Congratulations, everyone. Your favorite husk of a show has been renewed for two more seasons. That’s two more years of telling people how good the previous seasons were.

Earlier, reports indicated that unless Fox and voice actors for The Simpsons could reach a new deal, which involved a large pay cut, this would have been the last season of the show. Fox wanted the actors to take a 45% cut. The actors countered with a 30% pay cut but wanted profits off the back-end.

On Sunday, Fox released a statement saying: “In the words of Homer Simpson, ‘Woo Hoo! I outlasted Andy Rooney!’” Negotiations were a success and they had renewed the series for two more seasons. While the actors won’t get back-end payments, they did get their 30% reduction in pay.

Now instead of $440,000 per episode, they’ll make $300,000. That amounts to $6 million per season or, in terms Ashton Kutcher can understand, ten times the amount he has to pay that girl he slept with to keep her mouth shut.

While a Fox Television spokesman had no comment by late Monday, rumors are swirling that this may be the last season of The Simpsons. This because the studio is attempting to negotiate a 45 percent pay cut for the voice actors due to declining ratings.

The actors, who earn $8 million for 22 weeks of work, proposed a 30 percent pay cut in exchange for a small percentage of the show’s syndication and merchadising profits, which amounts to billions. That proposal was rejected. Obviously. Much like Mr. Burns, Fox will never let go of that money even after it’s dying breath.

The ultimatum was delivered Monday evening as Fox spurned the actors’ proposal—delivered late last week—to take around a 30 percent pay cut in exchange for a tiny percentage of the show’s huge back-end profits—amounting to untold billions—from syndication of the show around the globe and merchandising of Simpsons clothing, lunchboxes, stamps, DVDs, a feature film and video games, among other paraphernalia. The series is produced by the 20th Century Fox studio and aired by the Fox network, both News Corp. companies, but the studio reaps the ancillary rewards.

“Fox is taking the position that unless they can cut the production costs really drastically, they’ll pull the plug on new shows,” said a Simpsons insider with knowledge of the negotiations. “The show has made billions in profits over the years and will continue to do so as far as the eye can see down the road. The actors are willing to take a pay cut of roughly a third, but that’s not good enough for Fox.”

…“Now Fox is basically saying, ‘If you don’t take this deal, we’ll shut down the show,’ and they’ll continue to make a ton of money,” said the insider. “They’re free to sell it to cable and a second round of syndication, and they figure that the cast has very little leverage.”The Daily Beast

The Simpsons started in 1989 and has been on air for 22 years. Though I can see why ratings have dropped. The show sucks compared to the the first few seasons which were arguably the greatest. Homer started out as a character, who, though not the smartest, did at least have a few braincells. At some point, Matt Groening decided the show would be a lot funnier if Homer was dumbed way down. Now he’s a bumbling buffoon whose only purpose is comic relief. On top of that, the episodes in the earlier seasons were actually endearing. Homer gambling away their Christmas money, the water balloon war. Now it’s just cheap laughs wrapped in a plot no one cares about. So maybe they should take a 45 percent pay cut to $4 million a year since 45 percent is about how much less watchable the show has become.

This video is pretty much all the proof I need to show that Usher ripped off “OMG” from Homer Simpson’s jingle at the beginning of the Dude, Where’s My Ranch episode. [Via Buzzfeed]

If you still watch the The Simpsons — anyone? — you’d have seen yesterday’s episode’s couch gag sequence which was directed by Banksy (NYT), the mysterious graffiti artist from the UK. There’s a lot of social commentary, mostly on how the creators of The Simpsons don’t care about their product anymore, only really catering to consumer whores and have become rich off the backs of exploited Asian workers, but the most appalling thing is that unicorns aren’t made of bright, magical pinks and whites and their horns aren’t colored like the rainbow. Or maybe they just get dull and diseased-like when they’re forced to watch The Simpsons for the past five years.

If you watch The Simpsons at all anymore, you’d have seen last night’s intro with that little whore Lisa Simpson parodying Ke$ha’s Tik Tok single. Ugh. This show has gone downhill. In the past it was all about family and clever story, now it’s about how dumb they can make Homer and how many pop-culture references they can make.

