Although the characters on the show only have four fingers, they use American Sign Language in the groundbreaking episode. And no, the episode wasn’t written after CODA, the film about the hearing daughter of two deaf parents, won Best Picture at the Oscars last month.
“It’s very hard to do a ‘premier’ after 722 episodes called.
The episode is titled “The Sound of Bleeding Gums”. It centers on Lisa Simpson, who discovers that her role model and favorite musician, the late saxophonist Bleeding Gums Murphy, has a son who is deaf and needs a cochlear implant. Lisa gets a little over the top trying to help son Monk Murphy.
Bleeding Gums Murphy died in Season 6.
The episode’s plot is loosely based on the life of Loni Steele Sosthand, its lead writer.
“Loni suggested making Bleeding Gums Murphy’s son a man who was born deaf and could never hear his father’s music,” Jean told CNN.
Sosthand told CNN that the show’s producers consulted two ASL specialists regarding the signs the characters make in the episode. The sign language specialists reviewed animatics – crude versions of the show’s visuals – to ensure that despite the characters’ missing fingers, the meaning of the words was conveyed correctly.
Sosthand said the episode was personal and an affair of the heart for her. Her brother Eli is hearing impaired and comes from a family that loves jazz music.
“Having a brother just a year older who was born deaf really shaped me as a person. So it’s a story that’s not only close to my heart, but also to my identity,” she said.
“There are a lot of autobiographical themes in the episode regarding the tension between a love of music and loved ones who are deaf – themes that are also present in CODA but draw very much from my own life,” she added.
Deaf actor John Autry II, whose credits include “Glee” and “No Ordinary Family,” plays Monk. In a statement, he called the role “life-changing” for him.
“It’s about hard of hearing and hard of hearing characters coming together,” he said. “It’s part of history.”
The episode will also star three children – Ian Mayorga, Kaylee Arellano and Hazel Lopez – from No Limits, a non-profit dedicated to deaf children. Seeing them record “Happy Talk,” a song from the musical “South Pacific,” which featured at the end of the episode, was emotional for Sosthand.
“The song says, ‘If you don’t have a dream, how will you make a dream come true.’ As I watched them record, I just cried the whole time realizing that this is a dream come true for all of us,” she said.
The historic episode comes two weeks after “CODA’s” big moment at the Academy Awards. CODA stands for Child of Deaf Adults and the film is about the struggles of a hearing daughter who wants to be a musician instead of going into her deaf parents’ fishing business.
The idea for the show was in the works long before the movie, said Jean, the Simpsons showrunner.
“Some of this is based on events that happened many years ago,” he said. “Of course we are very happy about the success of CODA.”
Jean is excited to share Sunday’s episode with viewers and said he smiles every time he thinks about it.
“I’m a fan of happy endings,” he said, “although it’s not quite what you expect.”