TVSquad

I'm ashamed to admit this, but in the wake of Sen. Edward Kennedy's passing, a thought occurred to me: "I wonder what the late Senator and son of Camelot thought of The Simpsons' Mayor Quimby impression."

But what started as the nerdy thought of an overworked blogger also held a deep lesson in humility.

The late Sen. Kennedy, lampooned in the long-running Fox sitcom by actor Dan Castellaneta's voice-over caricature, actually embraced the animated politician as part of a contest held in conjunction with the theatrical release of The Simpsons Movie.

It's Sunday. The winter press tour is over. I'm currently coming down from being over-fed, over-sugared, and moderately-boozed. I'm also thinking back to the fact that during the last four days, I rarely left my hotel, because the networks were plying their wares for us from morning until night.

I'm going to post my overall thoughts on this TV smorgasboard later this week. But before I hop a plane back to Jersey, I wanted to talk about the session that was a TV nerd's dream, at least to this TV nerd: FOX's panel to celebrate the 400th episode of The Simpsons, which will air this May. On the panel was none other than creator Matt Groening, executive producer and TV legend James L. Brooks, current show-runner Al Jean, and voice actors Yeardley Smith (Lisa) and Dan Castellaneta (Homer and a bunch of other voices).