Information about the plot for the episode “Fatzcarraldo“, which will air on February 12, 2017; has been released by FOX. The episode will be the 14th episode of Season 28.

In the episode …
“When all the fast food restaurants in Springfield become healthy, Homer turns to the last bastion of greasy food for comfort – and digs up some childhood memories along the way. Meanwhile, Lisa must find a good news story when the future of her school radio station is in jeopardy.”

Work, work, work! Work, work, work! First #TheSimpsons spotting sesh for 2017; WABF07 FATZCARRALDO, sched to air on Sun, 2/12/17 on FOX pic.twitter.com/Txer4exXlU

— Chris Ledesma (@mxedtr) January 20, 2017

For further information…
If you want to read the original listing from FOX, visit this page.

If you want to know further info about the episode, check our Wiki article on it. We’re always keeping it up-to-date.

If you want to know more about Season 28, visit our page for it in our Wiki!

Stay tuned for more!

The hour-long Simpsons was probably always set to be the top scripted show last Sunday night (January 15), with its high football lead-in, although it’s football opposition and the effect it would have on the landmark episode wasn’t conceived until the airdate itself. Despite the circumstances being less than ideal, The Simpsons still performed above-average on Sunday.

6.901m saw the 14-minute delayed episode, and scored a 2.8/8 rating, the highest-rated show on the night excluding sports, but fell away from FOX’s football lead-in. Considering NBC’s widely-seen football build-up and game itself, Homer and the gang conjured up a competitive feat. The episode was the fourth most-watched broadcast show in 18-49s of the week (the most-watched on FOX), with 3.566 million of its viewers being in that demographic; the episode was ranked twenty-second in most-watched shows of the week in overall viewership.

TVByTheNumbers reports an enormous 13.9/41 and 44.97 million average for the FOX football between 7pm and 8:14pm, while ShowBuzzDaily posted a huge 9.9 rating, and a 28.86 million audience across the six minute telecast from 8:08pm, and 38.752 million and a 13.1 figure for a four minute overrun segment from 8:04pm, the most-watched show of the night in viewers and 18-49s.

NBC’s “Football Night in America” averaged a 2.1/7 rating and 7.07 million in a telecast from 7:30pm to 8:20pm; the period from 7:30pm to 8:11pm had an average of 1.0 and 3.559 million viewers, with a 7.1 and 23.077 million average from 8:11pm to 8:20pm – eating into The Simpsons viewers who may have switched to NBC as FOX’s football ran late. A 12.0/35 and 37.113 million average was attained for the football game itself from 8:20pm-11:19pm.

Even the writer of part two of the episode and showrunner Matt Selman, complained on Twitter about the NBC opposition, posting “The ratings for this show would’ve been so huge if not for the ice storm moving the KC-PITT game to 8:20 EST. (SIGH)” (tweet no longer available). Chris Ledesma, a member of the show’s music department, quoted the tweet and lamented on the “Months of prep and weeks of anticipation upset by the weather in the Midwest”.

In any case, The Simpsons lost quite a bit of its football lead-in. Considering NBC’s also huge football build-up and game itself, Homer and the gang conjured up a competitive feat, and its 2.8 figure is still good despite being down 0.7 from the previous episode.

Sunday’s episode was up from the equivalent episode last year, which had 1.8/5 and 3.95 million viewers – but, with that episode having had no football lead-in, it would be unfair to compare. Sunday’s episode also had a 52% 18-49 skew, down from last year’s 58%.

With Sunday’s rating, this brings the season average to 2.23/6.9 and 5.246 million viewers. By this point last season, the average was 2.34/6.4 and 5.03 million viewers. This season is up in viewers and share, but is still down in 18-49s; now beating last season in viewership is most likely due to Sunday’s episode adding a high figure into the equation, which the equivalent episode last year didn’t have.

