Way back in 1990, a little animated show called The Simpsons was mere weeks into its first season, and a plucky young writer named Judd Apatow was a 22 year-old kid with ambitions of landing a TV writing gig. Apatow wrote a spec script for the show and sent it off, but never heard anything back from the production.
Fast forward a couple of decades and Apatow’s career has since exploded, becoming the go-to producer for big concept comedy in Hollywood thanks to a run of wildly successful films spanning the past decade. The Simpsons, for their part, have done pretty ok as well in the intervening years.
We know that back in 2012, Apatow revealed that he’d dusted off the old spec script one more time, with The Simpsons interested in producing it. That episode will now find its way to the airwaves on January 11th, nearly 25 years after it was first written. And we’ve got ourselves some plot details.
Speaking to TV Guide ahead of the episodes premiere, Apatow revealed that the episode, entitled “Bart’s New Friend,” focuses on Homer being hypnotised into thinking he’s 10 years old. After he becomes best pals with Bart, he doesn’t want to go back to being an adult again.
As for if Judd thought the script was still good after revisiting it more than two decades after first writing it, he stated:
“I had funny instincts. That’s about all. It’s a pretty rough script — when I reread it I wasn’t exactly glowing with pride — but Al and the staff did their Simpsons magic on it.
They know their business. They were very collaborative and very respectful but everything they wanted to do was so much better than anything I could think up. They turned my messy little effort into Cinderella.“
The episode airs in the US on Sunday, January 11th. We can’t legally tell you where you can get at it in Australia, but we’re sure there’s a torrent of information on the internet that’ll point you in the right direction.
via TV Guide.
