NOISELAND ARCADE

Homer and Bart are anguished to see a condemned sign on a chain-link fence. Behind the fence is a screenshot of Springfield from the Tapped Out game.

Electronic Arts has announced the mobile game The Simpsons: Tapped Out will be shut down on January 24, 2025. In-app purchases have already been disabled and the game will be delisted from app stores on October 31, 2024.

In a Facebook post, EA thanked fans for their “remarkable journey” together:

The decision to end our twelve-year journey is an emotional one. Together with our partners at The Simpsons™ and The Walt Disney company, we have delighted in bringing this game to you, the fans, and seeing how you’ve each built your own beloved versions of Springfield. It has been a remarkable journey, and we are grateful that we’ve been able to deliver 308 updates, 831 characters and including today’s final farewell 1,463 questlines.

Launched in 2012, Tapped Out is a “freemium” game that allows players to build their own version of Springfield, with storylines written by actual Simpsons writers. By playing through questlines and acquiring currency, players could obtain buildings and characters to populate their town, and/or purchase them with actual money. That last part is key: just two years after its launch, Tapped Out had generated over $130 million. While its popularity had decreased over the years, it was still making money: according to Statista, the game generated $4.38 million in the first five months of 2024. Critics have opined that such “freemium” games are more akin to video gambling than traditional video games.

While this has not been confirmed, the imminent shutdown of Tapped Out next year could be an indication that EA’s exclusive Simpsons license is expiring after 20 years. The publisher had signed a “long-term, exclusive deal” for the rights back in 2005. It released The Simpsons Game for multiple platforms in 2007, and… that’s been it for The Simpsons on consoles, outside of collaborations with Minecraft and LEGO. A writer for Screen Rant theorized that “considering the success of Tapped Out and the relatively mixed reviews previous Simpsons games received, EA may believe that it doesn’t need to make a new AAA video game based on the license.”

Earlier this year, it was announced that Disney and Epic Games will collaborate on an “all-new games and entertainment universe” featuring “content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more.” Whether The Simpsons will be a part of that universe remains to be seen.

RIP

A promotional image for Lisa's First Word featuring the Simpson family gathered around Maggie, who appears to be about to speak. There is an inset of James Earl Jones.

James Earl Jones, the voice of Maggie Simpson, died yesterday at the age of 93.

Jones was a titan of the stage and screen whose prolific acting career spanned decades, including such films as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Hunt for Red October, Coming to America, and Field of Dreams, television work including Sesame Street, Gabriel’s Fire, the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, and the television movie The Man, as well as the plays Fences and The Great White Hope. His trademark commanding baritone made him a natural for voiceover work, including his best-known roles as Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, Mufasa in The Lion King, and the guy who says “This… is CNN.” Jones received many awards and accolades over the years, including three Tony Awards, two Emmys, a Grammy, a lifetime achievement Oscar, and a Disney Legends award.

Jones voiced the iconic role of Maggie Simpson in the “Time and Punishment” segment of “Treehouse of Horror V.” [CNN]

PANEL PIECES

Homer chokes Bart during a Disney Legends animated segment.

The Walt Disney Company recently held its biennial D23 convention celebrating Disney and its various properties, which thanks to corporate consolidation and a lack of antitrust enforcement also includes The Simpsons! Here’s a roundup of all the Simpsons-related stuff.

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BIZZFAD

A blurry silhouette stands in front of the real-life Simpsons house. Lisa and Bart look apprehensive at the figure.

For as long as there have been Simpsons, mankind has pondered what they’d look like if they walked amongst us. Not as simplistic, googly-eyed, yellow-skinned cartoon characters, but as living, breathing human beings.

People have tried to fancast a live-action Simpsons movie for decades. Notable names like John Goodman, Ben Affleck, Danny McBride, Kevin James, Hardy Rawls, and even Dan Castellaneta have been bandied about as potential candidates to take on the lead role of Homer Simpson. As talented as those thespians may be, however, they would always be imperfect impostors. No, we want to know what Homer would look like in real life, not a real-life man wearing a Homer costume.

