On Sunday night, the 37th season of The Simpsons came to an end with a two-part double-episode season finale. The first of the episodes found Marge going to Philadelphia to enter Santa's Little Helper into the National Dog Show, and it had appearances from famous Philly voices Questlove, Boyz II Men, and Quinta Brunson, as well as Noah Wylie, Katherine LaNasa, and Taylor Dearden from The Pitt. The second episode ("Homer? A Cracker Bro?") was about Homer and Kirk Van Houten starting a crumbless cracker company together, and it featured the grand Simpsons return of former R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe.
On that second episode, Stipe sings a re-recorded parody of R.E.M.'s immortal 1992 anti-suicide jam "Everybody Hurts," except in this case it references crumbless crackers. According to a plot summary, Homer and Kirk’s business is a huge success, but’s Kirk’s life “is flipped upside down after suffering a manic episode that has left him with depression.”
Stipe absolutely sells the slightly labored "Everybody Kirks, crumb times" pun, and it's fun to see his animated avatar dressed up the way Stipe was in the "Everybody Hurts" video. Watch it below.
“I was super flattered to be invited back into The Simpsons universe, and particularly with this grand message of great hope,” Stipe writes.
This was Michael Stipe's second time on The Simpsons. Previously, R.E.M. were on the 2001 Thanksgiving episode. Homer opened a bar in his garage, and he tricked R.E.M. into playing there by telling them that it was a benefit to save the rainforest.
How many times has The Simpsons brought back guest stars without casting them as recurring characters like Phil Hartman or Kelsey Grammer? They must've had to do it at least a few times in recent years, but I'm not up on recent Simpsons episodes like that.
