Julie Kavner

BROOKS BLOTTER

Marge and Lisa exiting a movie theater. Lisa is gushing. Behind them are posters for Ella McCay.
(Gracie Films)

Oscar-winning writer/director James L. Brooks’s latest film, Ella McCay is being released soon, and he’s enlisted some old friends to help him market it: the Simpsons.

As of this posting, The Simpsons‘s social media accounts have posted about the film three times. One post has a video with Julie Kavner, the voice of Marge who also has a role in the film, introducing a trailer. In the video, James L. Brooks is identified as “co-creator” of The Simpsons, which is a little eyebrow-raising, given Matt Groening is the sole credited creator. OK, maybe “co-creator” is a little more descriptive to the average person than the nebulous title of “executive producer,” and Brooks did develop the show alongside Groening and the late Sam Simon, so maybe all three should be considered creators. Nevertheless, it’s not a great look for a multi-millionaire Hollywood legend to be grabbing a little more credit for himself decades later. Or are they soft-launching Brooks as the true visionary behind the show in the event Groening suddenly has to withdraw from public appearances…?

Another post features a poster for the film with the cast drawn in Simpsons style, with the caption “They’re not from Springfield, but they’d fit right in.” Would they? Seems like kind of a reach.

The latest post features a particularly shameless animated promo where Lisa and Marge exit a theater gushing about how great the film was. “It’s a very terrific movie,” Marge opines, while Lisa is ecstatic that “finally a movie gets me.” It’s reminiscent of the Riverdale episode where characters go see Love, Simon, a film coincidentally directed by the show’s executive producer.

Both The Simpsons and Ella McCay are produced by Brooks’s company Gracie Films, and the film is being distributed by Disney under the 20th Century Studios label, so maybe a little corporate synergy is to be expected. The Simpsons is, of course, no stranger to promotion – Bart was hawking Butterfingers before the series even premiered – but it’s intensified since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. The show started pumping out promotional shorts for Balenciaga, Bad Bunny, opera superstar Andrea Bocelli and more, for which they’ve won multiple advertising industry awards. Last month, there were even two couch gags involving Fortnite in the show itself, promoting the Simpsons-themed Fortnite season.

Nor is this the first time Brooks has used the show to push his other projects. A couple years ago, Marge was featured in a promo for the Gracie-produced adaptation of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. And perhaps the Ella McCay campaign is not as egregious as the time Brooks insisted on doing a crossover with The Critic, another Gracie-produced animated sitcom, over objections from the staff (including Groening, who ultimately had his credit removed from the episode, for which Brooks publicly called him an ingrate).

Nevertheless, the Ella McCay cross-promotion still seems a little brazen, even considering everything. There was never an episode where Homer convinces Marge to see Spanglish. Ultimately, Brooks is the boss, and he gets what he wants. Maybe he’ll get the stars of Ella McCay to return the favor and promote the next Simpsons movie, which has just been pushed back to September 2027.

NOISELAND ARCADE

Homer, Bart, Marge and other characters in Fortnite.
(Epic Games)

They’ve have been to Australia, Japan, Africa, Brazil, England, China, Antarctica, and even Canada. Now the Simpsons are going to Fortnite Island, where you can finally achieve what Sideshow Bob has only dreamed of: kill Bart Simpson.*

After years of rumors, The Simpsons has been absorbed into the massively popular video game Fortnite in a major collaboration. Starting today, a month-long Simpsons-themed season will have players battle it out on an island map based on Springfield. Marge, Homer, and Ned Flanders are available as rewards with the purchase of a Battle Pass, while other characters (Lisa, Bart, Moe, Krusty, and Scratchy) are or will be available to purchase separately.

Among other stuff, a blog post announced there will be weekly fully-animated cutscenes shorts that will also be released on Disney+ about Homer gaining godlike powers from a shard of primordial energy so even non-gamers can enjoy inscrutable references to Fortnite lore (the first short, “Apocalypse D’oh,” is already up). So far there is voice acting from Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, and Hank Azaria. We hear some laughs from Nancy Cartwright-voiced characters Bart and Nelson in other footage, but no dialogue yet, and Harry Shearer’s characters Kang and Ned Flanders are conspicuously silent (Shearer usually doesn’t participate in these things, like The Simpsons Ride or that Family Guy crossover, so that’s to be expected). It’s a far cry from Lego Dimensions, which only had archival recordings of Castellaneta, or that time when Peter Griffin appeared in a Fortnite short but didn’t speak. Also, Matt Groening’s signature is everywhere, unlike the Futurama collaboration.

The success of Simpsons in Fortnite could prove there is demand for a new Simpsons game. Not counting the freemium mobile game Tapped Out, which shut down earlier this year, there hasn’t been a “true” new Simpsons game since 2007’s The Simpsons Game. Could this herald a new era of Simpsons gaming?

*OK technically they’re not going anywhere because the Simpsons reality merged with the current Fortnite island, Oninoshima. And characters don’t really “die,” they are bloodlessly “eliminated.”

MEANINGLESS MILESTONES, SCULLY DUGGERY

scullyThe Hollywood Reporter did a big cover story about The Simpsons in honor its meaningless milestone of having churned out a certain number of product. Former showrunner Mike Scully used the occasion to share his death wish with the nation:

“I think the show will outlive all of us,” says former producer Mike Scully. “Nothing would make me happier than some episode in the future to end with a title card that reads, ‘In memory of Mike Scully.'”

Yup, Mike Scully wants to die. Nothing would make him happier. There is no other way to interpret that quote. After years of death threats from Simpsons nerds, it seems Scully has decided to embrace the icy hand of death.

The rest of the article is mostly just a rehash of the same stories they’ve been telling for years in interviews and audio commentaries (did you know Michael Jackson didn’t do his own singing???), but nonetheless there’s a few interesting tidbits I haven’t heard elsewhere, if you use a charitable interpretation of “interesting.”

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VOICE BOX

The cast of The Simpsons finally got around to renegotiating their contracts, thus putting an end to the pay dispute that threatened to tear apart humanity and resulted in at least thirty artists losing their jobs while production was halted. Dan Castellenta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Maggie), and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns) will now each get $500,000 $400,000 per episode, an increase from $360,000, to donate to Scientology. Ironically, this pay increase comes at a time when viewership has dwindled by nearly fifty percent over the past five years. Aye carumba! [telegraph.co.uk]