There are a number of factors to consider when contemplating a realistic version of Homer Simpson. What is the real-world analogue to the two croquet hoops of hair that crown his cranium? What would his five o’clock shadow look like without cartoonish abstraction? What is the texture of his white polo shirt? And what about his eyes, those windows to the soul? Would his glimmering blue irises still feel as recognizable to us as the simple black dots that grace our televisions? These are the questions that pervade our thoughts as we go about our ho-hum, mundane existence.

Some remarkable artists working in multiple mediums have attempted to take on this task. Their depictions of what Homer Simpson would look like in real life are wonderful, intriguing, and sometimes scary. As incredible as they may be, these works will nevertheless always be constrained by the skill level of the artist, their subjectivity, and their breadth of influences. We can – nay, we must – go further.

With the advent of artificial intelligence, we can now harness the combined power and computational knowledge of thousands of supercomputers trawling through trillions of terabytes of images to generate a realistic Homer. Yes, with just a few lines of text and a click of the computer mouse, we can glimpse upon the true visage of Homer Jay Simpson, the hero of Evergreen Terrace, the paterfamilias of Animation Domination.

Unfortunately, the AI system said we didn’t have enough tokens to generate the image. It seems that Realistic Homer Simpson is, for now, reserved for God’s eyes only.

UNRELATED SIMPSONS IN THE NEWS

Homer and OJ Simpson looking morose in a heavenly sports bar. They are in angelic garb with halos, eating onion rings. Behind them are a lot of TVs showing various football games.

Pro Football Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson, who was quite a character, has been permanently ejected from the game of life by cosmic forces, and also cancer. He was 76.

Born in 1947, Orenthal James Simpson, also known as “The Juice,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time. During his time in the NFL, he was the first player to rush more than 2,000 yards in a season, and recorded an average of 143.1 yards rushing per game, a record that still holds today. The former Buffalo Bills running back also had a storied acting career as an ad spokesman for the Hertz rental car company and a recurring role in the Naked Gun franchise, before running into some legal problems in the mid-1990s.

Simpson claimed to be a fan of The Simpsons in a 1991 issue of Simpsons Illustrated, “especially the part at the beginning where Bart has to write on the blackboard.” Despite this, he turned down a role as a celebrity panelist in the classic episode “Last Exit to Springfield,” which then went to Dr. Joyce Brothers. Thanks to a draft of the script uploaded to the Internet Archive by JamesHellBrooks, we now know how the original scene would’ve gone:
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BONGO BEAT

The Simpsons waving at the viewer. Behind them are various Simpsons comic books. Text at the top: It's a Simpsons send-off!

Bongo Comics announced in an e-mail that its Simpsons Store app, which enabled consumers to purchase Simpsons comic books digitally, will be shut down on April 30:

To our dedicated fans:

We regret to announce that, after more than a decade, the Simpsons Store app has come to an end across all platforms and devices.

We are no longer accepting any new purchases or downloads, but the app will still be available for use in its current state (which may include technical difficulties) until April 30, 2024, at which point the app, all in-app comics, and all other app-related content will no longer be available for use. Please enjoy the app until the servers shut down on April 30, 2024.

Thank you for supporting the Simpsons Store.

Its companion app, Futuramaland, will be shutting down on April 12.

Bongo previously sold its titles digitally on ComiXology before announcing it would be moving to its own proprietary service in 2015. Amazon killed off ComiXology’s standalone app late last year.

The news is the latest blow for Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s publishing ventures. Groening, who owns the show’s publishing rights, launched Bongo Comics Group in 1993 with four Simpsons titles. Its flagship series, Simpsons Comics, ran for 25 years and 245 issues before being discontinued in 2018, when the company ceased publishing monthly titles (it remains unclear if this had anything to do with Disney’s aquisition of 21st Century Fox). The following year, Groening debuted a new company, Bapper Books, which was to publish comics based on his Netflix series Disenchantment as a digital-first series. That ended up not happening, and the comics were not released until late 2023 by Titan Comics, shortly after the show had ended. Currently, old Bongo material continues to be republished in book form, with the third volume collecting the Treehouse of Horror series set to be released by Abrams Books in August.

