The Simpsons has always been a show which loves its sight gags and in-jokes, so it getting to fully dive into the world of the MCU was a clear opportunity for the producers to have some fun incorporating world-famous superheroes into the mix. In the screenshot below (as well as others included in the rest of this article), you can see how the residents of Springfield were given an opportunity to reveal their superpowered sides. It's something which Simpsons showrunner Al Jean told Collider was "the most fun part" of making The Good, the Bart, and the Loki, the newest Simpsons short to cross over with an established Disney+ property.
The Good, the Bart, and the Loki is ostensibly about what happens when Loki (Tom Hiddleston reprising his role in animated form) gets kicked out of Asgard, only to find that the Simpson family might be a far better fit for him. That said, the real fun is in the "assembling" of the Springfield Avengers — to our eagle eyes, the casting breaks down as follows...
Lisa: Thor
Ralph: The Hulk
Barney: Iron Man
Comic Book Guy: Quicksilver/Thanos
Mrs. Lovejoy: Captain Marvel
Patty and Selma: Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness
Moe: Vision
Doctor Nick: Doctor Strange
Mrs. Skinner: Black Widow
Carl: Nick Fury
Flanders: Ant-Man
Hibbart: Falcon
Maggie: Pixie
Herman Hermann: Captain America
Miss Hoover: She-Hulk
Hans Moleman: Mole Man
Milhouse: Hawkeye
Reiner Wolfcastle: Giant-man
Shauna Chalmers: Rescue
The Treehouse: Groot
Santa's Little Helper: rocket
Marge: Gamora
Homer: Drax
Kirk Van Houten: WandaVision Vision
Luann Van Houten: WandaVision Wanda
Some of those were also revealed in the dense credits sequence, which in true Marvel form included multiple special scenes, including one which was made in just a week's time (since the writers didn't have early access to Loki screeners). In the interview below, Jean explained some of the process by which they landed on those recastings, what the process of creating these Disney+-focused shorts has been like, and why there's no Stan Lee cameo. He also explains the current mode of thinking when it comes to The Simpsons potentially returning to the big screen (short version — don't expect it to happen anytime soon).
Collider: To start, I wanted to ask about the process of this all coming together, because of course animation has a certain amount of time requirements.
AL JEAN: We got the deal in January. So the first stop was let's hit "May the Fourth Be With You," which we did, which was about three months. And then as we're finishing the first around April, we look at the schedule and we're going, oh my God, Loki miniseries, late June early July, let's hit that thing. So it was very quick, and tremendous credit to the animation team and director David Silverman for the last post-credits sequence post — this is a reminder to everyone to watch all the post-credit sequences, which we have in this four minutes — which parodies the first episode of Loki, which we didn't watch until it aired on Disney+. We were seeing it at the same time as everybody else. So that was about a one-week turnaround.
Oh goodness. It's nice to know that you guys have the infrastructure in place to make that sort of thing happen.
JEAN: Yeah, we wrote it on a Monday. We recorded Dawnn Lewis on a Thursday and it was done the following Monday.
Going back a little bit, you mentioned the deal was closed in January. Can you be specific about what deal that was?
JEAN: A deal to do shorts that would stream on Disney+ was made with Joe Earley at Disney+ — original content, three to five minutes. We've done two of them, but we plan to do more and there's so many great... If you think about what you can do on Disney+: the Disney classics, the Pixar movies, Nat Geo. We haven't figured out what the next one is. It could not be a richer [opportunity] — not to mention going back to Marvel or Star Wars.
Yeah. In terms of the deal, is there a set amount of shorts you're on the hook for?
JEAN: We are hoping to do five in a year. The year actually starts July 1, so we've already done a few. We're not on a schedule, but we'll do them if we like the idea. If it's something where we get into it and we go, nah, that's not good, we'll stop it. But we'd like to do at least three more in the next full year.
They could not have more fun and it could not have been more of a pleasure to work with Star Wars or with Marvel. They were so open and they just said really helpful things like, "Would you like to use The Avengers music? It's okay with us if you parody the cover of Avengers #1." These are labors of love, they really are. The goal is for people to just go, it's five minutes and if you like it, great. And if you don't, it's only five minutes. So, no loss.
Of course. In terms of the actual approach to it, the first Star Wars short was of course dialogue-free and it was focused on Maggie, the way that a lot of previous shorts have been. What went into the decision to take a different approach for this?
