The Unusual Simp-spects

This is something we touched on in an article a few weeks ago, but I might as well expand on it. Back in the 90s, the producers of The Simpsons had to produce 25 episodes a year, and that was proving a difficult quota to meet. The solution was various 'extra' episodes that weren't worked on by the usual production team, and here's a list of them all.

2F31 A Star is Burns
2F32 'Round Springfield
These were produced in the sixth season. David Mirkin was running the show at the time, but for these two episodes Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had been in charge for the third and fourth season, returned. They had left to create their own animated sitcom, The Critic, for ABC, only for the network to pull the plug after one season. However, the titular critic, Jay Sherman, would then get another chance on FOX. "A Star is Burns" was worked on by the writing team of The Critic, and it seems its creation (along with "'Round Springfield") was due to a combination of a Critic-Simpsons crossover being wanted to launch the series on FOX, and a need to take the pressure off the writing staff of the latter.

2F33 Another Simpsons Clip Show
This episode was worked on by the usual Season 6 production staff, but is worth writing about anyway. There were 22 episodes in the 'regular' production season that year, and the two episodes produced by the writing team of The Critic were given the much higher production numbers of 31 and 32 to differentiate them from the rest of the cycle. "Another Simpsons Clip Show" also has a special 'high' number, in part because it's a clip show, but also because it seems it may have been extremely last-minute; you may notice that the episode has very little new animation, with even the framing device of the Simpsons in the kitchen being recycled from "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" (the only new animation in the show is the first scene with Homer and Marge in bed), and the plot is less story-orientated than other clip shows.

I have seen it written elsewhere that the episode's intention is to deliberately take the concept of a 'clip show' to its extreme by having as little new footage as possible, but I'm not sure if this is just a fan theory. I would not be surprised if it is true, though, as it fits well with the leaning-on-the-fourth-wall moment regarding the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon. The episode being produced at the last minute and this theory are not mutually exclusive, of course, although if it was made at the eleventh hour that might explain the error concerning the misspelt production code.

Finally, it is worth noting that this is one of a very small number of episodes to never receive a network repeat in the US after original broadcast: Fox viewers saw it once and once only. The other clip shows were all repeated, so perhaps the fact that this one wasn't is further evidence that it was produced late in the day to fill a quota.

3F03 Lisa the Vegeterian
3F10 Team Homer
Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein took over the reins of the show in Season 7, but David Mirkin returned to the position for these two episodes (he was still working as a consulting producer on the rest of the season).

3F31 The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular
Another clip show, hence the special high number. This is also notable as the only episode to be fully animated in America without being outsourced to Korea at all, because of the small amount of new animation required. There seems to have been some nebulous rumour that Mirkin also showran this episode, uncredited, but it's not mentioned on the commentary and I can't see why he would be credited for the other two Season 7 episodes but not this one.

The 3G episodes: The Springfield Files, Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious, Lisa's Sax and Simpson Tide
This was a special 'offshoot' production line done during Season 7, showran by Al Jean & Mike Reiss and with the idea that the episodes would be spread across the broadcast of Season 8 & 9, sorting the problem of having to produce 'extra' episodes for a year or two. The regular Season 7 writing team were credited on these episodes, but it seems this was largely credit-only, and these episodes were written by a small, special team of Jean, Reiss, David M. Stern and Reid Harrison.

5F23 The Joy of Sect
5F24 All Singing, All Dancing
These were produced during Season 9, Mike Scully's first season as showrunner, with David Mirkin once again at the helm for them. They do not have special high numbers, although the numbers indicate they were the last two episodes done for the season and they're broadcast much earlier than that. Both episodes were written by Steve O'Donnell, and it seems they may have had an especially small writing team: most of the usual Season 9 staff are all credited as 'consulting producers', as is Kevin Curran (who would later go on to work for the show full-time in Season 13).

"All Singing, All Dancing" is also a clip show, and there would only be one more after this, season 13's "Gump Roast". According to showrunner Al Jean, following this clip shows would effectively be replaced by non-Halloween 'trilogy' episodes (including season 15's "Margical History Tour", season 17's "Simpsons Christmas Stories" and "The Wettest Stories Ever Told", season 18's "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times", season 19's "Love, Springfieldian Style", season 20's "Four Great Women and a Manicure" and season 22's "The Fight Before Christmas"), before those too were phased out (possibly after the realisation that they'd done two such episodes themed around Christmas).

Although Season 9's main production line (5F) had Mike Scully in charge, there is a third of that season without him as executive producer: three hold-overs from Season 8 where Oakley & Weinstein were in charge, two of the 3G episodes done by Jean & Reiss, and Mirkin's two episodes. This means that Season 9 has episodes showrun (showran?) by every showrunner in the series' history, apart from Sam Simon.

DABF22 How I Spent My Strummer Vacation
This was the last episode to be produced for Al Jean's first production season as showrunner, and was a one-off return for showrunner Mike Scully, who also wrote the episode.

The Matt Selman-showrun episodes
Starting with NABF20 "The Food Wife", Matt Selman (who joined the show near the beginning of his writing career in 1997 and has risen to the level of executive producer, and has very few non-Simpsons credits on his CV) occasionally takes over from Al Jean as showrunner, doing three or four such episodes per production cycle. These include several of the best-received episodes of the last few years (which are often favourably compared to the 'golden years'), including "The Book Job", "Steal This Episode", "Sky Police", "Halloween of Horror", "There Will Be Buds" and "A Father's Watch".