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1Fridge examples for ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.
2----
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4!!The Series
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6[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
7* In the first 20 seasons, Jimbo Jones had a full head of hair, shown in some episodes such as ''Bart of Darkness'', ''Poppa's Got A Brand New Badge'' and ''Lisa the Drama Queen''. In several recent episodes such as ''Moms I'd Like To Forget'', ''The Great Simpsina'' and ''Beware My Cheating Bart'', he's bald on top when he takes his hat off. Either he's recently going bald or wearing a wool cap for 20 years pretty much caused it.
8* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'', there's an early scene where, as the Simpsons family is piling out of the car to go to church, Homer is audibly arguing as to why he should be there. One of the last lines he says is "Those pious morons worshiping their phony-baloney God" as they walk through the front door with predictable results. One might argue that this is a standard Jerkass Homer's forced TakeThat against Christianity, but, in the Season 12 episode "HOMR", while after having a crayon removed from his brain that drastically increased his I.Q., [[ItMakesSenseInContext he was working on a flat tax proposal when he accidentally discovered airtight evidence against the existence of God and casually rubbed it in the face of Flanders.]] Granted, at the end of the episode, [[StatusQuoIsGod he had an operation to shove another crayon up his nose to restore his intelligence to its previous level]], barely remembering that he wrote [[spoiler:an apology letter to Lisa immediately afterward,]] but wouldn't it make sense that he'd remember what he thought was probably the greatest "Screw You, Flanders!" moment in his life that he had printed evidence to back up with when he wanted to use it as an excuse?
9** Mind you God actually exists in the Simpsons universe and Homer is friends with him. So it's also a function of NegativeContinuity.
10* In the Thanksgiving episode from the second season, Homer mixes up Patty and Selma's names. This isn't EarlyInstallmentWeirdness; this is LampshadeHanging. The two of them are identical twins who make only minimal efforts to distinguish themselves, and so they get confused for each other a lot, especially with viewers. Plus, not only has Homer admitted to having trouble telling them apart in several episodes, it's also been made explicit that he ''hates'' the two of them - which would only compound his problems with keeping their names straight, because, well, why would he bother?
11** Patty and Selma were insulting Marge's cooking and making her feel inadequate as well when Homer approached them. [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Homer kissing them while getting their names wrong was his way of getting back at them for mistreating Marge, while also appearing that he was still being nice]].
12** Assuming it was an innocent mistake, this actually lays the groundwork for a plot point later in the season--in "Principal Charming," Homer is tasked by Marge with setting Selma up and settles on Skinner as her potential boyfriend, only to accidentally introduce Skinner to what turns out to be ''Patty,'' botching the scheme by causing him to fall in LoveAtFirstSight with the wrong twin.
13* In the first episode of season 23, Homer tells Wayne that he has visions of a terrible future where robots took their jobs, and Homer says that robot understands him. In 17th episode of the same season, Mr. Burns replaces his employees with robots, keeping only Homer. Homer tries to be friends with robots, and even thinks them as friends, meaning that Homer's vision was at least partly right.
14* In ''Half-Decent Proposal'', Artie Ziff pays many Springfieldianites money to relive his high school prom. Among the attendees are Kirk and Luann Van Houten--together. At first it seems illogical considering their divorce, until one remembers they are being paid to relive the past, so they're getting paid to tolerate each other.
15* In "Krusty Gets Busted" from the first season, we learn that Krusty had an on the air heart attack. We later learn that Krusty is a chronic smoker, drinker and has a generally unhealthy lifestyle. ''No wonder'' he had a heart attack.
16** When Krusty had his on the air heart attack, he was cooking ham and bacon on a grill and we later learn his company endorses a large amount of pork related products. In addition to being an entertainer, Rabbi Krustofski probably resented Krusty even moreso for endorsing pork products, which are ([[AsYouKnow as, of course, we know]]) treif (non-kosher) foods.
17* Mr. Burns used to forget Homer's name constantly in the early seasons, and he finally got it right in the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" two-parter. Homer was a suspect in the shooting; since then, because of the circumstances and how crazy the situation was, Mr. Burns knows Homer's name no problem.
18* Nelson's talked about huckleberry picking in a couple of later episodes. When the boys were in Branson, Missouri in season seven, Nelson wanted to see Andy Williams and was excited to hear Moon River. This song contains a line involving two friends picking huckleberries in their youth. Probably unintended on the writer's part and was supposed to be an OutOfCharacter moment, but the whole thing is made funnier and explains why Nelson likes the song so much.
19* Many people say that Homer has become dumber and dumber over the years. A slow descent at first, but eventually reaching the point where the only rule was "Homer cannot forget his own name." The brilliance is that in season 4 Homer received a coronary bypass graft. 51% of patients who have a bypass graft suffer severe brain damage as the years pass. The cure we all saw him get... is the cure that made him so very, very dumb.
20** Later that season, he ends up in a coma (on the very first ClipShow episode "So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show") and is even told he suffered some brain damage.
21** Not to mention the sheer amount of head damage Homer takes.
22*** However, he still becomes smarter when a crayon is removed from his brain in ''HOMR''.
23*** Perhaps the crayon is responsible for his initially average intelligence, and the head trauma just escalated into [[TooDumbToLive smrt levels.]] Homer could've been a ''genius'' had he never stuck that crayon up his nose.
24*** In the same episode, after Homer becomes intelligent, he asks Lisa if the capital of North Dakota is Bismarck, to which she nods approvingly. Previously, in Season 2's "Simpson and Delilah," he thought that the capital of North Dakota was "Hitler."
25* All of the jokes about Mr. Burns' poor health make a lot more sense when you remember a throwaway line from season 2's 'Blood Feud,' when Mr. Burns mentions that he received a kidney transplant from Smithers. People who undergo organ transplants are required to take immune system-suppressing drugs to prevent their bodies from rejecting the new organ. Mr. Burns essentially has no immune system, and the Mayo Clinic doctor's observation that 'even a slight breeze' could kill him isn't too far off. At this point, it's likely that sheer willpower and his inexhaustible wealth are the only reasons Mr. Burns is alive and kicking at ''all''.
26** Another bit of FridgeBrilliance related to this particular episode. In "Blood Feud", Mr. Burns thanks the Simpson family for the life-saving blood donation by gifting them a large, ancient stone statue of the head of the Olmec god of war. This seems merely like a humorous, whimsical non-sequitur at first, if you don't know about [[https://www.thoughtco.com/bloodletting-ancient-ritual-behavior-170086 the Olmec culture's emphasis on blood sacrifice]]. The Olmec head was probably a much more [[GeniusBonus thoughtful]] gift than most people give Mr. Burns credit for.
27* In another Simpsons episode, "Treehouse of Horror XIII", in the second part, one of the zombies is the "most evil German": Kaiser Wilhelm. The joke is, of course, they don't say Hitler. Why? Because ''Hitler was actually Austrian'' (even though German is the official language of Austria as well as Germany and some parts of Switzerland, which makes the line from "Cape Feare" "No one who speaks German could be an evil man," funnier when you think about it).
28** That and Hitler's shown to be alive (in the Simpson world) in the episode where Bart calls Australia and the beginning of the episode where Bart and his friends become a boy band (it was the part where Homer is watching a "Great Moments in Olympic History" documentary and when it cut to Bob Beamon's long-jump at the 1968 Olympics, it showed an elderly Hitler in the audience).
29*** This also counts as FridgeHorror, considering that Hitler of all people [[KarmaHoudini is living a peaceful life.]]
30** Also, Kaiser Wilhelm being called the evilest German has some context, as he is a major scapegoat for the escalation of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI for reasons legit and exaggeration alike. As World War I led directly to World War II, he is, to some extent, responsible for the war that contributed to Hitler's rise to power.
31* In the episode "Brush With Greatness," Marge's artistic decision to paint Mr. Burns in the nude makes more sense when one remembers that, midway through the episode, she walks in on a naked Burns exiting her shower. In addition to that, Mr. Burns angrily yelling at Bart for insulting his physique was likely the first time Marge saw ''any'' kind of vulnerability from him.
32* The episode "The Great Wife Hope" features yet another attempt by Marge to stop everyone's fun. Nelson inadvertently gives her great advice on how to get together other pissy moms, clergymen, etc. He claims this is because he secretly enjoys event planning, but the ''real'' more subtle joke is that what Marge wants to do is essentially bullying.
33* In the episode where Homer is escaping the plant and he's attacked by a GiantSpider, he's told that the spider will be defeated if he says a Bible verse. Of course, he can't remember any (despite that he should have remembered some from either the season 2 episode where Homer steals cable and Lisa worries for her father's soul or the season four episode where Homer decides to make skipping church on Sunday a religion), so he simply kills the spider by throwing a rock at it. The FridgeBrilliance comes in when you realize that [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic Homer just killed a gigantic enemy by throwing a small rock and hitting it between the eyes]].
34* Early in The Simpsons, Lenny is seen living in a furniture-less, run down house, however, later on, he's shown to have a very expensive and clean home with art pieces everywhere, there doesn't seem to be a reason for the change, until you remember that Mr. Burns bought the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant from him when he was briefly put in charge...
35** Alternate interpretation: Remember "Marge on the Lam" when Lenny was seen shaving the legs of some woman who told him to "shave up, not down, you idiot!"? That could have been his wife, and the furniture-less, run-down house he lived in in "Realty Bites" (season nine) was the result of a divorce that may have happened off-screen, in which the woman he shaved her legs for took everything he had. Lenny living in a nice apartment on "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" (which came on during the 17th) could have been the end result of Lenny regaining the money he lost in the divorce.
36** There's also the fact that there was a time when Lenny lived in an extremely loud house where the neighboring room is a sports center. During that period of time, he was penny-pinching his housing arrangements.
37* In a Christmas episode about the Nativity, ''Jesus'' is portrayed by Bart. It may seem offensive at first, but think about it: Jesus ''was'' seen as a trouble maker by the Pharisees and the Romans, and they thought that his messages might start riots.
38** Bart is also, in most fans eyes, one of the more moral characters due to the fact that most of his antics are harmless pranks, while others do malicious things.
39** Also remember that Bart portrayed King David in "Simpsons Bible Stories". Jesus was a direct descendant of David.
40* In ''Simpsons Bible Stories'', when Lisa/Israelite tells Milhouse/Moses to tell Pharaoh to let his people go, Milhouse/Moses says "Oh, so now they're my people." There is a theory, albeit a minor one, that Moses was actually ethnically Egyptian.
41* In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", Homer and his friends wreck up the school on a joyride, and the damages are blamed on rowdy kids, thus causing a curfew to be placed. This was all gone in the next episode. This may have been NegativeContinuity, but the 500th episode (''At Long Last Leave'') had Mayor Quimby illustrate Springfield's hatred of the whole family by showing [[CallBack a photo of Homer wrecking the school]]. So they must have found out the ''real'' cause and lifted the curfew, although these episodes were about 13 years apart. The only problem is that Lenny, Carl, and Barney [[FridgeLogic aren't present in the photo]].
42** For all we know, Homer probably wrecked the school again, this time alone.
43* [[FridgeBrilliance Almost Fridge Brilliance]]: The backstory to Skinner/Tamzarian in "The Principal and the Pauper" is almost completely consistent with his background in "The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase", except for the switch of his home city, New Orleans vs. Capital City. And [[JustForFun/SeparateSimpsonsGeographyThing they can't be one and the same]], since New Orleans is not the capital of any state (Louisiana's capital is Baton Rouge).
