Tag Archives: The Simpsons

Big Four Networks decide fate of your favorite series in latest renewal/cancellation news (Updates inside)

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Article originally published on 5/7/15. Continually updated after the break.

It is May, and the Upfronts are right around the corner. Before the networks make official their upcoming slate of fall shows, they must decide the fate of current series.

ABC made waves Thursday evening, announcing a whopping 16 renewals and 3 cancellations. Without further ado, the following series will be making their way back to the Alphabet network next season.

Shonda Rhimes’ “TGIT” lineup remains in tact, as Grey’s Anatomy (season 12), Scandal (s5), and How to Get Away with Murder (s2) will all return for more intense drama. Veteran Castle (s8) and ABC staples Once Upon A Time (s5) and Nashville (s4) are also coming back–no surprise there. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (s3) is here to stay as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to unfold on TV; also, the TV gods thankfully heard our collective cries to keep Marvel’s Agent Carter on the air which will return for a second season! The low-rated, critically acclaimed American Crime is also getting a sophomore run, as is the surprisingly fun murder mystery series Secrets and Lies.

Over on the comedy side, veteran Modern Family (s7) remains the network’s crown jewel, and other Wednesday night sitcoms The Middle (s7) and The Goldbergs (s3), and black-ish (s2) will follow suit with new seasons next fall. Freshman series Fresh off the Boat and musical Galavant have also been greenlit to return. Though it hasn’t been made official quite yet, Tim Allen sitcom Last Man Standing is expected to make a fifth season. Update (5/10): LMS will return.

Last, the net’s alternative programs that have been renewed include American’s Funniest Home Videos (s26), The Bachelor (s20), Dancing with the Stars (s21), Shark Tank (s7), Beyond the Tank (s2), and newsmagazine 20/20.

Those series not returning include dramas Resurrection and Forever and Friday night sitcom Cristela. While the latter two failed to find broad audiences, the former simply couldn’t manage to sustain its dragged out premise involving dead people coming back to life (good luck, The Returned!). Fans will surely hold onto Resurrection‘s quietly superb 8-episode first season, and thankfully, the season 2 finale happened to bring much closure to the story.

As I teased before, this is just the beginning, people. Hold onto your hats because the Upfronts are coming next week!

Jump after the break for other renewal/cancellation news from the big networks. Continue reading Big Four Networks decide fate of your favorite series in latest renewal/cancellation news (Updates inside) →

Brilliant ‘Simpsons’ premiere “couch gag” takes Homer to an unsettling future

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The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom in TV history; last Sunday it entered its 26th season. The premiere featured one of the series’ best “couch gags” and I’ve embedded it above for your viewing pleasure. Directed by animator Don Hertzfeldt, the sequence imagines what the animated series might look like far into the future. It’s spectacularly bizarre and trippy and absurd and at times a bit disturbing and quite unsettling. Take it all in and share your experience in the comments below.

‘The Simpsons’ renewed for two more seasons

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The longest-running comedy in television history just extended its stay. On Friday FOX announced that the Matt Groening animated series will return for record breaking 24th and 25th seasons. By the end of the season in 2013 the series will have aired 559 episodes in total. News of renewal came after weeks of infighting between producer 20th Century Fox TV and the voice actors demanding a lower salary reduction. According to Deadline “the salary cut in the range of 30% from the actors’ current paychecks of $440,000 per episode” and the license fee for the show was also reduced due to falling ratings.

In an interview EW, executive producer Al Jean shared his excitement over the news. “Our mood is elation, mixed with a sense of ‘Man, we’ve got a lot of work to do.’ Believe me, we don’t look at this as these will definitely be the last two [seasons]. We just want to keep fighting and go as long as we can…. We really feel this isn’t an end but a beginning. It’s a cliché, but it’s the truth.” He went on to comment about how The Simpsons might end when the time eventually comes. “I don’t think we’re a serialized show and I don’t think we’re going to have a Lost finale where we reveal some truth about the world that nobody ever suspected. Whenever we do a last episode, we just hope that it would be sweet, true to the characters, funny, and give you a nice feeling for where the Simpsons would be headed.” And finally he shed some light on how long the creative team plans to keep the Simpsons train chugging. “I honestly think that 30 is a goal to shoot for. I want to put The Simpsons at 30 seasons before the end of the decade. Forty sounds insane, but 25 sounded insane 20 years ago. Having seen how far it’s gone, it’s not for me to cap it…. And Gunsmoke did 635 episodes [a record for a prime-time series], so that’s something to shoot for, too.”

