Harry Shearer has provided voice work in more than 780 episodes of The Simpsons since 1989, but the man himself has never watched it.
Shearer, who voices characters including Mr Burns, Ned Flanders and Principal Skinner, made the claim in a new interview, in which he said he “doesn’t know” if the show has aged well as he “hasn’t seen it”.
When told that the show is repeated on TV all the time, the actor, 82, told The i: “That’s what I hear! It’s good to hear you say that.”
Shearer also hit back at claims he no longer likes being on the show after all this time, stating: “No, I enjoy playing all these characters. It was the reason I did this instead of some other television show where you’re pretty much limited to one character. I liked the idea of the variety of characters, and I still like that.”
The Simpsons, now on its 37th season, has long been considered to be past its golden age.
Fans generally agree that show’s peak was between seasons three and eight, with The Simpsons already entering a decline by the turn of the century. Complaints about later series have often focused on the quality of the jokes, the plotting, an overabundance of celebrity guest actors, the audible changes in the sound of the actors’ voices, and the animation.
In recent years, the show has undergone a small resurgence in esteem – credited, in part, to a change in animation style away from the widely disliked aesthetic of the post-season 20 “HD” era, and a change of showrunner, with Simpsons stalwart Al Jean stepping down in 2025 after nearly quarter of a century.
Shearer recently suggested he was tired of being on the show, telling 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.
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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.
