Just to put The Simpsons in perspective; I am 33 years old. The Simpsons began its historic run on FOX in 1989, spun off from the Tracey Ullman Show when I was 7! As in starting second grade! So when my generation speaks of The Simpsons we aren’t just mentioning one of many quality shows on television. We literally grew up with these characters. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie aren’t characters; they’re our neighbors, classmates, and friends. “DOH” and “Cowabunga Dude” are parts of American history and culture. Co-creator Matt Groening and friends greeted fans at San Diego Comic-Con with a panel that discussed the future of the series as it enters it 27th (!) season, and the all-things Simpsons FXX universe.

Watch the panel videos below.

A couple of months ago news broke which shocked the longtime fans of The Simpsons: Harry Shearer, the voice of many of the hit animated show’s characters including Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders, Principle Skinner, and many others, would not be returning after 26 seasons on the job.

Back then we said it was really hard to believe Shearer was actually leaving and this wasn’t just one of those disputes that would eventually be worked out. And as it turns out, much to the delight of said fans, that’s exactly what was going on as it’s now being reported that Shearer has officially signed on to return with the other voice actors.

One of the most important voice actors on The Simpsons, Harry Shearer, is leaving the show after 26 seasons. Shearer shared the news on the Twitter last night.

Shearer voices an insane amount of characters on the shows, including Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Smithers, Lenny, Kent Brockman, Reverend Lovejoy, Otto, and many more in the nearly 600 episodes he recorded for through to the end of the current 26th season. Only Hank Azaria and Dan Castellaneta voice more characters than Shearer. You can get a visual of idea of just how important Shearer is to the cast right here.

You can read more and see what Shearer had to say below.

Any fan of The Simpsons or South Park knows that the top names involved with those shows voice a whole lot of the characters that exist in those animated universes.

But do you know exactly how many characters these actors voice? A pair of new images give you a name and every character they voice on the show, and some might surprise you. With The Simpsons, just a handful of actors voice over 100 characters. On South Park, four actors voice over 80 characters, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone doing 55 themselves.

You can see who voices who below!

Welcome to another shiny new edition of The Digital Wire! Despite that exuberant fanfare, I am sad to announce that this week has been mighty slim in the realm of Blu-ray and DVD release news and the titles we have to report on won’t get much interest as they are all part of tired franchises, but one of the purposes of this feature is to give such titles the space they deserve. Besides, you may be interested in one or more of them.

Below you’ll find info on several future home video releases complete with technical specs, release dates, and links to pre-order at Amazon. We would greatly appreciate it if you use those links to order because a small percentage of each order helps keep this website running at max power. The cover art for certain titles has yet to be finalized.