Matt Groening did an event in Europe and hints the ending of the Simpsons is coming: Link Some reasons include that it's harder to write innovative episodes, and the handling of Futurama did not help. Upcoming episodes include: "Groening is set to poke fun at Enron and Anderson in his next series, while Krusty the Clown will run for Congress with the endorsement of several real-life politicians." Interesting news.
I think it could be time to end it too. It really is hard to be innovative when a series goes for that long. Also, if he ends the series, maybe the movie will finally get made too.
Is it up to Groening to pull the plug, or does Fox own the show? On the one hand, he said it may be time to wrap it up, but on the other he also said he knew that Fox would "milk the show for all it's worth." Could Fox continue the series if Groening leaves?
I would hope that Fox would be smart enough to discontinue the Simpsons when Groening wants to. Then again, The Simpsons has been good to Fox, and Fox has never returned the favor to Groening for Futurama. I doubt Groening works for Fox again. I don't know if any other network will try another series from him either though... I hope he gets to end the Simpsons however and whenever he wants to. They can still do movies, and I know Fox would never turn down a Simpsons special if the urge hit Groening, the writers, and the actors. Fox is going to be hurt when the Simpsons exit though. To my knowledge they've never caught such "lightning in a bottle" since the Simpsons debuted. The only thing propping up Sunday night will be Malcolm in the Middle. If only they hadn't basically cancelled Futurama, which I think would grow in popularity outside of the Simpson's shadow (and that of every sporting event that knocks it off the schedule).
Wait, my impression was that Groening had very little to do with the day to day operation of the series since like 5 years ago. I know he's not a regular writer, and I don't think he has much to do with the animation-- I've always been under the impression he was a "producer" in mostly name these days, and had concentrated on Futurama for the last few years. If you look at the writer/directors list, Matt hasn't been credited with an episode since 1995. http://www.snpp.com/guides/writers.directors.html and from the LISA faq:
Here's another article about this from today's New York Post: http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/46948.htm
It's better to retire gracefully than be told to go. I'm a huge fan of The Simpsons, but it's getting very very tired (we're about 4 episodes behind the USA, and IMHO nothing in the current series is particularly good).
