A special episode of The Simpsons will be aired on October 3 this year in the US, which will focus on Grameen Bank’s micro-credit schemes, and feature of Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus.
Prof Yunus’s voice has already been recorded and the episode is ready to go on air, according to a press release from the Yunus Centre. Meanwhile, a distinguished member of the popular global TV family The Simpsons is in Dhaka. Cartoon character ‘Lisa’ is here not in person, but through Yeardley Smith who lends her voice to the character in the series.
She arrived in Dhaka on July 20 for a weeklong visit to study the Grameen Bank model and other initiatives of Prof Yunus. A long-time admirer of Prof Yunus, Smith has visited and provided support to Grameen micro-credit programs in Haiti and other countries. During her visit, Smith has met Grameen Shikkha scholarship recipients, visited Grameen Danone, Grameen Eye Care Hospital, Grameen Shakti Solar Home System and Grameen Bank branches.
Emmy Award winner Smith is the voice of Lisa Simpson–the wise, thoughtful, intelligent, saxophone-playing, vegetarian member of the Simpson family, the best-selling animated TV series which is popular all over the world and recognised as one of the world’s most enduring cultural icons. Smith has been playing the role of Lisa since the beginning of Simpsons, and she was awarded the Emmy Award for her role in 1992. The Simpsons is an American animated television series created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satire of a working-class American lifestyle epitomised by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.
The show is set in the fictional city of Springfield, and lampoons American culture, society, television and many aspects of the human condition. Since its debut on December 17, 1989 the show has broadcast 464 episodes and the twenty-first season finished airing on May 23, 2010. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theatres worldwide in July 2007, and grossed $527 million. The show has won dozens of awards since its debut as a series, including 25 Primetime Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award.
Time magazine’s December 31, 1999 issue named it the 20th century’s best television series, and on January 14, 2000 the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.