Latest news with #Springfield
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Marge lives! Here are 3 other ‘Simpsons' characters that returned from the grave — and 3 who stayed dead
You can't keep a good Simpsons matriarch down... or up in heaven for that matter. The Simpsons recently ended its 36th season on Fox with a flash-forward episode revealing that Marge Simpson (voiced by Julie Kavner) has gone to her great reward — in this case an afterlife where she's married to Ringo Starr. Far from being thrilled for her eternal soul, fans freaked out about Marge's future fate. And their fury forced executive producer, Matt Selman, to go on the record reminding everyone that death is an elastic concept in the show's animated universe. More from Gold Derby Fast cars vs. killer dolls: 'F1,' 'M3GAN 2.0' gear up for box-office showdown 'Squid Game' Season 3: Reviews warn of a divisive WTF sprint to the finish line "The Simpsons doesn't even have canon," Selman told Variety on Thursday. "Since the The Simpsons future episodes are all speculative fantasies, they're all different every time. Marge will probably never be dead ever again. The only place Marge is dead is in one future episode that aired six weeks ago." As longtime viewers know, Springfield is regularly littered in corpses after every "Treehouse of Horror" installment, only to see those characters walking around again in non-zombie form immediately afterwards. And like Selman said, trips to the future don't come with permanent death sentences. Even in the present day, some characters have seemingly shuffled off their mortal coil only to return without missing a beat. But there have also been several instances where Springfield's Grim Reaper has refused to allow characters a return trip. Here are three Simpsons that have famously stayed dead — and three that have followed in Marge's sainted footsteps back to the land of the living. Larry Dalrymple Nearly one year before Marge's supposed death, the series really did kill off Moe's Tavern regular Larry the Barfly. And he died like he lived — quietly over a pint of beer. "We really wanted to use Larry's death as a way to show that even the most peripheral people in our lives have dignity and worth, and that we really shouldn't take anyone for granted,' co-executive producer Tim Long told Variety after the episode aired. Maude Flanders Ned's better half was knocked over a Springfield Speedway railing by a T-shirt cannon way back in Season 11. And even though she's popped back up in the frame from time to time in the decades since, her sudden passing has stayed canon. Edna Krabappel Springfield Elementary's best teacher was retired from the cast following the 2013 death of Marcia Wallace, who won an Outstanding Voice-Over Performance Emmy award alongside five of her costars in 1992. The Season 32 episode "Diary Queen" officially closed the book on the character, using archival recordings featuring Wallace to craft her exit. That's par for the course for how the creative team has handled real-life passings. Two of Phil Hartman's notable characters — Z-list actor Troy McClure and fly-by-night lawyer Lionel Hutz — were benched after his 1998 death. Dr. Nick Riviera Despite being apparently crushed to a pulp during the course of The Simpsons Movie, the not-at-all-reputable doctor is still selling his snake oil treatments to Springfield residents. He does seem to know the cure for death, though... Fat Tony The Joe Mantegna-voiced mob boss suffered a heart attack in Season 22's "Donnie Fatso," seemingly leaving the town free of crime. But his place was quickly taken by his in-shape cousin "Fit Tony," also voiced by the Criminal Minds star. In the years since, though, Fit Tony lost all that muscle tone and morphed back into Fat Tony as if the latter never left. Moe Szyslak Following a close encounter with Lady Gaga in the Season 23 finale "Lisa Goes Gaga," the surly bartender ends up beneath the wheels of a train. But the lights are back on again at Moe's in Season 24, indicating that any fatal injuries he sustained were just mere flesh wounds. Best of Gold Derby Cristin Milioti, Amanda Seyfried, Michelle Williams, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actress interviews Paul Giamatti, Stephen Graham, Cooper Koch, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actor interviews Lee Jung-jae, Adam Scott, Noah Wyle, and the best of our Emmy Drama Actor interviews Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Cole Hammer: 'Right thing' to turn self in for advice-giving, resulting in pair of DQ's at KFT event
