A 'Simpsons' Producer Apologized For Killing Off A Longtime Character

By Andrew Sanford | TV | April 26, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | TV | April 26, 2024 |

The Simpsons is currently on its 35th season. It’s been on long enough that you’ve likely started and stopped watching several times. There are seasons you think are better than others. Maybe you never watched anything after the movie came out. Simpsons fandom ebbs and flows, and with it comes a kind of Comic Book Guy-like ownership.

Simpsons fans, whether lapsed or active, feel strongly about the show. Those strong feelings may not be as strong as other fanbases, but they exist. People have felt ownership over this show for as long as it has existed, but there is also an understanding that it adheres to a certain status quo. The family doesn’t age, characters rarely change, and when they do, it is meaningful. It is doubly meaningful if a character should perish.

A recent episode of the long-running show saw the death of Larry “The Barfly” Dalrymple. If you have seen even one episode of the show, you’ve likely seen Larry. The background character was a staple of Moe’s Tavern, often appearing drunk and slumped over at Homer’s favorite bar. When he dies suddenly, Homer, Moe, Lenny, and Carl lament the fact that they never really knew him and seek to spread his ashes in one of his favorite places.

It’s an emotional episode, especially since characters don’t die on the show that often. For that reason, it elicited some extreme responses from fans; so much so that co-executive producer Tim Long addressed the episode to TMZ. Long told the outlet, “he’s sorry to those fans upset about the death, and the sad episode in general,” but added that, “he likes that fans seemed to take it as hard as Homer and the gang did during the episode — because it speaks to how beloved the show still is.”

Long joked that “Flintstones fans wouldn’t have flinched if the show killed off the reviled character, The Great Gazoo … so, it’s nice to know fans care about all the characters who make Springfield what it is.” He’s not wrong. The show doesn’t often do things like this. That makes them more meaningful, even if it is a side character like Larry. Maybe 35 seasons from now, when all the actors are replaced by AI versions of themselves, the show will do away with Disco Stu.