In over 20 seasons,
The Simpsons have managed to employ almost every working actor in Hollywood, but when it comes to booking high-caliber guest stars the animated hit shows no signs of slowing down. Upcoming episodes of season 21 feature Neve Campbell, Jonah Hill and Sacha Baron Cohen, and that’s just the beginning. At the
Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror 20th Anniversary on October 18, executive producer Al Jean gave
TV Guide Magazine a preview of what’s to come.
“Jonah appears in an episode about a kid who’s the Bart Simpson of the elementary school ten years ago. Now he lives with his mother, he’s really pathetic and he’s still playing pranks,” says Jean. And just prior to Hill’s performance Campbell will appear in an episode where Lisa joins a coven, in a play on Campbell’s movie, “The Craft.” “Springfield goes back and reenacts its witch laws from 1690 to put all these witches on trial,” he reveals.
The show, which tapes several months in advance, has already lined up its talent for the year – and this time a lot of them come from the United Kingdom. “We can get anyone British except the queen,” jokes Jean. “We have Eddie Izzard coming, we have Chris Martin from Coldplay and we have Sacha Cohen who plays an Israeli tour guide, who’s extremely angry. He was great. Really, really funny.”
In fact, the only person Jean is fairly certain he can’t book is Barack Obama. “We’ve never gotten the US president. We got Tony Blair when he was prime minister but the president seems like an uphill fight,” he says. “I think next to the Nobel Peace Prize we’re a sloppy second.”