A day before the Star Wars-themed The Simpsons short Maggie Simpson in ‘The Force Awakens from Its Nap’ debuted on Disney+ on Tuesday, executive producer Al Jean revealed that another The Simpsons short is already in the works for the streaming service.
“I won’t say what it is but it’s also very exciting in different ways,” Jean said of the next The Simpsons short in an interview with Variety. “The only goal is to sort of walk across the Disney+ tiles from Star Wars to Nat Geo and plant our seed everywhere.”
While details on the upcoming The Simpsons short are being kept under wraps, Variety noted that the next one won’t focus on Maggie Simpson, who was the front and center of the past three The Simpsons shorts namely, Maggie Simpson in ‘The Force Awakens from Its Nap’ (2021), Maggie Simpson in ‘Playdate with Destiny’ (2020), and Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare’ (2012).
When asked if the next The Simpsons short is Marvel-centric, Jean said “could be,” before noting that the people behind the animated series have a great relationship with the folks at Marvel.
“I’m a huge Marvel fan,” Jean shared. “We’ve dealt with them in a couple of ways. We’ve parodied them a lot. We even had a couple of them, including Kevin Feige, on the show. So our relationship with them has only been fantastic. Just as I’ve been inspired by Star Wars for 40 years, I grew up reading Marvel Comics. And have a bunch still. If somebody told me I’d grow up to write for Star Wars and Marvel I’d be pretty happy.”
Marvel Studios president Feige voiced a Thanos-inspired movie supervillain named Chinnos in season 31, episode 14 of The Simpsons. Titled Bart the Bad Guy, the installment served as a parody of the excitement around the 2019 blockbuster hit Avengers: Endgame.
Aside from Feige, Marvel directors Anthony and Joseph Russo also appeared in the episode as movie executives. Cobie Smulders, who played S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill in the MCU, also guest starred in the episode as Hydrangea.