Giant Freakin Robot

Elon Musk has his very own electric car company, plans to walk on Mars before the end of his life, is a key part of the press to privatize space travel, wants to build a rapid transit system that will make the trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 30 minutes, and, you know, PayPal. He’s basically spent his career trying to make all the stuff we see in science fiction movies a reality. (If anyone is going to build an Iron Man suit, it’s totally going to be Musk.) And he’s doing what every celebrity worth his salt before him has done, he’s going to be on The Simpsons, and now you can check out these two clips from his episode.

Even though I haven’t regularly kept with Fox’s beloved animated family for a few years now, it’s still the barometer that I use to truly gauge celebrity. You’re not really famous until you’ve been on an episode of The Simpsons, that’s the measuring stick I use in that regard.

We haven’t been looking forward to an episode of The Simpsons this much in what feels like forever. Though the show is still capable of greatness in spurts, it hasn’t been consistently good in a long, long time. We have high hopes, however, for the upcoming crossover with creator Matt Groening’s other beloved animated series, Futurama. There have been a few peeks at this episode, which finally airs this weekend, but now we’ve got some more stills to check out, as well as the opening couch gag.

Tagged as Simpsorama and bearing the logline “A show out of ideas teams up with a show out of episodes,” this looks like a pretty damn good time to us. Hedonistically so, as Futurama regular Hedonismbot, voiced by Maurice LaMarche pops up in this video and shows Homer how to really live. If only all furniture was robotic, sexually insatiable, and willing to massage your butt while feeding you grapes.

It was a big weekend for The Simpsons, a series that kicked off Season 26 with a death and had its characters imported into a crossover episode with Family Guy. (Your mileage will have varied with both episodes, though I liked them both, for better and worse.) But the greatest thing Matt Groening’s long-running series did that night was air a couch gag to end all couch gags, a creation of the Oscar-nominated animator Don Hertzfeldt that nightmarishly calls forward to the future of television’s longest-lasting family. It’s the most outside of myself I’ve ever felt watching this show.

The Simpsons has had a fine resurgence in the pop culture landscape as of late, bringing in surprisingly big ratings for FXX’s 12-day-long marathon. But the time for reliving old episodes is past — except, of course, on FXX, where the series will take up a lot of the young network’s lineup space — and we’re looking forward to the upcoming Season 26 in all of its potential glory. But the most exciting part of that season lies in the long-awaited crossover episode between The Simpsons and Futurama, Matt Groening’s more GFR-friendly series that sadly came to an end last summer.

No matter, because we now have our first look at the episode, and it’s Bender getting ready to unleash a horde of weapons on Homer. In other words, it’s the most perfectly plausible and understandable image they possibly could have shown. I can’t imagine Homer handling this situation with even an iota of tact. But where are they, with all that scientific equipment and books laying around? Professor Frink’s lab?

Fans have been clamoring for a crossover between Matt Groening’s venerable animated series The Simpsons and Futurama damn near since the latter premiered in 1999. Well now that Futurama has been cancelled for the second time in its lifespan, this team up will finally come to pass.

During a Television Critics Association panel as part of their summer press tour, long-time Simpsons producer Al Jean, revealed that the two fan-favorite shows will collide and tag team an episode this season. The crossover will air sometime in November.

Last night The Simpsons’ long line of notable guest stars checked author Harlan Ellison off its Bucket List, alongside a return appearance from Stan “The Man” Lee. Now, don’t assume that just because I’m using a Bucket List metaphor, I think Simpsons is on its death bed. No, I’m suggesting Simpsons should have been mercifully put down ages ago. But while the show’s writing has spiraled down a well of diminishing returns, it continues to draw all manner of notable persons into the jaundiced world of Springfield. Over the years that’s included quite a few famous faces from the worlds of science and science fiction. Here’s the cream of that crop from The Simpsons’ two and a half decades (so far) of life.

George Takei
Appearances: “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish” (1991), “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo” (1999), “A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love” (2001)

Star Trek actor/Facebook staple George Takei has popped up in Simpsons several times over the years, but unlike a lot of the names on this list, he’s never appeared playing himself. He first popped up in “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish” lending his distinctive voice to Akira, a waiter at a sushi restaurant who serves Homer a fugu blowfish, an extremely venomous dish that must be prepared by a master sushi chef or risk killing its eater. (Akira has appeared other times in the show, but was voiced by Hank Azaria on those occasions.) Takei later voiced Wink, the host of a Japanese game show called Super Happy Smile Time Family Wish Show and and an unnamed waiter in a 2001 episode.

Homer: There’s got to be something I haven’t tried. Huh? Hey, hey, what’s this? Fugu!

Akira: (Gasps.) It is a blowfish, sir. But I should warn you that one–

Homer: Come on, pal. Fugu me!