After nearly two decades of waiting, The Simpsons Movie 2 has finally been announced.
Fans of America’s most dysfunctional family have been waiting for news on the film since the first movie ended with Maggie saying ‘sequel’.
Despite that tease, however, it’s been 18 years since The Simpsons graced the silver screen.
That said, the team behind the popular animated series has clearly had a sequel in mind, as they shelved one episode back in 2012 because the plot was so ‘cinematic’ that they thought it would make a good movie.
Here’s the problem, though.
When the episode was released in 2014, it was so bad that fans branded it one of the worst episodes in the series’ history.
Titled The Man Who Came to Be Dinner, the season 26 episode sees the Simpson family get abducted by the aliens Kang and Kodos.
After being taken to the alien’s home planet, Rigel 7, the family is put in a zoo while Kang and Kodos plot to eat them.
Ahead of the episode’s release, director David Mirkin wrote on Twitter that the plot of the episode was considered for the second Simpsons movie.
Later on, Simpson’s showrunner, Al Jean, would confirm that he and producer James L. Brooks had held the episode back for two years because they were considering making it into the next Simpsons film.
In the end, however, Jean decided against having Kang and Kodos in the next Simpsons film as he feared fans would deem it ‘non-canon’.
‘Two of the allures were exploring the rules of the new world and the cinematic nature of doing something in space,’ Jean told EW.
‘But then we were worried that people might think it’s an idea that’s not canonical—it doesn’t really happen, unlike all of the other 560 episodes that really ‘happened’—so the ultimate decision was to air it as an episode.’
Ultimately, Jean’s belief that fans would reject a story of dubious canonicity would be proven true.
On a Reddit discussion board about the episode, fans said it was ‘weird’ seeing Kang and Kodos in a canon episode.
‘What a weird, weird, weird episode,’ wrote _Burgers_. ‘I could imagine it making a bit more sense if it were part of a Halloween special, but as canon? I don’t even know what I just watched.’
‘This episode played out like bad fan fiction written by someone who has watched a total of six episodes of The Simpsons,’ added hohohomerrythrowaway.
Sawmyoldgirlfriend meanwhile wrote: ‘This might’ve been the worst Simpsons episode I’ve ever seen. Not kidding… This show either needs a major writing staff upheaval or it just needs to end, sorry to say.’
The worst Simpsons epsidoes
Our Deputy TV Editor, Tom Percival, shares his thoughts on the worst Simpsons episodes of all time…
The Musk Who Fell to Earth: My own dislike of Elon Musk aside, this is just an embarrassing episode that forgets The Simpsons is meant to be funny and instead fawns over its guest star for a mind-numbing 20 minutes or so.
That ’90s Show: Every Simpsons fan knows Homer and Marge grew up in the 70s, not the 90s, and I refuse to acknowledge the sliding timeline; it ruins some of the best episodes of the show.
Lisa Goes Gaga: This episode is a tipping point in Simpsons history. An episode so bad that it turned me off The Simpsons for the better half of a decade.
The episode did have some defenders, including TDenverFan, who wrote that they thought it was ‘pretty funny’, but the vast majority were unhappy with The Man Who Came to Be Dinner.
The Man Who Came To Dinner isn’t the only episode that Brooks thought had the potential to be a movie.
When he saw the season four episode Kamp Krusty, he suggested that the plot be used for a film later down the line.
The Simpsons Movie 2 is scheduled for release on 23 July 2027.
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