The Simpsons’swriters Carolyn Omine and Matt Selman revealed the jokes, motivations, and emotions behind the show’s new Disney+ holiday special, “O Come On All Ye Faithful.” The double-length special is focused on Springfield in the Christmas season. As is tradition withThe SimpsonsChristmas episodes, the new story fluctuates between hilarious gags and more emotionally resonant elements. While Homer and Ralph get lots of fun pretending to be Santa and his elf, Ned Flanders experiences a painfully human crisis of faith.
The result is an impressive addition to the show’s already sterling reputation, withScreen Rant’s Ben Gibbons describing “O Come On All Ye Faithful” as a “masterclass"in animated comedy storytelling. The special boasts plenty of great gags, and highlights the kind of emotional beats that elevate the show. Ahead of the release of the special on Disney+, Screen Rant got the chance to sit down with the episode’s writer Carolyn Omine and long-timeThe Simpsonsscribe Matt Selman to discuss the special.
The Lessons Of Previous Simpsons Christmas Specials
“I wanted to go more accurate with [Lisa’s] Buddhism.”
Screen Rant: There have been plenty of other holiday specials over the course ofThe Simpsons. What lessons did you want to bring from those episodes to “O C’Mon All Ye Faithful?” and how did that impact your approach to the episode?
Carolyn Omine: We didn’t want to bring back Ned’s faith by actually having God, who is a character on our show, show up and say “Here I am.” There was that. With Lisa’s Buddhism, I wanted to go more accurate with her Buddhism. That story is probably one of their more foundational stories in Buddhism, that is one of the very first things to meditate on. It’s all the things that had to happen in order for you to have this human life that you’re having right now, and the odds of that happening are less likely than a blind sea turtle raising its head up and just happening to stick his head through the neck of an ox yoke that’s floating in the water.
That image was always so beautiful to me. I really just wanted to sort of use that and illustrate that story. Kind of like a children’s religious story. We haven’t really done that with the Buddhism as much. Like a Bible story for Sunday school they would sort of animate. It was sort of nice to do that with that story. I think it was really beautiful. This little wood-cut Japanese style was really pretty.
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The Simpsons Writers On Ralph, Homer, And The Cat Lady
“It’s just like a little delicious Christmas treat.”
Screen Rant: Something I love about the episode was getting to see Homer and Ralph paired together! What excited you the most about putting those two together?
Carolyn Omine: Yeah! Once we realized that, yeah, we should make Ralph be the elf, and then as we were fleshing out the story, we began to realize, we’ve never put these two together. Like, I don’t know if they’ve ever really had a conversation! But it’s very sweet to see them together.
Matt Selman: They’re both kind of childlike in their way, you know? I mean, Carolyn’s whole episode was about how we wanted to give people a treat. Homer and Ralph as two kind of similar ding dongs, and it is a real treat to see them together. It’s just like a little delicious Christmas treat. What’s one of those candies you only get on Christmas?
Carolyn Omine: It’s like somebody’s homemade fudge.
Screen Rant: Do you have any dream characters you’d love to focus on more in this style of extended episode?
Carolyn Omine: That’s a tough one. There was a whole side story, which probably can’t be done the same way. But the Cat Lady got kind of cured. But then you realize, there’s a whole segment that was seen from the view of her cats. They actually see her as their Goddess. The thing I liked most about that was that the cats, because I know my cats are like this, they’re very aware of when Christmas is. When you bring out the tree, they know it’s that time. Maybe there’ll be another time where it’s all from the point of view of the cat.
Ned Flanders & Finding Authentic Emotion Amid Silly Gags
“I think [Ned Flanders] is one of our deepest, most nuanced characters.”
Screen Rant: The Ned Flanders plotline of this special is really effective. It’s so sad and bittersweet and moving, but it’s also still silly. Finding the balance between the earnest emotion and goofball comedy has always been at the core ofThe Simpsons. How do you approach that without tipping too hard one way over the other?