44** Do the spinoffs count as continuity canon? They have changed a lot of other things about the characters (Wiggum isn't divorced, Grampa isn't dead, Lisa isn't a peppy teenaged cheerleader).
45* When Bart is asked to name the pirate on ''Treasure Island'' one of the answers that pop in his head is Long John Silver which is actually correct plus that imagination that he had where he was held back in the fourth grade where his son told him that the name of the pirate is Long John Silver. So Bart has ''actually'' read the book, he just doesn't remember the name!
46* In "The Front" there is an ''Itchy & Scratchy'' cartoon where Itchy removes Scratchy's fur and he steals his fur back, where after he's beaten by [[FurAndLoathing anti-fur protesters]] (despite it being his own fur). At first, it seems to be an in-universe TakeThat, but consider that [[SoapboxSadie Lisa]] [[AuthorTract co-wrote it]] with Bart.
47** Maybe if one watched the later episodes (in which Lisa has become an animal-loving SoapboxSadie) followed by the early ones (in which Lisa did speak out against society's ills, but, was, at her core, an eight-year-old girl who liked Malibu Stacy dolls and cartoons). It wouldn't make sense if it was the other way around.
48* Fans of the show often remark on the [[LookalikeLovers disturbing similarity]] of Milhouse's parents -- in one late-season episode, Milhouse himself [[LampshadeHanging speculates]] that they are [[BrotherSisterIncest brother and sister]]. However, the episode "Lemon of Troy" shows that major characters in Springfield have doppelgangers in Shelbyville, sometimes (as in the case of Groundskeeper Willy) of the opposite gender. In the same episode, Luanne mentions that she was born in Shelbyville. Clearly, Kirk married his Shelbyville counterpart!
49** No wonder they don't get along!
50** Hang on a minute though, because as "Lemon of Troy" shows, Milhouse has a Shelbyville counterpart too! So for this theory to work, that means there must be ''four'' parental doppelgängers, each of whom married an opposite gender counterpart from the other city. (Possibly involving cousins?)
51** In "Let's go fly a Coot" Milhouse confirms that Luanne and Kirk are indeed cousins. Which leads to another Fridge Brilliance. In the episode where the two get divorced "A Milhouse Divided" Kirk reveals that Luanne has no eyebrows and wears fake ones. This could be the result of inbreeding.
52* Bart's line in one episode about not wearing a blue shirt becomes a lot funnier if you know that a lot of Simpsons merchandise from the early 1990s has Bart inexplicably wearing a blue shirt.
53** This was done to prevent counterfeits; genuine ''Simpsons'' merchandise would have Bart in blue, while knock-offs would depict him in the shirt he wore in the show.
54* At the end of the Treehouse of Horror story "Desperately Xeeking Xena" Lucy Lawless flies Bart and Lisa to safety. When they say "Xena can't fly" she responds "I'm Lucy Lawless." Earlier in the segment Lucy tells her fans anytime there's a continuity error or something doesn't make sense, AWizardDidIt. This could be seen as why she flies away.
55** No, it's because she's [[MeaningfulName Lawless]], so she doesn't obey the [[{{Pun}} laws]] of physics.
56*** I think it's more that The Simpsons frequently like to portray minor celebrities as super-human, like Bette Midler and Johnny Carson in "Krusty Gets Kancelled" being as fast as a car and having super strength, respectively. The joke was that Xena has superpowers, but flying isn't one of them -- however, the actress who plays her ''can'' fly.
57* Cecil's plan has an extra, subtle level of brilliance to it--by hiring such incompetent, ignorant rubes as workmen on the dam, he insures that nobody will see through what he was actually doing before it's too late. Further, if the dam did collapse prematurely, Cecil could either blame Bob, as was plan A, or blame the shoddy workmanship of yokels. Either way, a win for Cecil.
58* In the "Seven Beer Snitch" Snowball II is seen sneaking off to a different family who feeds her and they call her Smokey. This is Snowball V, not Snowball II who was killed in the previous season. Snowball V/Smokey was more than likely the other family's pet but wandered off, thus making her double life more believable.
59** She was the Crazy Cat Lady's cat first.
60*** It's possible that cat was with [[SecretOtherFamily the other family]] ''before'' the Crazy Cat Lady got ahold of her?
61* In Treehouse of Horror XVII, Dolph the bully knows what the Golem is before it attacks him because it's been established in a few latter-day episodes that Dolph is Jewish (he goes to Hebrew school and had his bar mitzvah).
62* In "The Way We Was," Homer joins the debate team. Shortly thereafter, he gives a seemingly ridiculous argument against lowering the speed limit, claiming that millions of people being late justifies the deaths of a few people. Although the point goes unexplained beyond typical Homer babble (and ends with Homer mooning his opponent), there are at least two schools of thought that give serious credence to his claim: utilitarianism (specifically Bentham "pleasure-over-pain" utilitarianism) and economic efficiency. Either of these arguments would hold up in a round of Lincoln-Douglas debate. (This could also be StrawManHasAPoint or GeniusBonus instead of Fridge Brilliance, but it's the sort of thing you don't notice until many years after watching it for the first time.)
63* In "Hunka Hunka Burns in Love," we meet Gloria, Snake Jailbird's ex-wife. He is one of the most-arrested criminals in Springfield; she, as it turns out, is a police officer. No prize for guessing how the two first met...
64* In "Holidays of Future Passed," Milhouse and Lisa have a daughter Zia together. Milhouse says that they used the best genetic material when she was born, which meant none of his. This could explain why Zia uses her mother's last name instead of her father's.
65* It is technically possible to set a watch to the length of Johnny Unitas' hair ("Mother Simpson"), but one would have to measure it very accurately.
66* In the sixth episode of ''The Simpsons'' fourth season, Homer forbids Bart from watching ''The Itchy & Scratchy Movie'' so that he can learn discipline and grow up to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At the end of the episode, we see a FlashForward to a grown Bart walking with an elderly Homer having achieved this goal. Two years later, in the 19th episode of The Simpsons' sixth season, we see another FlashForward episode where Lisa is in college and about to get married. Bart is shown holding a job demolishing buildings but mentions that once he works the rage out of his system he will attend law school. Finally in the 17th episode of the eleventh season, "Bart to the Future", Lisa has become President of the United States and Bart helps get her out of a major debt crisis. The two future episodes actually '''confirm''' the FlashForward way back in season four as Bart goes to law school and is ultimately appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Lisa as thanks for his assistance.
67** Alternately, the show going on long enough may explain why Bart's status as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court doesn't stick or is ignored in many of the later future episodes: with the advent of [=DVDs=], the internet, online streaming and the myriad of other ways to catch a movie that don't involve going to theaters seen in later present-day episodes, Bart eventually did get to see the movie somehow against Homer's wishes and thus lacked the motivation to become the Chief Justice after all.
68* The sequence of events at the beginning of "Missionary: Impossible" has a ''delicious'' hidden gem. Betty White hosts a segment of a PBS telethon, saying that if you watch PBS for even one second and don't contribute, you're a common thief. Homer quickly and anonymously pledges to donate way more money than he can afford to give away, then fails to pay up before trying to get a bank teller to (illegitimately) help him out. He winds up being pursued by about a dozen PBS personalities. Does all of this remind you of anything else to do with PBS? [[Series/WhereInTheWorldIsCarmenSandiego Oooooooooooh, the chaaaase]]! For bonus points, Homer ends up getting covertly shipped out to a remote island just to escape the heat!
69* In "Bart's Comet" after Homer makes Flanders leave the fallout shelter, everyone carries on casually. Homer eventually comes to his senses and says he's disgusted by everyone, especially Rod and Todd. It may sound like Homer ripping on the Flanders', but Homer was really disgusted that when Flanders told Todd to shoot daddy if he tried to return, he agreed. It shows that while he's jealous and he can be a jerk towards Flanders, Homer doesn't want Flanders to be harmed.
70** Um, no. Homer practically shoved Ned out of the shelter, saying the world wouldn't need him or left-handed stores. Rod and Todd looked at Homer sadly, with Homer apologizing... then ranting on about how unneeded Ned is. THEN, after the town argues and hears Ned alone on the hill, Homer goes on about how selfless Ned is and expresses disgust at Ned's children. While Todd did agree to shoot Ned if he had to, he was tearful about it. The obvious joke is that Homer is a massive hypocrite.
71** While the joke certainly is that Homer is a massive hypocrite, [[JerkassHasAPoint he's not entirely wrong]] to point out that his family probably should have offered more resistance to him being kicked out of his own shelter than they ended up offering.
72* In "Springfield Up" citizens of Springfield are being interviewed about Homer and Ralph says "he may not be perfect, but he's my dad!" It seems like typical Ralph stupidity but WordOfGod states that Ralph was envisioned as a mini Homer, thus adding a new layer to the joke.
73* WordOfGod stated that Bart picked up his [[CatchPhrase catchphrases]] like "Eat my shorts" and "Don't have a cow man" from TV and other places. In the season five episode "Bart Gets Famous," Bart becomes well known for saying "I didn't do it." Krusty used this phrase in season one's "Krusty's Get Busted" and Bart may have just remembered it and used it himself.
74** In in "Lisa's First Word," we find out that ''Bart's'' first "word" was "[[FlashbackToCatchphrase ¡Ay caramba!]]" and are given [[RuleOfFunny no explanation as to how he knows this phrase]]...''apparently.'' A later scene shows him wearing Marge out until she falls asleep, then turning on the TV and [[BabySeeBabyDo gleefully repeating an equally silly exclamation he hears on a talk show]] ("Hi-yo!"). If we're meant to infer he does this regularly, it ties right in with the original rationale behind Bart's use of catchphrases. Just to drive it home, Bart reacts to Lisa saying his name with "[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Sufferin' succotash!]]"
75* What could possibly be the best StealthPun ever comes from "Make Room for Lisa":
76--> "I'm so sick of people hiding behind the Bill of Rights!"
77** The security guards were about to brutalize Homer. Even if Homer wasn't holding the physical copy of the manuscript, the Bill of Rights does guarantee that the guards can't brutalize him (though they were about to when Homer licked off the Eighth Amendment [the one that forbids cruel and unusual punishment]).
78* In "Fear of Flying" as a prank Lenny puts a snake in the cash register at Moe, which pops out and bites him. Moe shows no ill effects after being bitten. In two unrelated episodes, "Homer the Heretic" and "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe" it's established Moe's a snake handler, thus it doesn't bother him.
79* In "Homer the Great" Homer has a revenge list, which includes the Bill of Rights. Homer would get his wish four seasons later in "Make Room for Lisa" when he accidentally destroys it at the Smithsonian exhibit.
80* In early episodes such as "Krusty Gets Busted" and "Krusty Gets Canceled" Krusty lives in an apartment, but in "Bart the Fink" he lives in a mansion. In "A Star Is Burns" Krusty is on the film festival jury, and mentions the film moved him... to a bigger house. Mr. Burns' bribing him into voting "Burns for All Seasons" as the best movie is the reason he no longer lives in an apartment.
81* The episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" is a parody of Music/TheBeatles, and includes many tributes. A subtle joke is the rodent invasion of the 60s, referring to the British Invasion of which the Fab Four were a part, with the Music/AlvinAndTheChipmunks parody Melvin and the Squirrels.
82** The gag lampshading that Homer never told his kids about his fame prior to this episode seems a jab at NegativeContinuity, however John Lennon had stated he actually tried to keep his Beatles fame unknown from his son so he could raise him normally, until he came across ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'', just as the Simpson kids were sheltered from Homer's fame until they came across a copy of his record.
