'The Simpsons' Team Talks Celebrating 600th Episode in Virtual Reality, Upcoming Hour-Long 'Empire' Send-Up
Fox celebrated Sunday’s 600th episode of The Simpsons early with a special virtual reality demo and panel featuring the brains behind both the show and Google’s cutting-edge Spotlight Stories. The traditional couch gag that starts every Simpsons episode has been turned into a 360° VR experience surrounding the viewer with jokes.
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Simpsons executive producers Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, and Matt Selman were joined by director David Silverman — who directed the VR couch gag — as well as Google’s Jan Pikaba and Karen Dufilho, who spearhead the company’s efforts to turn VR into a genuine storytelling medium.
Seeing the couch gag in VR – it will be available after the episode airs on Sunday and can be viewed by anyone with a smart phone and a $5 cardboard viewer – doesn’t require much in the way of mental gymnastics. Panel moderator Mike Schneider likened it to the “old version” of VR: The Universal Studios Simpsons ride where, no matter where you looked, there were different visual gags. “In some ways, I think we’ve been preparing for this,” said Silverman. “Simpsons has always had a lot of jokes crammed into the frame.” VR was simply a matter of placing them on a sphere instead of a flat piece of paper. (A pro tip for watching the VR: Look for the bird. “The thing is, how do you keep a narrative going when people can look anyplace?” said Brooks. “I thought I was a genius because I said, ‘Let’s have a bird fly where we want to look.’” He walked around patting himself on the back for the innovation. “Then today, I was asking various people, ‘How about when the bird..?’ And nobody noticed!”)
In the “Planet of the Couches” gag, the Simpsons find themselves on a planet where humans are enslaved and couches rule. It’s a gag that the writers have been holding in reserve for quite a while — “In case an episode ever ran too short,” admitted Jean. When they were approached by Google, it gave them the opportunity to expand on the idea.
“It’s our soul food to go into areas that we don’t belong in,” said Brooks. In addition to the theme park ride, there was also the 7-11 conversions — where convenience stores all over the nation were turned into Kwik-E-Marts — as well as last season’s live episode, which relied on both star Dan Castellaneta’s improv skills as well as Silverman manning a sort of “puppet” board that animated Homer on the fly.
Later this season, they’ll also have their first hour-long episode, a send-up of another Fox hit, Empire (though “Who Shot Mr. Burns” was a two-parter, it wasn’t written as a single script). “The Simpsons is famous for its expertise in the world of hip-hop,” joked Selman. The episode will feature original rap songs written for it by Jim Beanz, who produces the music and hip-hop for Empire, as well as some “secret” guest stars who will be revealed later.
Brooks says that Google has some other technological innovations that they’re already working to bring The Simpsons into. Groening has simpler aspirations though: “I want to do an audiobook of Homer Simpson reading The Iliad.”
Could the show go another 600 episodes? Maybe. The producers have been using their “We’re halfway there” joke for quite some time, it turns out. “David Mirkin [former showrunner and current producer] said it at the 200th read,” recalled Jean, “and it got a huge laugh. ‘400? Who could do 400?’”
As ever, they don’t take their success for granted. When a fan in the audience revealed that he was born on the same day as the Simpsons premiere, Jean asked, “Do people say to you, ‘Why don’t you quit?'”
Episode 600 of The Simpsons airs Sunday, Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. on Fox. A marathon of the first 600 episodes begins Thanksgiving day at noon on FXX.
