Trivia / The Simpsons Movie

• Adored by the Network: FXX reruns this movie very often and is usually the thing shown when they don't feel like showing more episodes of the show it's based on or Family Guy.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: The choral version of "Spider-Pig" became a hit single in several countries, making it, at a scant 61 seconds, the shortest recording ever to chart.
• Deleted Role:
  • Kelsey Grammer's Sideshow Bob and a family therapist voiced by Minnie Driver were originally going to be in the film, but for some reason their scenes were cut.
  • Isla Fisher, and Erin Brockovich-Ellis also recorded lines, but their scenes were cut.
  • Kevin Bacon had a small cameo with his sons, Exon and Kris P., as an alternative Flanders family living outside of the dome. The scene was eventually cut.
• Deleted Scene:
  • When Homer returns to Springfield, he hitches a ride with a truck driver for "Delicious Sausages". He's taken in the back of the truck, where the sausages are kept. After Homer gets off he thanks the truck driver and walks away. The truck driver then goes to check on his sausages and just as he opens up the truck's back door, the scene cuts back to Homer who's guzzling the last string of sausages as we hear the driver's Big "NO!" in the distance.
  • When the dome lands on Springfield, the news reports that there's no weather, so all of the crops are dying, merchants are charging exorbitant prices for basic necessities, and the effects of the dome on the world of sports.
  • Everyone in Springfield goes crazy and damages Springfield by trashing it (which is how when Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie returned to Springfield and found it in ruins).
  • Moe becomes the town's emperor when Springfield is covered up by the dome, and Marge asks him how he did it. Moe explains why, showing photos of how the citizens were, first a dystopia, then a utopia, and then finally an autopia. He says that the town through some very horrible and very intense times, leaving many locals dead, and many others also dead as well.
• Demand Overload: The Simpsonize Me website that was launched concurrently with the film saw so much traffic during its early life on the internet that it frequently saw downtime. The fact that the site also utilized high-quality animated graphics didn't help either.
• DVD Commentary: There's two, included in both the DVD and the Blu-Ray and on Disney Plus.
  • First commentary, with writer-producers Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean and Mike Scully, producer Richard Sakai, director David Silverman and voice actors Dan Castellaneta and Yeardley Smith.
  • Second commentary, with director David Silverman and sequence directors Mike B. Anderson, Steven Dean Moore and Rich Moore. (The others, Gregg Vanzo and Lauren MacMillan, were not available)
• Enforced Method Acting: In order to make her sound properly emotionally drained, director Silverman had Julie Kavner record Marge's goodbye monologue to Homer close to one hundred times. The final take is the one that made it into the film.
• First Appearance: Of Homer's license plate number "1PHL07", which is a reference to The Bible. Previously, whenever it was shown in the series, it was always a different number. Starting with the episode "Homer the Father", however, it is consistently "1PHL07".
• Kids' Meal Toy: Burger King released a set of sixteen talking figures, including one of Russ Cargill with his original design.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Many shots from the long inventory of characters the narrator reels off, including:
  • A scene where Wiggum and Apu converse as they flee from the hounds, which was apparently Wiggum chewing out Apu for blowing their chance to get power from Mr. Burns.
  • Marge and Lovejoy are discussing the footage of Grampa's prophecy and Lovejoy says "Here's the Money Shot".
  • A shot of Mr. Burns bathing in a bathtub of jewels and diamonds
  • A shot of Groundskeeper Willie looking out of his truck.
• Orphaned Reference: In the wide shot of the dome on the town (when Homer screams "DOOOOOME!") you can see the baseball stadium has been bisected by the base of the dome. This was a setup for a later joke where West Springfield thrash North Springfield at the game since the ball keeps rebounding off the dome, making it practically impossible to catch the batter out, but the scene didn't make the final cut.
• The Other Marty:
  • Maile Flanagan was the original voice actress for Colin, but she was let go at some point in production and Tress MacNeille re-recorded the dialogue.
