Simpsons writers Matt Selman and Carolyn Omine break down holiday crises in O C'Mon All Ye Faithful

The SimpsonsWriters Carolyn Omine and Matt Selman reveal the jokes, motivations and emotions behind Disney+'s new holiday special, “O Come On All Ye Faithful.” The double special focuses on Springfield at Christmas time. As is tradition with The Simpsons Christmas episodes, the new story oscillates between hilarious jokes and more emotionally resonant elements. While Homer and Ralph have fun pretending to be Santa Claus and his elf, Ned Flanders experiences a painful crisis of human faith.

The result is an impressive addition to the show's already excellent reputation, with Screen Rant's Ben Gibbons describing “O Come On All Ye Faithful” as a “masterclass” in animated comedy storytelling. The special features a lot of great jokes and highlights the kind of emotional beats that elevate the show. Ahead of the special's release on Disney+, Screen Rant had a chance to speak with episode writer Carolyn Omine and The Simpsons scribe Matt Selman to discuss the special.

Lessons from past Simpsons Christmas specials

“I wanted to be more precise with [Lisa’s] Buddhism.”

Screen Rant: There have been many other holiday specials throughout The Simpsons. What lessons would you like to bring from these episodes to “O C’Mon All Ye Faithful?” and how did that impact your approach to the episode?

Carolyn Omine: We didn't want to bring back Ned's faith by having God, who is a character on our show, show up and say, “Here I am.” There was that. With Lisa's Buddhism, I wanted to be more accurate with her Buddhism. This story is probably one of the most fundamental stories in Buddhism, which is one of the first things to meditate on. It's all the things that had to happen for you to have this human life that you're having now, and the chances of that happening are less likely than a blind sea turtle lifting its head and simply sticking its head through a joint's neck. of ox floating in the water.

This image has always been so beautiful to me. I really just wanted to use that and illustrate this story. Like a children's religious story. We actually haven't done that so much with Buddhism. Like a Bible story for Sunday school, they would kind of liven it up. It was great to do that with this story. I think it was very beautiful. This small Japanese woodblock style was very beautiful.

The Simpsons Writers on Ralph, Homer and the Cat Lady

“It's like a delicious Christmas treat.”

Screen Rant: Something I loved about the episode was seeing Homer and Ralph together! What excited you most about bringing these two together?

Carolyn Omine: Yes! Once we realized that, yes, we should make Ralph the elf, and then as we developed the story, we started to realize that we never put these two together. Like, I don't know if they actually talked! But it's really cute to see them together.

Matt Selman: They're both kind of childish in their own way, you know? I mean, Carolyn's whole episode was about how we wanted to give people a gift. Homer and Ralph are two similar ding dong types, and it's a real pleasure to see them together. It's like a delicious Christmas treat. What's one of those sweets you only get at Christmas?

Carolyn Omine: It's like someone's homemade candy.

Screen Rant: Do you have any dream characters you'd like to focus more on in this style of extended episode?

Carolyn Omine: That's a tough one. There was a whole parallel story, which probably can't be done in the same way. But Catwoman was half cured. But then you realize, there's a whole segment that was seen through the eyes of your cats. In fact, they see her as their goddess. What I liked most about it was that cats, because I know my cats are like that, are very aware of when Christmas is. When you bring the tree, they know it's time. Maybe there will be another time when everything will be from the cat's point of view.

Ned Flanders and how to find authentic emotions amid silly jokes

“I think [Ned Flanders] is one of our deepest and most nuanced characters.”

Screen Rant: The Ned Flanders storyline of this special is really effective. It's so sad and bittersweet and moving, but it's also silly. Finding the balance between heartfelt emotion and silly comedy has always been at the heart of The Simpsons. How do you approach this without tipping too much from side to side?

Carolyn Omine: For me, I think you start with 'what is the emotion of the situation?' This emotion [in “C’Mon All Ye Faithful”] It's sad, you know? I had actually read a story about someone who continued to text someone, his best friend, and continued to text him after he passed away. There was something very melancholy about it. It's funny, because we write this kind of joke text because it's Ned. He's kind of his thing. And then there is a long list of texts that say: 'Nothing beats an orange!' or 'Hand soap, a real winner'.

They're all these little Nedisms that are kind of funny if you just see them. But the fact that they're stacked, that it's this one-sided text chain that has no response… you're not headed for sadness, it's just sad. So even though you're making a list of jokes, the fact that they never get answered is what's really sad. It's not really something where we're like, 'Let's just make this a little sad, a little funny.' It's a kind of situation that makes everything sad. And then we tried to make jokes there.

Matt Selman: I really admire the way Carolyn wrote this, because some people think Ned is a stereotype, but I think he's one of our deepest, most nuanced characters. I like Ned when he's human and vulnerable. We've done these stories over the years where his first wife died in a crazy way and his second wife died in a never-explained way – I'm not going to joke about how that could have happened. All these years for Ned, he's like the work of our show.

This has really taken an emotional toll on him, and despite all his faith, he's kind of destroyed inside. The fact that Carolyn showed this in such a realistic and humanistic way is truly incredible. I mean, we watched this with an audience a week ago, and right when Ned gets Edna's message at the mall? The audience gasped. It means something is going well if the audience gasps when you want them to choke.

Carolyn Omine: The best part about seeing this on Friday was seeing it with all these people, when they saw the blue line of text and no response. There was a sort of 'aww', and then when someone answered, there was immediately a sigh. And then they laughed.

Matt Selman: They laughed at the second joke. That's when they saw it was Nelson. They started laughing and didn’t hear him say, “Ha ha, your wife left you for dirt.”

Carolyn Omine: I'm sure it was a Joel H. Coen joke.

Matt Selman: There's a term in the television industry called 'Molasses Cutter' and I don't like those reductive terms, but it reduced the molasses. [Laughter]

The difference between a two-part episode and an extra-long episode

“I kind of feel like this is a plot and a half over two episodes. That means he could actually breathe.”

Screen Speech: The Simpsons has had great success with double episodes and two parts in the show's last decade.

Carolyn Omine: The problem with this one is that it doesn't have two parts. It's special. We wanted to say that it is not two parts because it is not divided into two parts. I mean, who knows what will happen next, like when we start beaming TV shows directly into people's brains. It may be divided into two parts, but on Disney+, at least, there is no interruption in the performance.

Matt Selman: I kind of feel like this is a plot and a half over two episodes. This meant he could actually breathe. We had time for the Buddhist segment to breathe, we had time for all the moments to land. Carolyn was very liberating in the editing, because we are limited by budget as to how long these shows last. But here we weren't really limited by time.

We could add pauses and add moments. Carolyn had a very clear vision of the song in her mind. There could be more music here, and it's not rushed. It's like a juicy double filling, but there's no suspense in between. There are no blackouts. You don't have to worry about where you think the ads might be… Disney+ was so cool that there are no commercial breaks. It's a full movie, except it's only 40 minutes long,

Carolyn Omine: Normally when we're writing, it's just something you do for TV. You would build an exciting moment, like the moment in the submarine. You'd be like, 'Oh no, it's about to explode,' and then it would freeze for the ads, and then you'd come back and say, 'Remember how it was about to explode?' You would have to take a short break. You would pause at the most climactic moment. And we didn't have to do that. I mean, we decided because we had to say where the breaks would be… we could go through this emotional moment and just live it and work through it without having to take a break and then come back.