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The Simpsons marks a monumental milestone this weekend with its 700th episode in its 32nd season, and executive producer Al Jean recently told Variety he’s not sure if he’s bullish about the long-running series hitting its 1,000th episode. Earlier this month, The Simpsons got renewed for its 33rd and 34th seasons, meaning the animated comedy will now run through to 2023.
“We’re going to definitely do 757,” said executive producer Al Jean, referencing what the series is currently contractually on the hook for. “I wouldn’t say that’s the end, but I don’t know how much further we can go.”
For fairweather fans, it may be something of a shock to learn that the series has not already produced a thousand episodes–a feat that Jean says would take The Simpsons another 12 years to accomplish. But, keenly aware of how many animated ’90s shows that started parallel to the Fox series, have gone off the air, and are now being revived (Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, Rugrats, etc.), Jean says, “As soon as they cancel us, they’ll reboot us. I’m confident, after I’m gone, there’ll be some sort of Simpsons coming. It’s too ubiquitous to think that it’ll just disappear.”
Regardless of how much longer The Simpsons goes beyond its 34th season, Jean said, “The hundreds are sort of arbitrary milestones… That we get to do this thing that we all love so much, and means so much. I’ve been here over half my life, and what a great way to spend it.”
The 700th episode, “Manger Things” is a flashback episode “revealing another wrinkle in the Homer and Flanders relationship, and also visiting a room in the Simpsons’ house that viewers have never seen.”
