“The Simpsons” returns on Sunday, Sept. 27, on Fox with a Season 38 opener (“The Children’s Book Job”) that parodies children’s books, featuring guest voice Emma Thompson as a beloved children’s book author who comes to town for a benefit to save Springfield Elementary from closing.
In one sequence, Homer daydreams that Springfield and its citizens have turned into settings and characters from kids’ books like “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” Richard Scarry’s universe, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus,” “Captain Underpants,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and more.
“The genesis of this was, when you’re lucky enough to work on ‘The Simpsons,’ you can ask yourself, ‘What kind of cool thing can we portray in the Matt Groening/‘Simpsons’ style that we’ve never done?’” says executive producer Matt Selman. “And one of those are classic children’s books, like ‘Make Way for Ducklings.’”
Selman calls the episode a “love letter” to that world of children’s books. “I love my love letters,” he says. “Richard Scarry, Eric Carle from ‘The Hungry Caterpillar,’ all these generational children’s artists. We got really excited about that.”
Dan Vebber is the credited writer on the episode, while Matthew Nastuk is the director; Selman says Vebber and co-executive producer Mike Price cooked up the story idea, “a take on the ‘mild-mannered person has to get crazy person from ‘Point A’ to Point B’ kind of story … Two people thrown together in crazy situations become friends, become enemies and then become friends again. I love a good ’80s movie structure. So, for all the people who still love ‘Get Him to the Greek,’ this is the episode for you!”
Homer is enlisted to pick up Constance — and, realizing that he has been spending too much time ignoring his family and playing a free game on his phone, ultimately decides to make up for it by saving the day.
“It makes a lot of great points about parenting and trying not to be a checked-out parent,” Selman says. “And this line I like in it, Homer says, ‘children’s books are a better parent than I’ll ever be.’ It’s a good little bit of truthfulness there from Homer.”
As for “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII” (Oct. 25), the original opening is a “Simpsons”/“Nightmare Before Christmas” mashup, produced by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios — featuring “Simpsons” versions of the “Nightmare Before Christmas” characters.
Another segment is described as “Freaky Friday” meets “Pet Sematary,” where “Homer accidentally kills Bart and the dog and buries them, and they come back just having their bodies switched. And in the third one, “Homer mysteriously vanished years ago, and the teenage versions of Bart and Lisa find out that evil witch versions of Patty and Selma have trapped him in endless murderous Driver’s Ed films.”
“One of the great joys of this job is to do these little collabs with industries you’re not part of, like fast food or video games or toys or theme parks or whatever,” Selman says. “These collectible cups are just gorgeous and pretty high quality. Like everything we do, they sold out in one second. Yeah. Now they’re on eBay for $200. I said, ‘make sure you make enough cups!’ And they said, ‘we know about how many cups to make.’ And guess what? They didn’t!”
S tier? “People love to rank things on the internet as part of our reductive society that we live in, right? People will rank things between F-D-C-B-A, and then S is the best. And people will do it for everything. What’s the best protein drink? What’s the best Alan Moore graphic novel? So, the movie’s going to be S tier. That’s my promise to you.”
Here’s an exclusive first look at Emma Thompson in the premiere episode:
