mocking other ending clichés such as babies (Comic Book Guy’s wife Kumiko Nakamura gives birth) and surprise inheritances (Mr. Burns dies, first as a prank and then for real, accidentally leaving his the wealth of the plant staff). ), each culminating in characters walking the same row and turning off the lights. Over time, Bart rejects these moments, such as when he puts the camera on the moon in an attempt to stop Krusty from recording a final performance.

Bart’s growing panic in the face of all these endings represents his role as what Selman calls “The Simpsons alpha.” The first element of the show to really break out, Bart embodies it The Simpsonsbasic irreverence and rebellious spirit, even if the series has expanded to present more and more other characters. At first, the episode revolved around Bart pulling the biggest prank of all time, but James L. Brooks suggested changing the framing device to a birthday party for “the longest-running kid of 10 years in the world”, which was not only felt with the eye. cliché, but also spoke to end-friendly themes of growth and change.

Photo: Fox

Selman admits he’s a bit of a Bart Simpson himself, especially when it comes to teasing some of the The Simpsons a fanbase that delights in pointing out how “the show sucks right now.” The episode takes a direct shot at such fans when Conan quips, “When the first episode aired in 1989, viewers agreed on one thing: It wasn’t as funny as it used to be.” This sets up the meta gag that Fox has been trying to wrap up the show for years, and that many classic episodes were actually designed to be finales, which is followed by a series of reimaginings of iconic scenes where things go horribly wrong in very dark ways. .

Perhaps the biggest middle finger to grime fans comes late in the episode-within-an-episode, when the real-life Principal Skinner (from season nine’s controversial “The Principal and the Pauper”) is reunited with his mother. That reveal — that the Skinner we know is actually an impostor named Armin Tamzarian — remains one of the worst moments in the show’s history, but 27 years later, Selman thinks fans should get over it. “Which we just added pretty late in the game,” Selman says. “I was just like, Screw it. Let’s burn it. Let’s poke the bear.”

Photo: Fox

The Simpsons Purists aren’t the only target for Selman and the writers. They also wanted to do the writer’s equivalent of making people in the media and online spheres never discuss the show unless it can be used as fodder for thought. So the episode leads to a confrontation between Bart, who doesn’t want to turn 11, and Homer, who through couples therapy is trying to change and be a better man, husband and father. Bart won’t accept this and prods and coaxes Homer until, in classic fashion, he strangles Bart.
This may surprise some, as in a November 2023 episode, Homer said of Bart’s strangling, “I’m not doing that anymore. Times have changed.” This became massive news, but according to Selman, if there has been any decrease in the number of strangulations, it’s because “some of those things you’ve just done a million times.” With this episode for Selman, it came down to strangulation just being “part of the DNA of the show, so if anything could destroy the simpsons, it would be a very nice strangulation”

And it works. By the end of the episode, everything resets and Bart remains at 10. Conan tearfully admits that this must actually be the season premiere, causing the celebrities to boo and riot. As the credits roll, eagle-eared viewers (how’s eagle hearing?) will notice an instrumental version of “They’ll Never Stop the Simpsons,” the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” parody that played at the end the movie. season 13 clip-show episode “Gump Roast” and mocked the type of gimmicky episodes the show would have to do to keep going. Selman wrote the original 22 years ago, but never liked the line “They’ll never stop The Simpsons”, because he just wanted the chorus to repeat “Sorry for the clip show”.

“But now,” he says, “we’re bringing it back and owning it.”