Homer Simpson Will Broadcast Live, With Some Motion-Capture Help The animated dad will speak live to viewers, commenting on the day's news as well as answering fans' questions.
By Mat Smith
This story originally appeared on Engadget
The Simpsons, live! Well, at least partially.
In a new episode set to broadcast on Sunday, May 15, Homer Simpson will speak live to viewers, commenting on the day's news as well as answering fans' questions. (You can can tweet your queries to him starting in early May, using the #homerlive hashtag.) How is that even possible? According to The Wrap, it apparently involves a "first for animation," tying together motion capture, real-time animation and some all-important improvisation.
Homer will go live during both East and West Coast broadcasts, according to Simpsons Executive Producer Al Jean. The patriarch will take up the final three minutes of the mid-May episode, and the team will be using motion capture on voice actor Dan Castellaneta to animate him as he responds to viewers' questions
The idea has been in the works for a while, but efforts were apparently reinvigorated by the success of Grease: Live, although no one in that musical production was an animated, two-dimensional character. I think.
This Simpsons live news is hilarious, mainly because Homer predicted it pic.twitter.com/3JN7UEl6ba
— Devindra Hardawar (@Devindra) February 17, 2016
