Sneak a peek at the 'Simpsons' season premiere, in which one character will die

In the Sept. 28 season premiere of The Simpsons, a familiar character from the animated comedy will meet his/her maker. Is it Homer? Of course it’s not—that would be dumber than… well, Homer in pretty much any situation.

But in this scene from the episode, which was screened at the Simpsons’ Comic-Con panel on Saturday, he looks to be in pretty rough shape. See for yourself in the video below and then begin wildly speculating about who will be six feet under by the end of the episode, titled… “Clown in the Dumps.”

D’ohn’t just sit there scratching your head. Press play and revel in the misdirection.

That season premiere clip wasn’t the video surprise at the Comic-Con panel. The producers unspooled a tiny bit of footage from the highly anticipated Futurama crossover episode. The 30-second clip was the opening credits of the episode, a riff on the Futurama opening credits (set to that 31st century-set animated show’s theme song) with some familiar Simpsons opening-credits iconography thrown in. Underneath the show’s title, “Simpsorama,” read the tagline: “A show out of idea teams up with a show out of episodes.” (Asked during the audience Q&A if there was any plans of a revival of Futurama, which was canceled again against last year, Groening said there was nothing in the works, but he was “having waffles” with some of the Futurama team tomorrow and they would “talk about it.” He quipped: “If there’s a network out there that wants us, gimme a call.” Groening did add that he was very satisfied with the way the show wrapped up and proudly pointed out: “We probably had more final episodes than any other animated show.”

Also screened in the room: a Moe-centric segment from the upcoming “Treehouse of Horror” episode (which is airing Oct. 19), “A Clockwork Yellow,” which spoofed A Clockwork Orange and winked at other Kubrick films such as Eyes Wide Shut, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket and Barry Lyndon. In addition, the audience was treated to an appearance by Homer in hologram-ish form. (A similar thing happened in Cannes to celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary.)

The Simpsons panel was unusually light on guest-star news, with exec producer Al Jean making only one announcement: Elon Musk will play himself in an upcoming episode in which Mr. Burns loses all of his money to the Tesla/SpaceX tycoon.