Latest news with #TheSimpsons
Yahoo
4 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.
See - Sada Elbalad
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- See - Sada Elbalad
'The Simpsons' Executive Producer Confirms 'Marge Simpson Is Not Dead'
Rana Atef In recent days, social media blasted after fans speculated the death of "The Simpsons" iconic character, Marge Simpson, after a scene in the Season 36 finale. It seemed that fans misunderstood the scene leading them to believe her death. Fans started to share memes, tribute posts, and digital mourning on social media, sparking an outpouring of nostalgia and sadness. The episode in question, titled 'Estranger Things', aired on May 18, but it wasn't until this week that the emotional moment gained widespread attention. The story is set in a speculative future, where Bart and Lisa have grown distant as adults. Lisa is now the commissioner of the NBA, and Bart runs an unlicensed retirement home ,which Homer resides in, funded by Lisa. Through the episode, a funeral scene reveals a tombstone engraved with: 'Beloved wife, mother and pork-chop seasoner.' Fans were led to believe Marge had died. The storyline takes a touching turn when Lisa finds an old video message from her mother, urging her children to stay close. This sparks a reunion between Bart and Lisa, who renew their sibling bond as Marge looks down from heaven in a comedic twist, she is seen coupled with Ringo Starr of The Beatles, joking about a heavenly buffet's 'shrimp tower.' But despite the wave of reactions online, fans can rest easy: Marge is not actually dead. Executive producer Matt Selman addressed the viral misunderstanding in an interview with Variety, saying that in the world of The Simpsons, 'there is no canon.' 'The Simpsons doesn't even have canon!' Selman clarified. 'Since '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.' Selman also criticized the media for sensationalizing the storyline for clicks, noting that many headlines deliberately misled readers. 'Every single media outlet that ran this story knew that in no way was Marge dead,' he said. 'But they ran the headline anyway. I guess this speaks to the fact that people care about Marge.' Marge Simpson isn't going anywhere. Marge is alive. read more New Tourism Route To Launch in Old Cairo Ahmed El Sakka-Led Play 'Sayidati Al Jamila' to Be Staged in KSA on Dec. 6 Mandy Moore Joins Season 2 of "Dr. Death" Anthology Series Don't Miss These Movies at 44th Cairo Int'l Film Festival Today Amr Diab to Headline KSA's MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 Festival Arts & Culture Mai Omar Stuns in Latest Instagram Photos Arts & Culture "The Flash" to End with Season 9 Arts & Culture Ministry of Culture Organizes four day Children's Film Festival Arts & Culture Canadian PM wishes Muslims Eid-al-Adha News China Launches Largest Ever Aircraft Carrier Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Videos & Features Tragedy Overshadows MC Alger Championship Celebration: One Fan Dead, 11 Injured After Stadium Fall Lifestyle Get to Know 2025 Eid Al Adha Prayer Times in Egypt Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War Arts & Culture Zahi Hawass: Claims of Columns Beneath the Pyramid of Khafre Are Lies News Flights suspended at Port Sudan Airport after Drone Attacks Videos & Features Video: Trending Lifestyle TikToker Valeria Márquez Shot Dead during Live Stream News Shell Unveils Cost-Cutting, LNG Growth Plan Technology 50-Year Soviet Spacecraft 'Kosmos 482' Crashes into Indian Ocean
The Guardian
16 hours 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.
Time of India
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The Simpsons Season 36 finale shocker: Is Marge really dead? Here's what we know so far
The season 36 finale episode of The Simpsons left fans devastated. After Marge Simpson was killed by the show's creators, viewers are left wondering how the series will carry on without one of its main characters. The internet has been on fire with rumors about whether or not Marge Simpson will make a comeback to the show in upcoming seasons since her death. The conclusion of Season 36 of The Simpsons explained The audience sees Marge killed off and the character marry Ringo Starr in heaven in the 36th season finale episode, Estranger Things. Even though the character dies many years after the show's current timeline, Marge's tombstone says, "Beloved wife, mother, pork-chop seasoner." The older versions of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are also shown gathered around the grave, looking heartbroken, and the audience also sees Homer crying during the funeral. Additionally, Lisa discovers Marge's emotional will in the video format before becoming an NBA executive. The mother of five says to her daughter as she plays the video that she wishes Lisa and Bart would always support one another. In the episode's last scene, Marge declares, "I'm just so happy my kids are close again," as she proudly watches them from heaven. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cuối cùng, chơi miễn phí game chiến thuật hay nhất 2025! Sea of Conquest Phát ngay Undo However, Ringo Starr calls them out and tells them that they are running late for the "heaven buffet." Will Marge Simpson Make a Comeback? As was already mentioned, Marge died years before The Simpsons' current timeline. As a result, the character isn't truly dead yet and will return in later seasons. The main character's departure in the most recent episode is just one of the many flash-forward moments that the show's creators frequently include. The Simpsons can be streamed on Disney+ for seasons 1 to 35. Hulu is now streaming the most recent season.
The Independent
21 hours 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.