  • Edward Norton initially recorded the part of the man who gets crushed by the dome using a Woody Allen impression, but the crew felt the voice too distracting, so Dan Castellaneta re-recorded the dialogue with a different voice. Norton would later go on to voice an Allen-esque bagel in Sausage Party.
• Spared by the Cut: In at least one draft, Cargill was going to die at the end of the film.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: The "What You Lookin' At?" figurine set◊ depicts the scene where Bart Simpson and Ned Flanders discover the mutant squirrel. The officially solicited photos of the set at least had the decency to censor the spoiler itself.
• Throw It In!: Hans Zimmer produced a choral version of "Spider-Pig" for the soundtrack just for shits and giggles, but the music worked so well with the epiphany scene that the producers placed it there. Turns out to be an overblown gag that snowballed out of control, as FOX also had to secure the rights to the song, and Zimmer had to redub it into different languages!
• Tourist Bump: 20th Century Fox invoked this trope by giving every town in America named Springfield the chance to host the premiere of the movie. The towns had to send in a film to explain why their Springfield was the best choice. The winner was Springfield, Vermont.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A Simpsons film has been planned since the 1990s, but the writers couldn't figure out how to stretch the plot to feature-film length. Episodes that were considered for a feature-length movie are "Kamp Krusty" (which became the fourth season premiere) and "Bonfire of the Manatees" (the season 17 premiere). Before his death, Phil Hartman had expressed interest in doing a live-action Troy McClure film.
  • Though the producers claim the film changed so often that at least another film's worth of material made it to storyboard and/or animatic, only a few minutes of (finished) deleted scenes appear on the DVD.
  • Hank Scorpio from "You Only Move Twice" was going to be the villain instead of Russ Cargill. Hell, they not only share the same voice actor, but the same voice. They decided against it because Scorpio was found to be too likeable to turn into an all-out villain.
    • Speaking of Cargill, he was supposed to have a completely different design from the one seen in the final film. It made him look more like Bert from Sesame Street than an industrialist/government official. (The original design was still used for the Burger King toys.)
  • The film was going to have more PG-13 language than just Marge's sole "Goddamn".
  • In the original storyboard, the silo containing the pig's crap had "pig shit" written on it.
    • On that note: Marge's line about what Homer was doing with the pig's "leavings" began as what Matt Groening described as "the world's longest shit joke," with Marge giving a long list of euphemisms for crap/shit, none of which would register to Homer.
  • Instead of being destroyed by the sinkhole, the Simpson house was originally burned down. Reverend Lovejoy set Maggie's crib on fire, which spread throughout the house. This scene was later deleted and replaced with the former scene, although the house being on fire is still shown when Marge runs in and out of the house to grab their wedding video.
  • The carnival scene was originally much longer and included the family auditioning to be clowns and getting jobs there.
  • There were more scenes of the family escaping from Springfield, including a scene where they go into a museum and Bart gets trapped in a coffin, and the family is getting chased by cops and Homer throws flaming mummies from the same museum.
  • Apparently, it was originally supposed to be President Schwarzenegger who managed to KO Cargill (with a tree branch!), instead of Maggie dropping a boulder on him.
  • Instead of going to Seattle, Marge and the kids were going to go on The View where Cargill shows up, gets in a shotgun duel with Joy Behar, and has the Simpsons arrested.
  • Originally, Marge, not Grampa, was supposed to be the one to have the prophecy at church, but the writers admitted they were a little disturbed by the fact the entire family would just ignore when someone as reserved like Marge would completely wig out, so they changed to the character that everyone ignored anyway.
  • The scene even went far into production to where it was storyboarded and Julie Kavner did voice work.
  • Kang and Kodos were at one point going to appear, given that Harry Shearer is credited for playing Kang in the end credits.
  • President Arnold Schwarzenegger originally had a Nickelodeon blimp on his desk.

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