In November, Pamela Hayden announced that, after 35 seasons, she was done giving voice to Milhouse Van Houten, the blue-haired best friend of Bart Simpson. Her final episode was 2024’s Treehouse Of Horror episode (which, strangely, ran in late November), but it was not, thankfully, the untimely end of Milhouse. A new Milhouse has been cast, and he will make his debut during The Simpsons‘ season finale.
This is per Entertainment Weekly, which reports that singer and voice actor Kelly Macleod has taken the role and will make her first appearance in Sunday’s episode “Estranger Things.” EW describes the first appearance as a “minimized role,” with Milhouse getting only one line in a scene where he, Bart, and Lisa are adults. (The Simpsons has really come to love flash-forwards, huh?) A description for the episode reads, “When Bart & Lisa stop watching Itchy & Scratchy together, Marge fears that they’ll start to drift apart… but she has no idea how bad things are about to get!” So maybe “how bad things are about to get” will include an adult Milhouse hanging around. You’ll have to see for yourself on Sunday.
Macleod has performed in The Simpsons before; she last appeared in season 33’s “Two Badges, One Mind” as a singer. As a musician, her song “Touch Me” was on the soundtrack for both Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Wayne’s World. Milhouse is the last of Hayden’s major recurring characters to be recast; Mo Collins took up the Jimbo Jones mantle last month, while Chris Edgerly began playing Rod Flanders in late 2024.
