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Q: Did Robin Williams ever guest star in "The Simpsons"? He was the best voice actor and it seems like everyone who was anyone was in "The Simpsons."

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

It does seem a little surprising that Robin Williams, one of the most prominent comic actors of his generation, never appeared in the show that made use of just about every comic voice actor available (and quite a few non-comic actors to boot).

Of course, there's more than one way to appear in "The Simpsons." Though the show couldn't land him as a guest, the writers felt free to mention him in a couple of episodes.

He even "appeared" in one, but he was voiced by series regular Dan Castellaneta. In the 2012 episode "How I Wet Your Mother," Williams appears in one of Homer's dreams, saying that Stanley Kubrick asked him to star in "The Shining."

He doesn't appear in the other episodes, he's just the butt of some "Simpsons"-style jokes -- lighting-fast riffs that draw references from random and unrelated areas of popular culture. Come to think of it, the kind of jokes Williams built a career on.

 

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