Butterfinger

VOICE BOX

Pamela Hayden with a cardboard standee of Milhouse.

In a surprising move, it was announced that voice actress Pamela Hayden has decided to retire from The Simpsons after 35 years “to pursue other creative outlets.” Hayden had voiced the character of Bart Simpson’s dorky pal Milhouse Van Houten since a 1988 Butterfinger commercial that predates the series. Other roles she performed on the show include bully Jimbo Jones, Lisa’s fair-weather friend Janey, Chief Wiggum’s wife Sarah, Todd Flanders, Patches the orphan, Lisa from “The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour,” Malibu Stacy, Stephanie the Weather Lady, Krusty’s assistant Lois Pennycandy, babysitter Ashley Grant, Australian boy Tobias Dundridge, and numerous other incidental characters.

Official Simpsons social media accounts claimed this Sunday’s episode, “Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes,” will be her last performance. However, producer Carolyn Omine clarified on Threads that Hayden will appear in three upcoming episodes exclusive to Disney+, with the last one she recorded being the double-length Christmas special “O C’mon All Ye Faithful,” the final episode of production season 35. No recasting announcements have been made, but entertainment observers are standing by, watching Gracie Films carefully to see if the chimney will emit blue smoke, the sign of a new Milhouse.

Hayden is the subject of the recent documentary Jailhouse to Milhouse, in which she opens up about her troubled youth. [Deadline]

GROEN DRAIN

How did Simpsons creator Matt Groening get to be so rich and successful? Well, it turns out he had a trick up his sleeve… a time-traveling trick!!!

It has now become clear that at some point in the future where time travel has become achievable, Matt Groening warped back to Olympia, Washington in the 1970s, and gave his past self a bunch of Simpsons memorabilia and a 20-year plan for creating the franchise and becoming king of all media. Unfortunately, Old Matt didn’t count on Young Matt painting all this new information and hiding it away for years. Now, those paintings – the only known evidence linking him to the crime of violating the Temporal Prime Directive – have resurfaced.

As originally reported by the Kitsap Sun, a 69-year old artist bought some Simpsons watercolors at a Seattle-area thrift store and thinks they were made by Matt Groening when he was a student at the Evergreen State College, more than a decade before the Simpsons shorts began airing on The Tracey Ullman Show. She is now trying to auction them off at $2,000 apiece.

Continue Reading →

SPRINGFIELD SHOPPER

homer butterfingerThe Simpsons and Butterfinger brand chocolate bars had a long and fruitful endorsement deal – one that began even before the series started – generating over a hundred (!?!) commercials over a period of 13 years. Then, for unknown reasons, Butterfinger terminated the partnership in 2001. Not one to leave bridges unburned, The Simpsons poked fun at their former corporate partner in the 2002 episode Sweets & Sour Marge, as described in Chris Turner’s book Planet Simpson:

In a Season 13 episode, the Springfield court imposes a total ban on sugar. A giant bonfire is built to burn all the sugary treats in Springfield, and some police officers attempt to throw a pile of Butterfingers onto the blaze. As they hit the fire, though, a sort of force field surrounds them, and they’re thrown back, unburned. “Not even the fire wants them,” Chief Wiggums notes ruefully.

A later episode, Half-Decent Proposal, featured the chalkboard gag “I will not bite the hand that feeds me Butterfingers,” indicating Butterfinger was unhappy with the joke and made their displeasure known.

And so, for over a decade, Bart Simpson never so much as laid a finger on a crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery Butterfinger. Spokespeople including Seth Green, Lou “Iron Man” Ferrigno, and Jaime Pressly were brought in as replacements for Bart, but things just weren’t the same. Could those two bar-crossed brands ever reconcile and form a new advertising partnership?

Continue Reading →

EXCLUSIVE

Bart and MilhouseBeloved cartoon character Milhouse Van Houten might have began life as part of an unsuccessful pitch for a Saturday morning cartoon.

In a discussion on Twitter last week, Simpsons superdirector David Silverman clarified some things about Milhouse’s origins, shooting down rumors he’s just a rip-off of Paul Pfeiffer from The Wonder Years (come on dudes, he’s pretty much just Akbar/Jeff with hair and glasses). He also shared a little more behind-the-scenes information about his first appearance. It’s been known that Milhouse first appeared in a pre-series Simpsons Butterfinger commercial – in 2000, Simpsons creator Matt Groening told TV Guide he “needed to give Bart someone to talk to in the school cafeteria” – but until now it was believed he was created specifically for that commercial.

Continue Reading →