Where ‘The Simpsons’ Goes From Here, According to Showrunner Matt Selman

After beginning the season with Disney+ exclusive episodes along the way, The Simpsons concludes its 36th season this Sunday on Fox with plenty of gas still left in the tank. After all, it was just weeks ago that a four-season renewal for the show was announced, which would bring the series to a nice, round 40 seasons. Could that landmark number be the point at which Springfield shuts its doors for good? Or are the Simpsons now legacy characters destined to run forever like their owner Mickey Mouse?

And, if The Simpsons does continue on, what of its cast? This past season, Pamela Hayden, the voice of Milhouse and other beloved characters, retired, making her the first original cast member to do so. Others wonder if, by the time Season 40 rolls around and there are 800 plus episodes in existence, there will be anything left for the show to say?

Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman ed me via Zoom to answer these questions and  more as well as explain where The Simpsons goes from here.

Congratulations on the renewal. Was there ever any question about it?

I never had any concern that we wouldn’t be renewed. Everyone working on the show knows that it’s the greatest job, creatively, in the world. Obviously, it’s a job. Jobs have frustrations. No job is perfect, but in of careers and what remains of show business, this is the best one out there. Everyone on our team — from the lowest P.A. to Dan Castellaneta — is super grateful and appreciative of how we’re protected and respected by Fox and Disney. I never worried for a second, and I worry about everything.

Does a four-year renewal make you plan things out any differently?

I’m thinking one episode at a time. There’s no plan. There’s no bandwidth for grand plans, unfortunately. In my mind, it’s just about making sure there’s emotional storytelling and comedic biodiversity over the course of the season. That means small episodes, big episodes, personal episodes, satirical episodes — it’s all kinds of different storytelling. Make sure we cover every character in the family and also spread out to the town. There’s no grand plan. Our show isn’t really designed for grand plans. It’s really designed for one mini movie at a time.

With this renewal taking you to Season 40, is the thinking that it’s these four seasons and that’s it?

Certainly no one has said “that’s it” to me. It’ll be 40 seasons and 860-something episodes, but again, I’m just doing it one day at a time, staying one piano lesson ahead of the kid.

For you personally, is this something you see yourself doing for the next four years or the next 30 years?

I don’t know. Probably. I’ll definitely be around for four years and who knows what will happen after that. Who knows if any of us will be around in four years. I’m not super worried about it. 

Do you have any white whale guest stars for the show still? 

I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll think of all those things the day I retire. My white whale is that every show is special and good and fun and cinematic and there aren’t that many animation mistakes. That’s my goal.

Continued above-averageness is the goal. I wish I had a little more energy for big things, but I’m not quite sure what. I certainly want to keep doing what people call format-breakers, or conceptual episodes. I want to keep doing stuff that only we can do. We have a parody coming up of the animation of cartoonist Jules Feiffer. No one else is doing that. I have nothing bad to say about Universal Basic Guys, but I doubt they’re doing a Jules Feiffer parody because they’re still trying to establish themselves. If anyone’s established, we’re established, so let’s do things that — I can’t say we’re going to educate the world — but we can at least confuse them in an interesting way.

Are those the episodes that get you the most excited? The conceptual episodes?

Yeah, but I love the episode we did a year ago called “Bart’s Brain,” which felt like it could have been a Season Three episode.

In the non-conceptual, more traditional episodes, it seems like you guys still have a lot of fun with unique character pairings. For example, this season you had an episode where Grampa teams up with Moe.

Yeah! With Moe and Grampa, we were like, “These are two lonely weirdos who’ve never had a story together.”

With Pamela Hayden leaving this season, have you given thought to how the show might handle future cast changes? Is that something you’re worried about or thinking about?

Golly, I hope not. What have you heard?

I’m just wondering if you think of these characters as legacy characters like Bugs Bunny or Kermit the Frog where they may continue on forever, even past the current people voicing them?

I can’t worry about existential threats to the show. What I worry about is: Are Jim Brooks and Matt Groening going to like the table read on Thursday? I mean, obviously, if Hank Azaria is eaten by a bear this weekend, I don’t know what we would do. It would really suck, that’s for sure.

