Kristen Bell to serve as Marge’s new singing voice on The Simpsons premiere
The show's new musical episode, "The Star Of Backstage," will see Bell step in for Julie Kavner as Marge's singing voice
TV News The Simpsons
What do Gossip Girl, Anna from Frozen, and Marge Simpson all have in common? Well, in a few months the answer will be “Kristen Bell has voiced each of them,” something revealed in a Comic-Con@Home panel today for The Simpsons. Specifically, Bell is set to provide a singing voice for America’s favorite annoyed murmurer in the show’s 33rd season premiere, which is set to be another big Simpsons musical spectacular. (Ah, to relive the heady days of “The President Wore Pearls.”)
During the panel, EP Matt Selman called upcoming premiere “The Star Of Backstage” “the most musical episode we’ve ever done,” comparing it to the likes of big Broadway spectaculars. Bell has apparently been tasked with giving Marge a little Broadway pizzazz of her own when she sings, stepping in for regular voice actor Julie Kavner—who, we can’t help but note, was certainly good enough for our well-worn cassette tape of The Simpsons Sing The Blues, but so it goes.
Other reveals from the panel (before it devolved, like so many online video calls do, into some fairly tepid games) include the fact that this year’s “Treehouse Of Horror” episode will forego the usual three-part structure in favor of five snippets of life-giving horror content instead. (Al Jean also showed off one of the segments, a clearly-ready-for-YouTube homage to the works of Edward Gorey.) Oh, and Yeardley Smith revealed that her deepest dream is for an episode where Lisa Simpsons befriends The Rock—only to be told by the show’s writers that it’s an idea they’ve floated, dependent on Dwayne Johnson ever agreeing to do the show. (Honestly: We’d kind of like to see Lisa Simpson be friends with The Rock.) Jean also teased an episode that “explores the greatest tragedy Homer has ever faced,” which probably just means an explosion down at the Duff factory, but it’d be pretty funny if this was Jean’s way of finally importing ages-old internet meme “Dead Bart” into the Simpsons canon.
Season 33 of The Simpsons debuts on Fox on September 26.
81 Comments
I might’ve cared 15 years ago – Bobby, Chicago, Fall 2013
You’re really dedicated to this shtick.
It’s my favorite recurring AV Club character, Bobby Chicago!
Bobby Chicago, it’s your partner Jericho Cane from the End of Days!
Yet another shrug-inducing choice they made instead of just putting the show out of its now several decades spanning misery.And yes, this is yet another jerkoff on the internet saying that seasons 1-8 (or 9, maybe even 10 or 11, if you want to be generous) were the bee’s knees and everything after that is just football after football in my groin.That is the song that’s in my heart and I will sing it until the day I die!
The show is still cranking out money and kills in the ratings. It’s not going anywhere until people stop watching it
I mean compared to many other shows it still kills, yeah, but the fact is the ratings have been going down for years. But yes, I agree, it’ll be a long time before this dead horse stops spitting out money (to borrow a turn of phrase from Bo Burnham).Anyway, my top 3 episodes are (in no particular order): “Last Exit To Springfield”, “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet” and “Rosebud”. Incredible television!
Yeah, my friends and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago and I looked up the ratings on the recent season. Most episodes averaged about over 1 million viewers, with certain episodes at 3 million-ish because of feetball.
Man, the TV landscape is so weird now. Thanks to contract renewals and what not, The Simpsons has got to be more expensive to produce than ever before and it gets a fraction of the ratings it used, yet its still profitable enough to keep dragging along. The highest rated episode ever was seen by 33 million people, and the first 9 seasons averaged 10-20 million viewers an episode. Now its more like 1.5 mil an episode.
Yeah but there’s so many intangibles. Like sure it’s 33 million viewers vs 1.5 million but these viewers aren’t paying directly to watch and is there something else Fox run on Sunday night that could even get that? Every single show has fewer viewers now and in the end it’s really just about whether it’s able to bring in premium advertiser dollars in its time slot or not. Plus the Simpsons is still extremely popular worldwide (which again, would any replacement be able to match that?) and making new episodes keeps it valuable in reruns or on Hulu and Disney+.