JEAN: We really had a template for doing Maggie shorts, so it just seemed like a natural for the first one. Maggie is such a great character and a lot of Star Wars is honestly very visual and not dialogue-centered. So it seems like a natural fit.
And this was never going to be silent. We thought, how is Loki like Bart. And then we thought, he's like Bart because Loki hates his sibling and Bart is jealous of Lisa. And then I thought, Lisa can be Thor, like Natalie Portman is going to be. So once we hit that, then Bart is really aggravated and she gets to be Thor. Then we were off and running.
With Marvel and with Loki, they said, well, you really have to get Tom Hiddleston. If you can get him to do Loki then everything else will be great. And we did. And it was, it couldn't have been better.
I imagine that for any actor, getting asked to play themselves or play their character on The Simpsons is not a hard sell.
JEAN: I don't think so. In his case he could not have been nicer. He said it was pure joy and a thrill for him to see it. And for us it was the same. He's really funny, as you would have known from the first time he appeared as Loki. I'm a huge fan of the Loki show and I have people go, "Well, how does it end? Don't you know?" And I go, "No, I don't, I watch it like you." But I can't wait to see the next two.
Even in the lead-up, were you given access to scripts or anything?
JEAN: No.
So you're just completely like, "we know this character exists, so we're going to have some fun with it."
JEAN: We didn't even ask because there were secrets I don't want to know unless I have to know. So we just went off the trailer, which we saw, obviously that was helpful to the opening titles. And then when we saw the first episode, we wrote the final credit sequence.
What is it at this point about doing short-form, really short-form storytelling like this, that you've been enjoying?
JEAN: Less work. It's funny because the history of cinema, it started with shorts and I really loved Buster Keaton movies, Charlie Chaplin movies. So to do these things with The Simpsons where you can do it and do it quickly and just have a brief comic idea is really fun. Obviously done 700 episodes and we're picked up for two years. So that's great too. It's just really a refreshing format to be at. And it's kind of the one that birthed movies.
Of course. I feel like there are definitely people out there who would find it much harder to tell a concise, clear story in three minutes than to tell it in three hours.
JEAN: It's like a short story, where you want to have sort of a funny punchline or a little thing that builds. I love, for example, the Academy Award-winning shorts — we were privileged to be nominated for "The Longest Daycare." Those things are really cool. And a movie is sort of a different timeframe, a different sort of expression. A short can really be potent. As I say, that's where movies started.
Of course. So I feel like one aspect of the special that I thoroughly enjoyed was freeze-framing and breaking down all of the different characters and finding out who their Marvel analogs were. What was that process like? Did you come into it with really firm ideas, like Ralph has to be the Hulk?
JEAN: No firm ideas. I've been buying Marvel comics since 1966, so I would say I'm pretty big fan. That was the most fun part was just saying, who's who. We're going, Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness, ooh, Patty and Selma, that's great. And then Captain America, well, Herman wears that shirt with the Captain America shield so we'll make that him. David did a really funny drawing where he had Mrs. Skinner as a Black Widow. And I always wanted Ralph as the Hulk. They have similar emotions and education.
Did you run all of those by Marvel? Did they have any feedback?
JEAN: No, no problems. The only note they had, was we thought, oh, we could put Stan Lee in a cameo, and they said that they don't put him in cameos since he passed away, which is a pretty understandable policy. We've had him on the show three times before, so we've had our fair share. And it makes total sense.
To wrap things up — we've been talking about short-form works, but for you, do you feel like the idea of doing another Simpsons movie is still in the cards?
JEAN: We've definitely talked about it. We talked about it a lot before the pandemic. The tricky thing now is to see what the movie business in general is like, because we would want to release it if it was a theatrical experience. If it was streaming, then I would go, why would it be a movie as opposed to a miniseries? But it's really hard right now, especially for movies that have audiences that are partially kids, because I don't think people want to take their kids necessarily to a theater just yet. So I'm going to movies and I've been vaccinated, hoping and praying that the business comes back the way it did. It'll be interesting to see.
The Simpsons, including "The Good, The Bart, and the Loki," is streaming now on Disney+. New episodes of Loki premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.
KEEP READING: Al Jean on 'The Simpsons' Disney Era, 'The Critic's Legacy, and Stepping on a Bunch of Rakes