“Leaving Neverland” Blowback Sees “The Simpsons” Classic Episode Pulled

This is a bad week to be a famous guest star on The Simpsons from the nineties.

Remember last year when the internet went bananas on the not so surprising news that Michael Jackson was actually the voice of Leon Kompowsky in the classic episode “Stark Raving Dad” despite the episode for years being credited as John Jay Smith. In fact, there was supposed to be a sequel where the voice of Leon Kompowsky was going to be done by Prince only for that to not to go through due to creative differences.

In any event, producer James L. Brooks has pulled the classic episode from episode reruns in light of the Leaving Neverland documentary that premiered on HBO earlier in the week which detailed allegations of sexual abuse by Michael Jackson against underage children.

For those that don’t recall, “Stark Raving Dad” featured the voice of Michael Jackson in the talking parts of the episode while Kip Lennon did the singing parts. Jackson DID produce a song featuring Bart Simpson called “Do the Bartman” and wrote the song that was used in the “Stark Raving Dad” episode entitled “Happy Birthday, Lisa”. The song was used as part of an apology by Bart to Lisa after forgetting his little sister’s birthday. The episode re-aired on FOX shortly after Michael Jackson’s death.