Kevin Smith Had No Idea He Was in the Season Premiere of ‘The Simpsons’
As we’ve previously discussed, this past Sunday’s fourth-wall shattering season premiere of The Simpsons found Conan O’Brien hosting a black-tie premiere of the show’s A.I.-generated “series finale.” The audience of the Dolby-Mucinex Theater consisted of past celebrity guest stars, such as “Weird Al” Yankovic, Katy Perry and the entire starting lineup of Mr. Burns’ doomed softball team.
Some stars actually recorded lines for the episode, including Tom Hanks, Joel McHale and Seth Rogen (although Rogen only contributed his trademark chuckle) while pretty much everyone else remained totally silent. This meant a number of celebrities were likely totally unaware that their four-fingered doppelgangers were appearing on the show.
One such public figure was filmmaker/hockey jersey enthusiast Kevin Smith, who can be spotted in the crowd seated next to Britney Spears, who we assume is a close friend in real life as well. Not long after the show aired, Smith posted on Instagram that he was “shocked and delighted” to see himself on the season premiere.
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While Smith may have been disappointed that he didn’t have any lines, to be fair, that is how he began his career. Smith pointed out that you can still see him in the episode “Silent Bobbing it!”
The reason why Smith was included amongst the glitterati of Springfield is because he previously appeared in Season 31’s “Highway to Well,” which, fittingly, was the episode in which Marge gets a job at Drederick Tatum’s dispensary.
At the time, Smith called the cameo a “career milestone” and recalled that his Simpsons fandom could be traced all the way back to The Tracey Ullman Show. And even before that, he was a fan of Matt Groening’s Life in Hell comics. “I’ve been watching The Simpsons forever,” Smith told Entertainment Weekly earlier this year. “Fuck all the movies I’ve ever made — two things that I’m proudest of accomplishing in this life: one is I had my hands and feet in the cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The second most impressive thing, I feel, that Kevin Smith has ever done is be on The Simpsons.”
When he showed up to record his lines, he asked the producers, “Who canceled at the last minute?” They assured Smith that he was their first choice, but when he pressed the matter further, they admitted it was Seth Rogen.
Even before he was invited to participate in the show, Smith recalled that he was completely blown away that his Clerks character was briefly referenced in the episode “Three Gays of the Condo” when Homer calls Maggie “Silent Bob.”
Now he seems similarly thrilled to have made the cut for the season premiere. “Honored to be included as an extra on a show I’ve loved since day one of its existence,” Smith concluded. “Holy shit! Everything’s coming up Milhouse!”
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