'The Simpsons' Producer Responds to Fans Mourning the Death of Longtime Character

The Simpsons fans were hit with rare heartfelt moment on Sunday's episode, as the show killed off a character who's been around from the very beginning.

The new episode, titled "Cremains of the Day," brought a shock to the usual lushes at Moe's Tavern, where Larry "The Barfly" Dalrymple was found dead on his barstool.

Larry had been a long-running background character at Moe's -- having been featured since season 1 back in 1989 -- rarely getting a line or two but always a mainstay as Homer and the gang enjoyed their beers. When he did chime in with a rare aside, the character was voiced by Simpsons mainstay Harry Shearer.

Simpsons co-executive producer Tim Long told TMZ that Larry's death was meant to make an impact on the audience of the iconic animated comedy, noting how rare it is that the show kills someone off permanently and how the fan reactions demonstrate the passion the audience still feels for their favorite characters.

"Raise your glasses to Larry the Barfly," one fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter), while another shared a short supercut of some of the character's lines.

Simpsons fans may continue the long-running debate about the show's best characters, seasons, or bits, but there's no denying that the animated series continues to eerily predict real-life events. Just last summer, the show went viral once again for seeming to predict the OceanGate submarine disaster.

Amid headlines about the submersible's tragic voyage, a 2006 episode of The Simpsons, titled "Homer's Paternity Coot," resurfaced on social media, presenting striking similarities to current events. In the episode, Homer embarks on a deep-sea expedition to search for long-lost treasure with his biological father in tiny submersibles. After searching for a while, they come across an abandoned ship site that's filled with treasure.

But soon, things get hairy for the duo as oxygen levels start to be depleted after Homer accidentally gets his submersible partially stuck on a coral reef after losing his father. Homer begins to panic before he falls into a coma, only to wake up days later surrounded by family members.

Watch the clip below:

The Simpsons airs Sundays at 8 p.m. PT/ET on Fox.

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