Hank Azaria stopped voicing Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, who has a strong Indian accent, in 2017 after a controversial American documentary criticised the character for promoting negative stereotypes about people from India and South Asia.
Since then, Apu has only appeared in passing, without dialogue - until last Sunday. In the season 38 episode "Treehouse of Horror Presents: The Revenge", both Apu and his wife, Manjula, returned and took centre stage. This time, they were voiced by two American actors of Indian descent.
"It feels like we're bringing Apu back. It's truly his homecoming," voice actors Sunil Malhotra and Janina Gavankar wrote in a joint Instagram post.