'The Simpsons' celebrates major milestone with its 700th episode
The hit animated show has been renewed for a record-extending 33rd and 34th season; FOX's Ashley Dvorkin reports
"The Simpsons" has hit yet another landmark.
The long-running adult cartoon aired its 700th episode, "Manger Things" on March 21, a little over halfway through its 32nd season.
Yeardley Smith -- who voices young Lisa Simpson among other characters -- spoke with Fox News about the show's milestone as well as her decades-long career on the series.
"It's incredible. I was happy the show went past five seasons," the Emmy-winner, 56, said. "I love my character. I love that girl. I love her like she's a living, breathing, three-dimensional human being with blood coursing through her veins."
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She added: "This job can never get old for me."
Actress Yeardley Smith voices young Lisa Simpson in 'The Simpsons.' (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagic)
Writer-producer Al Jean said that he also receives similar gratification from working on "The Simpsons."
"The thing that means the very most to me about the show is [when] I go to Comic-Con or somewhere and a guy will come up and go, 'I just want to tell you, when I was a kid, my parents were splitting up and 'The Simpsons' cheered me up,'" he gushed. "They really mean it and that just makes you feel so good. It's something that you did as a job, just happened to have that really, really wonderful side effect."
Of "Manger Things," which is a Christmas-themed episode, Jean said: "We thought the world could use two Christmases this year."
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"It's more of a warm episode set in the past with little secret Easter eggs for 'Simpsons' fans," he noted, adding that a number of the show's secrets are revealed in the episode.
"The Simpsons" debuted in December 1989, and Yeardly can recall the specific moment she knew they'd struck gold with the series.
"I remember when we went to half-hour and we hit so big for those first 13 episodes because we were a mid-season replacement and it was so unexpected, at least that was sort of the scuttlebutt around town," she said.
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"Then all this merchandise came out so then you could go out in the world and people would be wearing -- everybody was wearing mostly a Bart Simpson t-shirt and they didn't know I was Lisa Simpson and you could be this great little fly on the wall ... you were like this little sort of secret spy on the side going, 'I got you, dude, that's awesome,'" Yeardly remembered.
The 700th episode of 'The Simpsons,' titled 'Manger Things,' aired on March 21, 2021. (20th Television)
Decades later, the team is still chugging along and, according to Jean, will even have a "great" upcoming episode featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as Lisa's "invisible friend." Stephen Fry will also once again lend his voice to the show in the future.
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As for the show becoming synomous with seemingly "predicting" current events such as natural disasters, epidemics and more?
Jean joked: "One of the writers said: 'You've been on [television for] 30 years, if we haven't predicted anything right, we'd be pretty stupid."
FOX's Ashley Dvorkin contributed to this report
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