Homer Simpson Will Take Your Questions on a Live-Animated Segment of The Simpsons

You may have to speak up though. He’s wearing a towel.

Fox have announced that three minutes of the May 15th episode of the long running meme generator/animated sitcom will feature an unprecedented “live” section where Homer’s voice actor, Dan Castellaneta, will answer fan questions (and to verify its live nature, comment on current events) in a sequence that utilize motion capture to marry Castellaneta’s live performance to the two-dimensional Homer.

It might be the first time something like this has been attempted on an animated show, but using motion capture for 2D assets isn’t itself a new thing. But it’s still weird—given that an episode of The Simpsons usually takes months to animate—to see it happening essentially in real time. Weird and fascinating, especially as it’s part of a growing trend of creating live events for TV to combat the rise of people watching programming recorded or on-demand. Not even animation is sacred from doing a “live” episode, apparently!

If you’ve got a burning question for one of animation’s most iconic characters, you can submit it with the “#HomerLive” tag on Twitter between May 1st and May 4th.

[THR]