As aforementioned, despite the football being high for FOX, the audience had fallen by shy of ten million from the 8:04pm programme average to the 8:08pm programme average, with The Simpsons averaging 22 million less than the 8:08pm show. Despite the large drop for The Simpsons, it is entirely possible it fell through its broadcast, due to many choosing and switching to the football, and the show may have been damaged due to its late start. The episode may reach a 3.0 rating in catch-up, although it isn’t known for The Simpsons to gain more than 0.3 after three days of catch-up viewing – FOX will be somewhat disappointed with the lower-than-expected numbers (due to the unforeseen football match moved into primetime) and be hoping those who abandoned the show for football due to the late start time will watch on catch-up, considering the effort in promotion put in for the episode resulted in a figure lower than the previous non-special episode.

Among the targeted 18-49 demographic, Fox held up best against the NBC-won night, with all shows above the 1.0 barrier, something other networks couldn’t say, with ABC below it all evening and CBS peaking at 1.0 with NCIS: LA. In viewers against NBC, CBS was strongest, with only one show below seven million viewers – all of ABC’s shows being far below that number.

The rest of FOX’s line-up performed OK, with a one-off The Mick doing well with a 1.7/5 and 4.088 million (although this didn’t do anything for the normal Tuesday episode, which declined slightly (from its previous Tuesday episode) to 1.1/4 and 2.727 million – both of these figures are prelimary as of writing), and Family Guy didn’t have much of a boost with a 1.4/5 but was higher than usual in viewership, with 3.549 million.

Overall, The Simpsons had, opposite it, around a 45 million audience on broadcast TV to compete with, the highest competition so far this season.

In catch-up news for the previous episode, “Pork and Burns“, it reached 3.7 after gaining 0.2 (6% of original audience) after three days of catch-up, to become the fourth most-watched show in 18-49s for the week. And unusually for The Simpsons, it made the top 25 in most-watched broadcast shows in overall viewership, coming in 24th with 8.570m, gaining 383,000 (5% of original viewership).

In UK ratings, the first two episodes of the season achieved 529,000 (including those watching on +1) and 655,000 (excluding +1) figures respectively, after seven days of catch-up.

It’s rerun central on Fox next Sunday night and “Miss Universe” is on the week after, so I’ll see you when I see you.

And apologies for the post being published a day later than usual; the final TV ratings were delayed until today due to Martin Luther King weekend.

Sources: TVbyTheNumbers, SpottedRatings, ShowBuzzDaily

A behind the scenes interview with music composer Jim Beanz for the upcoming 1 hour special episode of season 28, split in two parts, titled “The Great Phatsby: Part One” and “The Great Phatsby: Part Two“, have been released. The episodes airs on January 15, 2017.

Jim Beanz is the composer of the music for the series Empire, and will be the composer for this episode too. In an interview with Billboard he said: “I was humbly grateful and completely shocked that they called me for this episode. But at the same time, I was ready for it.” He added, “Everything I went through prior to this, it was all for The Simpsons.”

He has composed a remix of the opening theme too: “I wanted to remain true to the feeling I got as a kid. I wanted it to have nostalgia, but more than anything, I wanted to give it a different spin that would work in hip-hop today. Therefore, it has trap elements, 808s, cool cadences, and switch-ups to give it a little bit of a newer sound.”

About his collaboration with the special guests Snoop, Common and RZA, Beanz said: “They’re all legends. On the show, they stayed true to their sound. These days, a lot of music sounds the same, but when they came out, each one had their own lane, musically. So when I structured songs for them, each one had a different feel.”

He also said his ispiration for the music comes from the writers of the show: “They all have screws loose and that’s the reason they work for The Simpsons. To have those people writing raps, it was crazy hilarious.”

And THAT'S how you make an entrance. ???? @Therealtaraji is joining us tonight at 8/7c! ???? #TheSimpsons pic.twitter.com/SnGqk2vo5W

— The Simpsons (@TheSimpsons) January 15, 2017

He and MCs added their touches to the musics too: “It was very collaborative. They let me color and allowed me to throw a few punchlines in there, jokes that a more urban crowd would get.”