Carolyn Omine: For me, I just think you start with ‘what is the emotion of the situation?’ That emotion [in “C’Mon All Ye Faithful”] is sad, you know? I actually had read a story about somebody who continued to text someone, their best friend, and continued to text them after they had passed away. There was was something very melancholy about that. It’s funny, because we wrote out these sort of joke texts because it’s Ned. He’s sort of his own thing. And so there is this long list of texts that are just like, ‘Nothing beats an orange!’ or ‘Hand soap, a real winner.’
They’re all these little Ned-isms that are sort of funny, if you just see them. But the fact that they are stacked up, that it’s this one sided text chain that has no answer… you’re not going for sad, that it just is sad. So even if you’re making a list of jokes, the fact that they’re never being answered is what’s really sad. It’s not really something that we’re thinking like, ‘We’ll just make it a little bit sad, make it a little bit funny.’ It’s sort of the situation that makes it sad. And then we tried to have jokes in there.
Matt Selman: I really admire the way Carolyn wrote it, because some people think Ned is like a stereotype, but I think he’s one of our deepest, most nuanced characters. I like Ned when he’s human and vulnerable. We did these stories over the years where his first wife died in a wacky way, and his second wife died in a never explained way — I’m not going to make a joke on how that might have happened. All these years for Ned, he’s like the Job of our show.
That really has taken an emotional toll on him, and for all his faith, he is kind of a wreck inside. That Carolyn showed it so kind of realistically and humanistically is really terrific. I mean, we watched this with an audience a week ago, and right when Ned gets the text back from Edna in the mall? The audience gasped. That means something is going good if the audience gasps when you want them to gasp.
Carolyn Omine: The best part about seeing it on Friday was seeing it with all these people, when they saw the line of blue text and no answer. There was this sort of ‘aww’, and then when somebody answers, that immediately got a gasp. And then they laughed.
Matt Selman: They laughed over the second joke. It was once they saw it was Nelson. They started laughing, and they didn’t hear him say, “Ha ha, your wife left you for dirt.'
Carolyn Omine: I know for sure that was a Joel H. Coen joke.
Matt Selman: There’s a term in the television industry called a ‘Treacle Cutter,’ and I don’t like these reductive terms, but it did cut the treacle. [Laughter]
The Difference Between A Two-Parter And An Extra-Length Episode
“I sort of feel this is one and a half amount of plot in two episodes. This meant it could really breathe.”
Screen Rant:The Simpsonshas been having great success with double-length episodes and two-parters over the last decade of the show.
Carolyn Omine: The thing about this one is it’s not a two-parter. It’s a special. We wanted to say this isn’t a two-parter because it doesn’t break into two parts. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen in the next like when we start beaming TV shows directly into people’s brains. It might get split into two parts, but on Disney+, at least, there’s no act break.
Matt Selman: I sort of feel this is one and a half amount of plot in two episodes. This meant it could really breathe. We had time for the Buddhist segment to breathe, we had time for all the moments to land. Carolyn was so freeing in the editing, because we’re limited by budget for how long these shows can be. But here, we weren’t really limited by time.
We could add pauses and add moments. Carolyn had such a clear view of the music in her mind. There could be more music here, and it’s not rushed. It’s like a double juicy stocking stuffer, but there’s no cliffhanger in the middle. There’s no black outs. You don’t have to worry about where you think the ads might be… Disney+ was so cool, there’s no ad break. It’s a full movie, except it’s only 40 minutes,
Carolyn Omine: Usually when we’re writing it, it’s just a TV thing you do. You would build to an exciting moment, like the moment in the submarine. You would go, ‘Oh no, it’s about to explode,’ and then it would freeze for the ads, and then you’d come back and go, ‘Remember how it was about to explode?’ You’d have to have this little pause. You would pause it at the most climatic moment. And we didn’t have to do that. I mean, we decided because we did have to say where the breaks will be… we could go through this exciting moment and just live it and resolve it without having to pause and then come back.
The Simpsons: O, Come On All Ye Faithfulis now streaming on Disney+.
The Simpsons
Cast
The Simpsons is an animated series set in the fictional town of Springfield, following the daily lives of the Simpson family—Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Premiering in 1989, the show is renowned for its satirical commentary on politics, media, and American culture, featuring numerous celebrity guest appearances.
