Legendary animator Bill Plympton has been a semi-regular part of The Simpsons extended family for years, contributing multiple weird couch gag sequences to the show (including one in which Homer’s face deforms and explodes and… does all sorts of stuff that defies explanation), and today Fox shared his latest couch gag creation: a short titled “Homer’s Family” that is actually kind of sweet. Created for the show’s 700th episode (good god), the short starts with Homer’s head, looking nice and normal, before his facial features gradually slough off and transform into Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie before circling around his head. Then, his last remaining eye pops into a smaller version of himself, and the head changes into the familiar living room set.
Kind of sweet, right? It’s like the family members are all part of him, pleasantly circling around his head, and then he gives up everything he has so he can join them. Did The Simpsons get good again in the past 500 episodes or so? The Fox press release says episode 700, “Manger Things,” is about a mysterious secret from Flanders’ past and the Simpsons finding a “never-before-seen room” in their house, so… maybe? At least that’s an oddly timely plot point for this show, since people keep finding hidden rooms in their houses in real life. The new episode of The Simpsons will air on Fox on Sunday, as usual.