Hank, always keep your bear spray on your body because I don’t want you to get eaten by a bear.

Going with that example though, if Hank Azaria is eaten by a bear… I don’t want to use the word “replaceable,” but are these characters —

None of them are replaceable. Have any of the other Kermits ever sounded like Kermit? They can scour the planet for Kermit. They can have a global Kermit talent contest every year and find the best Kermit, but it’s never going to sound like Jim Henson. So, should one of our actors be eaten by a bear, then it will never sound the same. It will always be a line in the sand.

Can you talk a bit about what’s coming up for next season?

We’re having fun digging deeper into the side characters. We’re doing a Chalmers episode where he becomes a manosphere kind of guru selling male beauty products. We have a really terrific Lisa and Marge show about the culture of thrifting that’s so popular with the kids. Another side character we get deep into is Professor Frink. We have a little bit of his emotional backstory — that’s exciting. There’s one about the Quimby family. We get deep into their backstory in a very creative way. Then we have another batch of three more Disney+ exclusives.

Is the idea for the Disney+ episodes to still be more conceptual?

Yes. We’re going to have one episode with two distinct stories in it, both distinct, kind of dystopian stories. There’s also another one in the Cesar Mazariegos Fargo-type streaming parody, but not Fargo, a different world. 

I’m thinking now about the episode this season called “Shoddy Heat” that’s set in the 1980s and it’s a noir story with Grampa as a private eye. That’s one of those episodes where some fans got upset about The Simpsons seemingly rewriting its history. I guess my question about that is: Is any canon sacrosanct to you?

The fans love having strong opinions, and if they have a favorite philosophy about what happened or didn’t happen or how everything could fit together, I’m not going to challenge that. If they think that’s what makes a good show — that everything fits together in a perfect puzzle — that’s valid. That’s how they truly feel. I don’t know why they feel that way, but if that’s how they feel, it’s fine.

We would never let canon stop us from doing a fun story, but what is canon or what is sacrosanct is that we try to write the characters as truthfully to who they’ve always been, even though they are flexible characters.

Do you think they’re looking at it wrong? Again, should they view these characters like a Bugs Bunny, where every episode is a new world that these characters are acting in?

I can’t say that they’re looking at it wrong, I’ll just tell them how I’m looking at it. It’s like Groundhog Day, except all our characters have a vague idea of the things that happened in the past, but they certainly have no emotional memory of every other episode because then they’d be psychologically paralyzed by mania. 

If it makes our viewers feel good to apply a standard of rationality to an elastic world that, from day one, was inherently contradictory and subversive and playful, they should feel it. Feel what you want to feel. But I don’t feel, creatively, that it’s good to be married to a timeline or to be married to canon.

You said that since day one, The Simpsons’ reality has been fluid. Is there a personal favorite early example of that that you can think of?

There’s a moment, I think in Season Four, where Homer, Bart and Lisa are in the living room and Lisa says that cartoons don’t have to be realistic, and then another Homer walks by the window. That’s as much of a beloved Simpsons classic moment that you will ever come across. 

When you go into an episode like the Grampa-in-the-1980s one, do you worry that some fans will be pissed?

I think the typical fan doesn’t care about continuity. They just watch the show with their family, and hopefully, they’re briefly diverted from the horrors of the world. That’s the typical fan and viewer. The percentage of people who think about the continuity of The Simpsons is a very small percentage. They’re great. Please keep watching. Please continue to be outraged by what you perceive to be continuity errors. We value all watching. 

But that’s a small percentage of fans, and I don’t believe being playful with that stuff has ever cost us real fans because real fans know the show is silly. I don’t want to seem negative about any of our fans. I love that they’re ionate and they’re smart and they really care. That’s amazing, so I don’t want them to stop watching. I want every fan to keep watching.

Will Apu come back?

I can’t talk about Apu right now. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Last one, is Marvin Monroe dead or alive?

I have no idea.