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‘The Simpsons’ Live Episode Details Revealed By Executive Producer Al Jean

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 13:48 PST, May 7, 2016

The Simpsons is jumping on the live TV bandwagon. The long-running Fox animated comedy will feature a partially live episode that will have fans interacting with Simpsons patriarch, Homer. The live interaction will come in the final minutes of the episode “Simprovised” when viewers will be given a 1-888 number and a few lucky fans will get to ask a question to the Simpsons dad, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The highly anticipated Simpsons episode will feature a storyline about Homer, who has a fear of public speaking, attempting to do improv. But the final three minutes of the show will have voice legend Dan Castellaneta, who voices Homer, improvising as well as he answers questions from viewers on the fly.

Simpsons executive producer Al Jean told EW that producers had been mulling over a live episode as far back as 2007, but at the time, the motion capture technology wasn’t up to snuff. But given the advances in technology and a tried and tested Fox Sports/Adobe program, the live Simpsons will finally hit the small screen as the show’s animators attempt to animate Castellaneta in real time while the actor provides ad-libbed answers for two separate live segments during the East and West Coast broadcasts.

“[Motion capture technology] used to have electrodes wired into the person. Now they don’t,” Jean said. “The actor just speaks into a mic, and the camera records his motions, and transfers it to the character onscreen.”

Jean added that the backgrounds behind Homer won’t change and he won’t be able to interact with any previously animated characters that are in the background. But the exciting part of the live Simpsons segment will be that a current news event could make it into the Q&A.

“Dan Castellenata does improv all the time,” Jean said. “We couldn’t have somebody better to be doing it… We’ll be there to screen questions and maybe think about [jokes] if there’s a big event that day… God only knows, if Donald Trump says something stupid, we might make a joke to lead off. But in general, it’s just going to be Dan. That’s what makes it live. That’s what makes it exciting.”

The famed producer said another part of the excitement of live television is the occasional glitch (think Saturday Night Live), so he’s not worried about what to do if something minor goes wrong during the live Fox TV experiment.

“That’s the excitement of live television. And to my knowledge, no animated show has done this before,” Jean said.

And for those naysayers who think the questions will be planted ahead of time, the longtime Simpsons EP told The Wrap that the show’s producers will find ways to “prove” that the segment is live, which means something up-to-the-minute could make it into the segment. It’s a no brainer that they will probably try to include the viewer questions that are the most timely, too.

The Simpsons has been a Fox staple for 27 seasons and has aired nearly 600 episodes in its nearly 30-year run, but the live segment is by far the most ambitious endeavor we have ever seen from Homer and the rest of the Springfield crew.

As for how he expects the live Simpsons episode to pan out, Al Jean told EW it could go one of two ways.

“I think this is going to be really incredible — or incredibly terrible,” he said.

The Simpsons live episode will air Sunday, May 15 at 8/7c on Fox. Take a look at the video below for more on The Simpsons live episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1HwTYft854

[Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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