Judd Apatow's 'The Simpsons' Episode Script Being Produced, Twenty Years Later

Let's say you're one of the producers of The Simpsons, still on the air after an astounding 24 seasons. For years, you've ignored spec scripts and story pitches from pretty much everyone possible. And then you learn that Judd Apatow, who is now kind of a big deal, wrote a Simpsons spec script as his first-ever stab at writing for television. The smart move would be to make sure that thing gets made, even if it is an early effort from someone who was at the time an unformed talent.

And so here we are: the script Apatow wrote in 1990 — way back when The Simpsons was almost as new and green as Apatow was at the time — looks like it will be made at last.

The info on the episode being made came from Apatow in a roundabout manner in a conversation with Conan O'Brien on the talk-show host's web show Serious Jibber-Jabber. (via the AV Club) Video of that is below. But first, here's how Apatow described the script just a few days ago:

Who wants to grow up really? It's kind of a drag. It's funny because the first thing I ever wrote was about that. The first thing I ever wrote was a spec episode of The Simpsons. After only five Simpsons episodes aired, I sat down and tried to write one when I was in my early twenties. And what it was about was they went to see a hypnotism show and at the hypnotism show, they made Homer think he was the same age at Bart. And then the hypnotist had a heart attack. So now Homer and Bart became best friends and they spent the rest of the show running away because Homer didn't want responsibility and didn't want to be brought back to his real age. So I basically copied that for every movie I've made since.

That statement, which the producer/writer/director made after a screening of his new film This is 40, is what helped kick this particular episode into gear.

Here's the video where he talks to Conan. It's a great talk in general, with the Simpsons talk starting about five and a half minutes in: