It was another “lost” episode of The Simpsons. In the early 1990s, when writer-director Judd Apatow was a 22-year-old comedian hoping to make it big, he wrote a spec script for the then-fledgling animated comedy. He sent it in, but didn’t hear back.
Now, 25 years later, Apatow’s Simpsons episode—titled “Bart’s New Friend”—will finally see the light of day. The episode revolves around Homer getting hypnotized and thinking he’s a 10-year-old, thus becoming his son Bart’s new pal. The show’s writing staff worked out the kinks in Apatow’s rough script, and now “Bart’s New Friend” set to air on January 11 on Fox.
“I realized…that everything I had ever written was the premise of the first thing I had ever written,” Apatow told Entertainment Weekly. “All of my stories are about people trying hard not to grow up.”
The episode doesn’t air until Sunday, but The Daily Beast obtained an excerpt of Apatow’s script. The following page details a tribute gag the Simpsons team inserted into the background of a scene. The Simpsons are at a circus where the freak-show signs are references to films and TV series associated with Apatow, such as Freaks and Geeks, Superbad (“SUPERFAT”), and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (“THE 400-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN”).
Read it here:
Following the Apatow references, Marge informs Homer that she needs to use the “Porta Potty.”
“Oh for God’s—now? Do you have to?” Homer asks.
“No woman uses one of these by choice,” she replies.
Apatow also played himself on The Simpsons last year. In “Steal This Episode,” the filmmaker denounces Homer Simpson as an “enemy of art.” Watch:
That was last January. This January, he’ll score his second big Simpsons moment.
“Better late than never,” as Apatow put it.
