Bruce Springsteen on “The Simpsons”? Not yet, and if history holds, not anytime soon. The show has tried to get him as a guest star in many different episodes. There are apparently many Boss fans on the show’s staff; voice actor Hank Azaria even has a Springsteen tribute band, “Hank Azaria & the EZ Street Band.” Yet, Springsteen has turned down each and every offer.
It might be due to the bad experience the first time the show’s creatives asked him. In a 1998 TV Guide interview, “Simpsons” writer Jay Kogen said he saw Springsteen by chance, so he went up and asked him to appear on the series. “He thought I was a maniac. We never heard from him,” Kogen recalled.
The Springsteen “Simpsons” cameos that weren’t meant to be include:
In “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish,” Homer listens to a Bible on tape. The narrator is Larry King, but it was originally meant to be Bruce Springsteen. In “Radio Bart,” Bart falls down a well and is rescued by Sting (playing himself). The hero musician would’ve been Springsteen if he hadn’t said no. “When You Dish Upon a Star” features Homer hanging out with then-celebrity couple Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. The first celebrity pitched to appear in the episode was Springsteen. In “A Tale of Two Springfields,” the wealthier and poorer halves of Springfield split in two. Homer, trying to show up uptown Springfield, gets The Who to play a concert in his half. The producers, again, originally wanted this to be Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
The closest the show’s creatives came was getting E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons to narrate the ending of season 11 episode, “Grift of the Magi.” Former “Simpsons” showrunner Mike Reiss wrote in his book “The Springfield Confidential” that their hope was for Clemons to put in a good word for them to Springsteen. Alas, that didn’t pan out.
Jeremy Allen White has now been cast as Springsteen in “Deliver Me From Nowhere” (chronicling the making of the album “Nebraska”). But while Springsteen is finally getting a movie biopic, we still haven’t seen him animated in yellow.