The Simpsons voice actor Pamela Hayden has announced her retirement from the hit Fox sitcom after 35 years.
Hayden, who’s credited for featuring in nearly 700 episodes of the long-running animated series, is best known as the voice behind Bart Simpson’s bespectacled friend Milhouse Van Houten; however, she’s also played dozens of other characters, including Jimbo Jones, Rod Flanders and Malibu Stacy.
Her final episode, Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes, will air on Sunday (November 24).
“The time has come for me to hang up my microphone, but how do I say goodbye to The Simpsons? Not easily,” Hayden, 70, said in a statement. “It’s been an honor and a joy to have worked on such a funny, witty, and groundbreaking show. … I’ll always have a special place in my heart for that blue-haired 10-year-old boy with glasses.”
The Simpsons will begin the search for Hayden’s replacement in the near future, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Pamela’s talent and joy and love for her characters has added a magic to The Simpsons that will never be forgotten,” showrunner and executive producer Matt Selman said. “Everything’s coming up Pamela!”
“Pamela gave us tons of laughs with Milhouse, the hapless kid with the biggest nose in Springfield. She made Milhouse hilarious and real, and we will miss her,” The Simpsons creator Matt Groening added, while executive producer James L. Brooks praised Hayden as a “model for having a great spirit for every cast she has been a part of.”
Hayden has voiced Milhouse since the cartoon’s 1989 inception. She’s also gone on to reprise the character in several of The Simpsons video games as well as The Simpsons Movie (2007).
Milhouse was first introduced to the world of The Simpsons in 1989 as part of a Butterfinger advertisement when the show was still just a series of segments on The Tracey Ullman Show.
He was named after former U.S. president Richard Milhous Nixon and has been a part of the cartoon series since its debut episode, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.”
Besides The Simpsons, Hayden has also voiced characters in the children’s animated adventure series Lloyd in Space, the classic Tom & Jerry Kids Show cartoon spinoff and the biblical series Adventures in Odyssey.
