Live! From a secret Fox bunker: It's Homer Simpson!
If TV can do live musicals, why not live cartoons?
The Simpsons will offer its own twist on live TV in Sunday's episode (Fox, 8 ET/PT), with the final three minutes scheduled to feature bumbling patriarch Homer answering viewer phone calls during both East Coast and West Coast broadcasts.
A Simpsons episode takes months to animate, but producers are confident that motion-capture filming has advanced to the point where a live broadcast is possible. From there, the decision to do it was simple, says executive producer Al Jean.
The production value is "so good I thought we should do it before someone else did,” he tells USA TODAY. “It will look just like the show.”
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In Sunday's "Simprovised," Homer performs poorly during a speech at the nuclear plant, so wife Marge brings him to a comedy club to lift his spirits. Homer is intrigued by improvisational comedy and uses it to get his confidence back.
“What we set up is that Homer is the greatest improv guy of all time,” Jean says.
That leads into a live, improvisational performance by Dan Castellaneta, the Emmy-winning actor who voices Homer and many other Simpsons characters. He will be with producers in a room – "a secret Fox bunker," Jean says – in front of a microphone.
“Dan will talk into a mic, and his movements will be captured live and translated into Homer animation,” says Jean. (The background has been animated in advance.) “You have jokes in the background, but those are pre-animated. He can’t interact with the background, but I think for three minutes, it’s really good.”
After a brief written opening, Castellaneta – er, Homer – will comment on events of the day to prove the scene is live and take questions. A Twitter submission will be selected, and other questions will come from fans calling (888) 726-6660, Sunday from 8 to 8:30 p.m. ET and PT. (Callers must be 18 or older.)
“The phone is what I think makes it dangerous, so that’s what (creator Matt Groening and executive producer James L. Brooks) wanted to do, which is great,” Jean says.
He has confidence in Castellaneta’s ability to perform live.
“Most of it is going to be Dan, who does improv all the time, responding to whatever they’re going to throw at him,” Jean says. “There’s no better guy for it.”
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Questions must relate to the Simpsons world as if it were real, since Homer doesn’t know he's on a TV show. A seven-second delay will prevent unacceptable language or prank calls, but Jean offers another incentive to avoid bad behavior: “You will have wasted your chance to be on The Simpsons.”
Sunday’s episode is the show's 595th, an amazing number that leaves The Simpsons trailing Gunsmoke by just 40 episodes for the prime-time scripted series record. Fox's current deal runs through episode 625, guaranteeing episodes into fall 2017. The actors are under contract even longer, through a 30th season.
“I hope we go beyond 625, but no one’s going to go, ‘Only 625?’ ” Jean says. “Whatever we do is great.”