Longtime executive producer and show runner for “The Simpsons” Al Jean revealed something that even the most diehard fan may not have known. There was an episode featuring Prince that was supposed to air around season 4 or 5 that never got produced.
The story goes that the people behind “The Simpsons” wrote a script that was kind of a continuation of their classic season 2 episode featuring Michael Jackson. In that episode, a fat white man named Leon Kompowsky was in a mental institution with Homer because he thought he was the “King of Pop.” Jackson did his own voice under a pseudonym and wasn’t confirmed until years later it was actually Jackson. In this unfinished episode, Leon would be back but believing he was Prince.
That much was known, Jean’s show runner partner at that time Mike Reiss revealed in a commentary about the plan involving Prince that never came to fruition. What we didn’t know until now was any of the dialogue from that episode and additional details.
Prince apparently didn’t like the original script. This led to Conan O’Brien rewriting the script and changing some things to this new idea. It’s unknown whether Prince warmed up to this new script any more but it wasn’t enough for him to sign on and get the episode made. After Prince’s death on Friday, Jean posted a couple pages from O’Brien’s script on Twitter from the never completed episode.
.@TheSimpsons page from unproduced Prince script thank you Jacqueline Atkins for finding! pic.twitter.com/GvYaJKXxgD
— Al Jean (@AlJean) April 23, 2016
.@TheSimpsons possibly another objection Prince had to the script… pic.twitter.com/OgRxlZ5EKJ — Al Jean (@AlJean) April 23, 2016
It looked like in this new episode that apparently broke apart somewhat from the Michael Jackson episode, Lisa tried to get tickets to a Prince concert and Marge’s sister Selma talked to Prince and liked his movies (well some of them anyway).
It seems as though it was a shame things couldn’t be worked out between the two parties. While the episode never got made, “The Simpsons” still incorporated Prince in a few of their over 600 episodes. Whether he’s on the internet talking about the Radioactive Man movie or in a Treehouse of Horror episode or Milhouse and his doppelganger share an emotional moment, “The Simpsons” was still able to pay tribute to a great icon throughout the series.
[Mashable]
