BBC News Online: Entertainment: TV and Radio

Stones duo to star in Simpsons

Mick and Keith are about to get the Simpsons treatment

Tom Petty, Elvis Costello and Lenny Kravitz would all be appearing in the same show, Matt Groening told Phill Jupitus's breakfast show on the BBC digital radio station 6 Music.

"It's fantastic," he said. "We get to animate them exactly the way we want to.

"Even if they're old they can still rock. That's the way we animate them."

Groening was speaking ahead of an appearance at the Animated Encounters festival in Bristol, home town of Aardman Animations, which makes the Wallace and Gromit cartoons.

Sir Paul McCartney, U2, and The Who have already appeared in the series.

Earlier this month the makers of The Simpsons apologised to Rio de Janeiro for a recent episode that offended Brazilian officials.

Tourist officials had threatened to take legal action over the show, in which the cartoon family visit the city to find the streets teeming with monkeys and rats.

The programme followed the family's attempts to locate a missing orphan sponsored by daughter Lisa.

It was entitled Blame it on Lisa, in homage to the 1980s film Blame it on Rio.