Nancy Cartwright, who does the voice of Bart Simpson among others, donated $10 million last year to Scientology for their Global Salvage effort which “aims to de-aberrate Earth”; code for “ridding mankind of psychological ills and other ‘aberrant’ behavior.” To put the donation in perspective, the face of Scientology, Tom Cruise, only donated $5 million in an installment plan. Page Six posted up numbers of other celebrity donations.

Nancy Cartwright, 50, Patron Laureate Award: $10 million.
Kirstie Alley, 57, Diamond Meritorious Award: $5 million.
John Travolta, 53, Gold Meritorious Award: $1 million.
Kelly Preston, 45, Gold Meritorious Award: $1 million.
Priscilla Presley, 62, Patron Award: $50,000.

Page Six estimates Nancy’s earnings at $5.5 million a year for The Simpsons. $5.5?! That Tom Cruise is a cheap bastard. L. Ron Hubbard is probably rolling in his grave. There’s no way they can battle Thetans with that little. After they squirrel away a few dollars to their off shore bank accounts for a rainy day, there will only be $10 left. You can’t even buy dinner at a nice restaurant with that.

Homer Simpson filled in for Jay Leno last night and performed his own opening monologue. It was alright. But, what’s better than alright is that Keeley Hazell showed up to the UK premiere of The Simpsons and posed next to her own character. Crazy, it looks way better than the one I made of her which is just collected hair glued onto some popsicle sticks. The boobs on it are real though! No, no they’re not. They’re just two beans. Sigh.

Put down that toaster and get out of the bathtub, your meaningless existence has been validated with 6 new Simpsons posters. You’ll be pleased to know at least one poster contains enough comedic punch to make you tilt your head back and guffaw; gushing out enough spittle to bathe a small animal. If you’re wondering, I’m talking about the last poster after the jump. Wiener jokes are the only reason I get out of bed. I live for wiener. Hm, that came out wrong.

Getting a little uncomfortable? Good, because a disturbing story in NYDN behind Maggie’s first words, voiced by then 60-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, recounts the 24 takes necessary to de-sexualize the two syllable word, “Dad-dy.”

Groening recalls how Elizabeth Taylor once agreed to play little Maggie saying her first word, “Daddy.”
“We did 24 takes, but they were always too sexual. Finally Liz said, ‘F— you,’ and walked out.”

I always had a nagging suspicion that behind the innocent pacifier sucking was a raging slut. I’m glad Elizabeth Taylor picked up on it too.

The posters after the jump.

The lucky bastards on American Idol were treated to a sneak preview of the new Simpsons movie. These might be new scenes or they might be old. I haven’t been keeping up with all my Simpsons previews. I think they’re mostly old though. The cool part is when they show how they draw the characters. Animation cells begone. God, what I wouldn’t give to tour around the Simpsons studio.

Why does this remind me of Jackass? It better be funny…or else! On a server related note, for anyone sending me email I am having some problems with my server so I don’t even know if I’m getting messages anymore. I definitely know I can’t send any out. I’m working on fixing it right now and hopefully when that’s done there will be peace on Earth.

The official trailer for The Simpsons movie premiered last night. To say it was disappointing is an understatement. You know when Homer is slammed between a rock and a building named “A Hard Place?” Genius. Why don’t you insult your audience some more by handing out pamphlets detailing every reference in the movie and title it with “Read this if you are a complete moron.” And last night’s episode was another let down. No substance or anything memorable. All I remember was Homer joined the Army.

Last week a pre-air episode of The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror leaked. The real one aired Sunday without the watermark, but contained another slight difference. It was missing the Iraq line at the end. Now one side has concocted a conspiracy theory of Fox taking out the line. The other side seems to think the producers took it out because it was repetitive. My theory? The Simpsons is not as funny as it used to be so they can take out whatever they want. I guess that’s not really a theory, but whatever smarty pants.

In news that is both uplifting and disconcerting, Matt Groening has revealed that as long as his people have a good time making The Simpsons, there will be no end in sight. This piece of news seems appropriate as the season premiere was on Sunday.

Lately (read: 8 seasons ago), The Simpsons has been going downhill. I only let out one chuckle during the season premiere. Even Paris Hilton being arrested gave me two. Seeing Homer become dumber each season and being relegated as some go to gag is like a kick in the head.

The Simpsons should be about Homer going to the racetrack with Bart on Christmas to win money for presents and coming home with Santa’s Little Helper, but I doubt you’ll ever see that level of writing come back. You’ll just have to live with Homer squishing his boobs together in front of a mirror.