Pitchfork

Well, Christ, this seems like it was pretty inevitable. Two iconic products of American popular culture-- both born in the 80s, both gaining enormous worshipful followings with their work of the early 90s, and both having traced a decided downward trajectory since Bill Berry and Montgomery Burns experienced major mid-90s medical emergencies-- are planning to unite. The trio that is now R.E.M. recorded their voice-overs for the show in July, and at last report, the resultant episode will be airing sometime around Thanksgiving.

There has been a disturbing trend lately of The Simpsons overdoing the whole celebrity appearance thing and R.E.M., well, overdoing the whole celebrity thing, so we hope this turns out more like the episode where Sonic Youth stole Peter Frampton's watermelon (which remains one of the more fascinating metaphors for punk rock anyone's ever devised), and less tike the Who playing on a big wall of trash, which was just fucking stupid.