While making the promotional rounds for his upcoming film, This Is 40, Judd Apatow told the story of a 22-year-old spec script he wrote for The Simpsons. He was just starting out in comedy and the show had just barely hit the air. He had, he says, not written anything before.

The first thing I ever wrote was a spec episode of The Simpsons. After only five Simpsons episodes aired, I sat down and tried to write one when I was in my early twenties. And what it was about was they went to see a hypnotism show and at the hypnotism show, they made Homer think he was the same age at Bart. And then the hypnotist had a heart attack. So now Homer and Bart became best friends and they spent the rest of the show running away because Homer didn’t want responsibility and didn’t want to be brought back to his real age. So I basically copied that for every movie I’ve made since.

That transcript comes courtesy of SlashFilm, and is from a few weeks back. Just a few days ago, Jesse David Fox at Vulture watched the long conversation between Apatow and Conan O'Brien below, in which the director revealed that The Simpsons are now going to produce the script and it will air next year.

So if you want to revive a nearly forgotten creative endeavor, talk to Judd Apatow.

Previously:
Read the Script for Judd Apatow's This Is 40
Trailer Critic: This Is 40