He also assured the normal music of the show will still be there: “Hardcore viewers won’t get anything different. We still have those elements; we just added hip-hop, sprinkled it in to tie everything in … It was an amazing team effort and it came together pretty dope.”

.@MattSelman is tweeting along with us tonight during the special one-hour episode of #TheSimpsons at 8/7c! pic.twitter.com/dbl1wD8QZP

— The Simpsons (@TheSimpsons) January 15, 2017

Source: Billboard.com

Two behind the scenes interviews with Matt Selman for the upcoming 1 hour special episode of season 28, split in two parts, titled “The Great Phatsby: Part One” and “The Great Phatsby: Part Two“, have been released. The episodes airs on January 15, 2017.

In an interview with Philly.com, Matt Selman said: “Jim Beanz produced more original music than any guest composer or producer I’ve ever worked with at The Simpsons.  We felt guilty about how much we asked him to do. Because of Jim’s amazing work, ‘The Great Phatsby’ has a feel unlike that of any other Simpsons episode in the history of the show.  His creativity permeates the episode.  He was so fun to collaborate with, and no matter what we threw at him, he gave us back something amazing. I would have to say that Jim Beanz made the hour-long Simpsons hip hop special… super special.”

In the article they also added a special preview: Jim Beanz’s version of the theme song!

Eurweb also interviewed Matt about the hour long episode:

Matt started with “We haven’t done a huge number of hip hop episodes so we really wanted to go all out with this one. We have so many fans in the hip hop community and we went out to our three favorite guys and they all said yes. We couldn’t believe it. It’s like this Mount Rushmore of rap. We took three different rappers with three different styles and three different personalities in how they make their art. We couldn’t believe how much love there was out there. There’s a huge amount of love for The Simpsons in the world of hip hop, and obviously we have a lot of love for hip hop. We wanted to go bananas and we did.”

Eurweb asked about Mr. Burns and his role in the episode, integrating with the rap world. Matt answered: “There was a great epic friendship between Mr. Burns, an old-school evil billionaire, and a rap impresario in the mold of Jay Z or P. Diddy or Dr. Dre, or one of these modern rap billionaires, and they both kinda embrace that old-timey Rockefeller Hampton’s — certain glamor and style. That connects Mr. Burns to the modern rap image. There’s a line in the show: ‘Is not green a more powerful color than black or white? Burns sees a modern rap mogul and the style which he lives life and thinks, ‘This is what I used to have, and this is what I want.’

Being asked about the controversial world of rap and hip-pop and it’s influence in the episode, Matt answered: “We don’t super push it. The Simpsons used to be an outrageous show that people thought was really envelope pushing, but the world has gotten more outrageous since then. We just want to tell stories that touch people, and are funny and silly. I don’t think we’re super outrageous. It’s a pretty clean-cut episode…a couple pot jokes. Like when Snoop is recording in his booth there’s a lot of mysterious smoke in the booth and Homer pops his head in and takes a deep sniff.”

Regarding the voice actors for the episode, asking for the key qualities for the right voice to choose, Matt answered: “We just wanted people who had huge, hilarious energy. Taraji P. Henson — so funny. She came in and she knew we’re obviously making fun of Cookie. We’re doing a wackier version of Cookie and she loved it. She was ad-libbing, tons of her jokes are in the script. Cookie is such this outrageous character and then she just turned it up another notch and become even more wild. She had so much fun with it. To watch her send up Cookie like that, it was one of my favorite experiences in the 1000 years I’ve worked on the show.”

