Fox Renews ‘The Simpsons’ for Two More Seasons
A scene from “The Simpsons,” which will continue its record-setting run on television.
The Springfield nuclear power plant will remain operational, and it won’t be closing time at Moe’s Tavern for at least two more years: on Friday night, Fox announced that it had renewed its hit animated comedy “The Simpsons,” television’s longest running prime-time scripted series, for two additional seasons, following a contract dispute with its voice cast that had threatened to end the show altogether.
“The Simpsons,” which began as a series of cartoon shorts on Fox’s “Tracey Ullman Show,” has been on the air as a continuous series since 1989, and has become a billion-dollar business for the network and the 20th Century Fox television studio, which produces it. But earlier this week, the studio acknowledged that it was in a standoff with the “Simpsons” voice actors, including Dan Castellaneta (who plays Homer Simpson), Julie Kavner (Marge) and Nancy Cartwright (Bart), who each now earn about $8 million a year for their work on the show, and whose salaries the studio was looking to cut by 45 percent. On Tuesday the studio said, “We believe this brilliant series can and should continue, but we cannot produce future seasons under its current financial model.”
Harry Shearer, a “Simpsons” cast member who plays characters including Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders and Kent Brockman, said on Friday that he was willing to give up 70 percent of his salary or even more if he were given a portion of the profits generated by the show. But Fox, he said, was not open to the arrangement, and said the only remaining options were “to cancel the show or fire me for having the gall to try to save the show.” The voice actors’ current contract was set to expire at the end of this season, the show’s 23rd on the air.
Despite these dire predictions a deal was struck that will bring “The Simpsons” to 559 total episodes by mid-2014. Though terms of the deal were not disclosed, the cast members were believed to have agreed to an arrangement that would reduce their salaries by less than 45 percent but would not include profit participation.
In a statement, Fox provided a celebratory quote from Homer Simpson, the beer-drinking patriarch of the yellow-skinned clan, who said: “Woo Hoo! I outlasted Andy Rooney.”
Following the announcement, James L. Brooks, an executive producer of “The Simpsons,” wrote on his Twitter account that he was “crying animated tears of joy (which actually taste pretty good).”