83* In "Homer at the Bat" Mr. Burns laughs maniacally at the idea of "nine misfortunes" to his all-star softball ringers, as there's only an "outside chance" of seven misfortunes. And he's right: there ''are'' only seven misfortunes. Obviously nothing happens to Darryl Strawberry and he plays the game as expected. But nothing happens to Don Mattingly either; he turns up to the game but is sent away by Mr. Burns solely due to the latter's misunderstanding of what sideburns are.
84** With Don Mattingly getting sent home over his sideburns, that makes ''eight'' misfortunes. What's number nine? Homer getting beaned unconscious during his last turn at the bat. Granted, that won them the game, but to Homer it definitely qualifies.
85** When Homer asks Darryl Strawberry if he's better than him and he answers "I don't know you... but yes" his answer may sound arrogant but it makes perfect sense. Anyone better than him would be an all-star MLB player and Strawberry would have heard of him years ago!
86* Bart was right when he said "Lisa's got a boyfriend, that she'll never see again" in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie''. Other than the altered opening sequence in the 19th season premiere, Colin is never seen again onscreen.
87* "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" confirms that Fat Tony is, in fact, a widower. By "The Real Housewives of Fat Tony", however, Selma (his current wife) discovers Tony is actually still married to someone else she didn't know about. Remembering the former episode, you might think Tony probably just remarried after his wife's death. But now take into consideration the "real" Fat Tony had been KilledOffForReal in "Donnie Fatso", and the Fat Tony we currently know is actually 'Fit Tony', his overweight cousin. Does that never-before-mentioned marriage make more sense?
88* In "Moonshine River" Bart visits old girlfriends who he burned his bridges with, just to get rejected again. He visits Gina, the girl he knew from juvenile hall just to get punched in the face. This might seem weird considering the ending of that episode, but if you consider how much time has passed between that episode and this one (the former aired in 2004, this one aired in 2012)... She's not punching him in the face because they had a falling out, she's mad because it's the first time in nearly ten seasons he's paid her a visit.
89* In a lot of episodes when Duffman isn't performing he's called different names like Larry or Sid. It's later established that different actors play Duffman, so it's not the same guy we see each time.
90* It's been established that Waylon Smithers is gay. Before he learned how his father really died, Mr. Burns told him his dad was killed by a pack of Amazonian women. This could be a FreudianExcuse on why he doesn't like women.
91* In a couple episodes Itchy and Scratchy are seen on "Springfield Squares" and a Channel 6 ad with other InUniverse celebrities like they're actual living creatures. In RealLife animated characters are added into TV shows like [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Brian and Stewie]] at the Emmy's, so this was the case as well.
92* Homer being {{Acrofatic}} in episodes like "Whacking Day" and "Sex, Pies, and Idiot Scrapes" makes more sense when you remember a flashback to high school when he did gymnastics.
93* Invoked by Bart, Lisa, and Homer in the episode "The Color Yellow." When they find out they had a black ancestor [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments we get these realizations:]]
94--->'''Bart:''' So that's why I'm so cool.
95--->'''Lisa:''' And that's my jazz is so smooth.
96--->'''Homer:''' And that's why I earn less than my white coworkers!
97* In "Saturdays of Thunder" Patty and Selma get their hair done, and Patty gets her hair dyed brown and Selma gets her hair dyed blonde. In "The Blue and the Grey" it turns out those are their natural hair colors, but they appear grey because of all the smoke and ash from their cigarettes. They simply had their hair washed before it was styled.
98** That would also mean that they had never, ever, washed their hair before then.
99** Or they smoke so much that any and all effects of washing are cancelled out immediately.
100* Ever notice how around the time they get divorced, Milhouse's father Kirk is a broke deadbeat? In "Radioactive Man" as soon as they find out Milhouse is a star they buy a lot of things they can't afford like a jacuzzi suit and a big screen TV, and since the movie failed they couldn't afford any of the stuff.
101** And when the Van Houtens reconcile in Milhouse of Sand and Fog, they let it slip that Milhouse was responsible for their first divorce. It's not just a one-off gag about emotionally abusive parents: the financial stress brought about by Milhouse's failed film career was the straw that broke the camel's back for Kirk and Luann.
102* In "Bart Sells His Soul" he says the soul is something made up to scare kids like the Boogie Man or Music/MichaelJackson. There was an entire episode devoted to Music/MichaelJackson but since it was an impostor, Bart must think he's not real after all.
103* In ''Treehouse of Horror VI'' Homer complains about "lousy Smarch weather" in relation to a joke about both the misprinted calendars and Marge's narration about it being the [[ThirteenIsUnlucky 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month]]. The lousy weather is shown to be wind driven snow which would be correct as the 13th month would be the following year's January on a correctly printed calendar.
104* Scratchy from the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons is a black cat, which are signs of bad luck. This trope is cleverly taken up to eleven since he's the [[BornUnlucky one who always dies]] [[TheyKilledKennyAgain in every cartoon,]] as opposed to him bringing bad luck to those around him.
105* The Simpsons' house is stated to be worth only $1000 in a recent episode. Keep in mind the house was rebuilt at the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'', and in the season 19 premiere there was a sign that said "Burns Construction: Building Cheaply and Charging Dearly."
106* Recently Barney Gumble has been an off again on again alcoholic. In ''The Simpsons Movie'' he is seen drunk a few times early on before the dome is placed over the town. When the dome is put over the town, the alcoholics at Moe's run to the church and the church goers flock to Moe's. Later in the movie Barney is seen at AA. Because he thought the end was coming, Barney probably temporarily tried to change his ways.
107* When we first saw Skinner's mother in the first season, she was a nice old lady and seemed to be proud of Seymour when he gave her a tour of the school. She was on the toilet when Bart flushed the cherry bomb and has been depicted as a cranky old lady since. This is a justified CharacterizationMarchesOn since the incident scarred her for life.
108* There's another flashfoward in an early episode that may be canon, and is supported by a gag in a future episode. At the end of "Rosebud" we see a cyborg Mr. Burns looking for his teddy bear Bobo in a futuristic world taken over by apes. In the episode "Future-Drama" there's a billboard that says give apes the vote. While "Future-Drama" is a what if scenario, "Holidays of Future Passed" seems to be canon and has elements of Future-Drama such as Bart's ex wife is his girlfriend Jenda. Going by this theory, apes were given rights and took over sometime down the road.
109* In "Lisa the Drama Queen" at the end Homer is inspired to write a novel and pictures the family in his own personal fantasy. He imagines Bart as a hot dog, Lisa as a starfish, Maggie as a monster truck, and Marge as a beer. In "New Kids on the Block" Homer compared women to beer when discussing sex with Bart, hence why he pictures her as one.
110* In Burns, Baby Burns, the Yale admissions officer indicates that Larry "spelled Yale with a 6" to indicate his more general performance on the admission test. On most QWERTY keyboards, the "Y" key is just below the "6" key so "6ale" would have been a likely typo.
111** In the same scene the admissions officer chimes in that Yale did need a new international airport when explaining to Mr. Burns the required donation to admit Larry. While coming across as a frivolous request by an elite university, Yale has comparatively bad airport access compared with arch rival Harvard as Yale's nearest international airport is a 90 minute drive away.
112* In "I Married Marge" when Marge goes to get an ultrasound to see if she's pregnant, Lisa wants to name the potential little brother or sister Ariel. A few seasons later in "Make Room For Lisa", it turns out Lisa's favorite movie is ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989''.
113* Homer wishes to live under the sea in "Homer Badman." His wish came true in "Future-Drama" in a what if scenario of the future where he has an underwater house.
114* "Das Bus" gives Homer the humorous line: "They have the internet on computers now?" This seems nonsensical at first, but then in the flashback episode "The Blunder Years," we see a young Lenny explaining to Homer and Carl that the internet refers to the comfortable inner netting of swim trunks. If Homer still associates the internet with this definition, no wonder he's surprised to learn it exists on computers!
115* According to "Jaws Wired Shut", Springfield's gay pride parade is formerly known as "Springfield Heritage Day". Springfield having an overwhelmingly gay history makes sense given the claim in "Lisa the Iconoclast" which revealed that Springfield's founders misinterpreted a passage in the Bible and wanted to found a "new Sodom".
116* In "Gump Roast", the ClipShow ends by musically assuring the viewer that they still have [[LongRunner "stories for years"]]. These stories include Moe getting a cell phone, [[UnwillingRoboticisation Marge becoming a robot]], [[BearsAreBadNews Bart owning a bear]] and a crazy wedding where "something" happens[[note]]da-do-do-do-do[[/note]]. Over the next ''decade'' we actually do see Marge becoming a robot (in a daydream sequence), Moe does get a cell phone ([[LampshadeHanging and asks why people seem to care]]) and Patty has a wedding ceremony with another woman where something happens in that the woman is actually a man. While Bart has still never owned a bear, it is actually brilliant because by holding that back the show's producers indicate they have still not used up all their ideas.
117** It goes beyond that. Yes, there was a wedding where something happened, Patty's wedding with another woman (and then we find out that he was a man actually). But a few years later, what else do we get? Abraham Simpson and Selma end up together and get married. Remember the picture in the song: Both Bouvier sisters AND Grampa Simpson were on the picture. So, actually, that picture served for two episodes!
118* Ralph Wiggum is in Lisa's class, but appears in Bart's class in a few episodes. This could be a goof, but since Ralph is TooDumbToLive it's not farfetched he would appear in the wrong class from time to time.
119* Homer has a sleepwalking problem in "Crooks and Ladder," and ends up at a Music/JohnLennon exhibit in the wax museum. Flanders appears there, which may seem out of character, but it was established in "The Bart of War" a few seasons earlier that Flanders was a Beatles fan.
120* It seems a tad odd for Marge to be such a big fan of [[Music/TheBeatles Ringo Starr,]] considering most of the fangirls under the influence of Beatlemania went for either [=McCartney=] or Lennon. Then it hit me. Marge's characterisation is somewhat bland, with there being few Marge based episodes compared to Homer, Bart and Lisa. Despite this, she usually plays a large role in the episodes, and usually the episodes centered around her involve her being out of action and the family collapsing. Just like a drummer in a band, she's the more forgettable one and rarely anyone's favourite, and yet she's one of the most important characters, without her the whole family dynamic would fall apart like a band without a drummer to keep them in time.
121** Ringo had quite a few fans for himself, the joke about him getting the most fan mail was actually rather accurate. That being said, his leaving the band temporarily, only to be sent flowers by the rest to persuade him to come back, certainly seems similar to the "Marge leaves" episodes.
122** Marge also seems rather apt at telling stories to young children. Ringo was also famous at this point for narrating ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends''.
123** Apparently, at the time Ringo genuinely did receive more fan-mail than the other Beatles. As the story goes, while he wasn't considered the most traditionally sexy or talented one, a lot of people were charmed by his down-to-earth personality.
124** The episode also focused on Marge's ability to see inner beauty as an artistic skill: her painting of a sleeping Homer ungracefully sprawled on the couch in his underwear won first prize in a competition because she was able to bring out something about the personality of the man she loved that made the work beautiful to others as well. It's perfectly in-character for her to be drawn to the oddball NiceGuy of the Beatles (emphasized as such in the episode with his crusade to answer ''all'' his fan mail) over his more traditionally handsome bandmates.
125* In "Moe Letter Blues" the kids are watching a silent Itchy And Scratchy cartoon that parodies Film/ATripToTheMoon. We hear Scratchy groan, which could be considered an error. It's a GenreThrowback so this error's acceptable and intentional.
