‘The Simpsons’ came alive at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night (September 12th), as the series celebrated its 25th anniversary with live music, cast performances and some very special guests. Creator Matt Groening kicked off proceedings at the first of three events, which will celebrate the long running Fox animation.

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The event was hosted by Hank Azaria, who’s best known to ‘Simpsons’ fans as the voice of characters such as Moe the bartender, police Chief Wiggum and Apu the Kwik-E-Mart owner.

At one point in the evening, Azaria dressed as Apu, to sing 'Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart', accompanied by dancing hot dogs. He then joined Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart, who made one of her character's famous crank phone calls on stage with Azaria answering as Moe.

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Throughout the evening the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra where on hand to play musical numbers from specific episodes and some opening sequence couch gags while a giant screen showed clips from the series.

Former 'Simpsons' writer turned late night talk show host Conan O'Brien, made a very special apperance dressed as character Lyle Lanley, to sing 'Monorail', accompanied by the Los Angeles Gay Men's Chorus. Weird Al Yankovic and Jon Lovitz also performed at the event, while composer Hans Zimmer gave live renditions of some of his work from 2007's The Simpsons Movie.

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So far this year, 'The Simpsons' anniversary celebrations have included a Lego crossover, a holographic Homer appearing at San Diego's Comic Con and channel FXX hosting a 12-day 'Every Simpsons Ever' marathon where they aired all 552 episodes back to back.

The series will kick off its 26th season later this month with the much anticipated 'Family Guy' crossover episode where the Griffin family will meet the Simpsons in Springfield.

The Simpsons Family Guy crossover 'The Simpsons' will kick off their 26th series with a 'Family Guy' crossover episode.