Season 40 could be the last for The Simpsons, Nancy Cartwright suggests
The Simpsons star Nancy Cartwright thinks the sitcom should bow out — and she’s pinpointed when.
Let’s be honest, The Simpsons has been knocking about for so long it feels like it might outlive us all—yellow cartoons never die, right? But Nancy Cartwright, who’s voiced Bart Simpson for as long as the show’s existed, has just lobbed a bit of speculation into the mix about how long the world’s most famous family might keep going.
How long can it last?
Stopping by Michael Rosenbaum’s ‘Inside of You’ podcast, Cartwright was asked the one question every Simpsons die-hard eventually faces: what season will finally be the last? She didn’t flinch. Her answer landed pretty sharpish:
When Rosenbaum pressed Cartwright for her prediction on when the animated juggernaut would wrap up, she replied in her own words:
“40 [seasons].”
Rosenbaum sounded taken aback and, eager to check she wasn’t just tossing out a throwaway guess, pushed her for confirmation. She doubled down, though, clarifying it was purely her opinion and nothing official. Still, after voicing Bart for nearly four decades, you’d expect her instincts are sharper than most. Cartwright also made it clear she’s perfectly happy to stick around as long as there are recording booths and doughnuts on tap—which, financially speaking, isn’t the daftest plan.
Renewal roulette and the countdown to 40
This all lands about a year after The Simpsons officially locked in a four-year renewal, confirming the series will run right through to a 40th season. To spell that out, 40 seasons is no small feat—this thing premiered all the way back in 1989. I suppose even in the world of endless telly reboots and relaunches, Bart and co. are the original survivors.
Season 40 is in the bag for The Simpsons, thanks to a four-season renewal announcement made last year.
To put that in human terms, if you watched the first ever episode when it hit Fox on 17 December 1989, you’ve basically lived a full adult life watching Homer mess things up, Lisa outsmarting everyone, and Bart refusing to eat his shorts. The show even managed a hit album in 1990—‘The Simpsons Sing the Blues’—proving that in its early run, there wasn’t much The Simpsons couldn’t do.
A lot of us, myself included, fell hard for those mid-90s golden seasons—if you ask most fans, the sweet spot is roughly seasons 4 to 8. But The Simpsons still draws a crowd decades later, and for a certain generation, whenever that last episode really does air, it will be the end of an era, no question.