The Simpsons is coming back for season 34! That means the famous American cartoon family will hold their record as the longest-running TV show for a little longer. The Simpsons has aired since 1989 and before that as an animated short on The Tracey Ullman Show. Now, 33 years later, animation’s first family is still going strong. The show has long turned from a simple cartoon parody into a medium through which many writers, actors, and artists have proudly displayed their work. If you know a big-name mainstream celebrity, they’ve probably been featured on The Simpsons. Over the years, they’ve hosted people like Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney, Mark Hamill, Buzz Aldrin, and President Barack Obama.

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This season promises to be no less iconic. With hints and rumors traveling across the internet at light speed, there is plenty of new information about the 34th season that goes beyond your average Simpsons production. There are several announcements: this season will break tradition and have two Treehouse of Horror episodes. The writers will also finally reveal how they can tell the future, and there are plans to reintroduce a character that was canceled a while ago. Along with all the laughs, this season will contain The Simpsons’ 750th episode.

Here’s everything we know about the 34th season of The Simpsons.

Season 34: What to Expect

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The Simpsons plans on putting on an exciting season. There has existed a fun little rumor amongst fans that the show can actually tell the future. And there have been times when their predictions came true. The series predicted smartwatches years before the iPhone was invented. They showed Richard Branson in space long before he went. They predicted that Fox would be bought by Disney. They even correctly measured the mass of the Higgs Boson (which is a big deal if you’re a physicist), something that took scientists 49 years and $13 billion to do. In this season, we’ll see the Simpsons play with time travel, and there will be an episode explaining exactly how the cartoon family can know the future.

The Simpsons will also be doing something drastically new: this will be the first season of the show ever to feature a two-part Treehouse of Horror special. While the Treehouse of Horror episodes are typically told as a 3-part anthology, only one of these episodes will follow the usual tradition while the other will focus on telling just one story in a regular episode format. There’s not much news on what’s in store for the content for the extended episode, but we do know that the anthology will parody IT, Ellen Degeneres’ talk show, and the popular anime Death Note.

Season 34: The Cast, Crew, & Guest Stars

The show will, of course, feature its regular cast: Dan Castellaneta as Homer, Julie Kavner as Marge, Yeardley Smith as Lisa, and Nancy Cartwright as Bart and Maggie. But The Simpsons has created a thriving tradition of featuring excellent guest stars. And though the producers don’t publish their featured guests on a list, there are some rumors circulating about a few celebrities who will lend their voices to the series.

Variety has confirmed that Melissa McCarthy will be on the show, acting as one of Homer’s rivals as he pursues his grandpa’s love in a Step Brothers scenario. And ComicBook has reported that Simu Liu of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings would be on the show as Lisa’s boyfriend. Some fans are also hoping for an old Comic-Con rumor from 2021 that Lisa and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would develop a friendship at some point, but there hasn’t been a word either way.

One prominent cast member The Simpsons lost was Hank Azaria as Apu. It became quite an issue when a movement started in America to have diverse animated characters be voiced by actors who were able to represent that diversity. Azaria eventually became frustrated as a white person playing an Indian man and refused to voice the character any longer. But in 2021, when the series was renewed for more seasons, Matt Groening told USA Today, “We’ve got plans for Apu, but we have to see if we can make the stories work.”

So there have been rumors ever since of whether we might see Apu again. So far, there haven’t been any developments, and very little news has leaked. But if Groening wants to bring the character back in this cycle of renewals, he’ll have to do it this season. He dodged questions about whether he would change Apu’s voice or his plans for the character. At the moment, it seems like a long shot to have the character return in an acceptable way. Any solution the studio comes up with will have to be quite remarkable.

Premiere Date

The first episode of season 34 will air on September 25, 2022.