Watch: Did 'The Simpsons' Really Retire a Major Character After Nearly 30 Years? The TruthDon't expect a fond farewell from The Simpsons anytime soon-or ever. Ahead of the long-running Fox cartoon's landmark 800th episode Feb. 15, showrunner Matt Selman revealed how a hypothetical series finale would play out for Homer, Marge and their family, insisting that their swan song wouldn't follow typical TV tropes. "If the show ever did end, there's no finale," he told The Wrap in an interview published Feb. 13. "It would just be a regular episode that has the family in it. Probably a little Easter egg here and there, but no 'I'm going to miss this place.'" In fact, the show's creative team previously explored the idea of a dramatic goodbye during the season 36 premiere in September 2024, offering a parody of conventional happy endings. "We did an episode about a year-and-a-half ago that was like a parody of the series finale," Matt noted. "We jammed every possible series finale concept into one show, so that was my way of saying we're never going to do a series finale."readSimpsons' Nancy Cartwright Details Bond With Niece Sabrina CarpenterAfter all, even though the Matt Groening-created series has been on the air since 1989, the town of Springfield and its inhabitants have stayed largely the same over the years.20th Television"The show isn't supposed to change," Matt explained. "The characters reset every week. It's like Groundhog Day but they don't know it-and they don't die that much." Indeed, various characters have been killed off for good over the years, like when Larry the Barfly-who appeared in the show's very first episode-died during season 35. The show even depicted Marge's death during a flash-forward scene in May, but after a wave of strong reactions online, Matt assured fans the matriarch's demise was purely hypothetical. "Obviously since The Simpsons future episodes are all speculative fantasies, they're all different every time," he told Variety in June. "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 The Simpsons celebrates its 800th episode, keep reading for more on the beloved animated sitcom...

Disney1. The Simpson family first appeared as a series of shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987 after creator Matt Groening passed on an initial offer to turn his Life in Hell comic strips into animated shorts. According to the creator, he hurriedly sketched the family while waiting in the lobby for his pitch meeting. 2. Groening named all the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name. Why Bart? It was an anagram of the word brat. 3. They soon became the most popular thing about Ullman and producer James L. Brooks, who'd recruited Groening, realized they should be their own series, ultimately negotiating a provision in the contract with Fox that prevented them from ever interfering with the show's content.

Disney4. The family is yellow because Groening wanted something that would grab people's attention as they flipped through the channels. He told the BBC that "an animator came up with the...yellow and as soon as she showed it to me I said: 'This is the answer!' When you're flicking through channels with your remote control, and a flash of yellow goes by, you'll know you're watching The Simpsons." 5. The first full-length episode produced, "Some Enchanted Evening," did not broadcast until May 1990, as the first season's last episode, because of animation problems that delayed the show's launch from fall until December 17. 6. Groening drew each of the Simpson family members to be instantly recognizable in silhouette, leading to their distinctive hairstyles and head-shapes.

Disney7. Oingo Boingo frontman and composer Danny Elfman was approached by Groening to create a "retro-style" theme for the opening sequence. The iconic piece of music, believed to be the most popular in Elfman's career, took him only two days to create. 8. The show's lengthy opening sequence was developed to cut down on animation necessary for each episode, however three elements change from episode to episode: Bart's chalkboard message, the music played during Lisa's sax solo, and the closing couch gag, the length of which varies based on the needs of that particular episode. 9. Groening chose Springfield as the show's setting because of how common a city name it is in America, appearing in at least 29 states. Despite revealing to Smithsonian Magazine in 2012 that it was named after Springfield, Oregon, near his hometown of Portland, he intentionally kept the fictional town's state obscure. "In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield,'" he told the magazine. "And they do."Disney10. The Bush family were not fans of the show. In October 1990, then-First Lady Barbara Bush called the show "the dumbest thing [she] had ever seen," prompting the show's wri