The Simpsons has a stacked list of guest stars in the Season 36 premiere debuting this Fall. The iconic animated series revealed that former Simpsons writer Conan O’Brien will return for a major guest spot in the season premiere during its panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, July 27, and he’s not the only big name. Vice President Kamala Harris also made a surprise virtual cameo during the panel.
O’Brien will be joined by Tom Hanks, Danny DeVito, and John Cena as guest stars when The Simpsons returns on Sunday, September 29 on Fox. The episode is titled “Bart’s Birthday,” and the producers said they’re taking a big swing with the plot.
“It’s kind of crazy, star-studded premiere,” showrunner Matt Selman said during the panel, per Variety. “It’s a pretty bold, big idea.”
Selman was joined on the panel by creator Matt Groening and producers Rob LaZebnik, Tim Bailey, and Jessica Conrad. The main event of the panel was to tease the show’s 35th Halloween special, Treehouse of Horror 35. The Simpsons will be teaming up with Stoopid Buddy of Robot Chicken to create a parody of Sony/Marvel’s Venom called Denim. The show says that Denim will be “the scariest 35th Halloween special ever.” Stoopid Buddy’s Seth Green and Harv Harvatine joined the panel to discuss the special.
Selman said that Denim is about a “deep relationship with a simple alien symbiotic pair of jeans.” It’s a really funny, silly segment about the jeans are going to be actual actual stop motion denim created by the Stoopid Buddies animators that do the Robot Chicken shows,” he told Variety. See the Denim poster below.
Fox
There will also be a “second scary trilogy” coming from The Simpsons. Titled Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes, the three new stories are inspired by the works of Ray Bradbury. Selman said they are “dark and funny and in the Halloween spirit.” Andy Serkis will guest star in one of the episodes. Treehouse of Horror 35 will come out right after Halloween, while the Bradbury parody episode will come out in November. Another Treehouse parody will be a spoof of The White Lotus called “The Yellow Lotus.”
Harris made her cameo at the end of the panel, when Groening shared a video on his phone of Harris impersonating a famous line from Treehouse of Horror in Season 8, when Kodos the alien, disguised as Bill Clinton, says, “I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!”
Earlier this week, fans on social media pointed out that The Simpsons once again predicted a real-life political outcome. After Joe Biden stepped down from his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris as the new nominee, fans pointed out the parallel between the purple pantsuit and pearl necklace that Harris wore to Biden’s inauguration in 2021. A Season 11 episode showed a flash forward to decades into the future, a future in which Lisa Simpson was President of the United States and spoke at a podium wearing a purple pantsuit and pearl necklace.
The Simpsons, Season 36 Premiere, Sunday, September 29, 8/7c, Fox
