“The Simpsons” Cast Takes Pay Cut To Keep Show Going

In the game of chicken between 20th Century Fox and the creative team behind The Simpsons, it’s the creative team that blinked.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the vocal cast and production staff will take pay cuts to keep the animated series on the air. And while the pay cut won’t be as drastic as the 45% reported around various trade newspapers this week, it will still be a sizeable one for the cast and crew.

That includes Dan Castellaneta (Homer, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, and others), Julie Kavner (Marge and others), Nancy Cartwright (Bart and others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe, Chief Wiggum and Apu), and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, and Ned Flanders, among others).

The show’s top producers, according to reports, have already agreed to reduce their current compensation, but the big difference from the cast is that several of them have “back end” deals that pay them additional amounts based on profits from all the revenue sources related to the show – such as licensing, merchandising and syndication of reruns to local TV stations.

The cast has not been paid a cut of the back end profits, and is not expected to get any in this new contract. Harry Shearer put out a statement early Friday saying he would take a cut of as much as 70% in salary if the network provided a share of back end profits, but his statement adds that Fox has remained steadfast in its refusal to do so.