THE SIMPSONS “The Man in the Blue Flannel Pants” Season 23 Episode 7 airs Sunday November 27 (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

Episode Synopsis: HE SIMPSONS host a tastemaker party at their home to promote Absolut Krusty, Krusty the Clown’s own brand of liquor. Mr. Burns takes notice of the party’s success and decides to promote Homer to “Account Man” for the Springfield Nuclear Plant. Robert Marlow (guest voice John Slattery), a seasoned account veteran, takes Homer under his wing and shows Homer what the high life is like in the corner office. Meanwhile, Lisa introduces Bart to a new literary world which sparks his interest in reading classic novels, and when Homer’s long hours at the office become the norm, a family vacation with Marge and the kids help him realize that family always comes before work in the all-new “The Man in the Blue Flannel Pants” episode of THE SIMPSONS airing Sunday, Nov. 27 (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

Watch Full Episodes Of  The Simpsons Online

Everyone knows that The Simpsons is well past its prime (and has been for more than a decade), but every year the show’s writers get a chance to spill some blood in Springfield during the annual “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween special. And every year I get excited about it, even though I know it will be “just okay.” After all, “Treehouse of Horror” has run once a year for 22 years now—it’s one of TV’s greatest traditions, like the Times Square ball drop on New Year’s Eve or the Detroit Lions getting blown out at home on Thanksgiving.

This year’s episode, “Treehouse of Horror XXII,” featured an opening sketch followed by three stories, and it got progressively worse or better as it went on, depending on how much you like farts. Pretty much par for the course. So let’s see how each story did and give it a candy grade based on performance.

Watch  The Simpsons Full Episodes

I found this sketch to be simultaneously awesome and terrible because I have the maturity of a 6-year old and the intelligence of an average man. It started off parodying one of the best foreign films of the last ten years, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly—a touching and imaginative movie about a man who learns to communicate despite being unable to move anything but his eyelids. Homer found himself in a similar position after being bitten by a spider, but instead of blinking, his communicated by farting. And farting. And farting. Despite realizing that it was completely stupid, I secretly giggled every time Homer pushed methane. Hey, you’re either all in or you’re not. At one point Marge hushed Homer’s butt, which was funny, but the sketch took a bizarre turn when Homer suffered another spider bite and became a paralyzed Spider-Man, swinging around Springfield and stopping crime despite not being able to move. I commend this sketch for saying “F**k it” and going completely absurd. But really, how did this make it to air?

Candy Grade: A head of lettuce. Because that would be a pretty weird thing to get on Halloween, and this sketch was bizonkers.

Dial D For Diddly

Candy Grade: A Giant Gobstopper. Started off good, but got boring very quick. But we couldn’t just spit it out because we’d made a commitment.

In the Na’Vi

An Avatar spoof that came about two years too late. This sketch had no redeeming qualities and should be erased from the minds of all Simpsons fans immediately. Couldn’t it have at least squeezed in a Terra Nova joke?
Candy Grade: Whatever is the worst candy on the planet. Smarties?
Another Halloween, another “Treehouse of Horror.” What did you think?

It looks like The Simpsons—20th Century Fox Television’s multibillion-dollar cash cow, the anchor of the Fox network’s Sunday primetime schedule, and the longest-running sitcom in the history of broadcasting—might stop production after the current 23rd season ends next spring.

The reason is a negotiating impasse between the studio and the six principal actors who voice the beloved characters on the animated series that hilariously satirizes middle-class Midwestern angst.

Difficult bargaining is nothing new for the show, which was created by James L. Brooks and Matt Groening. Fox studio execs have occasionally threatened to replace uncooperative cast members with sound-alike actors. But for the first time in nearly a quarter century of haggling, the executives have insisted that if the cast doesn’t accept a draconian 45 percent pay cut, The Simpsons will die an abrupt death as a first-run series.

A Fox Television spokesman had no comment at the time of publication Monday night. On Tuesday, the studio issued the following statement: “23 seasons in, The Simpsons is as creatively vibrant as ever and beloved by millions around the world. We believe this brilliant series can and should continue, but we cannot produce future seasons under its current financial model. We are hopeful that we can reach an agreement with the voice cast that allows The Simpsons to go on entertaining audiences with original episodes for many years to come.”

The pay-cut ultimatum was delivered Monday evening as Fox spurned the actors’ proposal, delivered late last week, to take a cut of around 30 percent in exchange for a tiny percentage of the show’s huge back-end profits—amounting to untold billions—from syndication around the globe and merchandising of Simpsons clothing, lunchboxes, stamps, DVDs, a feature film, and videogames, among other paraphernalia. The series is produced by the 20th Century Fox studio and aired by the Fox network, both News Corp. companies, but the studio reaps the ancillary rewards.

“Fox is taking the position that unless they can cut the production costs really drastically, they’ll pull the plug on new shows,” said a Simpsons insider with knowledge of the negotiations. “The show has made billions in profits over the years and will continue to do so as far as the eye can see down the road. The actors are willing to take a pay cut of roughly a third, but that’s not good enough for Fox.”

Not that the actors have been hurting.

Dan Castellaneta (Homer, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, and others), Julie Kavner (Marge and others), Nancy Cartwright (Bart and others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon), and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, and others) each earn about $8 million annually for about 22 weeks’ work.

Even under Fox Studio’s proposed downgrade, they would still be making around $4 million apiece, which goes a long way in the fictitious town of Springfield, and even in the allegedly real city of Hollywood.

But the actors have long argued that they deserve a taste of the plentiful syndication and merchandising profits because they’ve contributed creatively to the success of The Simpsons almost as much as Brooks and Groening. The latter two benefit greatly from the show’s back-end revenue, and will continue to get even richer off the second round of syndication deals once new episodes are no longer being produced.

But Fox has consistently refused to compensate the main cast members beyond their generous salaries, and once production ends, the studio will continue to reap billions for years to come (with Fox drawing on a valuable archive of around 500 episodes), while the actors will receive little more than their union-mandated residuals.

“Now Fox is basically saying, ‘If you don’t take this deal, we’ll shut down the show,’ and they’ll continue to make a ton of money,” said the insider. “They’re free to sell it to cable and a second round of syndication, and they figure that the cast has very little leverage.”

The Simpsons—while no longer attracting the ratings it once did—remains the key to Fox’s Sunday-night schedule, serving as a strong 8 p.m. lead-in for Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy and American Dad sitcoms.

“They’ve had plenty of opportunity to pick another show for 8 o’clock, and they haven’t done it,” said the insider.

Watch The Simpsons Season 23 Episode 2 Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts