Peer into The Simpsons’ virtual reality with James L. Brooks
This Sunday The Simpsons will reach another milestone, airing its 600th episode—“Treehouse Of Horror XXVII,” debuting this Sunday, October 16—complete with a virtual-reality couch gag made in collaboration with Google. Though news of the VR twist broke last week, The A.V. Club first learned about it at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival while interviewing Simpsons co-creator James L. Brooks. Breaking from discussion of his upcoming film The Edge Of Seventeen, Brooks teased the couch gag, explaining how the show’s longevity keeps yielding opportunities for innovation. “The Simpsons keeps on getting us into new areas where we’re dumb, and we get to be a little innocent again,” he said. To Brooks, director of such films like Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets, the Fox animated series is still his “active day job.”