Tapped Out

FOX NEWS

The Simpsons recieve an eviction notice.

The Simpsons has had a home at Fox for nearly four decades. Now it looks like our favorite family could be leaving forever.

Los Angeles Times:

Walt Disney Co. acknowledged Tuesday that it will be vacating the storied Fox Studio Lot, where it has been the primary occupant since Disney bought most of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019. The $71.3-billion deal did not include the studio real estate. However, it featured a provision that Disney would move in as a tenant for at least seven years.

James L. Brooks’s production company Gracie Films, which produces the show, has had offices on the lot since the mid-1980s as a result of his 1984 production deal with Fox. It hasn’t been publicly confirmed if Gracie will be relocating to Disney’s lot in Burbank. However, by comparing a 2014 map of the lot with Fox’s future concept plans, it looks like Fox intends to replace the writers’ building (which has a fountain in front) with new production offices (indicated in blue). Here’s a comparison I whipped up:

Recently, executive producer Al Jean, perhaps feeling nostalgic, has been posting photos of the offices on social media:

That building has borne witness to some historic moments in television history, like the time Conan O’Brien and the other writers stuck a huge glob of caramel to the ceiling, and where somebody punched a box. The writers’ room was used as the model for the Itchy & Scratchy writers’ room in the season 4 episode “The Front,” and a cartoon version of the exterior was included in the mobile game Tapped Out.

The Fox lot is also home to the Marge Simpson ADR Stage, where the dialogue is recorded. A big Simpsons mural is on the exterior of Stage 20, and there’s a cafe themed after Moe.

In other news, Fox has renewed The Simpsons for four more seasons, ensuring the show will still have a home on the network until at least 2029.

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.

NOISELAND ARCADE

You can rest easy, everybody. It looks like negotiations are over, contracts have been signed, and The Simpsons will be returning from its hiatus.

I speak, of course, about the franchise’s extended hiatus from video game consoles. Hard as it may be to believe, it’s been over seven years since the release of a Simpsons game on a dedicated gaming system. With EA’s attention focused on The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the hugely successful freemium game for iOS and Android devices, the prospects of a followup to 2007’s The Simpsons Game looked fairly dim. But now it looks like Homer and the gang just might be returning to consoles… just not in the way anyone expected.

Yesterday, The LEGO Group and Warner Bros. announced LEGO Dimensions, a new game & toy series in the lucrative “you have to keep buying plastic junk” category pioneered by Skylanders. Once you’ve plunked down a hundred bucks for the starter pack, you can buy additional characters and content from various franchises. Unlike its rival Disney Infinity, LEGO Dimensions won’t be limited to franchises owned by the same megacorporation – they’ve already licensed Back to the Future from Universal, for example.

On Twitter, @UKVGDeals highlighted what could be a clue to a certain other franchise in the extended trailer:

Lego Dimensions trailer

That’s right: a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles, 100% clear-cut confirmation that The Simpsons will be a part of the game in the future. (Aside: When and how did “donut with pink frosting” become the defining icon of The Simpsons, anyway?)

Still not convinced? Well, as fellow Twitter user Ryan W. Mead pointed out, a New York Times article mentions “Characters owned by 20th Century Fox are also expected to join Dimensions as it rolls out.” Clearly they must be referring to the Simpsons because, ha ha, does Fox even have any other franchises anymore?

So, there you have it, folks: The Simpsons is almost definitely coming back to consoles in the form of an add-on pack to LEGO Skylanders: The Game, by next year, probably. What’s less clear is if the show will still be on by then.

Wait, I just remembered the Minecraft pack. Eh, whatever.

ANNOYED GRUNTS

mad marge

As the 12-day FXX marathon enters into The Modern Age and all the goodwill turns into apathy and anger, let’s take a brief look at people and entities who are mad at The Simpsons this week.

The Parents Television Council recently sent Matt Groening an open letter shaming him for the rape joke(s…?) in the upcoming Family Guy/Simpsons crossover, which the Simpsons team apparently had little say over. President Tim Winter claims he’s been a fan of Groening’s work “as far back as the mid-1980s when [Life in Hell] appeared in the LA Weekly.” Yes, I can totally picture the head of the PTC picking up an alt-weekly and laughing at the antics of the frequently-nude gay twins Akbar & Jeff next to ads for escort services. [Parents Television Council]

Tapped Out players are getting fed up with the game and EA’s slowness in addressing the problems. “Gil cannot save Tapped Out,” a blogger dramatically proclaims. It’s always Gil’s fault, isn’t it? [TSTO game via Dead Homer Society]

Hologram USA claims the Homer hologram shown at Comic-Con violated their patent on a variation of the stage trick “Pepper’s Ghost,” which is also the title of my Blue’s Clues creepypasta. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Simpsons purists are annoyed because the “Every Simpsons Ever” marathon is being broadcast in a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, cropping out some funny visual gags and crucial murder mystery clues. Boy, sounds like FXX is really FXXing things up. Eh? Eh? No? Sorry. [The Verge]