The first episode of the 36th season of The Simpsons, titled "Bart's Birthday," features a mock series finale introduced by Conan O'Brien. The episode features alternate ending scenarios, bizarre situations and unexpected guest stars, including John Cena and Danny DeVito. The episode eventually reboots in a surprising way and everything returns to normal.
Introductory information about the episode
The episode, titled "Bart's Birthday", is the first episode of the 36th season of The Simpsons and the 769th episode overall. It first aired on September 29. 2024. The script was written by Jessica Conrad and directed by Rob Oliver. Guest stars included John Cena (playing himself), Danny DeVito as Herb Powell, Tom Hanks (playing himself), Joel McHale (playing himself), Conan O'Brien (playing himself), Mark Proksch as Hack-GPT, Seth Rogen (playing himself) and Amy Sedaris, who dubs Maggie Simpson.
Fake Series Ending
In the episode, Conan O'Brien presents a special "Simpsons Series Finale" in a live broadcast from the Dolby-Mucinex Theater, where he announces that FOX has decided to end the series. He jokes about how long FOX has been trying to cancel the series, and will present clips from previously filmed but never aired final scenes. One of them shows Homer perishing in a skateboarding accident in a Springfield ravine. Conan also mentions the contract FOX had with Macy’s for Bart's balloon at the Thanksgiving Day parade, which led to the need to film additional episodes due to amortization of costs.
Alternate Ending Scenarios
Among the other alternate endings presented are scenes where Homer dies in various grotesque ways. For example, one scene shows him being thrown into the air, hitting Duff's airship, which then causes a nuclear explosion. Another ending features Hack-GPT creating a "Simpsons finale" after being programmed by artificial intelligence and fed all the previous endings of the series.
Bart's Birthday
In the actual plot of the episode, Bart plans his birthday party, but Homer forgets to send out the invitations, and Bart only has eight hours to deliver them. During the day, bizarre events take place: Mr. Burns is presumed dead, the Comic Book Man and Kumiko are expecting a baby, and John Cena unexpectedly shows up as the obstetrician. At church, there are mass weddings of several characters, while Springfield seems on the verge of extinction.
Episode conclusion
Bart finally tries to deal with the chaos that surrounds him, and when Homer finally strangles him again during a classic scene, there is a bizarre reboot of the show. Everything returns to normal and Bart celebrates his 10th birthday. At the end, Conan cries and Hack-GPT announces that the Simpsons series has not ended, but only begun a new season.
Production Background
The episode was the brainchild of showrunner Matt Selman, who came up with the idea for a fake ending to the series during the writers' strike in 2023. The episode was partly inspired by the episodes "Lisa the Girl Scout" and "The Simpsons 138th episode spectacular". Maggie's first words, "Well, that just happened", were recorded by Amy Sedaris just three days before the episode aired.
Sources: The Simpsons on Animania.com and The Springfield Shopper