You can’t compare the days when most people had 5 channels to watch to the current landscape where there are literally thousands of choices.
The ratings are important enough to Fox that they were apparently genuinely worried after the buyout that Disney may yank the show from Fox and move it to ABC.
I always liked it, but it took me watching all the early seasons on Disney+ to realise that yes, “Last Exit To Springfield” is indeed the best episode.“Hired goons?”
My Top 3: “Last Exit To Springfield”, “Cape Feare”, “Rosebud”.
That’s solid, but I have to rep “Last Exit To Springfield”, “Marge Vs. The Monorail”, and “A Streetcar Named Marge”.No wait, “Radio Bart” has to be in there somewhere, if only for the Lincoln squirrel and its grisly fate.
I mean, it’s impossible to actually pick only 3. Picking 10, or 25, or even 50 episodes is an impossible task. The three you have that don’t overlap with mine of course are amazing as well.
Of course the ratings have been going down for years. The ratings for *every* network show have been going down for years. That’s the age of streaming for you.In a way this actually works in the Simpsons’ favor, because its ratings decline has been slower than a lot of other longrunning shows, and with network revenues going down it makes sense for Fox to invest in making more episodes of something that’s been consistently popular for decades, rather than kill it and replace it with some new thing that might not turn out to be popular at all.
Wash your mouth out until you learn to say “Homerpalooza” correctly.
Okay let me explain to you how this works:YOU having a preference does not necessitate ME having the same preference. Our preferences can be different from each other and coexist. There is absolutely no need for animosity. YOUR preference is as valid as MY preference.Got it?
Where was the animosity in that very joking response?
Okay let me explain how this works.I make an, obviously exaggerated for comic effect, attempt to make my subjective preference an objective truth, and then you respond accordingly rather than assuming I really want you to literally wash your mouth out and accept my opinion as gospel.Got it?
Oh boy… totally forgot I posted that. So embarassing.
Okay, so I was aware you were joking but I was kind of annoyed by it anyway, so on impulse I reacted, arguably in an even more obnoxious manner.Admittedly I was already on the edge due to an unrelated matter, which I did not properly reflect on in the moment.
I recognize my own mistake and I sincerely apologize.
No worries! And congratulations on issuing a genuine apology, which is a rarity these days (especially online). So in turn I’m sorry for my slightly snarky response!
Thank you. Yeah I mean, what else am I gonna do, get into a stupid fight with a stranger even though I know I’m wrong?I take no issue with your response, the way I see it, the snark was justified.Phew, glad we could work this out! Homerpalooza is definitely somewhere in my top 10, in any case.
Who knows what adventures the Simpsons will have between now and when the show becomes unprofitable?
I still find it amazing that The Simpsons is still the second longest running animated show to the Japanese Sazae-san which has a 20 year head start.
There’s another one, Anpanman, which debuted just before The Simpsons and is still going. Also Doraemon, which started in 1979, only gets disqualified because it rebooted in 2005 without actually stopping broadcasting.(There’s also quite a few more that have more episodes than the Simpsons because they run or ran weekly all year round.)
Sounds like somebody needs to do the Bartman.
I think there’s something to be said for season 12. Obviously it’s a worse than most of what came before and has some really bad episodes. But a lot of it still cracks me up with it’s absurdity. The absurdity actually might hit harder because the show used to be more grounded. I tried to watch the whole series on Disney+ and I gave up in season fourteen. Terrible. I’m told it’s rebounded somewhat since then.
I’ve been watching the show in reverse order of seasons, starting at 31 and going backwards. I would say the nadir was the middle-teen seasons. I just got through them and it was rough. The show does start improving again around season 20 or so, and the last few years have been pretty decent.
Can Bell replace Marge permanently? Kavner’s been over-hamming it for decades now.
The complaints are part of an unspoken agreement. It’s the deal The Simpsons has made with us: We’ll stop when they stop.
