Disney+ celebrated Star Wars Day this year with a brand new crossover short from The Simpsons called “The Force Awakens From Its Nap.” Like other previous short films from The Simpsons franchise, this one also focuses on an adventure featuring Maggie Simpson away from the rest of her family; however, it is steeped in Star Wars lore with references to many characters and storylines from the galaxy far, far away. Ever since Disney purchased 20th Century Fox and many of its properties, The Simpsons has been taking advantage of the new corporate connections — and this Star Wars crossover is only the beginning.
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ComicBook.com caught up with The Simpsons executive producer and showrunner Al Jean about the new Star Wars short. During the conversation, Jean teased even more projects crossing over with Disney properties in the future, all made possible by the new streaming service.
“I can tell you what we will be doing is more interactions with Disney+ for sure,” said Jean. “I love writing for Maggie so I would be happy to do these shorts as long as I could. Every one of them has been a little joy.”
Jean also said that fans won’t have to wait long for the next Simpsons short film, saying “There’s something coming in a couple months.” As far as what it is, he wouldn’t say.
The showrunner expressed excitement for skewering other Disney brands. It sounds like The Simpsons can’t wait to get their hands on Pixar and Marvel in the future.
“I mean, in a good-natured way. Making fun of Pixar… I always think it’s funny when we’re making fun of something in our field that’s better than us. Kind of like punching up,” Jean said. “I couldn’t be a bigger fan of Marvel either. So yeah, it’s great. It’s great company to be in.”
With the series continuing for multiple seasons into the future and receiving a new audience as part of Disney+, the future is bright for The Simpsons. Jean expressed a lot of excitement for upcoming opportunities thanks to the new ownership.
“Well, [“The Force Awakens From Its Nap”] is just a little thing, this short. A three-minute thing that was a pleasure to do. But with Disney+ we seem to have found yet another audience. There’s a hundred million subscribers on it and every time I look, we seem to be one of the top two or three trending titles. So when you have that audience, that incredible base of loyal fans, you get to do really cool things for a long time. So it’s been way longer than I ever expected and it’s no end in sight. So it’s great to have a job where you get to do this stuff and you don’t have to explain yourself and everybody knows what the Simpsons is.”
The Simpsons short film “The Force Awakens From Its Nap” is now streaming on Disney+.
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20th Television Animation / Disney+
