The Simpsons Facing Unpossible Money Dispute

The trouble with trillions in syndication money

What good is money if it can’t inspire terror in your fellow man? It seems that a cast money dispute might halt production of new episodes of the The Simpsons, the longest-running primetime TV series, after the current 23rd season wraps up next spring. And you'll either think this is a merciful development, or the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

20th Century Fox Television is in a battle with the six principle voice actors of the show: Fox studio executives have insisted that the cast accept a whopping 45 percent pay cut, or else they'll pull the plug from the series after this season. The actors had proposed to take around a 30 percent pay cut in exchange for a tiny percentage of the show’s huge back-end profits, but the studio rejected it. A Simpsons insider gave The Daily Beast a window into Fox's hardball negotiations:

Fox is taking the position that unless they can cut the production costs really drastically, they’ll pull the plug on new shows. The show has made billions in profits over the years and will continue to do so as far as the eye can see down the road. The actors are willing to take a pay cut of roughly a third, but that’s not good enough for Fox.

The cast—Dan Castellaneta (Homer, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, and others), Julie Kavner (Marge and others), Nancy Cartwright (Bart and others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon), and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, and others)—all make approximately $8 million annually for about 22 weeks’ work.

This isn't the first time that the cast has clashed with the studio: in 1998, 2004 and 2008, the cast all involved in different pay disputes with Fox. Despite the fact Fox threatened to replace them with soundalikes each time, each dispute was settled amicably, and the show lumbered on.

But perhaps it's finally time to let The Simpsons go; some fans believe the show has been going downhill since the at times brilliant Mike Scully-era (there are whole websites devoted to this), and recent hit-but-much-more-miss seasons have been watched by a fraction of the live audience as the prime years (seasons 3-8). If you're only hanging on for the occasionally amazing couch gags (see below), you may be a Spalding Gray in a Rick Dees world.

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By Ben Yakas in Arts & Entertainment on October 4, 2011 9:33 AM

Comments [rss]

chee1rs

I feel awful for the cast ... they should go to OWS with the other "disenfranchised" and rail at the man

ImperialStout

Man, I thought it went downhill for a while (the years when they tried to be more random with their humor when they were losing to family Guy) but the past few seasons have had some serious brilliance.

megabillzilla

This guy gets it. The Simpsons went from revolutionary to sublime to to mostly strange to okay and has come back around to awesome since shortly after the movie.

I love how people who "haven't watched since season 10" generally can't fathom that the quality (and tone) of the show has changed a number of times in the last decade and a half. People also have a tendency to assume that any given rerun they see is from the first half of the series even if it isn't.

Also, every single episode of The Simpsons improves with age, and even the worst episode is 10x better than almost anything else on FOX. There's absolutely a place for it on television and I have to assume their ratings still justify their timeslot.

But if it should die, it's fitting that the money-grubbing trolls at Fox would be the suspect, though I admit I had fantasized about a grander battle.

That said, if the real reason is because stations won't buy later seasons in syndication, I wouldn't totally hate the idea of rebooting the show under a broader-focused "Citizens of Springfield" type thing, which is often what the show is anyway. Give the main cast more time off and they might be more interested in a pay cut.

jisnotused

don't cancel it. some people who says its going downhill don't bother actually watching it.

however uninteresting it is, I'd still watch it when a new episode is on, its kind of refreshing to watch a new episode after seeing the rest a hundred times. It's also still better than most of the crap on tv.

ButtPlugs

Missing season 9 man. But yeah please stop it, its not as bad as how star wars has gotten but don't let it get to that point.

AGWAGW

23 seasons is beyond cromulent. Cancel it.

estragon_nyc

I had a bet with myself that someone would say cromulent here, and your fulfillment of this prognostication embiggens my heart.

all_is_swell

I'll never be the darling of the so-called city fathers, who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about, "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?"

Also, here's another whole website devoted to heyday-era Simpsons...enlightening stuff: http://mcgarnagle.com/