Next, eurweb asked about how the staff keep the show fresh after 20 years and how they think ahead of one or two seasons on how to test the waters on the audience, to which Matt answered: “I wish we had that kind of energy. To do 22 a year… I feel like we’re just like, ‘What’s funny? Let’s do it!’ Whatever we think of… we’ve done so many things —to think of anything at all good we just do it right away and then a year later see how it all fits together. I wish there was a grand scheme. Instead, it’s just like we gotta keep going. We gotta keep the train running. This hip hop show — to do an hour long show is epic for us. We’ve never done that. We did ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns?’ like, 25 years ago, but that was a two-parter over a season finale cliffhanger. This is like a mini-movie.”

Charles Barkley is joining the roster tomorrow night at 8/7c! #TheSimpsons pic.twitter.com/3vfitSpBTc

— The Simpsons (@TheSimpsons) January 14, 2017

The next episode, airing this Sunday, is a big challenge, and eurweb asked if it was the biggest one as a producer for Matt: “It was certainly a new challenge, and a new challenge is always exciting. It’s definitely more than twice the amount of work. People are used to a story being over in like 20 minutes with commercials. And now to keep their attention for an hour, with commercials — 45 minutes without, it’s hard — and yet, it’s a different dramatic situation. There is a B-story in the first half hour and a B-story in the second half hour, and there are little stories along the way that begin and end that you don’t have to follow for the whole hour. So hopefully that’ll keep people’s attention.”

Talking about the diversity on the show, and how much of it to attribute to the success of it, Matt answered: “We just want this to be a show that everyone can watch with their family. I know we have a lot of fans in the African-American community and a lot of fans in the Latino community. I know there’s just something about the look of the show and the feel of it, and our take of the world, that I feel is really inclusive. We really try to make that happen. Obviously we take shots at everyone. We make fun of everybody (because) at the end of the day, everyone’s part of the same mess that is America. We’re all in this giant mess together.”

Next eurweb asked about the show ending, to which Matt confirmed that the show will go on till Season 30 but it’s unknown how much after: “Nothing has been decided yet. I would say we’re pretty much locked up til the end of season 30. Those episodes would start airing maybe early 2019, I think. But after that anything can happen.”

Asking how he’d like for it to end, Matt answered: “It won’t be my choice what the last episode is going to be, but my personal choice is that it would just be a little small regular episode and not try to wrap anything up or change anything…or someone dies. The whole point of the show is every week beginning with this regular blue-collar family and they love each other but they’re troubled, and life isn’t so easy. You don’t always get along, then crazy stuff happens to them every week and then the next week it all kinda goes back to the beginning — like Groundhog Day. But I just wanna go out the way we started, with a small emotional story that touches you about a regular dysfunctional family like we all have. Obviously we’ll do some little jokes about it being the end. When it happens, I don’t wanna say ‘Grandpa died!,’ or the dog dies, or Homer gets a promotion or any of that. That’s just my personal opinion, but it might not be my call.”

The final questions are regarding their prediction on Trump’s victory at the elections: “It breaks my heart on one level. On another, makes me sad. Then on a third level, it’s very tragic. I don’t know… I can’t believe it! My brain is going to explode. We did a parody video of the Trump election when he first announced, and then people online took that and implied that we did that before cause we matched it exactly. But then lots of people, in this age of Internet confusion, now think that were literally stage-managed how he would arrive on the escalator, and that didn’t happen. We just imitated it and people go online and said it happened in the opposite order. All we did was make one little throw away joke about it. So that speaks to the bizarre post-truth era that we seem to be now living in. So I guess whatever is going to happen in the world, The Simpsons is along for the ride.”

And how Trump will provide material for the show’s entertainment: “No, it’s all going to be super sad. If you can find laughter in absurd tragedy, yes — that will certainly be the case. But it’s impossible for me to see anything funny about the future. Other than from the most darkest sense of humanity — the darkest sense of humor, perhaps. It certainly won’t be boring. Fingers crossed, right? We gotta be good to each other.”

Stay tuned for more

Sources: Philly.com, Eurweb