Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Simpsons season 36’s Disney+ special, “Yellow Planet.”

Bizarrely, The Simpsons season 37 will arrive later in 2025, fans should not expect all of its episodes to air on FOX. Four of season 36’s episodes are Disney+ exclusives that went straight to the streaming service instead of being released on television. The first of these, 2024’s Christmas special “Oh C’mon All Ye Faithful,” was a festive two-parter guest starring British mentalist Derren Brown.

Since Brown hails from across the pond, it made sense that Eric Idle’s recurring character from earlier episodes of The Simpsons, documentarian Declan Desmond, narrated the special. After The Simpsons season 36’s best Marge story arrived in episode 14, Disney+ released another special that also featured Idle’s character. However, since Declan narrated the action and didn’t appear on-screen, “Yellow Planet” was also notable for being one of the only episodes of The Simpsons to feature almost no human characters.

The Simpsons Season 36’s “Yellow Planet” Features Almost No Human Characters

The “Oceanland” Trainer Is One Of Few Human Characters

As the title implies, “Yellow Planet” is a parody of a Blue Planet. This legendary British nature documentary series was narrated by David Attenborough and co-produced by the BBC and National Geographic. Released in 2001, Blue Planet was followed by Blue Planet II in 2017, alongside 2006’s Planet Earth and 2011’s Frozen Planet. Since all of these shows focus solely on animal life on earth, there are no appearances from the human main characters of The Simpsons in the Disney+ special “Yellow Planet". Instead, they are recast as animals.

The long-running show thrives on experimentation, with all the best outings from The Simpsons season 36 playing with the show’s typical format.

Lisa becomes a bird, Bart a Lizard, Krusty a crab, Flanders a baboon, and, in the special’s main story, Homer and Marge become a beluga whale and a narwhal, respectively. After The Simpsons season 36 spoofed Shirley Jackson with Marge’s most recent plot, a story that reimagined her as a lovesick narwhal was just about the last thing that viewers would have expected to see next. However, this approach allowed Disney+’s “Yellow Planet” to highlight The Simpsons season 36’s surprising strength.

The Simpsons’ Blue Planet Parody Reimagines The Cast As Animals

Marge and Homer Are Transformed Into a Narwhal and a Beluga

The long-running show thrives on experimentation, with all the best outings from The Simpsons season 36 playing with the show’s typical format. From season 36, episode 3, “Desperately Seeking Lisa,” which barely featured any input from the Simpson family other than Lisa, to “Women in Shorts,” which was a series of interconnected vignettes, The Simpsons has constantly been playing with its format throughout its most recent episodes.

One of the only human characters with a speaking role in “Yellow Planet” is a trainer in Oceanland, and even he ends up killed by the Belugs whale version of Homer in the episode’s ending. Although South Park for one of its more topical plots, “Yellow Planet” proves the show has no shortage of fresh ideas of its own. Even if it means giving the human characters a week off every once in a while, The Simpsons season 36 is irably committed to changing its format and subverting the audience’s expectations.

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