The Simpsons airs Sundays at 8PM on FOX. New episodes return October 30 with the annual “Treehouse of Horrors” episode. Jump after the break for the press release that details what happens in this year’s “XXII” installment.

[Via Deadline; EW] Continue reading ‘The Simpsons’ renewed for two more seasons →

Comic Con 2011: ‘Family Guy’, ‘The Simpsons’ & ‘American Dad’

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Here are Comic Con panel highlights from a couple of Seth Macfarlane cartoons and that one from Matt Groening.

Family Guy

  • The panel kicked off with a revealing clip that shared a bunch of upcoming story lines involving the Griffins and their friends. Ready, set…
  • Meg turns 18 and Quagmire hits on her; Brian takes shrooms and goes on a crazy trip; Stewie and Brian travel back in time to the pilot episode (the original crappy animation is still in tact; “It’s very “All Good Things” for you Star Trek fans,” Macfarlane says); a new Viewer Mail episode is in the pipeline; somebody tries to kill Chris; Stewie runs away from home and lives with the housekeeper Consuela; Stewie drives; Lois kidnaps a kid; Peter gets in a tussle with the Amish; Peter embarks on a road trip with Joe, Quagmire, and Cleveland; Peter and Quagmire get arrested by Joe.
  • So many guest voices next season and they include: Ricky Gervais (he’ll voice a dolphin), Cate Blanchett, Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick, and Mark Harmon.
  • Macfarlane confirmed that a Family Guy movie is happening. It’s just a matter of when. “We’ve actually had meetings about it, which makes it real,” he said. The team is trying to figure out how to keep spitting out quality episodes and work on the feature film at the same time. The Simpsons managed to do it, so I have full faith Macfarlane and co. will get it done.
  • Macfarlane and the Family Guy voice actors spotted the American Sign Language interpreter during the panel and took advantage of him by forcing him to sign all kinds of curse words and foul situations. Funny stuff, but the joke was stretched out far too long (as FG jokes tend to do, also).
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The Simpsons

  • The Simpsons kicks off its 23rd season this September, can you believe it?! The 500th episode (!) falls on February 19.
  • A bit from this year’s “Treehouse of Horror” was shown; it features Ned Flanders in a wonderful parody of the Dexter opening credits.
  • The other clip shown was from an episode in NMA-style animation (that’s the Taiwanese company that produces CGI reenactments of popular news stories).
  • In last season’s finale Marge urged viewers to vote on whether or not Ned Flanders and Mrs. Krabappel should be together. The producers promise that the issue will be laid to rest in the premiere. If they end up together (and they likely will), Groening promises that their relationship will stay consistent in all future episodes. Groening himself admitted that he’s pro-Nedna since Ned deserves love and “Bart deserves his teacher living next door.”
  • The Simpsons family is traveling to the one continent they haven’t been to yet: Antarctica.
  • In the end, Lisa will end up with Milhouse. “I don’t know how the show will end or when, but in my heart, I think they’re going to be together,” shared producer Al Jean.
  • Check out this list of guest stars: Kiefer Sutherland, Andy Garcia, John Rivers, Jane Lynch, Jonah Hill, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim & Eric, Neil Gaiman, Gordon Ramsay, Armie Hammer, Michael Cera, and Jeremy Irons (he’ll voice Mo’s bar rag). Also, they’ll be using audio from a 1918 President Theodore Roosevelt speech in an episode where we find out Superintendent Chalmers’ hero is Teddy. Said Jean, “I thought, ‘Finally! We can put a president in the show. And a good one too. We’re going to give him a little credit at the end.”
  • When asked if we’ll ever see the Simpsons age, Groening replied “we may do it when we run out of ideas. That may be the last sad season of The Simpsons. Bart will turn 11.”