Cole Hammer had never been disqualified from a tournament in his life. Until Friday, that is, when the 25-year-old Korn Ferry Tour pro called what ended up being a rules violation on himself during this week's Memorial Health Championship in Springfield, Illinois. Hammer's admission to rules officials eventually resulted in the disqualification of both Hammer and Hammer's playing competitor, Nelson Ledesma, after it was determined that Hammer had violated Rule 10.2a, which prohibits players from giving or asking for advice from anyone other than their caddie. Advertisement The incident occurred during Thursday's first round on the par-3 17th hole at Panther Creek Country Club. Hammer had just hit 4-iron onto the green on the 232-yard hole and was watching his ball still in motion when he started walking toward his bag. That's when, according to Hammer, he crossed paths with Ledesma's caddie, Nico Torres, who then flashed four fingers, a universal signal for, '4-iron?' 'Out of instinct, I flashed '4' as well,' Hammer told via phone on Friday afternoon. 'It was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and I didn't think a whole lot about it until after the round.' That evening, Hammer reached out to a few peers for their opinion. Most felt like he was in the clear. After all, the rule against giving advice is often broken in professional golf, and usually without punishment. When caddies for Brooks Koepka and Gary Woodland were scrutinized by those who felt they violated the rule during the 2023 Masters – rules officials determined they did not – Golf Channel analyst Paul McGinley called advice-giving 'not a serious breach among players,' adding, 'This is common practice on Tour. Whether you like it or not, it's common practice. It happens in every professional tournament around the world. It's not obvious always, so blatant.' One well-known PGA Tour veteran even texted Hammer on Thursday night, saying, basically, This happens every single day on Tour. Advertisement But even then, Hammer was unsure that he could simply brush it off. 'I feel like I know the rules really well, and I've always tried to uphold them to the best of my ability,' Hammer said. 'It just didn't sit right with me last night, and when I woke up this morning, I felt compelled to go talk to the rules official and tell him what had happened.' Hammer sought out KFT rules official Claudio Rivas, who told Hammer he would get back with him after gathering more facts and meeting with chief referee Jordan Harris and a USGA representative to determine the proper course of action. Hammer shared with Rivas that he also didn't know if Torres had even seen his hand signal. Hammer added that he didn't alert Ledesma or Torres at the time because he didn't want to cause unnecessary worry if there ended up being no infraction. 'I didn't think that they would be disqualified,' Hammer said. 'I just thought since I was the one who gave the sign that I would be disqualified. And I thought that was worst-case scenario.' Advertisement Rule 10.2a fully states: During a round, you must not: 1. Give advice to anyone in the competition who is playing on the course; 2. Ask anyone for advice, other than your caddie; 3. Touch another player's equipment to learn information that would be advice if given by or asked of the other player. The penalty is usually the general penalty of two strokes, but because Hammer and Ledesma had already signed their scorecards – Hammer for a 2-under 69, Ledesma for 73 – they were subject to disqualification under Rule 3.3. It took several hours for a final decision to be made, with the disqualification not coming until Hammer and Ledesma were six holes into their second rounds. Hammer had made a bogey to drop to 1 under while Ledesma was still 2 over for the tournament; the cut line is currently projected at 4 under. The Korn Ferry Tour confirmed the reason for disqualification but did not provide further details. Advertisement Ledesma's response to which was then translated to English: 'The decision made is the correct one, according to the rules. I can't do much with it except accept it.' Ledesma, who speaks little English, added that Torres was 'shocked by the situation,' but accepted the mistake. 'I feel a lot better now that I at least got it off my chest because it was weighing me down,' Hammer said. 'It's just unfortunate that it's a caused a little storm around the tournament.' As for Hammer, he entered the week No. 73 in points. His T-23 last week in Wichita, Kansas, snapped a string of six straight missed cuts. Ledesma, 34, is No. 102 in points. 'This is something that's so abnormal to experience in a tournament, so I'm almost just going to have to cast it away like nothing happened,' Hammer said. 'It's a learning experience, and I think I'm in a better head space having called it on myself. … I'm by no means depressed about the outcome or nervous about the next stretch. If anything, I can play with a clean slate and a clear conscious and hopefully continue the play that I had in Wichita. 'There are plenty of events left, and I felt like doing the right thing and protecting the game would be better for me in the long run.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Did The Simpsons really just kill off a major character?
