The Simpsons’ Disney+ Christmas Special Brings Back Retired Star (& They Aren’t Done Yet)

The Simpsons is celebrating the 35th anniversary of its original broadcast with a brand new Christmas special exclusively streaming with Disney+, and the new episode brings back retired star Pamela Hayden for some pretty big moments. The Simpsons has been on the air since December 17th, 1989, and it kicked off its run with “The Simpsons Christmas Special.” This premiere episode wasn’t originally supposed to be the first episode of the series, but ended up being such a perfect start that The Simpsons has still been enjoying success over three decades later. But naturally there have been some changes since that very first episode.

The Simpsons officially announced during Season 36 that Pamela Hayden, the voice star behind characters such as Milhouse VanHouten and Rod Flanders, was going to retire from the animated series after 35 years. It turns out that we have yet to see the last of Hayden’s truly final moments with the series as not only does the star appear in the new Disney+ special as both Milhouse and Rod, but The Simpsons executive producer Matt Selman and writer Carolyn Omine revealed to ComicBook that she still has a few more performances left because of the order of the episodes during production.

Pamela Hayden Returns in The Simpsons Disney+ Christmas Special

The Simpsons‘ new Christmas special on Disney+ is titled “O C’mon All Ye Faithful” and is a double-sized episode featured quite a lot of Ned Flanders. When Homer ends up believing he’s Santa Claus when he’s hypnotized into becoming a great gift giver, Ned begins to have a crisis of faith. As he tries to debunk the fact that there’s no way Homer could become Santa as Santa isn’t real, he ends up second guessing whether or not God is real. This leads to Rod and Todd having a more secular Christmas holiday, and the two of them are introduced to a toy guide by Lisa and Bart.

Hayden gets some fantastic moments as Rod during these sequences, and then it’s taken even further when Bart tries to prank Ned into believing in God again. He enlists Milhouse’s help as a Samara from The Ring like ghost climbing out of the TV, only for Milhouse to mention that it better not count as his screen time. It’s a great moment for Hayden’s major characters that fans were already missing after the star’s retirement, but thankfully she’s not quite done with the series just yet.

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Hayden Still Has Some The Simpsons Episodes Left

Speaking to ComicBook about “O C’mon All Ye Faithful,” The Simpsons writer Carolyn Omine revealed that “Because we’re showing them out of order, there are a few more performances left” for Hayden’s time in the series. Selman and Omine noted that this episode was actually the table read where Hayden had announced her retirement to the others, and loved that it had some big moments for Hayden’s characters. Milhouse has a stand out moment, but both Omine and Selman were more excited to see some of the things Rod does in the special.

So while the announcement for Hayden’s retirement seemed to indicate that her time with the series has already come to an end, the order in which they produced the episodes she’s in means that there will still be a few moments with Hayden in the rest of the season. As for which of her episodes will actually be her final one, unfortunately that’s still unclear. Fans will just need to tune into The Simpsons Season 36’s new episodes after checking out “O C’mon All Ye Faithful” on Disney+.