The Simpsons Season 38 Fox Schedule, Episode Count, and Release Dates (2026 Guide)

I’ve watched this family since Bart was actually cool to imitate on a playground, and here’s the honest truth: I’ve stopped expecting Season 38 (or 48, if we get there) to hit the same nerve as those early years. That’s not a complaint. It’s just what happens when a show outlives the culture that made it. What keeps me tuning back in every fall isn’t nostalgia alone — it’s curiosity about how a 35-plus-year-old cartoon keeps rearranging its own furniture to survive in a streaming world. And this season, the furniture’s moved quite a bit.

Homer’s Back on Sunday Nights, But the Block Around Him Looks Different

Mark your calendar: Sunday, September 27, 2026, at 8 PM ET/PT — the same slot that’s basically been carved into Fox’s schedule since dial-up internet was a thing. But if you’re expecting the classic Animation Domination lineup you grew up with, prepare for a shrug. Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad! are all sitting this fall out, pushed to a 2028 midseason slot instead. That’s a genuinely strange move for a network that built its identity on stacking animated comedies back to back.

Here’s how Fox is filling Sunday night instead:

So Homer’s carrying the animated torch pretty much solo now, flanked by two newer cartoons and a live-action workplace sitcom. Whether that’s a smart pivot or just what happens when a network runs out of ideas for its legacy shows — I’ll let you decide.

Fewer Episodes on Fox, More Hiding on Disney+

Here’s the part that’s honestly been bugging longtime fans on every forum I check: Season 38’s Fox broadcast run is only 15 episodes. Compare that to the 22-episode seasons that used to be standard, and it’s a noticeable shrink. Showrunner Matt Selman has framed this as a feature, not a bug — the plan is to run those 15 episodes back-to-back without the maddening mid-season gaps that used to leave you wondering in February whether the show got cancelled.

I’ll admit, there’s something to that logic. Nothing killed momentum for a season faster than a three-week hiatus right after a strong episode.

But the broadcast number isn’t the whole story. Following the pattern set in Seasons 36 and 37, Disney+ is getting two exclusive episodes that will never touch a Fox broadcast slot at all. Add those in, and the real total for this production cycle is 17 new episodes:

• 15 episodes — Fox broadcast, Sunday nights through fall/winter
• 2 episodes — Disney+ exclusives, release dates still unannounced

If you’re a completionist who wants everything, you’ll need both a way to watch live TV and a Disney+ subscription. Mildly annoying, sure, but that’s the streaming-era reality now for basically every legacy franchise.

What the Premiere and Episode Two Are Actually About

The season kicks off with “The Children’s Book Job” on September 27. Marge, trying to rescue Springfield Elementary from its usual budget doom, invites a famously reclusive British children’s author to the school’s book fair. Naturally, Homer gets stuck picking her up from the airport, and naturally, he wrecks it. Emma Thompson voices the author, and honestly, a real-deal Oscar winner getting roped into Homer’s chaos is exactly the kind of casting stunt that still makes me laugh.

Episode two, “Diary of a Chimpy Kid,” airs October 4 and has Bart and Lisa adopting a baby chimpanzee while Homer spirals into full urban-legend paranoia that the thing is going to maul him the second it’s strong enough. It’s a premise that sounds almost too on-brand for the show at this point — pure sitcom-logic chaos wrapped around a family pet.

Beyond those two, the writers are keeping most plot details under wraps, though the annual Treehouse of Horror special is confirmed to return this fall, as it has every year since forever.

The Guest Star Lineup Is Doing Its Usual Heavy Lifting

Celebrity cameos have always been part of the show’s DNA, and this season’s confirmed lineup is a decent mix:

• Emma Thompson — the reclusive author in the premiere
• Henry Winkler — guest spot later in autumn
• Rachel Bloom — a musically-driven episode this winter
• Gustavo Dudamel — playing himself in a Lisa-centric music storyline

That last one is a nice touch if you’ve followed Lisa’s arc over the decades. Her whole character has always leaned on music as an emotional outlet, so bringing in an actual world-class conductor for one of those storylines feels less like stunt-casting and more like the writers actually paying attention to who she is.

The Voice Cast Hasn’t Changed, and Honestly, Thank God

Say what you want about the show’s current era compared to its golden years, but the fact that the entire core cast is still intact after nearly four decades is genuinely wild:

• Dan Castellaneta — Homer, Grampa, Barney, Krusty
• Julie Kavner — Marge, Patty, Selma
• Nancy Cartwright — Bart, Nelson, Ralph
• Yeardley Smith — Lisa
• Hank Azaria — Chief Wiggum, Moe, Comic Book Guy
• Harry Shearer — Mr. Burns, Smithers, Skinner

That continuity is honestly underrated. Half the reason the show still feels like itself — even when the jokes miss — is that these voices never changed.

Where This Is All Headed

Fox already locked in a renewal through Season 40 back in April 2025, meaning Springfield isn’t going anywhere before the 2028–2029 broadcast year at the earliest. By then, the show will have blown well past the 850-episode mark, a record nothing else on American television is realistically catching. Nancy Cartwright has floated the idea that Season 40 might be a natural stopping point for reflection, though nothing about ratings or streaming performance currently points toward an actual ending.

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How to Actually Watch It

If you want the simplest breakdown:

• Live on Fox — Sundays, 8 PM ET/PT, via antenna, cable, or live-TV apps like Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV, FuboTV, or Sling
• Next-day on Hulu — new episodes drop around 3 AM ET / midnight PT the following Monday
• Disney+ — home to the full legacy library (Seasons 1–37), with new Fox episodes migrating over after the season wraps, plus the two exclusive Disney+ episodes dropping at unannounced dates

Whether or not Season 38 ends up being a great year for the show creatively, there’s something oddly comforting about the ritual of it — the same 8 PM slot, the same familiar voices, a shorter episode count that at least means no more month-long gaps mid-season. For a show pushing 40 years old, that kind of consistency is arguably the real achievement.