The Simpsons fans have had their fair share of issues with the series in recent years – and it seems one of the voice cast members has his own struggles, too.
The animated Fox series, now on its 37th season, is long considered to be past its golden age, with more recent episodes dividing the fandom’s opinion.
For 82-year-old Harry Shearer, who has voiced Mr Burns, Principal Skinner and Ned Flanders on more than 780 episodes of the show since 1989, starring in the US’s longest-running scripted primetime show isn’t as thrilling almost four decades in.
When asked if he still enjoys being on the show after almost 40 years, Shearer said in a new interview with The Times: “It’s fine. It’s a little difficult when you’re cranking out – sorry, turning out – a show every week for half the year.”
He confirmed that a second movie adaptation will be released more than two decades after the 2007 original – and it was revealed in 2025 that the show would return for at least four more seasons, bringing the overall number to 41.
Last year, Shearer cleared up rumours that he considered quitting the show in 2015 after rejecting a new contract from Fox.
“First of all, I didn’t leave, nor did I threaten to leave,” he told Rolling Stone. “They threatened to carry on without me. It was a phone call from a lawyer, saying: ‘If you don’t sign this contract by five o’clock Friday, you’re off the show.’ All I did was republish that letter. So that’s where that came from.”
Created by cartoonist Matt Groening, The Simpsons follows the daily lives of married couple Homer and Marge Simpson, along with their three children Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.
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Elsewhere in the Times interview, Shearer addressed the death of Rob Reiner, who directed him in two Spinal Tap films, in 1984 and 2025.
Rob and his wife, Michelle, were found fatally stabbed in their Los Angeles home last December. The couple’s youngest son, Nick, 32, has been charged with their deaths. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.
Shearer said that plans to release the band’s final show as a concert film have been halted “because all sorts of things have intervened, including the obvious”.
“At some point something will happen,” he continued. “You can rely on that. Something will happen at some point.”
