Despite every nineties kid bawling Stop! Stop, it's already dead!, Fox can't help but keep beating the dead horse The Simpsons has become. Not so much a shadow of its former self than a shadow of Family Guy, the one-genius animated comedy really ought to just end already. And Harry Shearer agreed, the voice actor publicly quitting the show recently. ...And now he's come right back. Everyone was so sure that losing the voice of Principal Skinner, Mr Burns, Smithers, Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, and about a dozen more would be the final nail in the show's coffin (conveniently forgetting when the whole cast almost quit and Fox nearly replaced them with cheaper sound-a-likes, because Rupert Murdoch is actually Monty Burns). Now reports are coming through that Shearer has come crawling back. Seems like the classy thing to do would be not to call attention to it, but let's go ahead and call attention to it: what brought the voice actor back was apparently a huge bundle of cash, with him and the rest of the main cast now get paid over $300,000 per episode. Not a bad pay cheque considering Shearer has always said that he slips into the character's voices really easily, and he wouldn't do them if they weren't easy. They'd already completed seven episodes of the twenty-seventh (read it and weep) season using Shearer voice leftovers from the previous year, so at least they won't have to do that any more. Season 27 of The Simpsons premieres September 27, and Fox has already renewed it through to a 28th. May god have mercy on us all.