While I doubt that there would be a market for them, I personally would love to see when all is said and done a box collection of every novelty episode that The Simpsons has made over the past decade. I’m serious. Where most shows would get by on doing one or two episodes that adopt very strange motifs, The Simpsons have made it a cornerstone to every season in recent years. The simple reason is that you have to ask what a show that has nothing left to prove could possibly do to grab your attention.
Over the course of 30+ years, that’s been generally reserved for their couch gags, getting guest animators to do all sorts of weird antics. However, it’s become clearer that they’re willing to try just about anything, so long as they can build an episode around it. Think of “Brick Like Me” which adopts a LEGO aesthetic for a half-hour, or “The Simpsons Guy” finding them doing a crossover with Family Guy in one of their most disconnected and ribald episodes yet.
Then there’s “Simprovised.” With the show set to reach episode 600 by next season, attention was moving back towards the show. One had to wonder what they possibly could offer. In February 2016, it was announced that The Simpsons would be doing something that no other animated show had ever done. They were going to have Homer Simpson do a whole scene where he improvised. Not in the sense that he ad-libs ideas and will be animated later. What they mean is that, as the episode airs, there will be animation that is altered by the moment, finding Homer talking in real-time to people.
Doing research for this piece will reveal that my first reaction is one that almost every Simpsons fan has. In fact, those who dropped off 20 years ago also feel the same way. It all goes back to the episode “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie” show. When Homer becomes a voice actor, he asks his collaborator “when do we go live?” to which she responds:
"Very few cartoons are broadcast live. It's a terrible strain on the animators' wrists."
That was a joke in the 1990s because of a few reasons. The most noteworthy is that anyone with a passing knowledge of putting a pencil to paper, animation takes a long, long time to complete. There is no way that a single second of footage could be produced live. It takes hours and months to even get it complete. Thus, why waste your time doing an improvisational episode, unless you really wanted to have the audio out of sync with the characters?
Like all great ideas of The Simpsons, it started on the drawing board. The writers were already wanting to do an episode where Homer takes an improvisational comedy class. Given that it was a popular trend in comedy shows like BoJack Horseman and You’re the Worst at the time, it made sense to hop on the trend. Unlike the other shows, The Simpsons wouldn’t use the underlying sense that amateur improvisational comedy is obnoxious and often goes horribly wrong.
Somewhere down the line, they eventually got the idea that, on top of the improv episode, they wanted to do something radical. How would they do The Simpsons live? The answer wasn’t immediately clear, but soon it became clear that technology was catching up to animation, and opportunities were starting to become available where they could take a risk, becoming one of the first to challenge the medium in ways that played well in marketing. After all, who didn’t want to see an episode that had the potential to go off the rails, capturing the manic energy of the series at their best?
Let’s temper expectations just a tad before diving into the production history. While it’s true that Homer would be going “off script” for a portion of the episode, there is nothing about it that has a significant impact on the plot. It comes in a three-minute sequence that ends the episode, featuring callers asking him a variety of questions. Homer’s voice actor, Dan Castellaneta, would proceed to answer humorously. Showrunner Al Jean personally vouched for Castellaneta claiming that he was great at improvisation and that it would go very well.
So, how does one go about pulling this off? It started with The Simpsons approaching Adobe for collaboration. Like the best of partnerships, the people at Adobe admitted that they were fans of the long-running show, making them eager to work on this opportunity.
As a new feature for After Effects CC, which was part of Creative Cloud, The Simpsons writers got a crash course understanding on how to use a new program called Adobe Character Animator. The upcoming software would allow for a manipulation of 2D character designs to be brought to life. With the press of a few buttons, a cartoon could pivot the direction of their head, or have an abrupt motion. Most minor details could be done with assistance from motion capture technology that would help to inform facial movements. To general audiences, it would be easy to use technology. For The Simpsons, it was a chance to fill the characters with a new and interesting life.
Unlike most of The Simpsons’ novelty episodes in recent seasons, there’s not a lot to the making of this episode. There are no months of laboring over details and trying to fine-tune the nuance. Sure, one could argue that the central conflict of the plot is where the attention was, but there is nothing really known about the making of “Simprovised” that would make it exceptional. The only part that matters comes in the closing minutes, and it’s one where Jean would claim that he was riddled with anxiety, hoping to pull it off without things looking too creaky.
Again, not that it matters, but the plot of “Simprovised” focuses on Homer wanting to take an improvisation class. When he realizes that he has a knack for it, he begins to apply it to the rest of his life, encouraging his friends to crack jokes and join the class. The plot otherwise is straightforward stuff, receding to the norm for next week. Most people would claim that it was a decent episode, with many more likely to argue whether or not it was as funny as the premise suggested it should’ve been.
In the lead-up to the episode, The Simpsons would do a crossover video with Adobe that would better detail the process of using Character Animator. Among the behind the scenes moments is one that features a keyboard full of various Homer heads. This is designed to be where all of the abrupt motions would happen, such as Homer shifting his head left and right. There would also be various additional animations that they would bring out, like Bender of Futurama holding up a sign saying “Bring Back Futurama (Again).” Other times would feature family members walking through. Bart would steal Homer’s pants, and Maggie would spell out messages like “Call Now” on the floor. These were trivial but were designed to give everything a bit more flavor than what was there.
Because of the presentation, Castellaneta’s voice also wouldn’t be the most distinct voice acting that he ever did. The animation would be largely stagnant, finding Homer behind a desk and only ever moving his head to create a sense of spontaneity. Other times the mouth would move in awkward jerkiness. Otherwise, the animation was fine, if a little stagnant. Homer doesn’t really emote, making him seem more like a robot that was learning how to work properly than an actual character. The sight gags weren’t terribly interesting and, if anything, proved how much they wanted to take away from this segment’s limitations.
An important thing to know about “Simprovised” is that there are currently three different versions available. The Simpsons decided to do a call-in for both the east and west coast airings. There would be a chance on Twitter for fans to ask questions through the #HomerLive hashtag. Questions included: "Does Kanye annoy you as much as he annoys everyone else on the planet?" and "are you a 'strong believer in epistemological nihilism'?" A fun fact about the Kanye West question is that, while not applicable to The Simpsons, is that he also used the software for his own music video “Black Skinhead.” A third version was made for international versions that found Castellaneta improvising for three minutes about running for president before talking himself out of it.
As one can guess, this is the only time in the years since the show has used this technology. It went over well enough, though it remains of the less memorable novelty episodes, mostly because it’s the least flashy. It’s an addendum to another episode, not effecting the plot in major ways, meaning that an episode could cut to commercial early and not miss anything by cutting it out. While it would be interesting to see the different versions rotate in reruns, it feels designed like those 30 Rock live episodes, where you’re more drawn to the energy than the quality. Even then, there’s not enough there there to be as exciting as it wants to be. The only thing impressive is the audio manipulation. Everything else feels a bit too stagnant to be as interesting as it wants to be.
Was it worth it? I’d say that it was worth trying out, even if I don’t know that it works as something that should’ve been marketed with an episode. It doesn’t impact a whole lot and could’ve just been a little 10 minute special one evening when Fox had free time. Instead, it’s just an awkward piece of ephemera that finds the show trying to stay relevant while cross-promoting a significant advancement in technology. It works, but when very little of the animation is able to feel as fluid, it’s not exactly fun to watch. Maybe in a decade things will look different. For now, it’s all a bit ho-hum.
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