Apu is back! For over thirty years, The Simpsons has made a career out of being television’s favorite yellow-faced menace. This is, after all, no ordinary family sitcom. The yellow-skinned residents of Springfield have ruffled feathers from school boards and foreign governments to modern-day pop culture critics. And now, the legendary series is bringing back its yet another controversial character from the archives whose presence has long been the subject of heated debate. Yet something seems different about this comeback.

Having learned from the controversies of the past, the show's creators appear to be taking a far more cautious approach this time around.

Apu has made his huge comeback in Season 38 of The Simpsons, Episode 3, titled The Revengening, while also getting his voice back after nine years of absolute silence. Framed as a Halloween-themed prelude with the atmosphere of a Scream movie, the episode marks a new beginning for the controversial character. This time, the familiar voice is gone. Indian-American actor Sunil Malhotra takes over from Hank Azaria, while Janina Gavankar joins the cast as Apu’s wife, Manjula.

For years, Apu represented a growing problem for The Simpsons. The convenience store owner, voiced by white actor Hank Azaria, faced a lot of criticism from viewers who believed his portrayal reinforced damaging stereotypes about South Asians. 

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In fact, the controversy became so prominent that it even inspired an entire documentary. 

Long before Apu’s voice changed, a 2017 documentary forced Springfield to confront an uncomfortable truth. In The Problem with Apu, comedian Hari Kondabolu challenged the idea that the iconic Simpsons character was harmless fun. The film revealed how Apu’s exaggerated accent, performed by white actor Hank Azaria, had become ammunition for bullies targeting South Asian kids. With so few brown characters on television at the time, Apu became the face of an entire culture, and that was the problem.

While The Simpsons initially seemed content to brush off the criticism, the growing backlash eventually became impossible to ignore. In 2020, Hank Azaria stepped away from voicing Apu and acknowledged the harm the character’s portrayal had caused. What started as a small documentary sparked a much bigger conversation about representation in television.

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What do you think about Apu's comeback? Let us know in the comments!