126* In episodes prior to "Donnie Fatso" where Fat Tony [[spoiler:dies, but is replaced by his cousin Fit Tony who gains weight, thus subverting KilledOffForReal]] Fat Tony's real name is William Williams, Marion, and Tony D'Amico in various episodes. Since he's a mafia boss it makes sense he would change his name to cover his tracks.
127** Related to the above: "D'Amico" roughly means "of friends" in Italian. Mafioso often refer to each other as "friends of ours" or "a friend of a friend".
128* The opening sequence of the Simpsons gives a great depiction of the more negative aspects of the main cast. [[AttentionWhore Bart repeatedly causes trouble just to get noticed]]. [[TooDumbToLive Homer's stupidity is a constant danger to himself and others]]. [[ParentalNeglect Marge often doesn't notice her kids until something bad has happened.]] And [[ItsAllAboutMe Lisa prides herself by being better than everyone else much to the annoyance of those around her]].
129* "Homer's Phobia": Homer is homophobic and Marge is accepting of gays. "There's Something About Marrying": Homer is the accepting one (marrying gays himself being his job of the week in this episode, even) and Marge has trouble with the idea of her sister coming out of the closet. Inconsistence? No! Patty's dialogue even explains it: Marge is okay with gays as long as they are outsiders, but she still has to accept that a person in her family that she knew since birth could be gay. Homer passed that test at the end of "Homer's Phobia", when he believed that Bart was going to turn out gay and was prepared to accept it. But Marge never considered it.
130** Sadly, this is TruthInTelevision. It's very common for a person who believes themselves to be accepting of gays to be outright shocked or even disgusted when they find out that a close friend or relative is gay. On that note, Patty coming out as a lesbian despite seeming to have shown attraction to men in the past is also Truth In Television- many gays/lesbians don't come out until later in life.
131* In the episode "Sweets and Sour Marge" the head of the sugar company responsible for putting sugar in all the town's food is Garth Motherloving. His name is a bowlderized version of "Motherfucking" which makes him as bad as his name implies.
132* Milhouse's parents having an unhappy marriage prior to divorce is foreshadowed in two episodes. In "Grandpa Vs. Sexual Inadequacy" they sleep in twin beds. In "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming" when Milhouse is playing in the jet, he pretends his parents take him to a therapist, and he pretends to shoot them.
133** Milhouse only imagines turning the jet's weapons against his parents. But being coerced to see a therapist could easily be the motivation for his anger. Possibly an attempt at "conversion therapy," given the numerous [[LampshadeHanging references]] to Milhouse's [[AmbiguouslyGay sexual orientation]].
134* Santa's Little Helper steals Homer's chocolate bar instead of waking him up in "Homer the Heretic" when the house is on fire because Homer mistreats him.
135** FridgeHorror: Dogs are ''extremely'' allergic to chocolate.
136*** FridgeBrilliance LaserGuidedKarma approaching at top speeds.
137* In "Bart the General" Herman, the military store owner who's missing an arm tells Bart to listen to his teacher when she says not to stick his arm out the bus window. A few episodes prior during the field trip Mrs. Krabbapel tells them the story of a kid who lost his arm. It was Herman she was talking about.
138** Impossible. Mrs. Krabappel said that the truck that ripped off the kid's arm came in the opposite direction, so logically, at least in the US, the kid's ''left'' arm would have been ripped off. Herman is missing his ''right'' arm.
139*** It would make sense if he was looking back at something that the bus had already passed by. Plus, this would've made it harder for him to notice the oncoming truck before it was too late.
140** ''To Cur with Love'' contradicts this, however.
141* In "In Marge We Trust" Reverend Lovejoy is annoyed the letters for the sign outside the church has 5 Q's but 2 U's. In "Milhouse of Sand and Fog" we see a sign that says stop stealing our letters. There originally were more letters but people like Nelson keep swiping them.
142* Sideshow Bob was right in "Black Widower" when he said he'd be out when the Democrats would be back in power. The next Sideshow Bob episode "Cape Feare" aired a year and a half later in September 1993, eight months into UsefulNotes/BillClinton's term.
143* [[VocalEvolution Nelson's voice going from being high pitched to low and gruff sounding]] is because he's a smoker, as seen in episodes like "Saturdays of Thunder," "Brother From the Same Planet," and "Sleeping With the Enemy."
144* In the 2005 episode "Future-Drama" Professor Frink shows Bart and Lisa their FlashForward scenario that takes place eight years from next Tuesday, and it involves Bart and Lisa going to their senior prom. Proms are usually held on the weekends, and he's going by the date that Tuesday is on. That would mean it correctly did take place on a weekend, eight years into the future.
145* "Lisa's Wedding" has an elderly Maude Flanders and Professor Frink alive and well, despite [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E14AloneAgainNaturaDiddily the former getting]] KilledOffForReal and the latter [[DrivenToSuicide hanging himself]] in "Future-Drama." This may just seem like NegativeContinuity, but remember that by "Future-Drama" scientists have invented magic and cloning machines can be afforded by the perpetually in-debt Moe. It's not out of the question that magic and/or cloning could've allowed them to appear. Maude's non-presence in "Holidays of Future Passed" is FridgeHorror though, due to [[CloneDegeneration how she was]] [[CameBackWrong brought back.]]
146** The Maude we see at the wedding could be a robot like the librarian earlier in the episode.
147** We see Mr. Burns in "Holidays of Future Passed" despite the fact he broke in half in "Lisa's Wedding." Either his lower half is a bionic implant or he was cloned as well.
148* There's a RunningGag in some later episodes where Lenny can't get things in his eye due to doctor's orders, and will end up getting a jigsaw puzzle piece or pudding in it. One can argue this is because he got a spring in it in "The Old Man and the C Student." Homer gave him a nut can with a spring in it, and after this was when the joke started. Because of the injury there he had to be careful from now on.
149* In "Like Father, Like Clown" Bart gets Krusty's father to come around when he quotes Sammy Davis Jr, a famous Jew who was a famous entertainer. Earlier in the episode, during a flashback Krusty's father tells him he could forgive him if he'd been a jazz singer or musician. The FridgeBrilliance here is that he took Sammy Davis Jr's quote seriously because he's a musician.
150* The episode "Future-Drama" is set eight years in the future, but some characters like Groundskeeper Willie and Apu looked like they've aged decades. This could be due to the stress of their jobs, or in Apu's case his family life.
151* In "Lisa the Skeptic" when Lisa's on Smartline she says that if you believe in angels, why not sea monsters, unicorns, or leprechauns. All three have been proven to exist in WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons universe. In "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" Mr. Burns captures the Lochness Monster, and receives a unicorn as a birthday gift in "Rosebud." In "This Little Wiggy" a leprechaun Ralph talks about happens to be RealAfterAll, and appears in future episodes. Despite some NegativeContinuity for the sake of a joke, Heaven, God, and Satan have been proven to exist in their universe. That being said, Lisa was proved wrong about angels existing.
152** Another hint about the FantasyKitchenSink of this universe, Lisa mentions monsters, unicorns, or leprechauns. What mythical creature would be an obvious example, but she doesn't mention? ''Dragons''. This is because in ''A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love'', an actual dragon is seen in Chinatown. In the Simpsons universe, ''dragons are real creatures''. And, given no wild dragons are seen in the China episode, dragons could be an endangered species.
153*** Dinosaur eggs are also seen hatching in the Simpsons' basement, so either the KT event never happened, or the Simpsons are due a visit from the Cross Photonics team. (If you don't get it, I'm implying an anomaly opened in the basement and the dinosaur that came through laid its eggs there).
154* In the season 9 episode "King of the Hill" why does Homer seem surprised when there's a mountain at least five miles high in Springfield? The town was moved five miles down the road in the previous episode, he more than likely hadn't seen it yet and could've been adjusting to the new area.
155* In the episode where Marge started a food blog, I always found it strange that Homer didn't want to become a foodie since it sounds like something he would love. By as complete coincidence, I watched two random episodes on the same day; the first being the episode where Homer predicts the Rapture and the other being the famous "fugu episode". In the former, Homer loves sushi and in the latter, he was adamant at first and grew to love it. He's a glutton but not very open-minded about foreign cuisine and was telling the truth when he said "I only eat food that I've eaten before."
156** Homer is probably understandably gun-shy about trying new, exotic foods, due to his death scare from the fugu incident.
157* In "Homer Loves Flanders" and "The Fat and the Furriest" it's revealed Flanders won't let his kids eat sugar. This sounds like Ned being overprotective, but in "The Dad Who Knew Too Little" and "Midnight Rx", it's revealed Rod is diabetic.
158** Also Fridge horror in Homer Loves Flanders; Bart could quite possibly have committed manslaughter.
159** His reason for not giving Todd any sugar either also makes sense: sometimes, parents of diabetic kids don't give their diabetic kid's siblings any sugar either so that the diabetic one doesn't feel left-out. That does sound like something Ned would do.
160** This also makes the scene in TheMovie where Ned makes Bart a particularly nice-looking cup of hot chocolate consistent with those earlier episodes. He doesn't have a problem with giving sugar to kids, only to ''his'' kids for perfectly understandable reasons. He was probably thrilled to have the chance to spoil another kid when his boys weren't around.
161* It's said that Homer accidentally killed Mrs. Krabappel in "Holidays of Future Passed" yet at the end of the episode it's shown Lisa has a friend request from her on the Ultra-Net. It's implied that Lisa doesn't go online much, so it could've been sent prior to then.
162** This is HarsherInHindsight now that Krabappel is implied to have passed away in the show in light of Marcia Wallace's untimely passing.
163* In "Adventures in Baby-Getting" Marge has a sinkhole emergency kit to get out of one after the car falls into it. This may seem like a random forced gag, but keep in mind the house was destroyed by one in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie''. Because of the fiasco from those events, she's always prepared.
164* Rod and Todd used to go to Springfield Elementary and Ned was part of the PTA, but in recent years we've seen Rod and Todd in a private Christian school. Ned could've had them taken out of public school and enrolled there after his {{Flanderization}}.
165** Then again this ''is'' the [[SuckySchool run-down, perpetually low-budget]] Springfield Elementary we are talking about. Maybe after one-to-many dubious acts from the faculty, Flanders ([[OnlySaneMan who is usually more down-to-earth than most of the cast]], even after his {{Flanderization}}) transferred his kids to a school he could trust.
166* In several episodes Lisa knows French, she represents France in the model U.N in "Das Bus", and in "Summer of 4'2" she represents the French table. Marge's father is French, so Lisa is simply expressing her French heritage.
167** Possibly she learned French (And does a lot of France-related activities) to deliberately spite Bart, who also speaks the language fluently.
168** It's also an small ActorAllusion, as [[Creator/YeardleySmith Lisa's voice actress]] was born in Paris.
169* In "Bart the Lover" Bart mentions to Mrs. Krabappel other faculty members she could date. When he mentions Groundskeeper Willie and she says "I'm not even going to tell you what he's into." Could she be referring to him videotaping couples, as seen in "Homer Badman"?
170* Why do Itchy and Scratchy take after old Disney movies, like Pinocchio or Fantasia, despite Disney existing in WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Universe? Easy, Itchy and Scratchy was built on plagiarism according to "The Day The Violence Died." Also, many early cartoon characters were Mickey Mouse or WesternAnimation/SillySymphony ripoffs as well.
171* Why does Burns give the award to an inanimate carbon rod in "Deep Space Homer?" Burns favors material goods over human lives, this is backed up by making a TV dog his vice president in "Homer's Enemy."
172** After Frank Grimes saves Homer's life? Burns is concerned only about "wasting precious acid," not worker safety.
