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When the subject of a Simpsons Movie sequel was broached this week during the Television Critics Association Press Tour, Matt Groening said, "We'll get to it, I'm sure."

And that's about as much confirmation as you'll get, and it's also probably all you need, but according to IGN, Groening did, in fact, confirm that his intentions are to follow up last year's enormously successful animated film. When will we see it? That's a different story.

"It will happen at some point, but I have no idea when. The first one took us four years - mainly because we don't like to work any harder than we usually do."

This is great news for fans of the longest-running comedy on television - the characters have been around 20 years - because it probably means we'll have original Simpsons content for a quarter century and maybe close to 30 years, depending on when the ball gets rolling. Groening is not talking like a man who has any idea what the plan will be, but of course, he's in a rare position, especially for someone who's talking about a sequel, because fans are pretty used to waiting at this point.

One of my big misgivings about The Simpsons Movie was that there was an effort made to show every character we've ever come to know on the show, and in the process, some of its best creations, like Ralphie Wiggum, got less than a minute of screen time. Had they known going in they would want to do a sequel, you could have distributed the regulars more evenly. I mean, since when is less Ralphie Wiggum a good thing?

Maybe they can rectify that the second time around.