UPDATED: New 3D Simpsons Short to Precede Ice Age 4!

It was just announced last night that Maggie Simpson will star in her very own short film, "The Longest Daycare"! The short will show before Blue Sky Studios' (who're also owned by Fox) Ice Age 4 later this year. You can view a short promo for the short film above.

"The Longest Daycare" is touted as being in 3D, and hopefully this just means it will have stereoscopic 3D effects, and not that it's animated using CGI - it would just not look right for The Simpsons.

This is very exciting news for several reasons: it's Maggie's first starring role, it's the first Simpsons theatrical short film, and indeed the first Simpsons short film since 1989! If you weren't planning on seeing Ice Age 4 before, it's just became a must see.

Ice Age 4: Continental Drift hits cinemas on 13th July.

Via Cartoon Brew.

Update:

Entertainment Weekly's site sports a mini-interview with Simpsons Exec. Producer, Al Jean, about "The Longest Daycare", which gives us a sizeable about of information about the short.

Jean says:

"Jim Brooks thought we should do an animated short — a la the ones Pixar does before their features, a la the cartoons you used to see in the theater years ago — as a fun thing to give our fans. We just wanted to do this as a way of saying, ‘We appreciate how much people have stayed with the show and watched it for 25 years."

The EW article also tells us that the short sees Maggie returning to the Ayn Rand School for Tots (need reminded?) and that it'll be 4 minutes long and directed by David Silverman. It also seems that in the short (rather than as hoped above) the "3D" doesn't mean the film will be in 3D, rather that it will be animated using CGI. Meh, I'd rather see it animated in the normal Simpsons mould, but I suppose it will give it a different feel and it worked rather well for Looney Tunes.

Also, of note, Al Jean spoke briefly about the long speculated The Simpsons Movie 2:

“There are no immediate plans for a feature, although as you see with this, you never know. It certainly made us excited to think that if we did another feature, maybe 3-D would be the way to go.”

Be sure to read the full article here!

Update 2:

Pardon my misreading, the director of The Simpsons Movie and "The Longest Daycare", David Silverman, told us on Twitter "Nope! - its 3D not CG. Drawn like the show, but several levels of cleanup, using After Effects to create 3D."

Phew. Like I said, I'm sure it would've been good as CG, but it'll be so much better without!