The Simpsons Permanently Axes Longtime Character After 34 Years

The Simpsons has revealed its latest longtime character to kick the bucket.

On the November 16 episode, titled Sashes To Sashes, the long-running series said goodbye to a character who made their debut way back in 1991 during the show’s second season.

First Church Organist Alice Glick keeled over onto the organ, interrupting Reverend Lovejoy and shocking the congregation midway through a church service attended by the eponymous Simpson family.

Her death marked the end of the character’s 34 year, 35 season run. 

The move comes as the show has been blasted by fans, alternately for killing off beloved but minor characters and for continuing to go on with no end in sight as its lead characters’ voices have noticeably aged.

The Simpsons’ executive producer Tim Long confirmed to People that Alice wouldn’t be featured on the series again in the wake of her death scene in episode seven of season 37.

‘In a sense, Alice the organist will live forever, through the beautiful music she made,’ he said. ‘But in another, more important sense, yep she’s dead as a doornail.’

Notably, the character appeared to have been killed years earlier before she was revealed to still be alive in the Simpsons universe.

In a season 23 episode, titled Replaceable You, Alice was attacked by a robotic pet, leaving viewers to assume that she had been killed off.

Confusingly, Alice returned in subsequent episodes — both in her usual form and as a ghost.

However, because of her subsequent living appearances, Simpson fan forums have labeled the episode as non-canonical.

Alice originally had major star power behind her, as she was voiced by the legendary actress Cloris Leachman — who died in 2021 at 94 — in her debut appearance.

However, Simpsons mainstay Tress MacNeille, 74, went on to voice the role for all of Alice’s subsequent appearances over the decades.

In the character’s debut, season two’s Three Men And A Comic Book, Bart Simpson performed a variety of chores for Alice in exchange for payments to help him buy a $100 comic book. 

However, Mrs. Glick only pays 50 cents per chore, so Bart has to pool his money with Milhouse and Martin, and the three end up going mad with greed as they fight over the comic.

On X (formerly Twitter) fans had mixed reactions to Mrs. Glick’s death.

While some paid tribute to the late character, others took the opportunity to call for The Simpsons to finally come to an end after multiple decades that most fans believe have lived in the shadow of the series’ early seasons.

‘RIP Alice Glick,’ one poster wrote, while another joked, ‘Alice Glick is dead…Again.’

‘Oh my gosh. Someone update The Simpsons wikis about Alice Glick,’ another poster added.

One user poked fun at others for caring about the character’s death by reminding that that it was just ‘a cartoon’.

‘This is too funny to me, haha. The whole thing is a cartoon. These characters can and will come back anytime the director feels like it,’ they wrote.

‘Who watches the Simpsons anymore?’ another person complained. ‘Half the best voice actors are dead or have left the show, which is a woefully unfunny shell of its former self.’

One fan advised others that ‘None of this matters when you stop at season 13.’ 

The Simpson previously struck up controversy in June when it killed off one of the series leads, Marge Simpson, but only in a flash-forward taking place years in the future. 

Prior to that, a string of minor characters had been killed off, including Larry the Barfly.

In 2023, Bart’s longtime antagonist Sideshow Bob (voiced by Frasier star Kelsey Grammer) was killed off, but it was in another flash-forward in that year’s Treehouse Of Horror Halloween episode, which isn’t consider canonical.