The news is also an unwelcome reminder that you do not own the digital content you purchase.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Professor Frink looks at a woman in a bikini and Bart's twin Hugo. Behind them is a word cloud, and the word simpon is the only non-Japanese word.

It seems like everything’s in a death spiral these days: linear television, Twitter, the internet in general, America. Oh, and a little show called The Simpsons.

  • Last Sunday’s episode, “Frinkenstein’s Monster,” suffered a huge drop in the ratings from the previous episode (which aired on Christmas Eve), netting only 0.72 million viewers, making it the least-watched episode of the series… so far. For comparison, the highest rated show in that timeslot was the season premiere of The Equalizer, with 6.32 million viewers. [TV Series Finale]
  • Conservative writer Nick Clairmont has watched every episode up to Season 35, but now he’s dropping the show due to a decline in quality, which is a very funny concept. After a couple years of “THE SIMPSONS IS GOOD AGAIN!!!” articles it feels refreshing to get a dissenting view, even if it’s mostly complaining about Wokeness. [The Critic Magazine]
  • There’s been a noticeable increase in spam bots on Twitter as of late, perfectly crystallized in this moment where a Simpsons meme referencing the phrase “░M░Y░P░ U░S░S░ Y░I░ N░B░I░O ░” used by spammers is replied to by another spammer with “the simpon:”A tweet by ErnieLies consisting of a Simpsons meme. There's a reply by user @Chloe019283244, who has a stock image of a woman in a black bikini as their avatar, that just says 'the simpon.''

    Over on Bluesky, “simpon” was briefly the only English word trending, which users then catapulted to #1. [@ErnieLies]

  • Here’s a nostalgic look at the official Simpsons website over the years. It used to be charming and chock full of information, and now I guess it… doesn’t even exist anymore? There’s a page for the show on FOX.com with some information on the cast, but otherwise it looks like it’s just social media for the franchise now. Grim. [Web Design Museum]
SPRINGFIELD SHOPPER

Homer and Bart scream in front of some Simpsons toys

¡Ay, caramba! In a crushing blow to fans, it looks like The Simpsons is coming to an end… collector toy company Super7’s line of Simpsons figures, that is.

Last month, company founder Brian Flynn was interviewed for Robo Don’t Know, where he admitted that “Simpsons did not perform nearly as well as we had hoped” and their relationship with Disney is not moving forward. While figures that were previously announced will still be produced, the Simpsons line (which he says they had a lot of plans for) has been cancelled, along with other Disney properties. Flynn is hopeful that the two companies could work together in the future, but for now they don’t see eye to eye on what is “realistic.”

Super7’s Simpsons line focused more on niche-y, fan-favorite characters rather than, you know, the Simpson family. While that strategy worked on me – I bought the figures of McBain’s ill-fated partner Scoey and Troy McClure with Fuzzy Bunny – perhaps it limited the appeal to more casual fans. Regardless, Simpsons toys aren’t going to rake in Disney Princess money, if that’s what Disney was expecting. It seems to me like Disney doesn’t quite know how to handle The Simpsons; cigarettes were removed from a Krusty figure prior to production, presumably at their request, even though these toys aren’t made for children (beer’s fine, though).

While the loss of the Disney license is surely a blow, Super7 is still working with a number of other properties, running the gamut from Richard Scarry to American Psycho, that will hopefully help them weather industry headwinds.

[Robo Don’t Know h/t Talking Simpsons]

LISTICLE PARADISO

A collage of various Simpsons betrayals.

The Simpsons TV show has been on for a very long time, and in that time there’s been a lot of betrayal. Characters have been betrayed by their lovers, friends, co-workers, and even their own children. Join us as we rank the top ten betrayals in Simpsons history.

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