Fox has started to release images of the Simpsons from the upcoming episode "Brick Like Me," which is — get this — the 550th episode. That means you could watch a different episode of The Simpsons every day for roughly a year and a half, weekends and weekdays, before you ran out of new ones.
The images look a lot like familiar Lego images from the many games, movies, TV projects, and everything else that's been rendered in little plastic bricks, up to and including the very successful Lego Movie from earlier this year. So it's not surprising, exactly, seeing what Homer and Marge and the kids look like. (Though they do look different from the figures that come with the actual Simpsons Lego House, which is also for sale. Lego seems to have tried to make Homer look like Homer on television, while The Simpsons seems to have made Homer look more like a Lego figure.
But it's funny to look at the captions that come with the images, because you'd better believe that there have been careful negotiations between all the parties involved here. Here's the language: "LEGO, the LEGO logo, the brick and knob configuration and the MiniFigure are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group." So whatever you're thinking, don't even think about it.
It's sad to think Bart probably won't get to say "brick and knob configuration."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.