The Simpsons is getting experimental in its old age. With 36 seasons complete and a renewal through a 40th secured, the show has entered territory previously occupied mostly by non-prime-time stalwarts like Saturday Night Live and Meet the Press – television institutions that run for much longer than the typical sitcom or drama. Perhaps conscious that the animated comedy has now lasted five to 10 times longer than a normal sitcom, the 36th season has repeatedly toyed with the idea of what a series finale might look like, even though no such thing is anywhere in sight. For the season's premiere back in the fall, it created a fake series finale, hosted by Conan O'Brien, that featured forever-10-year-old Bart turning 11 and reacting badly to a number of finale-style abrupt changes to the status quo. And in the last episode of season 36, Estranger Things, the show flashed forward to a future where family matriarch Marge has passed away and a gradual estrangement has developed between now-adult Bart and Lisa. (Homer remains alive, with the show repeatedly underlining how unlikely it seems that he would outlive his patient, cautious and seemingly healthy spouse.) As fans caught up with the season on streaming, the finale has created a mild headline-generating controversy over whether Marge is 'really' dead, most likely among less consistent viewers who might dip back in occasionally (or get their news about the show from the internet, rather than watching it). Of course, she's not; Estranger Things is one of many flash-forward episodes the show has done over the years, generally understood to be alternate versions of the future, not pieces of a vast and interconnected timeline. The show's flashbacks are similarly intentionally contradictory; early on, Marge and Homer were young parents in the 1980s; as the show got older and they stayed the same age, subsequent flashbacks were brought further and further into the timeline. None of this makes headline news, even on a slow entertainment day. But one reason 'Marge is dead' has seemingly caught fire as an internet curiosity may have to do with the unexpectedly mortality creeping in around the edge of the show. Anyone who has watched The Simpsons in recent years, especially if they've seen a new episode juxtaposed with an older one, would have to take note of how different the characters sound. Animation may be able to preserve a character's basic look and inure them from ageing (apart from the shifts in animation technique that present subtle changes in design or movement). Animation still can't defeat, however, what the show once called the ravages of time. The Simpsons has employed a core of voice actors for nearly four decades, and who among us sound precisely the same as we did 40 years ago, if we're so lucky to have that comparison point? Marge is the character where this is most noticeable – more so than characters whose voices have been replaced by new actors for reasons of racial sensitivity. (This just means that Black actors now play Black characters, and so on.) Those newer performers bring their own style to the character, however subtle the change. But Julie Kavner, the distinctive actor who has given one of the great long-term voiceover performances of TV history, turns 75 this year, while Marge is forever on the cusp of 40. Certain line readings will sound very close to the 'original' Marge voice. More often, though, we're getting a raspier, scratchier version that sounds more like Marge's occasionally seen mother (also voiced by Kavner in a more whispery register). Harry Shearer, who voices more than a dozen major supporting characters including Mr Burns, Principal Skinner and Ned Flanders, also sounds deeper and older in recent years. That's all on top of the show's creative changes – some of which have been quite good. Under showrunner Matt Selman, the show has upped its game in recent years, actively pursuing more ambitious, format-challenging and emotionally resonant stories. Not all of them are golden-years-level funny. (Few episodes of anything are.) But the creators feel engaged with their institution, and sometimes they've even taken advantage of the modified vocals; in one recent holiday episode, Ned Flanders sounded genuinely grief-stricken in part due to Shearer's inability to hit the higher range of his usual tone. Even when the actors' changes do sound jarring, obviously it's not anyone's fault. People age – and IP, at least lately, seems to insist on defying that process, creating a difficult-to-resolve conflict. The show obviously isn't ever going to permanently kill off any of the family members, but at some point, they may be in the position of hiring someone new to voice Marge, or augmenting the performance with AI. The finale already introduced a new voice for Bart's best friend Milhouse, following the retirement of longtime voice artist Pamela Hayden. She reasonably concluded that continuing to play a 10-year-old boy well into her 70s wouldn't make much sense. Maybe that's why the most poignant element of Estranger Things isn't the death of Marge, which is handled lightly, avoiding the immediate devastation of grief with just a brief cursory shot of her funeral, and ending the episode with a short scene of her happily looking down upon her family from heaven, where she clinches with longtime crush Ringo Starr. Rather, the emotional core of the episode is the sequence in which Bart and Lisa abruptly