'The Simpsons' Pays Tribute to Stephen Hawking With a Lovely End Slide
Stephen Hawking was one of the pop culture references who actually took the time to guest star in the long-running animated series "The Simpsons," and those were the times that the crew members of the show are remembering now. The theoretical physicist has passed away on March 14, and the show dedicated a few seconds of their March 18 episode in remembrance.
"In loving memory of Stephen Hawking," the caption of the end slide read, which came with a still of the cartoon version of Hawking riding his motorized wheelchair-slash-rocket helicopter, with Lisa Simpson on his lap, while an overhead view of Springfield spreads out down below.
The tribute was also posted by Matt Selman, one of the show's executive producers, on social media. It was a plain Twitter post which Selman put up on Sunday, March 18m with no text message, which was plenty for all "The Simpsons" and Hawking fans.
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"The Simpsons" is now in its 29th season as the longest-running animated show in the country, which also provided plenty of opportunities for Hawking to guest star in the show. One of the most notable episodes where the astrophysicist himself lent his voice to his character was the one called "They Saved Lisa's Brain."
Hawking would, from time to time, drop by "The Simpsons" set and join table reads. The scientist was a fan of the show even back then, as Selman told BBC.
"I think if you're a true fan of the Simpsons you don't want the show to kiss your butt - even if you're Stephen Hawking," the producer mused, recalling the time when Hawking himself would painstakingly enter his own lines into his speech computer.
"So he went into the recording studio, put the script into his computer and then his computer spat it out - instead of us just getting the computer to read it out directly. I like that he would sit and take all the time to type the goofy lines into his computer - I like the fact that he had to put the word 'fruitopia' into his special talking machine," Selman fondly recalled.