American Dad

  • Though the voice cast (including Seth Macfarlane) came out for the panel, the bulk of it was taken up by the screening of the season 7 premiere episode “Hot Water.” Cee-Lo Green guest stars as a singing maniacal hot tub and Asa Taccone (brother of SNL’s Jorma) wrote the music. Michael Peña (Crash) guest stars as the hot tub salesman. So that they could screen in the episode in its entirety, the first half of the episode was screened in black and white storyboard format as per FOX’s request. Watching this was pretty neat, actually. Character movements are not fluid, but you can really see all the hard work that the animators put into making an episode. Eventually a refreshing splash of color was introduced and the episode played out like we’re used to. Overall, the premiere is a solid episode. Cee-Lo croons over catchy Asa-produced beats throughout, and the story involving a hot tub with a mind of its own getting in-between Stan and Francine’s relationship works well.
  • During the season there’ll be an episode where a ship from outer space comes to get Roger; in it Shannon Sharpe will voice an alien bounty hunter.
  • Other guest voices include Dr. Dawg and Charles Barkley.
  • There will be plenty of musical numbers sprinkled throughout the season, too.
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FOX renews ‘The Simpsons’ for Season 23

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Shocker, right?  Next September FOX will air the 23rd season of The Simpsons, the longest running comedy in TV history.  During the next season the animated show will hit a major milestone–500 episodes aired.  In fact, the series will reach episode 515 when it closes out its next season in May 2012.  But its still got a ways to go if it wants to become the record holder for most episodes aired; it’ll have to surpass Gunsmoke‘s 635 episodes!

“Like many 22-year-olds, The Simpsons is extremely happy remaining at home, on Fox, and hopes it doesn’t have to go out into the real world for many years to come,” said executive producer Al Jean.

[Via Deadline; IGN]

Animation Domination premieres tonight on FOX

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Need your animation fix?  The Simpsons (8pm), The Cleveland Show (8:30pm), and Family Guy (9pm) premiere tonight (9/26) on FOX!

In “Elementary School Musical”, Lisa goes to performing arts camp where she meets friends (voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, and Amber Riley) and artsy counselors (Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords).  The 22nd season of The Simpsons will be jam packed with guest voices.

In “Harder, Better, Faster, Browner”, Cleveland helps struggling rapper Kenny (aka Kanye) West by encouraging him to record a new hit single.  Get a taste of “Be-Cleve in Yourself” here.  The episode also packs other Kanye references including a humorous nod to the Swift incident and a montage backed by Late Registration‘s “Touch the Sky.”

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The one-hour Family Guy premiere “And Then There Were Fewer” plays out like a cinematic murder-mystery in a case of whodunit.  James Woods invites virtually all of Quohag to his ominous mansion where all the light drama unfolds.  Fun fact: Family Guy has finally gone HD this season!

Glance at the premiere stills above, and get ready for three hours of animation domination tonight on FOX.  (American Dad fans–your show premieres next Sunday, October 3).

[Via IGN, here, here & here; FOX]

The Simpsons season 22 guest voices: House, Gleeks, Potter, Rudd, Hamm, FOTC & more

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Can you believe that Matt Groening’s 1987 creation is coming into its twenty-second season this fall?  What’s even more crazy is the awesome list of guest voices The Simpsons team plans to use this season.  In the season premiere “Elementary School Musical” Lisa goes to a performance arts camp.  There she will be greeted by artsy counselors Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords fame and a bunch of excited campers voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, and Amber Riley.  House‘s Hugh Laurie and Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) will lend their voices to October’s “Treehouse of Horror” episode.  Later in the season Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, baseball’s Mike Scioscia, and sports writer Bill James will appear in an episode titled “MoneyBart.”  This year’s holiday special “The Fight Before Christmas” will get a kick with Martha Stewart.  Other guest voices that will pop up throughout the season: Halle Berry, Ricky Gervais, Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy), Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Mother), Cheech & Chong, Danica Patrick, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; also Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) will reprise his role as Fat Tony.  Excited?  The Simpsons 22 premieres Sunday, September 26 on FOX.

[Via IGN]

Marge Simpson in Playboy..revealed!

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Remember that cover image of Marge Simpsonon the latest issue of Playboy?  If there were any doubters that it was a fake they will be silenced today.  Marge Simpson’s pictorial has been revealed.  In addition to the–..hrm..I’m not sure how to describe it..–photo above, be sure to check out the gallery below for the others.

If you like what you see, the November issue of Playboy Magazine is out on newsstands now.

[Via FameCrawler;Reelloop]

Marge Simpson to cover Playboy

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Marge Simpson, Playboy, Cover

Marge Simpson is about to make history by becoming the first cartoon to cover Playboy Magazine.  She “will be featured in a three-page pictorial complete with an interview and a data sheet to mark The Simpsons‘ 20th anniversary.”  To finally find out if the blue doo matches the carpet, be sure to pick up the next issue of Playboy this November.

[Via E!]