‘The Simpsons’ Is Being Booted From the Time Slot Its Held for 30 Years
The world has changed a lot in the past three decades, but one thing we could always count on — perhaps the only thing we could count on — is that new episodes of The Simpsons air on Sunday nights.
But now, as an added reminder that the universe is pure chaos and beyond our control, Fox is yanking the iconic animated series from the time slot that it’s occupied since back when AOL was still a thing, O.J. Simpson had yet to be tried for murder and cell phones were roughly the size of a Yorkshire terrier.
As recently reported by Comicbook.com, beginning in February, Fox’s Sunday night “Animation Domination” will now include Family Guy, Grimsburg, The Great North, and Krapopolis — but not The Simpsons. This shake-up was announced back in December, but apparently nobody noticed because it was buried in a lame corporate publicity video, which was entirely set at Jerry O’Connell’s Christmas party for some reason.
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Hopefully, O’Connell slid out of there with his paycheck as soon as the cameras stopped rolling.
Animation Magazine speculates that The Simpsons will now move to Wednesday nights, in place of Family Guy, which is pretty shocking considering that they’ve been a staple of Sunday night television viewing for longer than Timothée Chalamet has been alive.
The very first episode of the show, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” premiered on a Sunday. But just a year later, in 1990, Fox moved The Simpsons to Thursday nights, purely to take on The Cosby Show, in what can only be described as a battle for America’s soul. After temporarily vanquishing Cosby from the airwaves, The Simpsons then moved back to Sunday nights at 8 p.m. for Season Six, beginning with the season premiere “Bart of Darkness” in September of 1994.
Booting Springfield’s favorite family from its established Sunday night time slot is only the latest blow to The Simpsons’ TV schedule. As we mentioned last month, the U.K.’s Channel 4 recently dropped the show after 20 years, further indicating that more people are likely getting their Simpsons fix from Disney’s streaming service, rather than traditional television. And Disney is clearly happy to encourage that trend, hence why four Simpsons episodes are being released exclusively on Disney+ this season, including the Christmas special “O C’Mon All Ye Faithful.”
The schedule change, coupled with the fact that the show has yet to be renewed by the network for a 37th season, could spell trouble for the future of The Simpsons. If this season does turn out to be The Simpsons’ last-gasp, at least the writers have some ideas for how to end it.
