COMIC CON: Woo Hoo! 'The Simpsons' Panel

Movie talk and plenty of goodies about the 19th season

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Saturday, July 28th 2007 at 3:46 PM

The first order of the day on the sold out, jam packed Saturday was a panel featuring a massive list of names including writers, producers, creators and even voice cast from "The Simpsons." With the movie being released only yesterday and opening to $29.4 million and the show heading into its 19th season there was plenty to talk about. The panel was made up of "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, Al Jean, David Mirkin, Matt Selman, Michael Price, David Silverman, Matt Warburton, Don Payne and the voice of Lisa Simpsons Yeardley Smith and they fielded questions of every variety and showed some clips from the movie and the show.

As far as The Simpsons Movie is concerned it was said that there were 166 drafts of the script and it was also reported that the DVD commentary has already been recorded. Also, if you have not seen the movie yet or plan on going to see it again be sure to stay for the credits as there is an additional scene. Also, they did say that the character that dies at the end of the movie is a doctor so he can fix himself up.

They featured a deleted scene from the movie in which Homer is making his way back to Springfield inside a "Delicious Sausages" truck in which the driver is voiced by Hank Azaria. Homer rides in the back of the truck and so when the driver drops of Homer and heads to the back of the truck and sings "I am going to check on my sausages…" The driver obviously finds that Homer has eaten them all.

For those of you that have not seen the Spider Pig clip from the film you can breathe a sigh of relief to know that the movie won't be the last time you see him as Spider Pig will make another appearance in the first episode of the new season. Spider Pig will also be seen in a deleted scene on the DVD.

As for the future of the show, which will begin its 19th season on September 23, they mentioned that Sideshow Bob will be back in November, voiced by Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce will be voicing Sideshow's brother Cecil and John Mahoney will be there to play Sideshow's father in a rather large reunion of "Frasier."

Another episode will center on a new comic book store moving into Springfield and the owner of the store will be voiced by Jack Black. The episode will actually feature the voice of "Watchmen" writer Alan Moore as one of the comic icons featured in the episode.

After Matt Groening mentioned Ralph Wiggum was his favorite character they also revealed one of the new episodes this year will feature a storyline in which Springfield hosts the first Presidential primary and Homer instigates the idea of a protest write in resulting in Ralph becoming the front-running candidate for both parties. His campaign poster will feature a picture of Ralph picking his nose and the caption will read "Pick a Winner!"

In a clip from the upcoming 19th season we got a glimpse of this year's Halloween episode as Marge opens up the episode and is instantly bombarded by Fox ads for several shows such as "American Idol," "24" and Football on Fox. Marge yells, "Can't people just watch the show they are watching?" and proceeds to vacuum up the "American Idol" ad, grinds up "Family Guy", sticks Kiefer Sutherland to the refrigerator with a magnet and several others get involved. Ultimately she makes a meat loaf and the first slice reveals all the people from the ad inside the loaf to form the words "Treehouse of Horror."

Finally, when asked about how they have kept the show going for so long David Mirkin said it best, "We are very fortunate that the world remains so fucked up." A great way to end an impressive panel.