If the rest of The Simpsons Movie matches up to the ten minutes shown at a special screening in London last night, all bodes well.

A select audience of fans and journalists were shown an intriguing teaser featuring rock band Green Day, a Titanic homage and Bart skating naked through Springfield.

At the screening at a cinema in London's Leicester Square, Simpsons creator Matt Groening revealed that a "super-secret special guest star" will feature in the long-awaited film, due out on July 27: "but we can’t tell you who".

Why a Simpsons movie then? Why now?

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“Doing a movie is a thrill for us” said Groening, “because we get to sit in a theatre with people laughing which we don’t get watching it at home with our families. It is also a great way of crediting all our performers and a tribute to the animators.”

The creators' ambition was to ensure that even if the viewer had never heard of the Simpsons, they'd still enjoy the film.

Of course few places in the world have not been conquered by the phenomenally successful animated series, something Groening attributed to the fact that “stupidity and the love of stupidity is universal.”

Whether or not this is the true reason for the show’s enduring popularity, the creators evidently want The Simpsons Movie to be more than just a commercial success.

As Groening's creative partner Al Jean said afterwards "this is not a CGI movie with 1000 dancing penguins"

The animation is what we have come to expect from the Simpsons: bright block colours, and simple cinematography.

Groening said that the writers hoped to do with the film that they couldn’t do with the series, though from this short clip it is difficult to see quite what he means.

What we saw was good old Simpsons, just bigger. But perhaps that is the best thing we could have hoped for.

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