Maggie Simpson’s The Longest Daycare Nominated for Best Oscar Short
Family audiences who watched Fox/Blue Sky’s 3D CG blockbuster Ice Age: Continental Drift were treated to the first ever Simpsons theatrical short, titled The Longest Daycare. The four-minute short starred Maggie Simpson as she experiences the Ayn Rand School for Tots. The short had no dialogue, and just features Maggie trying to save a lovely blue butterfly from the hammer-weilding fist of her nemesis Baby Gerald.
The Longest Daycare was received well by the audience, and the enthusiasm surrounding the short earned it a spot on the Best Animated Short Oscar nomination list this month:
“What I like about the short is that not only is it funny, which we hoped it would be, but it also takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. You feel all the emotions that Maggie feels, and it’s really fun to watch it with an audience,” says Simpsons creator Matt Groening, who produced the short with James L. Brooks, Al Jean, Richard Sakai and Richard Raynis. “We do a TV show and go home and watch it with our families, and it’s a completely different experience. It’s really gratifying to watch something you’ve worked on with a big audience in a theater. There’s nothing quite like the sound of actual humans laughing at your work.”