173* In some episodes like "Lisa the Iconoclast", "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer", and "A Milhouse Divided" it's shown that Kearney the bald bully is an adult and has a kid. In a few other episodes he has an adult buy him beer or uses a fake ID. It's been shown that he gets in trouble with the law frequently and has been shown in jail, so he probably needed a fake to help him buy booze at those times because he had no ID.
174** That's easy, he's age 18/19, and the drinking age in... The great state of whatever Springfield's in is 21. He could have had the kid (who appears to be around 4-6) in his early teens.
175* The most subtle WhereTheHellIsSpringfield joke occurs at the end of "Homer at the Bat." There's a song called "Talking Softball" that recaps the plot, and names off some of the guest stars. The line "Talkin' Softball, From Maine to San Diego" means Springfield could be anywhere between these areas.
176* In the most recent episode "Married to the Blob," Comic Book Guy's selling a new Radioactive Man comic at midnight, and the cool comic book nerd Milo (From Husbands and Knives) comes in the store with his new wife. She makes a comment about how Milo talks to himself and now it won't seem so weird. In the next scene, CBG meets his new girlfriend and has a hallucination of Creator/StanLee who tells him to ask her out. Could Milo have had the same hallucinations with Creator/StanLee as well?
177* Smithers dressing up as Mr. Burns' teddy bear Bobo in "Rosebud" is a StealthPun since bear is slang for a hairy gay man and Smithers is gay.
178* In "Lisa's Pony" Homer is left guilt ridden after watching a home video and realizing he never paid attention to Lisa as a baby. He is finally reduced to tears after seeing himself ignore Lisa speaking. The word? "Da-da". Given the plot point made of hearing his kids say "daddy" in "Lisa's First Word", one can understand how crushing this must be.
179* The sign gag at the airport during the beginning of "Politically Inept With Homer Simpson" says "Built For The Olympics We Never Got." This is a CallBack to "The Old Man And The C Student" when Springfield almost got the Olympics but lost it due to Bart's antics.
180* I always wondered about why Bart has such admiration for his blue crowbar "Ol' Bluey" in ''Lisa the Iconoclast''. It hit me after watching ''Blood Feud''; The blue crowbar is the one that Mr. Burns "gave" Bart as a reward for saving his life with a blood donation! That crowbar not only gave him a fantastic (to him) Olmec Indian head statue, but also represents him not longer having suffer through the possible negative consequences of his posting Homer's letter to Mr. Burns in the first place.
181* In "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo", while the family debates on where to go for dinner in Japan, Homer chimes in, "[[ItMakesSenseInContext The toilet]] recommended a place called Americatown." Why on earth would a Japanese toilet recommend American cuisine? Because it had just analyzed Homer's "waste" and determined that his diet was primarily composed of western American food! A brilliant (albeit gross) example.
182* It took me years to get the ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' ending in "Tales from the Public Domain." It seems like a cop-out or a BigLippedAlligatorMoment but the reason Homer said Theatre/{{Hamlet}} says based on Ghostbusters was because in the version Homer told King Claudius left a trail of slime behind like Slimer.
183** There is further FridgeBrilliance between the ending to this episode and the ending to the next Anthology episode "Margical History Tour." When filming ''Film/{{Ghostbusters|1984}}'', Creator/DanAykroyd referred to Slimer as the ghost of Creator/JohnBelushi. In the later Homer sings about ''Film/AnimalHouse'' which is one of Belushi's most famous films. That being said "Margical History Tour's" ending is a CallBack to "Tales from the Public Domain."
184* "Homer Vs. The Eighteenth Amendment" involves Homer bootlegging beer when prohibition hits Springfield. A couple seasons prior in "Secrets of A Successful Marriage" he mentions how he took a home wine making course. Because of that, Homer has knowledge on brewing and distilling alcohol properly.
185* In "Future-Drama" Lisa graduates high school at age 16. In "Lisa's Wedding" she's still in school at age 23. Going by the timeline we can safely say she's either in graduate school or getting her PHD by that point.
186* Lisa's comment about the lake catching fire in "Lemon of Troy" makes sense after watching ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie''. It was due to all the pollution.
187* Moe says he's gonna ogle the ladies in the Sears Catalog in "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 2." The episode aired in 1995 but the Sears Catalog was discontinued in 1993. Moe is kind of a sleaze ball and is poor, so it makes sense he'd get off to a magazine no longer in print.
188** In the same scene, the lie detector finds Moe's statement "I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment!" to be a lie. Although it isn't a question of fact, this makes sense on realizing how real-life polygraphs work: this statement is considered to be a lie because Moe doesn't believe it himself.
189* In "Team Homer" Principal Skinner recalls how some slogans from ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' caused him to lose a battle and get thrown in a POW camp in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. This could be why he had MAD magazines in the room of confiscated items in "Separate Vocations." He knew a student who had one in their possession might cause problems.
190* The First Church of Springfield is a ChurchOfSaintGenericus and a mix between different denominations, which is the reason Reverend Lovejoy dresses like a Catholic priest. In "The Father, The Son, and The Holy Guest Star" it's revealed their church (Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism) is a schism from Catholicism, so Lovejoy's collar is carried over from that.
191* In "Scenes From The Class Struggle in Springfield" Homer whines that [[Series/NYPDBlue Sipowicz]] wore short sleeves with a tie when Marge tells him to change clothes. Sipowicz's actor Dennis Franz portrayed Homer in the TV movie in "Homer Badman." Homer likes Sipowicz (and apparently takes fashion advice from him) because he reminds him of himself.
192* Krusty's raspy voice (While also a Jewish American accent) is due to him smoking cigarettes and cigars, as well as his other sedentary habits.
193* Sherri and Terri are the purple haired twins in Bart's class, but one of them can be seen in Lisa's class as a goof in "Lisa the Vegetarian" In a recent episode it's revealed they have a long lost triplet. That could've been her in the background instead of one of the twins, thus [[{{Handwave}} handwaving]] the mistake.
194* Why don't we see Maggie at the Homer clone's funeral thirty years in the future in "Days of Future Future?" The episode to a SequelEpisode to "Holidays of Future Passed" and it was established Maggie was a rockstar. She was on the road.
195** That would make sense, except that she can be seen later in the episode.
196*** She is seen on a date at the restaurant Bart takes Jenda. This was in [[spoiler: Bart's dream]] so she was probably on the road then still in real life. Dreams aren't always accurate.
197* "Bart Gets An F" is a SequelEpisode to the "Bart the Genius." In "Bart the Genius" he cheats on an aptitude test and goes to a private school. In "Bart Gets An F" we see how Bart actually does in school, Martin helps Bart study while in the former he harasses him, and they both involve the school shrink.
198* In "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" when Lisa's telling Homer about Thomas Edison, she mentions that she read about him on a restaurant placemat. Lisa just told Homer that so he would believe her, and it would encourage him to get out of the slump he was in.
199* In "Two Bad Neighbors" we see that UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush and Ned Flanders get along great. Another reason they could get along is because they're both left handed. (George Bush Sr. was in real life.)
200* Homer's line in "Homer and Apu" about how he hates it when people lie to them through song (in this case, regarding Apu's mournful revelation that he misses the Kwik-E-Mart after performing a song that rejected it) seems to be somewhat random. However, in the previous season's "Marge vs. The Monorail", Lyle Lanley duped Springfield into his monorail scam by lying to them through his catchy number.
201* In "Half Decent Proposal" Artie Ziff was a billionaire due to an invention that turned [[TechnologyMarchesOn dial-up noise into a soothing song.]] In his next appearance, "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner" he's gone broke (Which he blames on the Dot Com bubble) Considering that dial-up was becoming a thing of the past between the two episodes (The former aired in 2002 and the latter aired in 2004) this could be really why he went bankrupt.
202* In "Lisa The Vegetarian" Apu pronounces Beatle" as "be-A-tle" (rhyming with "Seattle"). Apu is Indian and has an accent, but it's a subtle ShoutOut to Film/{{Help}} where Clang does the same thing.
203* In "The Wettest Stories Ever Told's" first story about the Mayflower, Ned Flanders' {{Expy}} says that things like poetry are against their religion, and he whips himself for accidentally rhyming. Later in the story Moe's character corrupts Homer by feeding him beer. One way we can tell that Moe is corrupt is because he says "Every time a wave hits the ship, take a sip." Not only was he encouraging drinking, he was spouting poetry.
204* Marge forces Bart to go to Nelson's birthday party and gives him a hard time for badmouthing him in "The Haw Hawed Couple" because she got to know Nelson in "Sleeping with the Enemy." She realizes Nelson's parents are incompetent and that he has a hard life.
205** Why was Marge not nearly as sympathetic towards Nelson in the earlier episode "Bart the Mother"? She had barely known Nelson at that point and only saw him as an unrepentant bully, and when she came to his house to find Bart there, she was too focused on punishing Bart to pay much attention to Nelson's shabby home and his parents being nowhere in sight.
206* In "Day of the Jackanapes" Moe casually states he was born in Indiana. Moe has a MultipleChoicePast, his heritage changes from episode to episode, and he may've said that to cover his tracks from shady dealings. Szyslak is an Eastern European name, most likely Hungarian, and northwestern Indiana does have a lot of people of Eastern and Central European ancestry. That being said it's possible Moe was telling the truth.
207* The "Don't Forget, You're Here Forever" plaque could be why Homer doesn't go to work as much and gets his job back easily in the latter seasons.
208* Why does Homer think that ballet is a bear in a little car in "Marge on the Lam?" Bear + Valet = Ballet
209* Milhouse knows what kind of helicopter that's landing in "Stealing First Base" because of his uncle in "Special Edna." His uncle let him and Bart fly his black hawk, so due to his uncle he has knowledge of aircrafts.
210* Lisa and Maggie are seen playing bartender in "The Kid Is All Right." Moe and Maggie played that in "Moe Baby Blues" when he was babysitting her, and it appears to be a favorite game of hers and makes the joke a little less random.
211* In "The Blue and the Grey" when Milhouse sees Marge's grey hair, he asks if she saw the vampire from ''Series/SesameStreet''. While this is Milhouse being a wimp, Marge was shown to be uneasy with the Count in "The Girl Who Slept Too Little." That could be why Milhouse was asking.
212* In "Homer and Apu" Homer mentions Lisa playing the instrument Apu gave her was worse that the [[NoodleIncident album Grandpa released.]] A few episodes prior in "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" we see Grandpa auditioning for Homer's band singing a swing version of "Old [=MacDonald=]." This could be one of the songs for that horrible album, and Grandpa auditioning could be him trying to find more time in the musical limelight.
213* Fridge Humor: In "Lisa Goes Gaga", Bart dresses Maggie with weird items and presents her to Lady Gaga under the nickname "Baby [=GooGoo=]". Lady Gaga's stage name is taken from a Queen song titled Radio [=GaGa=], for which the chorus goes like this at some point: "Radio Gaga, ''Radio [=GooGoo=]'', Radio Ga-Ga". Hard to say if it was intentional from the writers, but it makes the joke even better.
214* In "Bart the General" Lisa makes cupcakes for her teacher, but gives one to Otto. It looks like Lisa being nice to the school staff, but keep in mind Otto's a stoner. Lisa probably doesn't know that and gave him a cupcake because he more than likely always has the [[StealthPun munchies]].
