Lisa Simpson as soon as stated throughout an episode of “The Simpsons:” What could possibly be extra thrilling than the savage ballet that’s professional soccer?
On Monday night time, all the Simpsons universe will get to expertise it in a method not many may have imagined.
The prime-time matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys may also happen at Springfield’s Atoms Stadium as a part of “The Simpsons Funday Football” alternate broadcast.
The altcast will probably be streamed on ESPN+, Disney+, and NFL+ (on cellular units). ESPN and ABC have the primary broadcast, whereas ESPN2 will carry the ultimate “ManningCast” of the common season.
The replay will probably be obtainable on Disney+ for 30 days. Globally, greater than 145 international locations can have entry to both stay or on replay.
“We’re such huge football fans, and the Simpsons audience and the football audience, I feel, are like the same audience of just American families and football. And the Simpsons are so much a part of the DNA of the American family and culture that for us to, like, mush them together in this crazy video game, it’s so fun,” stated Matt Selman, government producer of “The Simpsons.”
While the sport is the focus, the alternate broadcast, in some methods, will resemble a three-hour episode of “The Simpsons.” It begins with Homer consuming too many scorching canines and having a dream whereas watching soccer.
Homer joins the Cowboys within the dream whereas Bart groups up with the Bengals. Lisa and Marge will probably be sideline reporters.
“That’s the beginning of the story, and the story continues through the entire game until Homer wakes up from his dream at the end of the game. It is like a complete story, and the NFL game will happen in between. It’s just going to be an amazing presentation with tons of surprises,” stated Michael “Spike” Szykowny, ESPN’s VP of edit and animation.
This is the second yr ESPN has finished an alternate broadcast for an NFL recreation. It used the characters from “Toy Story” for final yr’s Sunday morning recreation from London between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars.
“The Simpsons” has featured many sports-themed episodes throughout its 35 seasons. Even although “Homer at the Bat” stays the consensus favourite sports activities episode for a lot of Simpsons followers, there have been soccer ones reminiscent of “Bart Star” and “Lisa The Greek.” There additionally was a Super Bowl-themed one after Fox’s broadcast of Super Bowl 33 between Denver and Atlanta in 1999.
Even although “The Simpsons” stays a staple on Fox’s prime-time schedule, it’s a part of the Disney household after their acquisition of twentieth Century Fox in 2019. All 35 seasons are on Disney+.
The present’s creators have labored with ESPN and the NFL to ensure the look and sound is unquestionably Simpsonsesque.
The theme music is a mash-up of “The Simpsons” opening and “Monday Night Football’s” iconic “Heavy Action.”
There have additionally been pre-recorded skits and bits to make use of through the broadcast that includes Simpson’s legendary voices Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, and Yeardley Smith.
The telecast will probably be solely animated, with the gamers’ actions in sync with what is occurring in real-time on the sphere. That is finished by way of player-tracking information enabled by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats system and Sony’s Beyond Sports Technology.
While Next Gen Stats tracks the place gamers are on the sphere with a monitoring chip within the shoulder pads, there’s skeletal information monitoring and limb monitoring information — which makes use of 29 factors per participant — to get nearer to the participant’s actions.
The different information monitoring will permit Beyond Sports and Disney so as to add particular characters to the sport. For instance, there could be a play the place Lisa catches the ball and goes 30 yards as an alternative of Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins.
“Lisa is much smaller than the rest of the players. So, in real life, the ball would go over her head, but now, with data processing, we can take the ball and make it go exactly into her hands. So for the viewer, it still looks believable, and it all makes sense,” stated Beyond Sports co-founder Nicolaas Westerhof.
The different main problem is making “The Simpsons” two-dimensional cartoon characters into 3-D simulations. Szykowny and his group labored to make {that a} actuality over the previous couple of months.
“That’s a big leap of faith for them to say, hey, we trust you to make our characters 3-D and work with it. Our ESPN creative studio team has done a wonderful job,” Szykowny stated.
Lisa, Krusty, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph will probably be with Bart and the Bengals; whereas Carl, Barney, Lenny and Moe be a part of up with with Homer and the Cowboys.
The broadcast may also function ESPN personalities Stephen A. Smith, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning.
ESPN’s Drew Carter, Mina Kimes and Dan Orlovsky will name the sport from Bristol, Connecticut, and likewise be animated. They will put on Meta Quest Pro headsets to expertise the sport from Springfield utilizing VR know-how.
For Kimes, being a part of the published and being an animated Simpsons character is a dream come true. She is a large fan of the present and has a framed photograph of Lisa Simpson — who she stated is a private hero and icon — as a part of her backdrop when she makes appearances on ESPN NFL reveals from her house in Los Angeles.
“I didn’t have any input, and I didn’t see anything beforehand, so I wasn’t sure if it would look like me, but it kind of does, which is very funny,” stated Kimes, who drew Simpsons characters when she was a child. “To see the actual staff turn me into one was a dream.”
Even although the Bengals (4-8) and Cowboys (5-7) have struggled this season, Selman thinks each groups have personalities that attraction to “The Simpsons” universe.
“We were just so lucky also that the Cowboys are sort of like a Homer Simpson-type team, American team, and Mike McCarthy might be a Homer-type guy, one might imagine,” he stated. ”And then you could have Joe Burrow on the opposite aspect who’s a cool younger, spiky-haired, blonde unhealthy boy — he’s like Bart. And that matches our character archetypes so completely.
“If Homer is mad at Bart and has a hot dog dream while watching ’Monday Night Football’, and then it’s basically McCarthy versus Burrow, Homer versus Bart, and that’s the simple father versus son strangling — Homer strangling Bart dynamic that has been part of the show for 35 years. I don’t know if that would have worked as well if it was like Titans versus Jacksonville. We would have found something. We would have made it work.”
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