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Pamela Hayden, one of the most consistent vocal performers in the long history of The Simpsons, has announced her retirement. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Hayden - probably most known for her role as Milhouse Van Houten - has appeared in nearly 700 episodes across the show's 36 seasons, making her not only one of the show's staples, but one of the longest-running actor attached to a character in the history of animation.

Hayden said of her exit, "It’s been an honor and a joy to have worked on such a funny, witty, and groundbreaking show. … I’ll always have a special place in my heart for that blue-haired 10-year-old boy with glasses."

Here at Popverse, we send Hayden off with grateful hearts and wishes for only the best of luck. And as Simpsons fans around the world are probably wondering right now, we're also asking ourselves, "So just what the hell are they going to do without her?"

That's what we're going to try to answer in the next couple of paragraphs, firstly by looking into:

Have The Simpsons ever retired a character?

The Simpsons has been running, as of this writing, for 35 years. And though Springfield has remained relatively the same visually speaking, our world has changed quite a bit in that time. So, too, have its voice actors, some of whom have quit, retired, and passed away since the series first began. And while a lot of characters have continued even without their original voice actors (more on that in a moment), there have been a few times when The Simpsons have retired a character entirely.

One example of this is in the character of Maude Flanders, who was voiced by Maggie Roswell. Maude was killed off in the series after a salary negotiation with Fox saw Roswell quitting the show. Then there's the lesser-known, and ultimately temporary, retirement of Lisa's schoolyard bullies Sherri and Terri. The twins, who were voiced by prolific Minnie Mouse actor Russi Taylor, stayed off screen for a while after Taylor's passing, but were eventually returned to the show voiced by Grey DeLisle.

Perhaps the most famous, and certainly appropriate, retirement of a major Simpsons character came in 2013, when Marcia Wallace, the longtime voice of Bart's teacher Edna Krabappel, passed away from pneumonia-related breast cancer. Since then, the character has only appeared in flashbacks, using recordings of Wallace herself.

Now, will any of Hayden's characters be retired? Well, it's certainly possible, depending on whether Fox ultimately decides they want to keep all of her contriibutions. However, the end of that THR article above seems to suggest that's unlikely to happen, as it reports "The Simpsons will begin casting for Hayden’s characters in the near future." Though it specifically does not clarify which or how many characters it means, the statement does force us to ask a different question... 

Have The Simpsons ever recast a character?

As I've mentioned earlier, the denizens of Springfield have survived more than one vocal-chord surgery thought their many years on the air. Longtime Mr. Burns and Moe actor Hank Azaria wasn't the first to voice those characters (that was actor Chris Collins), Natasha Lyonne's Sophie Krustofsky was originally voice by Drew Barrymore, and since 2002, Kevin Michael Richardson has portrayed jazz player Bleeding Gums Murphy, after the character's original voice, Ron Taylor, passed away.

Then came 2020, and with it, a host of objections regarding the many white voice actors that were portraying diverse characters. The show orchestrated a wide-ranging recasting, with Alex Désert replacing Hank Azaria as Carl Carlson, Dawnn Lewis replacing Tress MacNeille as Bernice Hibbert, and Bleeding Gum himself, Kevin Michael Richardson, replacing Harry Shearer as Dr. Julius Hibbert, among some others.

Yes, many actors like Hayden have voiced their Simpsons characters for over a third-century, but recasting is more common on the show than you may think, many times with a voice already familiar to the show. In fact, Hayden herself even stepped away from a character once, being replaced by Nancy Cartwright after one performance as Ralph Wiggum (in the character's debut appearance). Now, it appears very likely that trend will continue with the characters she's leaving behind. And since there are some pretty iconic names in that list, we'll end by asking...

Who has Pamela Hayden portrayed in The Simpsons?

Not counting the (one assumes) many times Hayden contributed to crowd scenes or the occasional unnamed character, Pamela Hayden has portrayed a multitude of Springfield residents across three and a half decades. From a list collected by The Simpsons' very own wiki page, here are the most recognizable:

• Milhouse Van Houten, Bart's best pal and unlucky n erd 
• Jimbo Jones, school bully 
• Rod Flander, son of Ned, goodie-two-shoes 
• Amber Simpson, Homer's accidental Vegas wife
• Malibu Stacy, Springfield's Barbie allegory
• Sarah Wiggu, long-suffering wife of police chief Clancy
• Ralph Wiggum, dopey son of Clancy and Sarah (one appearance)

To list every single contribution of Hayden made to The Simpsons would be too much for this page - listing all the influence she's had on the show would take more than our website could handle. So while it's possible, even probable, that Hayden's "blue-haired 10-year-old boy with glasses" will continue gracing our TVs and streaming services, nothing will quite be "coming up Milhouse" in quite the same way ever again.

Want to see all of Pamela Hayden's characters in action? Read through Popverse's The Simpsons watch order to learn how.