On View : Who Shot Mr. Burns?

In 1980, you had no idea who pulled the trigger. Bobby, Sue Ellen, Lucy--they all had reasons to off that conniving human oil slick J.R. Ewing, who had wronged just about everybody in Dallas.

You spent the summer checking the tabloids, getting odds from your Las Vegas bookie, trying to figure out “Who Shot J.R.?” And when you and the rest of the world tuned into “Dallas” the next fall, you learned you had guessed wrong.

So here it is, 15 years later, and you have another chance at summer fun. The man whose fate it is to be shot on this season finale cliffhanger is a power-hungry TV villain like J.R. before him. He’s Mr. Burns, the nasty, pointy-nosed owner of a nuclear power plant on Fox’s “The Simpsons.” Tonight, on “The Simpsons’ ” irreverent homage to “Who Shot J.R.?” and other TV mysteries, someone is going to take aim at Montgomery Burns.

On the final episode of the show’s sixth season, the first of a two-parter that will conclude in the fall, producers claim that Mr. Burns will be more evil than ever. He steals oil from a well found at Springfield Elementary School. He thwarts jazz-lover Lisa’s plans to have jazz great Tito Puente (the episode’s celebrity guest voice) teach music at the school. He ruins Moe’s bar. He injures Bart’s dog. The list goes on.

“Everybody who you might imagine is a suspect, is a suspect. All the people who Mr. Burns has humiliated and crossed and come into combat with in the past are people you should take a look at. Now that’s a lot of people,” says “Simpsons” creator and executive producer Matt Groening with a sly, almost Burns-like laugh.

So where do you begin? How will you ever win the sweepstakes Fox has set up for solving this mystery? This reporter’s plan is to stir things up behind-the-scenes at “The Simpsons,” to go inside for answers. Mr. Burns would be proud.

First stop: the weekly Thursday morning “Simpons” table reading on the Fox lot. They let you into this reading, which few outsiders get to witness, because you’re with the media. Great, the disguise is working.

The actors who do the voices on the show are there for the first run-through of a script for next season about Homer on an eating spree. The process begins this far in advance because with rewrites and animation, one episode takes about six months to finish.

As everyone rambles in, some of the actors already at the long table start to schmooze. Suddenly, the conversation turns Burns. You eavesdrop.

“I have no idea who shot him,” says the slim Dan Castellaneta, who does the voice of Homer but probably doesn’t share his doughnut habit. “I guess Maggie.”

“I know I didn’t do it,” says Hank Azaria, speaking for his characters Moe, Apu and Police Chief Wiggam, among others. He could be bluffing.

Julie Kavner, the voice of Marge, wearing a purple baseball cap and sipping coffee, admits she’s surprised by the extremes the producers are taking to keep the culprit a secret. “Nobody’s saying a word,” she remarks, then offers a Margeish whine, “Well, whoever shot him, does he have to go to jail?”

James L. Brooks, the show’s illustrious executive producer who has taken his seat next to Kavner, just grins at her and chuckles. He’s not talking.

After the boisterous reading, you approach Harry Shearer, who has his mini personal TV tuned into Court TV, clearly more taken with the Simpson whodunit than “The Simpsons” whodunit. Shearer lends his voice to Burns and dozens of other characters on the show (including Smithers), so his presence at the reading may or may not be a clue as to whether Burns survives the shooting. But he’s got to know who squeezed the trigger.

“Yeah, I know,” he says smugly, and walks out of the room.

Later, when you’re interrogating Groening, he explains that Shearer probably doesn’t know. “I hate to say it, but actors have big mouths, so we did give them a solution but it’s the wrong one.”

At last, you get a clue, and it’s from James L. Brooks: “Because nobody was giving the press any help, and I make it a practice to suck up to the press in any way possible, I’ll say one person who didn’t do it. Bleeding Gums Murphy didn’t do it.”

Bleeding Gums, “The Simpsons’ ” jazzman, died on the April 30 episode. Aye, caramba!

All joking aside, Brooks explains that the Burns mystery is a serious undertaking. “We were painstaking in terms of the way it was conducted.”

Executive producer David Mirkin reveals the key to this game: the VCR. Viewers can actually figure out whodunit by taping the episode and freeze-framing to expose clues. Die-hard “Simpsons” fan are used to this practice--the show’s creators regularly hide inside jokes and subtle asides that can’t be seen at normal speed.

Keeping a warning about red herrings in mind, the journey to the solution should be a worthwhile one, Mirkin says.

“Once you attract people with a notion like this, you better satisfy them. And I think we will,” says Brooks.

Will seeing Mr. Burns get his due be satisfying, too? Probably. Mirkin says that audience research indicated that viewers wanted to see Burns get shot.

The intense anti-Burns sentiment is not surprising. “Mr. Burns is a combination of every bad boss we’ve all ever had,” says Groening.

“The Simpsons” is certainly not predictable from week to week. And the producers say that’s one of the reasons for the show’s long-term success. “As soon as we get repetitive, it’s time to go off the air,” says Mirkin. For now, the show has been renewed through its eighth season.

Groening sees no end in sight. “I’m as happy with the show as I’ve ever been. I can actually sleep at night.”

And he’s not losing any sleep over the Burns mystery, either. No hack reporter is going to break this one. Groening talks of bogus script pages, extra animation, locking up the animator drawing the real version for the summer. ...

Wow. Maybe it’s time to learn how to use that VCR.

“The Simpsons” airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Fox. Reruns air weeknights at 7:30 on KTTV.