Fox’s block of animated comedy favorites finally landed on the 2025 TV schedule with new season premieres, including The Simpsons’ wildly impressive Season 37 opener. The episode, "Thrifty Ways to Thieve Your Mother,” featured a plotline full of ‘90s nostalgia, and it’s far from the first time the Emmy-winning series has dipped back to that timeframe for storytelling purposes. Because despite its seemingly eerie ability to predict the future, The Simpsons does not aim for timely relevance very often.
That stance is counterbalanced by a show like South Park, which has returned to former peaks of relevance by focusing so heavily on Donald Trump and other current events, even at the risk of facing unforeseen delays due to its time-sensitive structure. When Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman was asked by EW about how the show as a whole is handling the current state of the country and the politicization of comedy, he explained why he’s actually happy animation’s long gestation time makes it harder for the writers to be timely, saying:
Well, when you write a show that doesn't come out until 10 months after you write it, it kind of takes the pressure off, because who knows what the fuck we're gonna be looking at in 10 months. So like South Park, they make their show in a week, and even they can't stay up to date on things. More crazy shit goes down faster than even they can do it. And you know, Jimmy Kimmel's great, and I'm glad he is back on TV. Censorship sucks. What can I say? Censorship sucks.
Selman is speaking of course of South Park's recent extended hiatus between episodes, which the co-creators admitted was completely on them for not being able to get it done in time. As well, the showrunner complimented Jimmy Kimmel, whose highly polarizing suspension at ABC turned Jimmy Kimmel Live! into not just a scorching-hot topic in Hollywood, but also a ratings beast when the show returned a week later.
As far as The Simpsons is concerned, Selman & Co. would likely need access to an undeniably powerful crystal ball and a sane-minded prognosticator in order to pull off the kind of in-the-moment relevancy of either the Comedy Central series or the late night talk show. But let's not forget that Springfield isn't exactly the most up-to-date city around, even when only compared to other fictional places.
The showrunner explains why real-world drama isn't meant to be the norm for Homer and others. in the first place, saying:
But it's not our mission statement to respond to the crisis of the moment. It's more about a town of good-natured dum-dums dealing with a changing world, yet our characters never really change. The world changes around them.
Back when The Simpsons first started, it could tackle legitimate content-related issues like violence on TV in ways that felt more timely, if only because the internet wasn't yet around to keep everyone constantly updated about any given topic at any given moment. Now, it's probably easier just to write at their own pace, even if it means parodying eight-year-old movies with frequency.
Matt Selman says he thinks The Simpsons can be watched with equal enjoyment by anyone, because most of us can relate to the follies and foibles of local populations. As he put it:
Ideally, I would like to think that people on both sides of our divided nation can watch The Simpsons and feel that, like America, Springfield is a town of people who are good, but easily misled. Whatever your definition of misled is, you can apply that to the show.
So don't expect for The Simpsons to make a joke in next week's episode about Bad Bunny performing at the 2026 Super Bowl, although if it does, that one is definitely going in the "magical prediction" pile.
The Simpsons airs Sunday nights on Fox at 8:00 p.m. ET, and streams the next day with a Hulu subscription.
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