‘The Simpsons’ Producers Explain Composer Alf Clausen Firing, Cite ‘Unauthorized Delegation’

“The Simpsons” producers explained the reason why they decided to fire Alf Clausen and maintained that it has nothing to do with his age.

Three years ago, many were surprised when Fox and “The Simpsons”producers let go of Clausen. He served as the series’ composer for 27 years and even earned nearly two dozens of Emmy nominations for his work in the animated sitcom.

In August, the composer filed a lawsuit claiming that he was fired because of his age. He also added that aside from his advanced age, he was fired because of his perceived disability after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Fox and the show producers now want to end the age bias suit. They recently shared their side of the story on what led them to remove Clausen from the series.

In the court papers obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, they indicated that they discovered something about Clausen’s work. He was allegedly doing unauthorized delegation by making other people compose songs for him.

In 2016, “The Simpsons” producer James L. Brooks didn’t like the songs he got from the composer and started to question if Clausen was still the right man to do the job.

“Brooks questioned whether Clausen was the right person to prepare rap music and questioned his work more generally,” said Richard Sakai, also one of the producers of show

“Around that time, I learned that Clausen had been delegating some of the work of composing music for ‘The Simpsons’ to others, including his son Scott Clausen. I believed his unauthorized delegation was unacceptable. I called showrunner [Al] Jean and told him that Clausen had been delegating his composing work; he conveyed to me that he was surprised and disturbed as well.”

The discovery led to more meetings between the producers and showrunners about Clausen having others do his work. After several discussions, they decided to let him go.

“We decided that we could improve the music on the show by replacing him,” Sakai added.

In related news, “The Simpsons” producers reportedly wanted Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to be part of the show. They have already discussed the prospect of having the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do a voice over but haven’t reached out to the royals yet.

“We’ve talked about Harry and Meghan. I hear she wants to do voiceover work. So if they’re reading this, give us a call!” producer Al Jean said.