Alice Glick, a recurring figure on “The Simpsons” for more than three decades, was killed off in Sunday’s Season 37 episode, marking the latest permanent character departure from the long-running animated series.
Glick, the organist at Springfield’s First Church, died suddenly during a sermon in the episode “Sashes to Sashes.”
The character debuted in 1991 and appeared throughout 34 seasons, originally voiced by Cloris Leachman before Tress MacNeille assumed the role following Leachman’s death in 2021, the New York Post reported.
Her exit ends a decades-long run that included earlier plots where she appeared to die but eventually returned.
One such incident occurred in Season 22, when Glick was shown being attacked by a robo-pet.
She went on to reappear in subsequent episodes, sometimes alive and sometimes portrayed as a ghost.
Producers indicated that the character’s exit is meant to be permanent.
Executive producer Tim Long said the writers considered Glick’s history within the series when determining how to handle the character.
“In a sense, Alice the organist will live forever, through the beautiful music she made,” he told People. “But in another, more important sense, yep, she’s dead as a doornail.”
Co-executive producers Cesar Mazariegos and Jessica Conrad recently discussed how the team evaluates whether a recurring character should be written out.
They addressed the topic while clarifying speculation about Dewey Largo, after rumors spread in September that the music teacher had been written out off-screen.
Conrad pushed back on that assumption, saying the show had not removed him. “For something like this, I would welcome the riling up if you actually believe that we would kill him off camera,” she told TVLine.
Mazariegos said choices like this spark lengthy debate, citing the decision to cut Larry the Barfly last year.
“When we killed off Larry the Barfly last year, that was a big discussion,” he said.
He said the show’s cartoon logic means even seemingly fatal scenes don’t always lead to permanent exits.
Earlier this year, a separate storyline drew attention when a flash-forward sequence in the Season 36 finale depicted Marge Simpson’s death.
Producers later stressed that the moment had no bearing on future plots.
Executive producer Matt Selman dismissed the controversy surrounding that scene.
“Obviously, since ‘The Simpsons’ future episodes are all speculative fantasies, they’re all different every time,” he told Variety. “Marge will probably never be dead ever again.”
He said the scene had no impact on the show’s ongoing story.
“The only place Marge is dead is in one future episode that aired six weeks ago,” he said. “‘The Simpsons’ doesn’t even have canon!”
Selman said it showed people still care about the show.
“I guess this speaks to the fact that people care about Marge,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s probably good for business even when these ridiculous, misleading stories go viral!”
“The Simpsons,” which premiered in 1989 and is the longest-running animated program on television, was renewed in April for four additional seasons.
The series has earned 37 Emmy Awards and continues adjusting its ensemble of characters as it enters its late-thirties seasons of production.
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