After the success of Grease Live, Fox is understandably excited to start bumping up some of its existing shows with the kind of infectious energy that only a live performance can really produce. According to The Wrap, the network is now planning a special “live” Simpsons event that will feature Homer Simpson answering questions from people on Twitter. The sequence will last about three minutes, and it will be aired live during both the east coast and west coast broadcasts with some “interesting” things thrown in to “prove” that it’s live.
Normally, live cartoons tend to put a terrible strain on the animators’ wrists, so Fox will be pulling this off with some complicated motion-capture technology that will actually animate Dan Castellaneta and sync his voice to the character’s mouth in real time. Hopefully it won’t be as weirdly terrifying as that makes it sound, though. Also, while some of the other Simpsons characters will “have stuff to do” during these three minutes, they won’t be “live” like Homer will be.
Simpsons fans who want to be involved can tweet their questions to Homer with the hashtag #HomerLive from May 1 to May 4, with the episode itself airing on May 15. Supposedly, the reason for the deadline is so Fox can get permission to use the tweets beforehand and not so the animators can secretly fake this whole live thing. Plus, Fox will need that time so it can sort through all of the joke questions that will undoubtedly be flooding that hashtag, like “can Superman outrun the Flash,” “have you ever seen someone say goodbye to a shoe,” and “what’s the name of that person who’s always standing and walking.” Of course, those are still pretty funny jokes, so somebody should definitely tweet them.