Featured Image Credit: Disney
Topics: The Simpsons, Entertainment, Film and TV
Lucy Devine
The Simpsons has been on our TV screens for almost 40 years, which means many of us can't even remember a time it didn't exist.
And considering it's still going today, it might not surprise you to know that it's considered to be one of the longest-running TV shows ever, beginning in 1987 as animated shorts, before switching to full, half-hour episodes in 1989.
The show has also just aired its 800th episode, and to mark the occasion, showrunner Matt Selman has revealed how The Simpsons will end - if it ever actually does - and what the episode would be like.
Selman told The Wrap: “We did an episode about a year-and-a-half ago that was like a parody of the series finale. We jammed every possible series finale concept into one show, so that was sort of my way of saying we’re never going to do a series finale.
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“We did a series finale in the middle of the show that made fun of all the ideas of wrapping everything up or ending.”
Selman is adamant that the show won't end, but if it does, there wouldn't be a 'final episode' and there definitely wouldn't be any goodbyes.
“The show isn’t supposed to change. The characters reset every week. It’s like Groundhog Day but they don’t know it — and they don’t die that much,” he added.
“If the show ever did end, there’s no finale, it would just be a regular episode that has the family in it. Probably a little Easter egg here and there, but no ‘I’m going to miss this place.’”
The 800th episode of the show - Irrational Treasure - aired on Sunday, February 15 and saw Marge take the family dog, Santa's Little Helper, to a dog competition as Homer takes on a treasure hunt with a group of history enthusiasts.
Selman told Entertainment Weekly that the episode was all about 'embracing the history of the show'.
He said: "We have those flashes of Homer as a stone cutter and then the pie man and then he's in different outfits from famous Homer episodes as we do crazy time jumps over both the one year and 40 years that the show has existed at the same time. Like, the characters are always the same age yet they've had almost 40 years of adventures.
"So did it all happen in one crazy year? Did it happen in 40 years? Neither? Both?"
Here's to The Simpsons never leaving our TV screens!