The Simpsons Creative Team Talks New Disney+ Christmas Special, Pamela Hayden’s Retirement and More

The Simpsons is celebrating 35 years since the premiere of its very first episode with a brand new, double length Christmas episode for Disney+, and ComicBook got the chance to speak with the minds that helped make it happen. The Simpsons originally hit screens with “The Simpsons Christmas Special” on December 17th, 1989, and has been taking over the world ever since. Now the series is expanding even further with the very first double length episode now streaming with Disney+. As part of the celebration for the 35th anniversary, and the Christmas holiday, there was quite a lot to break down.

With The Simpsons‘ “O C’mon All Ye Faithful” now available for streaming exclusively streaming with Disney+, ComicBook got the chance to speak with one of the writers behind the episode, Carolyn Omine, and The Simpsons Executive Producer Matt Selman all about the new special. It’s here they broke down how the special was ultimately developed into its double length presentation, the focus on Ned Flanders for this longer story, pairing Homer and Ralph together, Pamela Hayden’s retirement from the series and much more.

Read on for our full interview with The Simpsons‘ Carolyn Omine and Matt Selman which has been edited for length and clarity.

NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK: It’s great to see The Simpsons hitting Disney+ with this new special because it’s celebrating the holidays, and lining up with the 35th anniversary of the original broadcast premiere. When in the process did it start taking shape into the double length celebration that we’re seeing now?

CAROLYN OMINE: So my idea was that that Ned would have a crisis of faith. I thought, yeah, that could be a Christmassy thing. And my idea was also the Derren Brown thing because I had been watching a lot of Derren Brown at the time. Once we had that it was Christmas, and we had what it was gonna be about, we started talking about the story and how seriously we wanted to take the story. Then Matt, at some point in the breaking process, was like, this is too big for one episode. We want to not try and just jam it all into this one.

MATT SELMAN: Because to jam in like, Derren Brown and all the other stuff, and Buddhist parable and everything would have been really hard.

OMIME: We didn’t want do a two-parter, we wanted to do just a double episode. So this isn’t something that builds to a cliffhanger, then it’s like, “What’s gonna happen?” Then we also began to sort of really embrace the idea of what it means to do an episode on Disney+, because this is our first time doing a whole episode. Which is that, one, we are not limited by time. We’re limited still by the budget of animation, which is expensive. We can’t go crazy with that. But you know, oftentimes, with our show, we’ll be like 10 seconds long, and you have to go in. There’s sometimes where you’d rather have a bigger pause for a joke, but we don’t. That’s where the space is, so you cut it and you cut there. Here, we didn’t have that.

In fact, there were many moments that we actually built in where we were like, “If the person is holding still and nothing’s moving around it, we can hold on that.” We added probably about 20 or 30 seconds of not even new animation, just sort of letting things breathe a little bit more, which we’ve never had before. This opportunity to just make it as long as it needs to be within the budget. It was sort of after it had been written, because I remember it was more as we were going into more animation that it was decided it was gonna be on the 35th anniversary. So then we went back and added some homages. There are homages to other Christmas episodes, but we’ve specifically put in homages to that first episode. It was just very exciting that we were moving towards this more event kind of thing.

SELMAN: Christmas on a Tuesday morning.

Speaking to those pauses, one of the biggest laughs that I had was one of the pauses after Ralph’s “You can’t spell elf…” It really stood out to me because it’s very rare that we actually get to see that in the series itself. That’s the same for the Homer and Ralph pairing. I can’t immediately think of the last time those two were paired in a story together. So what was the inspiration behind Homer becoming Santa and Ralph becoming his elf?

OMINE: Homer becoming Santa, that was mainly because we wanted Drren Brown to have a way to talk about how people get swept up in cults, and beliefs and things without attacking any religion. That this is kind of, on the surface, it seems like that’s what trips up Ned. Because Ned being like, “You guys are crazy. Why are you believing in Santa?” Of course, it’s not the only thing. It turns out that Ned has a lot of other things that have been brewing inside of him, and this was just the thing that tips him over. Homer becoming Santa was a lighthearted way to illustrate how people can get caught up in an idea of something. And, I think we just though it would be good for him to have a little elf. I can’t remember a time when, Homer and Ralph interacted like, even talking to each other.

SELMAN: Maybe they talked a little bit in that show where Bart becomes friends without with Ralph, “This Little Wiggy.” But also, with the hypnotism, I really like the comedic idea that Homer is so stupid that in trying to hypnotize him for a very simple thing — that he’s good at giving presents — he took it all the way and it went way further than the hypnotist ever wanted. Which was then that he is fully Santa, and he can’t be convinced he’s not Santa. He’s very coy. I like the coyness of when someone is trying to pretend they’re not Santa even though they know they’re Santa.

That scene is so funny, and Homer has seen so many movies where people, like, a cute mailman might be Santa or something. He’s watched so many Hallmark movies with, like, a kind of old uncle who’d say “Hey, where’d he go? What do we hear on the roof?” Homer really took those in. That’s all subtext, of course. But, that’s what’s fun to me.

