The Simpsons executive producer and showrunner Al Jean didn’t hold back on his experience watching the show’s 25-season long marathon on FXX.
“I wish everybody could have as wonderful an experience as I did with that marathon,” said Jean in a conference call with reporters.
FXX aired all 552 episodes (and the movie) of The Simpsons from Aug. 21 through Sept. 1.
Jean, who has worked with the series since its inception in 1989, said the marathon was a “surprisingly wonderful, emotional experience.”
“It was literally like seeing my life flash before my eyes with very few commercials. I’ve been here the whole time, in one form or another. I remembered my daughters were born during the run of the show, I remembered the writers I had worked with. We really loved live tweeting right from the start.”
The year-old network saw a huge ratings boost in the 12-day marathon, ranking number one in cable among adults 18-49 in both primetime and total day. FXX averaged 955,000 viewers for the total day average, a jump of 855%.
Jean was hopeful the marathon might bring old viewers back into the fold.
“I thought it was really wonderful that the last day of the marathon was the highest rated even though those episodes had just aired on Fox. I really felt people who may have stopped watching when they went to college or left college would watch the new ones and go, ‘Hey, there’s a lot of great stuff in these newer episodes.’”
Fox premieres Season 26 of The Simpsons on Sept. 28. The only tease fans have gotten is the warning that in that episode an as-yet-unidentified Springfield resident will die.
“Some people have guessed it correctly and some people are really, really off.”
