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Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Simpsons Season 36 premiere.
The Simpsons kicked off its Season 36 premiere, with the show finally coming to an end! …Just kidding! Rather than formally ending the longest-running prime-time animated sitcom in television history, the Season 36 premiere, “Bart’s Birthday,” parodied series finales of popular shows with a fake one. The meta, fourth-wall-breaking episode featured Conan O’Brien voicing himself and hosting a special ceremony for the show’s series finale. Instead of an actual series finale, “Bart’s Birthday” unfolds as one of the best episodes of The Simpsons in recent memory. It’s time to unpack the premiere of The Simpsons Season 36 and what it means for the iconic, long-running hit series!
‘The Simpsons’ Is Ending?!
In one of the most clever setups for a Simpsons episode, “Bart’s Birthday” is based around a star-studded ceremony celebrating the “series finale” of The Simpsons. The ceremony’s emcee, Conan O’Brien, a former writer of the show, introduces a special AI-powered computer, HACK-GPT, to create the ultimate series finale after it’s been fed every existing episode of the show. The show also wickedly pokes at its own television history, noting how FOX network executives have been trying to cancel the series for years. This comes in the form of wild alternate endings to some of the series’ most famous episodes. The alternate “almost series finale” endings even match the older animation style of classic episodes.
HACK-GPT attempts to produce the perfect series finale for The Simpsons by crafting a story where Bart Simpson (Nancy Cartwright) finally turns eleven years old for the first time in the series’ 36-year history. Before his birthday, Bart starts to notice peculiar events. Some characters are achieving personal breakthroughs and getting new jobs or finally leaving Springfield. The AI-programmed Bart realizes something is off and discovers his world is coming to an end. Somehow, the AI-powered computer program version of Bart gains sentience and fights back against HACK-GPT’s programming, causing Homer (Dan Castellaneta) to strangle him, something viewers haven’t seen Homer do to Bart in years. This results in a glitch in the programmed episode, keeping Bart from turning 11, so The Simpsons is saved. Then, O’Brien reveals the big twist and states that the shocked and angry celebrities in attendance have not been watching the series finale: “It’s the premiere!”
‘Bart’s Birthday’ Is a Hilarious Riff on TV Series Finales
The Simpsons has been on for so long that the very idea of a series finale sounds absurd. Additionally, how do creator Matt Groening and producers making the show even begin to come up with a finale worthy of such an iconic, long-running series? Sometimes it feels like The Simpsons will continue as long as the world keeps spinning. “Bart’s Birthday” ingeniously parodies overused tropes and clichés of most final episodes of popular television shows, and it pokes fun at The Simpsons’illustrious history. The episode features crazy cameos from some characters the show has not seen in a while, such as Homer’s half-brother Herb Powell (Danny DeVito) and the real Seymour Skinner. Remember, the person who assumed the role of Principal Seymour Skinner (Harry Shearer) in the show is named Armin Tamzarian. The episode also playfully riffed on the topical generative AI controversy by having the HACK-GPT robot construct the episode using all the episodes from old Simpsons DVD sets as its prompts.
The epilogues, or “endings,” for many of the show’s mainstay characters were amusing, satirizing how television shows usually show their veteran characters changing for the better at the end. Either that, or they move away from their hometown, setting up the characters in a new spin-off show. For example, one character epilogue scene features actor and WWE Superstar John Cena making a hilarious special guest appearance, helping Comic Book Guy (Hank Azaria) and Kumiko (Jenny Yokobori) deliver their baby. The Simpsons pulled this off using its unique, self-deprecating lens that came off as refreshing and funny in a way the show has not been for years. Obviously, this is not the type of episode The Simpsons can pull off every week, but Season 36 is at least off to a great start.
‘The Simpsons’ Is Only Renewed Through Season 36
While “Bart’s Birthday” is not, in fact, a series finale for the long-running show, The Simpsons has only been renewed through Season 36 by FOX. That means “Bart’s Birthday” might retroactively become the season premiere of the show’s final television season. With Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Studios, The Simpsons is now a Disney-owned property airing on a Fox Corporation-owned network. Disney has commissioned the production crew to produce multiple special episodes for Disney+. The existence of Disney+ and Hulu likely assures that there will be a future for The Simpsons, in some form, after the show’s run on Fox ends. However, what that future will entail beyond the upcoming specials remains to be seen.
Previously, Disney and Hulu commissioned new seasons of another Matt Groening animated series, Futurama, which recently concluded its twelfth season of new episodes on Hulu, with at least twenty more on the way. Another classic FOX animated series now owned by Disney, King of the Hill, will make its way to Hulu with new episodes later next year. Disney has yet to confirm Season 37 of The Simpsons, but veteran shows such as Futurama and King of the Hill receiving new seasons on Hulu certainly raises confidence that Disney and 20th Century Animation will want to continue producing new episodes of the show on streaming platforms.
New episodes of The Simpsons Season 36 air Sundays on FOX.
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