Fans of the long running animated series, 'The Simpsons,' will be sad to know that one of the show's biggest voice actors has decided to leave the show.

Harry Shearer brought his vocal talents to characters such as Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Seymour Skinner, Otto, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny, Reverend Lovejoy, and more.

Executive Producer Al Jean didn't provide much details but reveals that the choice was completely his own.

"Harry Shearer was offered the same deal the rest of the cast accepted, and passed. The show will go on and we wish him well. Maggie took it hard."

While this implies that he won't be back for the show's recently announced two seasons, an interview with EW suggest that Jean may not believe this is the end. He states:

"Well, we're still hoping he might come back. Nothing's done 'til it's done. He tweeted that it was over, but... There's an offer that the rest of the cast accepted, and Harry has not accepted it. It's not going to change, because the rest of the cast took it. So we're hoping he does. If he doesn't within a certain period of time, we would have to recast-but we haven't started."

Jean also states that he plans to reach out to him soon to come to some sort of resolution.

"Yeah, we're going to try once to say, 'What's going on? We'd like you back.' And if he says, 'I don't want to be back,' in that case, then we would say, 'Okay, we've got to move on.' We are definitely doing the season. There was an erroneous report that this would affect the pickup. That's not true. The pickup is a guarantee. The other five [actors] that are signed-we are in production with pay-or-play deals, so we're going to do 625 episodes."