EXCLUSIVE! We chatted with 'The Simpsons' boss about how the media hyped up the "big death" too much.
The Grim Reaper visited Springfield once again!
After months of anticipation, Sunday's season 26 premiere of The Simpsons finally revealed the identity of the "big death" victim that everyone has been buzzing about. The episode, titled "Clown in the Dumps" led many fans to believe that Krusty the Clown or Sideshow Bob was going to be killed off.
However, we discovered early in the premiere that it was… Krusty's father! That's right, Rabbi Hyman Krustofski, who has been voiced by both Jackie Mason and Dan Castellaneta, kicked the bucket in the middle of giving his son some not-so-encouraging words of wisdom.
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Following his dad's passing, Krusty went through a bit of an existential crisis, but of course everything was A-okay by the episode's end. They even gave us a catchy song about what "Jewish Heaven" must be like.
If you were expecting a much more shocking death, you're not alone! In fact, executive producer Al Jean spilled to ETonline that the powers-that-be at The Simpsons never intended for this episode to get so much hype.
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"I would say they, [the media], are definitely taking it extremely too far. I was just on a conference call about a year ago and I was asked what we had coming, and I mentioned this episode and people went nuts," Jean explained.
"And there was a clue I gave that the actor portraying this character won an Emmy for playing the character and so everyone was just like, 'What's the mystery?!'" The EP continued, "We're not like Mad Men, we don’t have secrets. We're a show that usually lays it all out, so this is a new thing for me."
Were you upset to see Rabbi Krustofski go? Shout out your thoughts in the comments below!