Julie Kavner’s voice has understandably aged quite a bit. I suspect she’s not comfortable singing. Presumably there will be an episode reason for why it sounds like Kristen Bell, but this is likely done for Julie Kavner’s comfort.
It is kind of a shame, it’s always been nice that for the most part the voice talent was handling the singing as well.This may just be for stunt casting, it may be for Kavner’s benefit, it’s still a little sad. I kinda like the rare moments that Marge’s singing was allowed to take the spotlight. Usually done for comedic moments, but still.
I can’t assume that this isn’t at least somewhat related to the plot. It’s not like Bell is going to be doing a Marge impression. But I can see where Kavner might not be interested in doing it and why plotwise, it might make sense to go in another direction.
It’s always a shame when things that didn’t need to happen are starting to happen because this show just won’t call it quits. Marge’s singing voice was usually one of their better gags.
She has still sung in recent seasons. I don’t think the plan is for Kristen Bell to do a Julie Kavner impression. There is probably a plot reason for the choice.
It worked perfectly in “The 7 Beer Itch.” When Lily, the lady that fell in love with Homer, is singing that song, then it fades to Marge’s voice.
You can tell in the last couple of seasons that her voice has drastically aged. Maybe because of covid restrictions and the production, her voice sounded rough last season (same with Mr Burns, who sounded like he had a perpetual head cold).
Another blow to yellow representation in media. Kristen Bell needs to be stopped.
Here’s my totally original idea: Marge has a wonderful singing voice but only when she’s singing in the shower. So she goes to Carnegie Hall or something but has to be brought out in a tub.
only if she’s a frog
Flintstones did it!
They did it on The Love Boat with Gopher, too.
So, that episode where Homer has an operatic voice only when he’s laying down but with Marge in the shower instead?
That’s hott
Nice 😉
Can this show just go away ? It hasn’t been funny since 1993.. .
I will repeat, as I often must, that people who are dismissive of the recent seasons aren’t paying attention. Every season has multiple strong episodes. Has it lost a step? Sure, because it’s not 1994 anymore—4 of the first 5 episodes of Season 5 would be the best episode of any other animated program (and the fifth would be Top 5). But the hostility towards the current show is absurd, and overdone, and without justification.
Look, as someone who still watches this show, largely because I want it to be better, I still have to disagree. Yes, every season has at least one good or really good episode (except for Season 24, seriously, f*ck that season), but having about five good episodes out of 22 is not exactly a winning track record that justifies keeping the show on the air.And it hasn’t lost a step “because it’s not 1994 anymore,” it’s because the writing quality has gone downhill hard over the years. Hell, the point has actually been reached where I can barely stand the actual Simpsons most of the time due to the huge amounts of flanderization and repeated character development with diminishing returns; The best episodes in this last season, IMO, downplayed them in their plots as much as possible.
True, but I feel like its starting to dip again. The past few seasons seem to have brought back some of the worst parts of the worst seasons like too much focus on random side characters (multiple Moe episodes in a row, multiple Krusty episodes retreading the same bits, etc) too many “Simpson’s go to…” episodes again and it feels like more “Hi I’m this celebrity” cameos instead of them voicing interesting characters.
Its still pretty good on the whole, though, and nothing as bad as it was in that really bad dip that started around S11 and 12, but its starting to strain a bit again. If nothing else, its just having a hard time coming up with unique storylines that aren’t so out-there that they feel forced.
I’ve seen a few good episodes from the laster seasons, but I just don’t see a point in watching 19 bad episodes for 3 good* ones every year.
“tepping in for regular voice actor Julie Kavner—who, we can’t help but note, was certainly good enough for our well-worn cassette tape of The Simpsons Sing The Blues, but so it goes.”
30 years ago…
She’s now 70
Many have said that this show won’t finally go away until one of the principal voice actors dies. But this makes me think that even that won’t do it.
