'The Simpsons' Sets 4 Disney+-Exclusive Episodes, Season 35 Arrival Date

What a way to mark 35 years: by succumbing to the state of linear television, even for a bit

I bet you weren’t expecting Fox to get less Christmasy this year. The Simpsons partook in two panels at D23 this weekend, with creator Matt Groening doing a Hulu Animayhem panel with other multi-show creators Seth MacFarlane, Loren Bouchard, and Mike Judge, and its own panel featuring Groening, Matt Selman, Al Jean, Michael Price, Brian Kelley, David Silverman and Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart. It was at that panel that it was announced that in addition to the yearly addition of the previous season, in this case season 35, Disney+ would be getting four exclusive new episodes starting in December.

It starts on Tuesday, December 17, the 35th anniversary of The Simpsons as a regular series, which will see the premiere of a double-length Christmas episode, “O C’mon All Ye Faithful”. It’s a full circle moment for a series that started with a Christmas special, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” all those years ago. It’ll be followed in the months ahead by “The Past and the Furious” and “Yellow Planet”, the latter of which is in the style of a nature documentary where the characters are animals. It was not disclosed whether they’d both air by the end of the linear television season. The panel also revealed season 36 details to a new audience, or at least mostly new, following the initial announcement at San Diego Comic-Con two weeks ago, including the season premiere, its guest stars, the two Treehouse of Horror-branded episodes and what they entail. The season begins on Fox on September 29.

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This comes as it was revealed in April that Family Guy would be premiering Halloween and Christmas episodes exclusively on Hulu, with the network’s fall schedule reveal the following month defaulting the Halloween special to a position of kicking off the season on October 14 as the show’s Fox return was being held for midseason. Whether these exclusive episodes expand the season or take away from Fox airing full seasons of either show is unclear. And of course South Park has released 7 Paramount+-exclusive specials, with 7 more already announced, thus far typically being double-length, seemingly reducing what Comedy Central airs to 6-episode regular seasons.

Season 35, a season shortened by the strikes and thus consists of 18 episodes, will come to Disney+ on October 2. That’s actually a week sooner than season 34 did, having made it on October 11 last year. It will be followed by a new Halloween-themed short later in the month. It joins “May the 12th Be with You” as the second Disney+ short to be released this year, a grouping that includes “The Force Awakens from Its Nap,” “The Good, the Bart, and the Loki” and “Plusaversary”, “When Billie Met Lisa,” “Welcome to the Club”, “The Simpsons Meet the Bocellis in ‘Feliz Navidad'”, and “Rogue Not Quite One”.

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Source: TVLine