“Homer Simpson” wrote a letter to Britain’s Royal Couple, Will & Kate, inviting them to sit in on a read-through of some upcoming Season 60 garbage on their trip to glorious Los Angeles, because word got out that Prince William used to like The Simpsons when he was a kid. To the surprise of no one, it turns out the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had better things to do than sit around a table with a bunch of self-loathing comedy writers, listening to actors recite terrible lines of dialogue over the phone. First, I’d like to imagine that Prince William, like everyone else, knows that the show is really bad now. Secondly, why would Homer invite people to a read-through, where they’d no doubt discover his terrible secret of being a fictional character? That’s like Mickey Mouse inviting kids to the Disneyland basement and then taking off his head to reveal he’s just some guy wearing a costume. It’s a little perverse. [WA Today]
table reads
Harry Shearer Phones It In
Unlucky message boarder “JowTSJY” was forced to attend a table reading for an upcoming episode wherein Marge becomes a foodie, and he shared his horrifying ordeal with the good people at Simpsons Collector Sector with photographic evidence.
Some interesting observations:
Five of the six main voice actors were in attendance: Dan Castellaneta, Yeardley Smith, Nancy Cartwright, Julie Kavner, and Hank Azaria. Tress MacNeille and Pamela Hayden were also providing their voice acting skills, while Harry Shearer was represented by a speaker phone in the middle of the table. I was informed that Harry Shearer rarely attended the table reads, instead “phoning it in” from home. In fact, I was also informed that Shearer rarely came in to record his lines in the studio. He does that from home over the phone, too!
To be fair, he’s in a different recording studio using ISDN, but it’s still funny to imagine Harry Shearer as Charlie from Charlie’s Angels.
At 10AM the table read began as a man (whose name I didn’t catch) announced that The Simpsons had been renewed for its 23rd season. During the table read, this man narrated the non-dialogue portions of the script
Presumably, this man is showrunner Al Jean, who mysteriously doesn’t appear in any of the photos. That guy is craftier than Arthur C. Korn.
On our way back across the Fox lot, we saw Nancy Cartwright driving away in her Lexus. Her license plate read “4EVER10,” a reference to the fact Bart never ages. Someone mentioned that her old license plate used to read “I DO BART.” If that’s true, I can understand why she changed it!
hahahaha 
[Simpsons Collector Sector via No Homers Club]