grow out of their beloved Itchy and Scratchy cartoons after realizing the show is now also marketed toward babies, with cutesy versions of the characters adorning little sister Maggie's pyjamas. In true Simpsons fashion, this is also the funniest passage of the episode, with spot-on observations about marketing, kids' shifting tastes in popular culture and defensiveness about liking stuff that's for 'babies', complete with a spoof of a memorably emotional scene from Toy Story 2. Despite the show's jokes, the idea of the Bart/Lisa bond breaking over Itchy and Scratchy, and Marge's distress over it, is a potent one, maybe because it's precisely the kind of uncharacteristic change alluded to in the season premiere. The Simpsons has been lampshading its ability to reset its characters for decades at this point; that's the connective tissue between its heritage as a sitcom from another age, and as a cartoon across the ages. In Estranger Things, it's depicting a natural process less seismic but no less constant than death: letting go of once-beloved media and the real-world habits that accompany it. Plenty of fans will have the opportunity to let go of The Simpsons, whether by chance or by choice. The show itself, good as it sometimes is, can only play at that farewell process, experimenting with what-ifs typically subsumed into the status quo. I'm not personally eager for the show to end; my daughter still eagerly watches it, and that brought me back into the newer episodes. But there does seem to be a denial of impermanence, maybe even some frustration with that, under the show's surface. The real question isn't whether Marge Simpson will live on, but how long the show will keep contemplating endings it can't have.
The Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The Simpsons' producer clarifies Marge's death
The Simpsons executive producer Matt Selman addressed fan concerns about Marge Simpson 's apparent Death in the show's 36th season finale. Selman clarified that Marge's Death is not considered canon, stating that the show has no consistent canon due to numerous contradictory flash-forwards. The episode, set 35 years in the future, depicted Homer at Marge's grave, but Marge later appeared in a pre-recorded message and then in heaven. Selman suggested that media outlets created misleading headlines about Marge's Death to generate traffic, despite knowing it was not a permanent plot point. The long-running animated series has been renewed for four more seasons, ensuring it will surpass 800 episodes.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘So many things we still need to accomplish here in Illinois': Pritzker starts campaigning for third term
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — It's more than 16 months away from November 2026, but Governor J.B. Pritzker kicked off his re-election campaign Thursday. Pritzker started off his campaign for his third term for governor focusing on his record of turning around the state's economic conditions. PREVIOUSLY: Illinois Gov. Pritzker announces bid for 3rd term 'It's hugely important, if after 25 years of credit downgrades, we're actually moving toward being AA credit,' Pritzker said. The governor rallied across four cities– Chicago, Rockford, Peoria and Springfield –to launch his campaign, touting to supporters the difference he says his leadership has made to the state. He also plans to stop in Belleville and West Frankfort Friday. 'One by one, we have taken on the big problems of Illinois, and we have begun to or completely solve them. But we've got more work to do,' Pritzker said. He also says he needs to focus on protecting the people of Illinois from Trump administration policies. 'It feels like walking away is the wrong thing to do, given who is in the White House and given how this administration is attacking people all across this country,' the governor said. MORE: Officials react to Pritzker running for third term as Illinois Governor House Republican Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) views Pritzker's history of state spending will haunt him on the campaign trail. 'Being a third-term governor, you're not going to be able to hide what's been done in the last two terms and that's a lot of sweeps and gimmicks for the budget,' McCombie said. 'We're already going to be in the FY27 $1 billion behind.' Pritzker was a finalist for Kamala Harris's Vice President pick last year, and several political experts have speculated Pritzker will run for President in 2028. He did not answer if he was planning to be a presidential candidate. 'Every day I wake up and try to figure out what more can I do for the people of Illinois as governor,' he said. 'The reason I'm running for reelection as governor is because it gives me an opportunity to actually get those things done.'McCombie is confident he will run for president in 2028. 'You heard in his remarks today, Trump, Trump, Trump,' she said. 'You'd think he was running against Trump for governor.'The next step for the governor is announcing his running mate. Pritzker will be making this push without his second in command, as Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton is running for US Senate. He told reporters Thursday that will happen before the end of July. If Pritzker is elected, that would make him Illinois' longest serving governor since Jim Thompson who left office in 1991. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