215* At the end of "New Kids on the Blecch" Music/{{NSYNC}} does a parody PSA about how the navy is saving people from Franchise/{{Godzilla}}, pirates, and jellyfish. In ''The Simpsons'' universe, all three have been shown to be an issue. Franchise/{{Godzilla}} attacks the family's airplane at the end of "30 Minutes Over Tokyo," pirates attack Mr. Burns' boat in "The Mansion Family," and Springfield has a jellyfish festival where they migrate to the beach in "A Star is Born, Again," and Ralph Wiggum is carried off by the waves and stung. What was a quick parody turns out to have had some truth behind it.
216* Notice in "Bart's Inner Child" when Troy [=McClure=]'s reading the cue cards he's squinting. This is because he has poor eyesight, as shown in "A Fish Called Selma."
217* In "Homer the Heretic" Marge seems more adamant about the family going to church than previous episodes. This could be due to the promise she made in "Homer Defined" when she prayed to God and said she'd try to be a better Christian if they survived the nuclear crisis.
218* Anytime Bart prank calls Moe's, Moe never knows it's him. There was an episode where Bart went to get Homer after he made a prank call, but Moe still had no idea. This could be due to the fact that a lot of prepubescent voices sound alike to adults or the fact there was an adult construction worker in "The PTA Disbands" that sounded like Bart. He could think it was the other guy making the calls, but hadn't pursued anything since Bart hasn't been making the calls as much.
219* In "Team Homer" during the encouraging "You can do it Otto chant" Homer starts chanting [[Music/{{Styx}} "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto."]] While it looks like Homer stupidity and forcing a word that rhymes with Otto, keep in mind that Otto likes heavy metal and classic rock as well. Hearing a classic rock song probably helped encourage him.
220* At the end of "Days of Future Future," an episode that takes place 30 years from now, Marge mentions that she and Homer had been married for 35 years. It would've been longer than that considering they married before Bart was born and he'd be in his 40s at this point. Keep in mind that Homer and Marge did remarry a couple times, the most recent one being in the 2009 episode "Wedding for Disaster." DOFF takes place in 2044, so Marge's statement was indeed accurate.
221* While The Simpsons Gene determining intelligence may or may not be canon, there is one thing in the Simpsons family that may be; musical talent. Music talent has been linked to genetics. Lisa obviously plays the saxophone, Homer was in a barbershop quartet, a grunge band, a number one hit, and has been an opera singer. Grandpa has said to have [[NoodleIncident released an album,]] Bart has been in a boy band and is an excellent drummer, and Maggie is shown to be a world famous musician as an adult in "Holidays of Future Past."
222* In Treehouse of Horror XIII Abe goes on a diatribe about how Franchise/{{Superman}} challenged FDR to a race around the world. While it's a typical Grandpa story, it does make sense considering the actor who played Superman (Christopher Reeves) was in a wheelchair, as was FDR.
223* In "Day of the Jackanapes", Krusty reveals that he recorded over all his old shows from the Sideshow Bob era and then badmouth that era, only to end up giving a surprise tribute to Sideshow Bob at the end of his farewell show. Seems like it might be contradictory, but perhaps his badmouthing of Sideshow Bob on the air was just a way to keep the surprise a secret.
224** While WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons isn't known for its continuity, this seems to be the case because Krusty mentioned the Best of Sideshow Bob DVD in "Funeral For A Fiend." The thing about the Master Tapes was a facade.
225** Krusty tends to approve of products without really caring about quality control. If the master tapes were destroyed, he could have obtained taped-from-television (or even copied clips from [=YouTube=] for the Best of Sideshow Bob as opposed to using the master tapes.
226** Additionally, Krusty says that the show didn't really get funny until after Sideshow Bob was gone, but he didn't say it was because of Sideshow Bob. Later, he says that he was always ashamed of how he treated Bob. Possibly, if he hadn't mistreated Bob, Bob wouldn't have framed Krusty which led to him getting arrested and off the show, and if he had stayed on the show, he would have been part of the show after it had gotten better.
227* A gag in "Day of the Jackanapes" has Bob plotting his revenge, only to then be informed that three of his fellow storage rental neighbors are also plotting their revenge. They represent Bob's past crimes with their weapon choices: a gun (framing Krusty for armed robbery), a knife (trying to murder Bart aboard the houseboat), and a bomb (threatening to nuke Springfield unless they got rid of their [=TVs=]). So of course his plan was better-he's learned from those past efforts, and won't repeat them.
228* In "Days of Future Future" we see Duffman in the future and he sounds like the character Old Jewish Man. The Duffman actor in "Co-Dependents Day" says that he's Jewish, so it could be the same actor.
229* In "Alone Again, Naturadiddily" when Ned's down on himself, he says he's as exciting as a baked potato and Marge excitedly says "You're darn right you are." This may sound like Marge is humoring him, but in "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Badassssssss Song" she says she finds potatoes interesting, which is why she suggests Bart take one to show and tell.
230* At the beginning of "Lady Bouvier's Lover" Marge's mom reminisces about Bart and Lisa singing the Armour Hot Dogs theme song, leading to the family singing the jingle. There are a couple other subtle references to hot dogs throughout the episode. A couple of the towers at the Power Plant have a design that makes them look like hot dogs. Bart also shoots Mr. Burns with a squirt gun filled with ketchup and mustard, two popular condiments for hot dogs.
231* More Future Brilliance: In "Holidays Of Future Passed" we see that Superintendent Chalmers is cryogenically frozen. In the previous future episode, Future-Drama, it's shown that he became a vegetable due to use of the fictional drug "Stim". It's possible he was frozen so that they could find a cure for the brain damage.
232* At the end of "Flaming Moe's" Homer asked Moe if Aerosmith is going to perform tonight and Moe says "I doubt it." Moe's business [[StatusQuoIsGod goes back to normal at the end]] due to Homer revealing the secret ingredient to the drink, but keep in mind Homer fell on Aerosmith in the previous scene. He more than likely hospitalized them, and they wouldn't be able to perform anyways. This would go under FridgeHorror but Joey Kramer guest stars in a later episode, and Steven Tyler appears on the Wheatie's Box in "Little Big Mom."
233** An extra line cut for syndication spells this out, removing the fridge aspect, by saying that he is indeed recovering from Homer's fall.
234* In Dr. Hibbert's first few appearances [[CharacterizationMarchesOn he's very stern and doesn't laugh.]] In "Make Room For Lisa" he mentions learning to laugh helped him out and saved him from an early grave. It's possible that he learned that after his first few appearances, hence it's a justified CharacterizationMarchesOn.
235* In "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" Milhouse says "We started out like Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet, but we ended up in tragedy" after he and Samantha break up. The line is meant to be ironic but since he's only a fourth grader, Milhouse has probably never read the story. He probably just knows [[PopculturalOsmosis it's a love story.]]
236* In ''Brick Like Me'', Lisa becomes friends with older girls from school, because they share a passion of The Survival Games. One of the girls even mentions that Lisa's paper about the series was correct, "that the series was about love". If The Survival Games is more than just the ShallowParody shown at the end of the episode, Lisa most likely knew the true social and political message of the series. It's even possible she read it because it had become a fad at school (though Literature/TheHungerGames is not an appropriate read for elementary school children), and understood immediately. But since Lisa desperately wants friends, she went with the "romance" aspect because she'd then agree with all the girls who read the series for that reason. It's even mirrored during the projection, with Homer who went there [[JustHereForGodzilla just to watch an action movie]], and thus has to sit through everything else.
237* Alex from "Lard of the Dance" is seen in Lisa's tap dancing class in "Last Tap Dance In Springfield." At the end of the former, she is seen acting her age after acting like a mini adult throughout the episode. Apparently she decided to take Lisa's advice and act like a child, hence why she's taking tap.
238* In "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe," Moe's new girlfriend is a little person, and he gets rid of anything she might find offensive like a midget wrestling banner and the book ''Literature/LittleWomen''. The latter may seem like another random joke, but in "Homer Loves Flanders" he's seen reading it at the homeless shelter. Either Moe still does that or he hadn't gotten rid of the book.
239* In "American History X-Cellent," Lenny tells Smithers that he used to think he was as bad as Mr. Burns, but now he thinks he's as good as him. Lenny was in charge of the plant for a while in "The Old Man and the Lisa," so he was comparing Smithers to his work.
240* In "Mr. Spritz Goes To Washington," Krusty has an old sketch that makes fun of gay stereotypes, in addition to the Jamaicans and French. The episode aired in 2003, but Krusty claims it was a different time, 1998. The joke is that it happened not long ago, but in real life 1998 was a tipping point in the gay rights movement. That's when it was becoming more socially acceptable and shows like ''Series/WillAndGrace'' became hits in the ratings. The sketch could've aired very early in the year when those jokes were still acceptable.
241* In "Papa Don't Leach" Lurleen Lumpkin says her father's made her the happiest person on "Whatever side of the Mississippi this is." This sounds like a WhereTheHellIsSpringfield joke, but in "Colonel Homer" she admits she never went to school. She probably doesn't know geography at all.
242* In "Marge Be Not Proud," Bart imagines video game characters like Franchise/DonkeyKong, [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario and Luigi,]] and Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog telling him to steal Bone Storm, while Lee Carvallo from a golf game tells him not to do it. This is Bart's conscience telling him to do it and he's justifying it. This is why the popular mascots tell him to do it, but Lee Carvallo tries to talk him out of it. Bart thinks the golf game is lame, and of course he'd imagine the character talking him out of it.
243* In the opening credits Bart does a [[CouchGag chalkboard gag]] almost every week. Some of these are stuff he did, and some appear to be outrageous claims. Mrs. Krabappel is a smoker, so some of them are likely just him dicking around and making up stuff to entertain himself when she's on her break.
244* In "Whacking Day" Bart gets kicked out of the colonial village for pointing out contradicting stories about Jebediah Springfield creating the titular holiday and fighting in the Battle of Ticonderoga. This is foreshadowing that Whacking Day is a fraud, but the brilliance is that Jebediah himself is a fraud as revealed in "Lisa The Iconoclast." The story of him fighting in Ticonderoga is more than likely made up too.
245** Later in the episode Reverend Lovejoy is trying to justify the holiday by "reading" a passage from the Bible. The reason a religious figure would justify beating snakes and find them evil is because of the Serpent in the Adam and Eve story.
246* In "Day of the Jackanapes" Krusty announces he's quitting show biz for the fifth and final time. He had previously left the business on four different occasions throughout the series, all for different reasons; In "Krusty Gets Busted" he was thrown in jail and Sideshow Bob took over his show. In "Krusty Gets Kancelled, his show is canned before his comeback special. He fakes his death in "Bart The Fink," and he briefly announces his retirement in "The Last Temptation Of Krust" before he does standup.
247* In the season 26 episode "Walking Big and Tall", the fat acceptance group meeting that Homer attends has an array of chocolatey, salty, and deep fried fatty treats laid out for refreshments. And of course, can't forget the diet sodas. This may seem like like a contradiction, but studies have proven that the additives in diet soda may interfere with the way one's body perceives hunger and satiation, so it may seem that person is still hungry when they would otherwise feel full. So, in a weird way it would make sense that the large individuals in the group would drink diet soda.
248* In "Trilogy of Error" Rainier Wolfcastle says he had to do horrible things to pay for his new Italian sports car. In later episodes like "Strong Arms of the Ma" it's established he did porn. Could this be how he paid for the car?
249* The town drunk in the Italian village in "The Italian Bob" is a 2 year old who looks and sounds like Barney Gumble. In "Selma's Choice" Barney is a sperm donor. It's possible that the child is his son through artificial insemination.
250* One of the lyrics of the Stonecutter's song in "Homer the Great" is "Who rigs every Oscar night?" A few episodes later in "A Star Is Burns" Mr. Burns' short film goes to the Oscars, but he loses even after bribing judges. Since the Stonecutters disbanded, he didn't have a guaranteed way to make sure his movie won.
