EXCLUSIVE: “From what I’ve heard, it is coming to an end” – Danny Elfman on The Simpsons

The man behind the iconic opening credits music revealed that the show may be in its final year.

Danny Elfman is one of those people who has touched your life, whether you're aware of it or not. His compositions for movies and TV have basically become the unofficial soundtracks for both Halloween and Christmas, and outside of the four Oscar nominations (for the scores he composed for Good Will Hunting, Men In Black, Big Fish, and Milk), he also pretty much synonymous for his work with Tim Burton. Elfman is the man behind the music for the likes of Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and - the reason why JOE was chatting to him - Nightmare Before Christmas. He will be performing his role of Jack Skellington live at the 3Arena this December, joined by his animated co-star Catherine O'Hara, with full details of that event right here. However, perhaps the one piece of music he is more famous for than any other, is the opening credits score for The Simpsons. Running for 30 years, and now on its 31st season, there have been many conversations in recent years that The Simpsons is well passed its prime, and that the curtain should be pulled on the show by now. When we posed that to Elfman, he revealed that may already be in the works: "Well, from what I've heard, it is coming to an end. So, that argument will also come to an end. [...] I don't know for a fact, but I've heard that it will be in its last year." We told him that we were surprised to hear that, and he said that he could be wrong, before going on to talk about how he never expected The Simpsons to run for as long as it did: "All I can say is that I'm so flabbergasted and amazed that it has lasted as long as it did. So, you have to realise, when I scored The Simpsons, I wrote this crazy piece of music, and I expected no-one would hear it, because I really did not think the show had a chance in hell. "Really, I expected it would run for three episodes and get cancelled, and that would be that, because it was so weird at the time, and I just didn't think it had a chance. So believe me, that is one of the truly big surprises in my life." You can listen to the rest of our chat with Danny Elfman below, where we discuss working on Nightmare Before Christmas, his opinion on the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut controversy around Justice League (which he also composed the score for), and the first conversations about Beetlejuice 2. Also, you can buy your tickets for the Nightmare Before Christmas event right here.