While the Marvel-themed The Simpsons short The Good, The Bart, and The Loki was allowed to play liberally in the sandbox that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- not to mention the comic book universe -- there was one thing they couldn't include: a posthumous Stan Lee cameo.

Showrunner Al Jean spoke to ComicBook.com about bringing the God of Mischief into the Simpsons-verse and how Disney and Marvel Studios gave them mostly free reign. But when it came to including archival footage of Lee in the episode, Jean said they were given a definitive "No."

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"Only one time," Jean said when asked if any joke was blocked by the higher-ups. "It wasn't a joke. We just thought, 'Oh, we have Stan Lee audio from when he was on our show, could we cameo him in?' And they said that their policy is he doesn't cameo now that he's passed away, which is a completely understandable policy. That was their only note and that was, of course, easily done. And the Grogu note [for the Star Wars-themed short] made total sense, too. It was like, if you let everybody use Grogu in their stuff that wanted to, it would be all over. Believe me, I respect that these franchises have a great power beyond ours. I respect it."

Lee voiced himself a number of times on The Simpsons over the years, starting with 2002's "I Am Furious (Yellow)." He also, of course, had a cameo role in numerous Marvel films, including all of the MCU installments. So while it would have been natural for Lee to appear if he were still alive, Marvel's rule of not reviving him, so to speak, for a posthumous cameo makes sense.

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Jean went on to discuss what it was like to work with Lee when he appeared on The Simpsons: "It's surreal. And I can even quote one of the most surreal moments of my life where I got to have lunch with Stan Lee, and I said, 'Wow,' it was like 20 years ago, 'I'm so excited. I've always wanted a Spider-Man movie to come out,'" Jean recalled. "And he said, 'So have I.' I was like, 'I guess you have, haven't you.' I'm so glad that he saw, and so many of the Marvel creators got to see, these things go from beloved ... I wouldn't say 'niche' because they were super popular, but to so amazingly huge in the world. It's fantastic. It's amazing."

Featuring the voice of Tom Hiddleston, The Good, The Bart, and The Loki short is now streaming on Disney+.

Source: ComicBook.com