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did u ever know that ur my hero

Back in 1994, there were plans for a spinoff of The Simpsons centered around Krusty the Clown moving to Los Angeles and becoming a talk show host. The twist is that the show would’ve been live-action, with Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Krusty, starring as the character. Creator Matt Groening, who co-wrote a pilot script with The King of Queens creator Michael Weithorn, was quoted in a 1999 Entertainment Weekly article reflecting on the challenges of working in live-action:

We had this running joke in the script that Krusty was living in a house on stilts and there were beavers gnawing their way through the stilts. But somebody at the network pointed out how expensive it was to hire trained beavers — and an equally prohibitive cost would be to get mechanical beavers — so I said, “If we animated this, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

And that was absolutely everything we ever knew about the project… until now!

Simpsons expert @ThatGuy3002, known for his deep dives into scripts on Twitter, found out a lot more about the ill-fated spinoff, and shared his findings in a tweet thread:

Click through to read the whole thread, which reveals plot details about the surprisingly death-heavy pilot episode, how another Fox show about an alcoholic clown may have poisoned the well for clown-related entertainment, and what really killed the spinoff (spoiler: money). I have my doubts about the quality levels of what sounds like a Larry Sanders rip-off mixed with the 1992 Boris and Natasha movie, but I’m nevertheless fascinated by this odd footnote in Simpsons history. It doesn’t sound like production ever went any further than the script, but if any photographic evidence of Dan Castellaneta in full-blown Krusty makeup exists, please please please share it with the world.

NOSTRAD'OHMUS

The Simpsons predict the future!

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinbrugh and longtime husband to Queen Elizabeth II, has died. The world may have surprised at the shocking and unexpected death of the 99 year old monarch, but there’s at least one cartoon that wasn’t suprised at all: The Simpsons! That’s right, The Simpsons has once again predicted the future with trademark accuracy, as is their wont.

True Simpsons aficionados will undoubtedly remember the scene from 1995’s “Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily,” where little Maggie Simpson creepily turns her head around and informs Bart and Lisa “Prince Phillip will die on April 9, 2021.” The line was replaced in subsequent airings, but not before causing much consternation on the newsgroups, where Simpsons dorks expressed bafflement at the reference and its complete irrelevancy to the episode’s plot. The specificity of the date will surely draw questions from the authorities, but there’s one thing for sure: we should all live in fear of The Simpsons and its unfathomable psychic powers!