SPRINGFIELD, forever — After thirty-eight years of chalkboard punishments, couch gags and a floating timeline that has outlived nine American presidencies, the veritable engine of American animation may be drifting toward its final act. Nancy Cartwright, the actress who has lent Bart Simpson his mischievous voice since 1987, has offered a candid prognostication about when “The Simpsons” will sign off for good — and the number she landed on feels almost poetic: Season 40.

The exchange that set Springfield buzzing

Speaking on Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast, Cartwright was asked, plainly, how long she believes the show can stay on the air. Her reply was a single, unadorned number: “40 [seasons].” Pressed on whether she genuinely thinks the curtain falls there, she held her ground — “Yeah,” she said, before conceding, with a wink audible through the microphone, “It’s my opinion.”

“Are we still alive? … Yeah, we’ll keep going then. Absolutely.” — Nancy Cartwright, on whether she would stay if producers push past Season 40

For all the headline churn her remark has generated, Cartwright was careful to frame it as sentiment, not strategy. When Rosenbaum floated the hypothetical — producers declaring “We wanna keep going” — she joked about mortality first, then softened into something closer to devotion: if the family is still standing, “Yeah, we’ll keep going then,” and yes, she would stay “Absolutely” as long as the show wants her. It is less a death announcement than a love letter with an expiry date attached.

A record run, by every measure that matters

The context is worth savouring. Born as scratchy shorts on “The Tracey Ullman Show” in 1987 and launched as a standalone series in 1989, “The Simpsons” wrapped its 37th season in February and has now aired 808 episodes — a ubiquitous presence that dethroned “Gunsmoke” in 2009 as the longest-running American scripted primetime series in television history. Far from retreating, Fox locked the show — alongside “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “American Dad” — into four additional seasons under its “Animation Domination” banner last year, and a second feature film is slated for next year, nearly two decades after 2007’s “The Simpsons Movie.”

• 1987: Bart debuts in “Tracey Ullman Show” shorts.
• 1989: The half-hour series premieres on Fox.
• 2009: Surpasses “Gunsmoke” as America’s longest-running scripted primetime show.
• 2026: Season 37 concludes; episode count climbs to 808.
• 2027: A second theatrical film is on the slate.

Showrunner Matt Selman, for his part, has never entertained the obituary. When the series crossed 800 episodes earlier this year, he told Page Six there was never a night he went to bed fearing cancellation, crediting Disney+ — and Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox — with delivering “a whole new generation of younger fans” who made Springfield their favourite address.

Watch: the official interview, straight from the source

The full, unfiltered conversation — table reads, trivia and tenderness included — lives on the podcast’s official channels. The verified post from “Inside of You” is embedded below; you can also view the original post here .

The long goodbye, whenever it comes

Whether Season 40 proves to be the denouement or merely another milestone in an indefatigable run, Cartwright’s tone throughout the hour is notably sanguine — the sound of an artist who knows she helped build something permanent. Springfield has survived every apocalypse its writers ever threw at it; if the end does arrive, it will likely feel less like a cancellation and more like a family dinner that simply runs long. Read the original reporting: Page Six