The actress recently appeared on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, where she was asked how long she believes the Fox sitcom will continue. According to The Wrap, Cartwright gave a surprisingly specific answer: Season 40.
Nancy Cartwright Thinks Season 40 Could Be the End of ‘The Simpsons’
Cartwright did not frame her prediction as an official announcement. When Rosenbaum followed up to make sure she genuinely believed the show could stop after its 40th season, she made clear that the answer was simply her personal view. “Yeah … It’s my opinion,” she said.
That distinction matters because “The Simpsons” is already guaranteed to reach the milestone Cartwright mentioned. The title was renewed for four additional seasons in 2025, taking it through Season 40. The animated sitcom has also reached a remarkable place in television history, having aired more than 800 episodes since its December 1989 debut. It remains the longest-running American animated series and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series.
Cartwright herself does not appear particularly interested in putting a hard stop on the Springfield story. When asked whether she would continue if the hit moved beyond Season 40, she responded, “Yeah, we’ll keep going then,” before giving an even more definitive answer when Rosenbaum asked whether she would stay as long as the producers wanted. “Absolutely.” Cartwright has been part of the show’s central voice cast since its beginning and remains the voice of Bart, as well as Maggie, Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and other characters.
There is also a major reason why Cartwright’s prediction should not be mistaken for a confirmed endpoint. “The Simpsons” has been built around a deliberately flexible status quo in which the characters do not age and most episodes return the family to its familiar circumstances. That structure has allowed the series to keep going for decades without needing to move its central characters toward a conventional conclusion.
For now, the show has plenty left on its schedule. Season 38 is set to continue the production’s unprecedented run, while the franchise is also expanding back onto the big screen with a sequel to “The Simpsons Movie” planned for 2027. That means Cartwright’s Season 40 prediction is less a sign that an ending has been decided than an unusually precise guess about where television’s most durable animated family might eventually stop.