A few weeks ago, two sides of the animation diaspora collided in an unexpected way – a couch gag for mainstream staple The Simpsons directed by French art-house animation director Sylvain Chomet. A beautiful example of 2D animation, the introduction to the hit sitcom has been causing a stir online ever since it hit screens and brought an unfamiliar aesthetic to the beloved cartoon.

Now the production company behind the film, Th1ng, have made a behind-the-scenes video revealing the painstaking process behind it. Given the popularity of John Lewis’ 2D adventures at Christmas last year, it seems the craft of hand animation still hold the mystique it always did.

We asked Sylvain how this strange marriage between him and the famous yellow family came about.

Sylvain’s relationship with The Simpsons has a long history. “I knew The Simpsons since the beginning,” he says. “Matt Groening and I came up the same way, from short film.” While Sylvain was taking his short film The Old Lady and the Pigeon around the world on the festival circuit, Matt was doing the same with his earliest incarnation of The Simpsons – a prototype vastly different from the family we know and love today.

The Frenchman notes that his career and that of the The Simpsons’ creator have followed a similar trajectory, from authored short film, through to TV and film. Although it’s fair to say Matt’s success has been a little more mass-market than Sylvain’s.