According to a widely reported news story, the 25th season of The Simpsons will see the death of a major character. Al Jean spoke to the Canada Sun Times to confirm plans to chop the character, without actually stating who would be meeting the Reaper, unsurprisingly.
"I'll give you a clue that the actor playing the character won an Emmy for playing that character, but I won't say who it is."
That doesn't exactly narrow it down too much, since there have been 25 such winners since the show began back in 1989 - though presumably Maggie Simpson and the family pets are pretty safe - and Simpsons fans will no doubt now be fraught with tension as to which yellow icon will bite the big one in the coming season.
Sky Bet are even offering odds on who will be killed off. Since the shows inception, there have been a number of character deaths, including Maude Flanders, Bleeding Gums Murphy and Dr Marvin Munroe (who later turned up alive and well in an odd retcon that joked he had merely been "very sick.") So, who will bite the dust? And more importantly, who actually should? To welcome the grim news, we're looking at the 10 most likely candidates for the chop and ranking their chances of a dramatic ride off into the sunset over Springfield. And no, it won't be Homer. Or Bart. Because, frankly, you don't kill off your blue chip players.
Dishonourable Mention
Mr Burns
Mr Burns' real age is a hotly debated point, with estimates ruined by the show's refusal to stick to a single accepted timeline - he's either more than 100, less than 100 or his age is in four figures (as he has stated himself.) Basically, he's immortal, having already survived one major Simpsons narrative event in which he was shot, but he's getting to the stage now where death might be the best option. The problem would be that a future episode includes a segment dedicated to a cryogenically frozen Mr Burns, dutifully cared for by Mr Smithers and a team of highly paid scientists seeking a cure for multiple stab wounds. But then continuity hasn't always been the show's strong point, and the makers have openly poked fun at the fact that the medium allows them to get away with mistakes. The real impediment is that Mr Burns has never actually won an Emmy, despite nomination.
How He Should Die Choked to death by Smithers? Homer has already snapped at the billionaire's infuriating tendency to forget who he is, despite all of the major events of the last 25 or so years of his life revolving around either Homer or one of his family members, so that's an unlikely (or at least a lazy) possibility. Perhaps Maggie will finally finish off the job she "attempted" in Who Shot Mr Burns?