What we have in store for The Simpsons season 20

 

Just so you know The Simpson returns with new episodes on Fox this Sunday. Most of us have grown up with the Simpsons and have helped shape our twisted personalities into who we are today. There was a time when The Simpsons was always very funny, but it has since gone to sleep and become less and less funny. I saw a couple good episodes last season, but nothing that made me rave about it. An easy way to judge how much The Simpson have lost their edge is by the Holloween Specials. Remember how the Treehouse of Horror episodes use to be so amazing!? Now they are lame as ever. Season 20 is among us and I came across an interview at io9 with Al Jean, executive producer and head writer of the show and talks about what we have to look forward to this season.

Anne Hathaway Jodie Foster and Seth Rogen are all already down for celebrity cameos. Can you elaborate on their roles?

We actually recorded Ellen Page this week. Jodie Foster is in a trilogy episode, it's powerful women through history. We do a parody of The Fountainhead where Maggie Simpson is in a preschool, where she trying to build these beautiful block buildings and the preschool teacher keeps knocking them down for being creative. In at the end she goes on trial like in the end of The Fountainhead, and Jodie Foster does her voice.

Anne Hathaway is really sweet and Bart likes her and tries to hide his true identity from her, [and pretend] that he's not a brat. But she eventually she finds out that he lied to them and they break up, but she was so much fun to work with.

Seth Rogen also co-wrote the episode. What he does is the comic book guy creates a superhero called Everyman. His power is power that whatever comic book he touches, he gets that power. So they make a movie staring Homer and Homer is overweight and doesn't look like a superhero, so Seth Rogen plays the personal trainer who is going to get him into shape.

This could actually be a decent episode. The only reason I say that is because Seth Rogan had a hand in the writing and the Simpsons needs some good writers again.

Everyone loves the "Treehouse Of Horror" after 19 years of doing it are you having a tough time coming up with that big episode this year?

No, this year we really made a fun one. It airs November 2nd, so we're hoping doing a little thing about the election where Homer tries to vote for Obama but the machine keeps changing it to McCain and finally kills him. We do a satire of the fact that they can take dead celebrities and put them in commercials. So Homer starts killing living celebrities so he can put them in commercials. Then we have a parody for the first time of The Great Pumpkin from Charlie Brown. Our character The Grand Pumpkin, totally different legally, comes to life and is so mad about the way humans treat pumpkins that he tries to kill them all.

The election this sounds pretty lame. The dead celebrity thing could be promising but The Great Pumpkin parody is the best one out of the bunch. It still wont be as good as The Shinning.

Do you think there should be an ending to the show?

We signed the cast for four years, including this one, just recently. The Emmy was wonderful. I really feel like creatively we're still doing terrific work I don't see an end for a while. The movie and the ride did really well.

So Homer is an Obama supporter?

It's time for a change, so he actually is going to vote for Obama. So he goes to vote and it says one vote for McCain, he tries to hit it again and it says two votes for McCain and then he hits it three times and there are three votes for McCain. The machine starts trying to kill him and it says, "must warn President McCain."

I love it when The Simpsons incorporates new technology into the episodes will their be any stunning or crazy science fiction moments like Homer breaking over into our world again?

We have an episode that will air in March where homer gets some poison to kill some rats in his kitchen that are like Ratatouille, and he leaves Maggie on the doorstep of the convent and they take her and it becomes a whole Davinici Code. They have some use for Maggie in this convent that may involve world peace. It's got National Treasure elements in it. It's a really cool complicated story. It's a little more visually stylistic.
If we had a funny comedic presence for something we haven't done before, I thought the 3D Halloween show I thought was really great. We did pretty much what you wanted to do with it. We try things as they come along, if something has a good comedic purpose, we will use it.

So there it. The Simpsons are coming back. I can only hope this season is better than the last 5 or 6. They have a few good ideas. Now lets see if they can make them funny. I really want The Simpsons to be funny again. I am rooting for a great season. We will just have to wait and see if they will deliver the goods now. They better start! We have at least 4 more years! Are you excited? Do you even care anymore?