When Roger Ebert lost the ability to speak thanks to cancer, instead of a Hawking-style robot voice, there was so many recordings of him around that whatever company it was was able to basically recreate everything he might want to say via old footage. (I don’t know how well it actually worked, but the theory seems sound.)What I’m saying is, with 32 seasons of the Simpsons already, they don’t actually need Kavner, Shearer, Castellaneta, Azaria, etc anymore.(I’d say to myself “don’t give them any ideas!” but I imagine some Fox stooge somewhere’s already suggested it.)
I think that would be hard for viewers to stomach, similar to all the controversy over the Peter Cushing footage in Rogue One.
If only they had used Peter Cushing footage.
They already did it in a recent episode where Bart finds Mrs. Krabappel’s diary.
Ah so the voice of Snoopy. Enough audio clips that really anything can be done.
I believe they’ve already done some tests with Mr Burns’ dialogue:
The Simpsons when one of the principal actors dies
I said this the last time the topic of the ageing cast came up and I’ll say it again;I
want to read “Former Homer Simpson Dan Castellaneta died today after a
long and happy retirement” in the news instead of the “Dan Castellaneta
died in the recording booth from saying ‘d’oh!’ too vigorously against
his doctor’s orders” that we’re going to be getting.The Simpsons writers, cast and crew have nothing left to prove to anyone. Let them rest their laurels.
I want to read “Former Homer Simpson Dan Castellaneta died today after a long and happy retirement” in the news instead of the “Dan Castellaneta died in the recording booth from saying ‘d’oh!’ too vigorously against his doctor’s orders” that we’re going to be getting.
That’s not too different from how George O’Hanlon died during the Jetsons movie.
Maybe Dan doesn’t want to retire. And he’s only 63. Not likely to die in the recording booth just yet.
Homer sounds like Abe now. Time for the fellow to have a rest.
😂😂😂
I mean he can retire anytime he wants, he doesn’t have to keep on re-upping his contract.
How crazy would it be if Bell turns out to be a legit multi-voice on top of everything else, and busts out a passable Marge Simpson Voice?This reads like stunt casting, so I don’t consider it likely that she’ll even be asked to try. But maybe…?
I understood the desire to keep this show going to season 30, for the landmark achievement it was, but I’m shocked they’re still going. They still produce some good to great episodes every now and then, but they’re far beyond the classic years when nearly every episode was great, and the modern seasons are usually padded out with a number of unwatchably hacky episodes. Plus almost all of the main cast are in their 60s and 70s now, and it’s grim to be pegging these long term renewals around the health of the cast.If they must keep this thing going, they could at least try to reboot it with a new central family that reflects modern trends, and a significantly overhauled writing and production team. Bring some new blood in, try and get back to the type of satire and commentary the show was delivering in the early 90s, while still keeping a version of Springfield and allowing the current cast of characters to show up in supporting roles.
Classic Looney Tunes lasted 40 years. And without looking it up, I’m pretty sure they made it past 1000 shorts. I don’t really have a point to bringing this up, but your first sentence made me think of it.
If they ever have a Series Finale, would it be the most-watched event in TV history?
Probably not.
The show has lost an audience over the years and the media landscape is further scattered with streaming platforms. Not really sure if kids even watch the Simpsons.
It won’t even be in the top 100. Billions of people watched Princess Diana’s funeral and that number is sometimes matched by Olympic opening ceremonies.
There’s nothing special or identifiable about Bell’s voice, just as there was nothing remarkable about her scenery-chewing role in The Good Place.
Lol what a terrible take
Kristen Bell is an… odd choice. Not for any reasons relating to fame or singing quality, but her voice is very clear; Marge is iconically raspy. I’m not sure who I’d pick to sing as Marge these days, but Bell is much more of a Lisa singer than Marge.
The only way I see this working is as a reference/homage/rip-off of Singin’ in the Rain.
I still like the show, but Kravner’s voice hasn’t held up like the others. I’m not surprised they’re making this move.
Regardless of how you feel about the Simpsons, I miss the AV Club reviewing it on a weekly basis.
Hm. Never heard of the Dead Bart thing. Seems pretty fucking stupid.