Podcast News
The episode guest stars Morgan Fairchild as Grampa's girlfriend, Christine Nangle as Tabitha Shingle, and Stellan Skarsgård as himself.
[3] While Marge and Lisa become addicted to true crime podcasts, Homer and Bart go to visit Grampa at the Springfield Retirement Castle and find that he has a new girlfriend named Vivienne St. Charmaine, a former TV star.
Hibbert and the Simpsons then confront Kent with the information ahead of the Guilty Grampa live finale, and successfully pressure him to reveal the truth.
In the final scene, Grampa encounters Vivienne, who reminds him that he was supposed to meet her in Mexico with the insurance money as they had earlier planned.
[1][9] Series regular Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa Simpson, also appeared in the episode as herself, host of the podcast Small Town Dicks.
Singer and songwriter Billie Eilish was originally supposed to sing the intro music to the Guilty Grampa podcast, however, her appearance was cut for time, and the staff of the show never reached out to her about the part.
[12] The title of the episode is an allusion to the 1987 film Broadcast News, which was written, produced and directed by James L. Brooks, one of the developers of The Simpsons.
[13] The restaurant in the episode, Streami's, features the hosts of Matt Selman's favorite podcasts, including Michael Lombardi from The GM Shuffle, Karina Longworth from You Must Remember This, and Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell of Doughboys.
[14] Additionally, the wall of the restaurant features caricatures of Desus Nice and The Kid Mero of Bodega Boys, Sarah Koenig of Serial, Dan Carlin of Hardcore History, and Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark of My Favorite Murder.
[3] "Podcast News" originally aired on the Fox network on November 15, 2020, from 8:00 to 8:31 p.m.[1] In the United States, the episode was watched live by 3.50 million viewers.
Filled with singularly funny one liners, 'Podcast News' manages to keep a sense of tension throughout, and ends on a satisfying morally ambiguous note."
