Yellow Planet
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox television episode
| series = The Simpsons
| image = Yellow Planet poster.png
| caption = Poster of the episode
| season =
| episode =
| director = Timothy Bailey
| writer = J. Stewart Burns
| production = 35ABF20
| release_date = {{Start date|2025|04|22}}
| guests = * Hugh Bonneville as the narrator
| prev = P.S. I Hate You
| next = Abe League of Their Moe
| season_article = The Simpsons season 36
}}
"Yellow Planet" is an episode of the thirty-sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons, and the 786th episode overall. It was the fourth episode to be released exclusively on the streaming service Disney+ on April 22, 2025. The episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Timothy Bailey.
In this episode, the Simpsons characters are portrayed as animals in a nature documentary. Hugh Bonneville guest starred as the narrator. The episode was released as a celebration of Earth Day, an annual international event that takes place on April 22.{{Cite web |last=Singer |first=Matt SingerMatt |date=2025-04-22 |title=‘Simpsons’ Earth Day Episode Available Exclusively on Disney+ |url=https://screencrush.com/simpsons-earth-day-episode-disney-plus/ |access-date=2025-06-18 |website=ScreenCrush |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Cobb |first=Kayla |date=2025-04-22 |title='The Simpsons' Drops National Geographic Spoof 'Yellow Planet' on Disney+ for Earth Day |url=https://www.thewrap.com/the-simpsons-yellow-planet-disney-plus/ |access-date=2025-06-18 |website=TheWrap |language=en-US}}
Plot
A user selects the nature documentary Yellow Planet to stream. In the Arctic in summertime, Homer, a beluga whale, meets Marge, a narwhal, and they fall in love. They separate at the end of summer to migrate. Moe tells Homer to go after Marge. He joins Marge's pod and says his pod was killed by orcas. Her father Rainier Wolfcastle is suspicious.
Meanwhile, in the Galápagos Islands, Bart, an iguana, learns to avoid being eaten by snakes with his fellow iguanas. He finds the snakes cannot see movement, so he pushes away his fellow iguanas to sacrifice them and survives. In Africa, Flanders, a mandrill, and his sons argue about evolution.
Homer and Marge go deep into the ocean to search for food. After feeding and bringing food to the rest of the pod, they decide to get married until they encounter Homer's pod. Learning he lied, Marge's pod abandons him. Meanwhile, in the Amazon rainforest, Lisa, a woodpecker finch, teaches the others to eat ants by using twigs to draw them out of trees. However, they eat all the ants and trees die, so they go to eat out of a dumpster of an Amazon warehouse. Also, Kirk, a praying mantis, catches Luann eating another male after sex and argues with her, so she decapitates him.
Trying to comfort her, Jacqueline tells Marge that she was once in love with a gray whale but ended things to obey her parents. Marge, not wanting to be like her, decides to look for Homer, who has become a performer at a water theme park. When he hears Marge, who forgives him, he attempts to escape but accidentally kills his human trainer. Homer is released and mates with Marge, giving birth to Maggie who is a narwhal/beluga whale hybrid.
The narrator is then addressed by Morgan Freeman who tells him not to do any documentaries on penguins as he already did March of the Penguins.
Production
In August 2024, it was announced that four original episodes of the series would be released exclusively on Disney+ with this episode announced as one of them.{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/the-simpsons-our-new-episodes-disney-plus-christmas-1236102998/|title='The Simpsons' to Produce Four New Episodes Exclusively for Disney+ — Including a New Christmas Two-Parter|first=Michael|last=Schneider|work=Variety|date=August 10, 2024|access-date= April 23, 2025|archive-date=December 13, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241213040625/https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/the-simpsons-our-new-episodes-disney-plus-christmas-1236102998/|url-status=live}} Executive producer Matt Selman described the episode as a parody of the nature documentary series The Blue Planet or a National Geographic documentary with the Simpsons characters as animals.{{cite web|first=Marisa|last=Roffman|date=December 9, 2024|title=THE SIMPSONS' Matt Selman on Teaming Up with the NFL ('A No-Brainer') and the 'Experimental' Disney+ Exclusive Episodes|url=https://www.givememyremote.com/remote/2024/12/09/the-simpsons-franchise-expansion-matt-selman-interview/|website=Give Me My Remote|access-date=April 23, 2025}}
This is the final episode by release order to feature actress Pamela Hayden.{{cite tweet|first=Carolyn|last=Omine|user=CarolynOmine|author-link=Carolyn Omine|title=A beautiful tribute to a beautiful soul. We already miss her. One correction: This Sunday is not her final performance. The last show she recorded was "O C'mon All Ye Faithful" But she appears in "The Past and the Furious" and "Yellow Planet" which air after O C'mon.|number=1859308432869982558|access-date=April 23, 2025}}
Reception
John Schwarz of Bubbleblabber gave the episode a 7.5 out of 10. He thought the premise was not original but would have been "solid" for a broadcast episode. He liked writer J. Stewart Burns' script and speculated that the animal concept was made for Disney.{{cite web|first=John|last=Schwarz|date=April 22, 2025|title=Review: The Simpsons "Yellow Planet" |url=https://www.bubbleblabber.com/2025/04/review-the-simpsons-yellow-planet/ |website=Bubbleblabber|access-date=April 23, 2025}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{Portal|The Simpsons}}
- {{IMDb episode|36398568}}
{{The Simpsons episodes|36}}
Category:2025 American television episodes
Category:The Simpsons season 36 episodes