OMINE: I’m always very protective of Homer as a character. In doing so, there’s a moment when he’s sitting with Maggie and she’s putting little hats on his head. Before Marge comes in, I told the animators to make sure he’s playing with her. Because I want when Marge comes and says, “Okay, now you gotta do shopping.” The reason Homer doesn’t want to do shopping, it’s not that he’s lazy. It’s not that he hates Christmas. It’s that he knows he’s not good at it, and that makes him sad. So that when he has the breakdown in the store, it’s not just that, “Oh, Christmas is a hassle.” It’s that I suck at this and that. He’s beating himself up for that because he knows he disappoints people with his gifts, so it’s him getting in his head.

So setting that part up of that Homer’s problem with Christmas is not a selfish problem. It is a problem that he wants to be better for other people. That’s why when he’s hypnotized and [Derren’s] like, “You’re great at giving gifts,” that’s the greatest thing ever for him. And, oh, even better, I’m actually Santa. That he would just go into it so happily and enjoy it so much.

SELMAN: But also, Homer’s journey at the end, he does get good at giving gifts, and then he finds a present that’s the right amount of sexy. we had this party for the episode on Friday night, and the awesome Disney party people, the back of the invite was actual Sexy Sudukos you could do. Although it could have been sexier, it was really fun to have a Christmas party with the staff, the writers, the animators and everyone. So that was fun.

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Carolyn, you’d mentioned that you wanted to explore Ned in a greater detail, and it reminds me of the last time there was a big two-parter, “A Serious Flanders,” where we also got a big exploration of Ned. So from a creative perspective, what makes Ned so appealing as a character to explore with these longer stories?

OMINE: I think part of it is he has such a strong moral compass, so it is there’s something more to play with it, and he’s very clear about who he is and what he represents. Even though we sort of make fun of a lot it, because we are a comedy show, he is somebody who is thinking about a deeper level always. Because, I suppose if a lot of your life, a lot of your identity is being a Christian, he is then by definition, a character who is thinking a lot more about his morality, and his spirituality, and how he lives his life. He’s just a more a character who is more concerned with that himself. So that that does make him somebody to play with that is gonna be a little bit deeper.

On that note too, it’s notable because, he finally addresses some of the things that the show has essentially done to him with the unfortunate loss of his wives over the years. So, is was that a major impetus behind this Ned story here, to finally dig into all of that within the context of the show?

OMINE: It wasn’t an impetus. Because at first, we were just thinking Ned loses his faith. It it was more about if somebody came and told you about all the tricks that they use to get you to fall for a cult. In Ned thinking about, “Look, it’s just a character from an old book. You know?” All the things he’s taking apart about why Santa isn’t real is what trips him up. But it in writing it, I felt like it just wasn’t enough to just have Ned give up God because of that. It really did seem like he’s been through a lot to where these are the things that would cause you to to question God’s will.

I think Christians are often told to sort of turn the other cheek and just trust in God. I think Ned sort of presents himself as somebody who does that, but he is human. So on some level, he must be thinking. That’s something that was more discovered as we wrote it that he would be thinking, “It’s not fair.” He does question God, and it does make him think. It does seem like it was just nice to create this backstory because we did not really, really delve into his personal feelings about these things. But to create this backstory that he has been cheerfully mourning them in his own way with these Post-Its.

SELMAN: Very, Ned-type character way of the kinda upbeat, hopeful, adorable way.

OMINE: Then to have this moment when it all comes sort of crashing down, and Nelson is so mean. Once he realizes, “Oh, this is stupid, what am Idoing? Nobody is reading my Post-It notes.” It becomes like this house of cards. It makes everything else fall. Then hearing all this other stuff about how people fall for cults, and why everybody believes in Santa when it it seems crazy. It just sort of knocks him over.

Just as a final question, Pamela Hayden retired from the series after working with it for so long. But it was cool hearing her performances in this special one last time. So as two people who’ve worked with her for this duration of the series, how do you feel about having her leave the show and getting to see these final performances in the special itself?

OMINE: Because we’re showing them out of order, there are a few more performances left. It was at this table read that she announced it.

SELMAN: Yeah, it’s her last table read.

OMINE: We’re gonna miss her so much. And in terms of this episode, Milhouse has a great moment, but more importantly, Rod. Definitely one of my favorite characters she does.

SELMAN: This episode is has really great Rod and Todd stuff in it. They’re really funny in this, and a little less crazy cartoony kids. They were more real.

OMINE: Well when you decide to do this, and then you go, “Okay, well Rod and Todd should have a reaction. Then realizing how funny it would be to just sort of see them embracing a secular Christmas.

SELMAN: Air fryer. Clean up is a breeze.

OMINE: Eating candy, watching crazy TV, wanting toys, and turning against each other almost immediately. It was fun to sort of explore this and she’s so funny.