251* Homer's description of the Kwik-E Mart robber to the police sketch artist in "Krusty Gets Busted" basically tells you the ending of the episode.
252* In "The Twisted World Of Marge Simpson" Moe is surprised when Homer uses a fifty dollar bill because he says Homer's money is no good there. Homer must be using money printed by the Montana Militia, as witnessed in "Kill The Alligator and Run." This claim is backed up again in "Half Decent Proposal" when he's whining that he can't print his own money and has to work for his own.
253* Why does Flanders serve no alarm chili in "Pay Pal?" In "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer," his five alarm chili was actually two alarm and he was ashamed of lying. This way he could serve his chili and be honest about it.
254* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'', Quimby declares the barrier completely idiot-proof after Cletus [[EpicFail fails to dump a rat into the lake, despite several rather obvious ways to do so.]] However, if you're smart enough to simply get the rubbish ''over' the barrier, you aren't an idiot, and thus the barrier is not designed to keep you out!
255* A RunningGag from earlier seasons was Homer mentioning a new life long dream, just for Marge to mention an old one he already accomplished. In "You Only Move Twice," Homer starts telling her about his dream of owning the Dallas Cowboys, and Marge harshly reacts "What life long dream?" By this point, she was sick of the subject and wanted to cut to the chase.
256* Bart enjoys listening to 1970s rock in "Bart On The Road," but finds it lame a few episodes later in "Homerpalooza" when Homer liked it. Bart's a kid, and a lot of kids find something they liked lame when they find out their parents are into it.
257* Milhouse's dad is seen at AA meetings in several episodes. Drinking could be one of the reasons his marriage fell apart or he turned to booze to help deal with his divorce.
258* In "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation," the family passes [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking a mental institution, a slaughter house, and Santa's Village, the last of which freaks Homer out the most.]] Homer feared the Santa's Village for two reasons; He worked as a Mall Santa and made no money, and the last time he was at one he got the crap kicked out of him by reindeer.
259* At the beginning of "Gump Roast," Wiggum tells Homer there's a law against impersonating movie characters when he sees Homer dressed as Film/ForrestGump. In the paddy wagon we see Moe dressed as Film/AustinPowers and Dr. Hibbert as [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader.]] Hibbert dressed as Darth Vader makes sense since Vader was voiced by a deep voiced black man, but the brilliance is that Moe and Austin Powers are both perverts. It makes sense a creep like Moe would imitate an outdated, dorky movie character to pick up women.
260* In "Puffless" Selma [[ItMakesSenseInContext imagines her cigarette talking to her in Jon Lovitz's voice]] when she's trying to quit smoking. We see her hitting up [[ContinuityNod ex husbands and boyfriends]] through out the episode, but no mention of Artie Ziff. Since Artie's in prison (and voiced by Lovitz) she could've been imaging her cigarette as Artie since she couldn't hook up with him.
261* The Treehouse Of Horror segment "Nightmare Cafeteria" title refers to the teachers cooking the students for lunch, but since it's [[spoiler: AllJustADream]] the title can also refer to the segment's conclusion.
262** However, the eighteenth season episode "Yokel Chords" tells the tale of a real-life serial killer named "Dark Stanley" who indeed murdered schoolchildren and turned them into food.
263* In 1993, Butterfinger aired a commercial where Bart's candy bar was stolen and viewers had to determine who it was (out of Burns, Lisa, Otto, Krusty, Nelson, and Homer) to win $50 grand. A month later, a new commercial aired that revealed the thief was Krusty. The winner, Nancy Fredholm, must have noticed the Butterfinger was taken from a ''Krusty'' brand safe.
264* The episode "Barthood" has [[ContinuityNod continuity nods]] to "Future-Drama," like Bart's appearance as a teenager, Lisa going to Yale, etc. "Future-Drama" was a What If scenario involving Frink's time machine, which means it was able to get some things about the future right. That explains why the future we see in "Barthood" isn't as advanced as the one in "Future-Drama."
265* Sonic telling Bart to take the video game in "Marge Be Not Proud" may be a parody of [[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog Sonic Sez]] where Sonic would normally be opposed to stuff like that.
266* In "Barthood" Bart is seen outgrowing Krusty by the time he's twelve, despite liking him in other future episodes. It's normal for kids to outgrow something when they hit a certain age, but like it for nostalgia when they get older. Either that or Bart was going through a Krusty sucks phase.
267* In Lisa the Skeptic, Lisa doesn't believe in angels while other episodes portray her as being somewhat religious. This doesn't have to be a contradiction; if you know your Christian history, the portrayal of angels as people with wings is a fairly recent one. While it was unintentional on the writers' part, Lisa was valid in her skepticism as angels, as ethereal beings, should not be able to leave fossils behind.
268* In "A Streetcar Named Marge" there are parallels between Marge and Blanche [=DuBois=], since Marge feels underappreciated since Homer's indifferent like Stanley. Both of them have French last names (Marge's is Bouvier) adding a layer to the similarities.
269* Why does staid Marge choose the alley behind the porno theater in "Treehouse of Horror IX: Starship Poopers"? Because she's essentially being unwillingly assaulted, so she picked the skeeviest choice available to her.
270* In "In The Name Of The Grandfather" one of Grandpa's dreams was to pitch in the Negro Leagues, which Homer sees an issue with. Abe has a black ancestor and thought he could get in based on that. This episode aired before "The Color Yellow" so Homer doesn't know about it yet, hence why he sees an issue with it.
271* When Marge tells Lisa to stay away from Bleeding Gums Murphy in "Moaning Lisa" she tells him it's because she fears strangers. Marge was apologizing because she thought she might be misconstrued as racist since her daughter was hanging out with a black jazz musician.
272* In "Old Yeller-Belly", while praising cats, Homer states that to him, Yusuf Islam will always be Cat Stevens. This gets reflected in his ImagineSpot in "Mypods And Boomsticks", when American music [=CDs=] get changed to Cat Stevens [=CDs=].
273* Some recent episodes show NegativeContinuity involving Moe's Tavern such as him cleaning the wall and discovering a window. Episodes such as "Dumbbell Indemnity" and "Mommy Beerest" show that Moe's burned down and was rebuilt, hence why he discovered it when he did.
274* In "Lisa's Rival", Hans Moleman crashes a cargo truck full of sugar that Homer takes for himself. Bart thinks he's stealing the sugar, but then Homer reminds him of a clause in Springfield's town charter that says any foodstuffs that touch the ground must go to the village idiot. Now, who in Springfield would be better suited to fulfill that role? In other words, under Springfield law ''the sugar legally belongs to Homer''.
275* In "King Size Homer," Mr. Burns is shown being pretty enthusiastic about exercising. He's also wearing what looks like a Yale male cheerleading uniform. Staying active and making a point to take care of his body consistently is probably a big reason why Mr. Burns, despite being DelicateAndSickly, has lived to such a ripe old age and is so spritely and feisty.
276* In "Hurricane Neddy", Ned gets uncontrollably outraged at Springfielders doing an inadequate job at rebuilding his home. But remember that they looted Ned's Leftorium store for no good reason, and it's afterwards that they try to make up for that, and even that's horribly done. No wonder Ned snapped.
277** This is also why Ned called Lenny a jerk; if Lenny had "just got here", he wouldn't have helped out with the rebuilding of Ned's house.
278*** That doesn't make Lenny a jerk. Lenny was utterly confused about what was happening, so how could he help out on a project he didn't know about? He was likely out of town since before the hurricane and did "just get here." He saw a crowd in front of the Flanders's place and stopped to see what was going on. Though Flanders had already sunk into an ItsAllAboutMe rampage and assumed otherwise.
279** Same episode -- Ned berates Marge saying, "My family and I can't live on good intentions, Marge!". Cf. the proverb "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".
280** Ned's frustration with most of the Simpson family is understandably personal (Bart is a troublemaking brat, Homer [[{{Jerkass}} is Homer]], and he has to make nice with Marge because of her good intentions despite her ineffectuality when it comes to controlling either of them), but his wrath against Lisa's SoapboxSadie nature seems a little more like an AuthorFilibuster commenting on the character until you remember Ned's carefully-cultivated "turn the other cheek" attitude toward the WorldOfJerkass around him. It must be highly frustrating to him to watch someone constantly and unabashedly indulging in the RightlySelfRighteous attitude he's denied himself.
281* Mr. Burns' VillainDecay could be caused by the brain damage he received after getting shot [[spoiler:by Maggie]]
282* In "Black Widower", Bart has to try to explain Selma's precarious situation to Homer ''four times'' before he goes to Marge. While this could easily be a joke about how dumb Homer is, Homer also ''hates'' Patty and Selma. His lack of giving a shit about Selma coupled with his stupidity equals the point not just escaping him, but Homer going out of his way to avoid it. So Bart goes to the parent he ''knows'' will want to save Selma's life.
283* Why is the Loch Ness Monster so comfortable with being photographed in "Monty Can't Buy Me Love"? Because people flock to the lake every day to take pictures of her. She's used to it.
284* "Das Bus" ends with the narrator stating that the children stranded on the island were rescued by "oh, let's say... Moe." While it was intended as a humorous cop-out of an ending, the credits of the earlier episode "The Homer They Fall" do show Moe saving people while flying with the Fan Man's fan, making his rescue of the children seem more in-character and believable.
285* Homer's UltimateJobSecurity and his having his job back by next week's episode when he is actually fired make perfect sense when you realize that Mr. Burns probably ''wants'' a lazy, incompetent dope like Homer as the plant's safety inspector. That way, Burns is technically complying with state safety laws, but never has to spend any money on safety or upkeep at the plant. In "C.E.D'Oh", Homer actually starts doing his job responsibly. He compiles a list of changes that the plant needs to make, and presents it to Mr. Burns. How does Burns reward Homer for showing competence and working hard? He...[[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished dumps Homer into a pool filled with electric eels.]] One can't help but wonder if Frank Grimes would have gone insane from the general stupidity and incompetence of ''everyone'' at the plant even if he'd never met Homer.
286* In the episode Pork and Burns, there's a scene where Bart and Lisa literally put their heads together. Bart's hair has nine spikes; Lisa's has eight. They'd interlock perfectly.
287* This was likely unintentional, but then again, who knows? In ''Homer the Heretic'', there's a scene where Marge invites Reverend Lovejoy over to the Simpsons' house for dinner in an effort to persuade Homer to start going to church again. Reverend Lovejoy quotes Matthew 7:26 - the foolish man who built his house upon the sand - and Homer responds with "And you remember...Matthew...21:17." Reverend Lovejoy looks confused and replies, quoting the Bible verse Homer mentions: "'And he left them and went out into Bethany and he lodged there'?" Homer stubbornly responds: "Yeah. Think about it." It's obviously meant to be a joke about Homer not knowing the Bible, but out of curiosity, I decided to look up the context of the quote. It turns out that Matthew 21:17 is part of the story of Jesus and the money-changers in the temple; while the first bit of it isn't wholly relevant, the second part is about the elders and authority figures looking down on Jesus with disdain, believing him to be nothing more than a trouble-maker who refuses to conform and follow the crowd. The nature of the joke makes it pretty clear Homer likely doesn't know this, but in the context of Homer being shamed and even harassed for refusing to conform, it's weirdly fitting.
288* The swear jar subplot in “Bart the Lover” kicks off when Todd Flanders says “Hell no, I said I don’t want any damn vegetables” to which Ned punishes him by telling him no Bible stories before bed. Hell and damn are obviously in the Bible, but Flanders was more angry about the context he was using those words as opposed to him knowing them.
289* In "The Great Louse Detective", Sideshow Bob is the one who discovers that the election for the king of the Mardi Gras parade has been rigged. In "Sideshow Bob Roberts" eight seasons earlier, Bob himself rigs an election.
290* "The Principal and the Pauper" has a famous continuity error: "Seymour Skinner" is an impostor named Armin Tamzarian, the ''real'' Seymour Skinner being his sergeant in Vietnam. This seemingly contradicts "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Badass Song" from four seasons earlier, in which Skinner/Armin returns to army camp as a sergeant, and no one notices that "Skinner" looks so much like Armin. However, most of the soldiers who knew Skinner and Armin wouldn't be serving anymore.
291* When Lisa makes gazpacho at Homer's barbecue in "Lisa the Vegetarian", Barney tells her to "go back to Russia". At first glance, this is just a joke about Barney being Barney [[note]] Gazpacho is Spanish, not Russian. [[/note]] However, the episode only aired four years after the USSR broke up. The joke can also be taken as Barney, who has forgotten about the breakup of the USSR, calling Lisa a communist.
292** It's also possible he mistook it for borscht, which can be served cold.
293* Also from "Lisa the Vegetarian", Ralph saying that sleep is "where he's a Viking" has a double meaning. The obvious meaning is that Ralph is using "Viking" as a metaphor meaning he's very good at sleeping. However, it can also be taken as Ralph dreaming about being a Viking.
294* Homer's barbershop quartet was called "the B Sharps". This joke has a double meaning. The obvious meaning is a reference to the fact that B sharp on the piano is just C natural. However, the B Sharps are a parody of the Beatles, which sounds like "B Dulls".
295** There's actually a ''third'' meaning: '''Sharp''', as a barber's razor is meant to be.
296* Bart and Lisa have been seen on their bikes several times throughout the series, but they rarely wear helmets. This is perfectly in character for Bart, but rather out of character for Lisa. According to the episode "Simple Simpson", Chief Wiggum considers bike safety lessons "the hardest part about being a cop". If he can't teach Lisa to wear a helmet, he probably can't teach anyone.
297* Why was Hugh Jass from "Flaming Moe's" not bothered at all by Bart's prank call? It's his own name, he's probably had jokes about it for most of his life and he's become used to it.
298** Maybe Hugh Jass is also the Swiss consul to Springfield - Jass is a much loved card game in Switzerland, and if Hugh is a Swiss-American, and a diplomat, maybe he '''can't''' lose his temper about the phone gag.. .
299* One CouchGag had [[Film/AvengersInfinityWar Thanos]] using Maggie's pacifier to complete the Infinity Gauntlet and disintegrate the family with Maggie being the only survivor. This calls back to "Flanders' Ladder" which reveals that Maggie [[spoiler: never died.]]
300* In the first "Treehouse of Horror" story, neither Bart nor Lisa are impressed by Poe's "Literature/TheRaven" as a horror story. Consider, however, that the version Lisa reads out is annotated. While in a Doylist sense this is to trim down the viewing time, the effect is that the version of the poem we hear doesn't contain several of the verses in which narrator is informed to his increasing horror that his beloved Lenore's soul is not in heaven. While the poem was probably a bit beyond their tastes to begin with, the fact that the version they read had most of the meat cut out of it probably didn't help either.
301* During the town hall meeting in "Bart After Dark," Marge presents a slideshow of various Springfield residents coming from the burlesque house; with each picture, the person shown gets called out by that character's wife or another character close to them. When Barney's picture is shown, Moe calls him out (after a beat of silence) in a less than convincing manner. While it may have been that he was surprised at having to be the one to call him out, Moe wouldn't exactly be the kind to be offended by burlesque houses, hence his half-hearted delivery.
302* Moe reacts rather violently to Bart's prank calls. Of course: He's a [[{{Pun}} Bart Ender]].
303* In the famous episode "You Only Move Twice", Hank Scorpio throws a moccasin and says goodbye to it. He then asks Homer if he ever saw anyone throw a shoe, and Homer responds that he did once. Since Springfield is so crazy, it would make sense for Homer to have seen someone throw a shoe before...but then you realize, he ''didn't''. When he said he had, he was being [[TheDitz himself]] and referring to what he just saw!
304* In "The Bart of War" when Bart and Milhouse discover Ned's ''Music/TheBeatles'' memorabilia, there are fruit juices named after each of the four members of the band, but Bart and Milhouse only drink the ones named after John and George. Why? Because John and George were at the time of the episode's airing (and still are) the only two deceased ones!
305* In "I Married Marge", it shows Bart's birth. The first thing he does is set Homer's tie on fire with a cigarette lighter. Where did baby Bart get that? Well, Patty and Selma were in the room earlier, and what are they commonly depicted doing?
306* In "Bart the Mother", the list of birds that the Bolivian tree lizard has made either endangered or extinct may seem fairly random (silly names aside). Then you realise that they all have one thing in common; none of them are native to South America. This is presumably because the birds in the lizards' native country presumably have evolved defences against them (e.g. pushing out extra eggs, killing the newly-hatched lizards); this is true of most invasive species (e.g. cane toads in Australia).
307* The episode "The Great Louse Detective" features a Creator/DrSeuss-themed spa at the beginning. Die-hard Seuss fans may see this as a double foreshadowing:
308** The fact that this is a Sideshow Bob episode. Bob's surname is Terwilliger, which is also the name of the antagonist of ''Film/The5000FingersOfDrT'', who also has a rival named Bart. The screenwriter for the movie? Dr. Seuss.
309** Homer as the king of the Mardi Gras parade walking on stilts. One of Seuss's lesser known books is ''Literature/TheKingsStilts''.
310* Why does the Angry Dad voice actor in "I Am Furious (Yellow)" just happen to come up with a voice that sounds exactly like Homer when they ask him for ideas on what Angry Dad would sound like? Maybe someone tipped him off that Angry Dad was based on the guy who voiced Poochie, so he just needed to copy Poochie's voice.
311* Krusty's "Give a hoot! Read a book!" is oddly straightforward for a slogan meant to incite children to read. This could count as subtle foreshadowing to his illiteracy in "Krusty Gets Busted"; because he never learned how to read, his rhetoric never developed.
312* In "Homer the Smithers" it might seem like a contrived case of TheMainCharactersDoEverything when Smithers decides to get Homer to fill his position, but remember that an early RunningGag of the series was that Mr. Burns constantly forgetting Homer's name, prompting Smithers to remind him, suggesting to Smithers that Burns has a low opinion of Homer and wouldn't consider him a better assistant than Smithers.
313* Willie seems to be inconsistent about his hometown; he claims to be from Edinburgh in "The President Wore Pearls", Kirkland in "The Daughter Also Rises", and (the fictional) North Kilt Town in "Lard of the Dance". This might not be NegativeContinuity. "The Dad who Knew Too Little" implies that Willie is a serial killer from Aberdeen. It's entirely possible that he is lying about his hometown so no one suspects him.
314* "Lisa the Simpson" implies that all male Simpsons carry a gene that lowers their intelligence. This seems to contradict the earlier episodes "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" and "Brother, Can you Spare Two Dimes", in which Abe's bastard son Herb does not appear to have any of the gene's symptoms, and the later episode "HOMR", in which it is Homer becomes intelligent when a crayon is removed from his nose and becomes stupid again when the crayon is inserted back in. However, it's possible that the Simpson gene ''doesn't even exist'' and is merely a placebo effect. When Homer first put the crayon in his nose, it's likely he assumed that his stupidity was because of the gene and he just forgot about it when the crayon was removed. And Herb, growing up away from the Simpsons, never knew about the gene and thus never got it.
315* In one of the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes, Dr. Hibbert experiments on Homer's acquaintances, turning them into half-animal-half-human mutants. The first one he meets is Ned Flanders, who has turned into a creature that's like a centaur but with a cow (yes, cow not bull) instead of a horse. When he asks Homer to milk him, he has quite an exaggerated expression-- he's squinting, gritting his teeth, and tensing up his hands and he speaks in a strained voice. Well, so many things are going on there: all female mammals (humans included) have some degree of pain when there's a buildup of milk, and Ned has obviously not experienced this before in his life because he's a cis guy. Add that to the fact that he'd probably feel a bit awkward asking someone to milk him, ''and'' he's pretty sensitive in general and it's no surprise he's acting that way.
316* According to Rod and Todd, Ned believes dice are wicked. Dice blocks have six sides.
317* One couch gag has the main characters personify the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek pantheon]], their gods of choice do reflect a characteristic of theirs.
318** Homer is dressed as Zeus, obviously, because he's the patriarch of the family. Like Homer, Zeus is known for his temper, as shown by how he punished Prometheus for stealing fire to give it back to humanity. Like Bart, Prometheus was known to be a trickster who gained his father's ire for his actions.
319** Marge is dressed as Hera, obviously, because she's the matriarch of the family. Like Marge, Hera is known to become really jealous and angry towards any woman her husband interacts with. Marge becomes enraged by the thought of Homer having an affair. In addition to this, both Marge and Hera have abandoned/disowned their son. Hera disowned Hephaestus because of his deformities, while Marge disowned Bart in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS24E12LoveIsAManySplinteredThing Love is a Many-Splintered Thing]]" because he bitterly sided with Homer in an argument. In some myths, Zeus dropped Hephaestus from Mount Olympus for taking Hera's side in an argument.
320** Bart is dressed as Hermes, a trickster god and son of Zeus. Both are known for mischief and thievery, starting on the day they were born. Hermes stole the cattle of Apollo as an infant, while Bart set fire to Homer's tie at 10 minutes old.
321** Lisa is dressed as Athena, a goddess of wisdom. Both are known as the smartest and wisest of their family. Athena is also a DaddysGirl like Lisa is to Homer due to having been "born" when she sprung fully-formed from Zeus's head.
322** Maggie is dressed as Artemis, a goddess of hunting. Maggie's most infamous act is unwittingly shooting Mr Burns and is shown in future episodes to have a proficiency with firearms.
323* When Krusty tried to compete with Gabbo by doing his own ventriloquist act in "Krusty Gets Kancelled", he notably wears a fake moustache that covers up his mouth. It's so that the audience won't notice his lips moving when he makes the dummy talk!
324* In "Two Dozen And One Greyhounds," there's a bit of subtle foreshadowing that Mr. Burns would ultimately back out of killing the greyhound puppies. In this episode, he's openly hostile and cruel to animals, and in the previous episode "Last Exit to Springfield," he [[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5161024be4b080e511750768/1438131398933-PEHTVT69LMYY3HTO8W14/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kP_h72KhgwZO872fn6ry8S1Zw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpzZ3hg8vRi5IgnTZ8Y5YBsKM5ReV7ozVu_cm5hnsJeBUObzhVsWWNnAQWII_RXXnQQ/image-asset.png?format=750w kicks a dog]]. But his body language around the greyhound puppies is different than it was towards that other dog- he's shown petting/stroking the puppies, and when he [[https://thumbs.gfycat.com/EntireCostlyChinesecrocodilelizard-size_restricted.gif puts one down]] onto the floor, he does so gently rather than just dropping it. Unlike all the previous animals he'd killed and made into clothes, it's possible he decided not to kill the greyhound puppies because, after all of the time he'd spent ruminating/scheming, he'd already grown too attached to them.
325* It always struck me as interesting that Homer and Mr. Burns are capable of being pretty chummy with each other at times, even in earlier episodes. When you get down to it, they're really perfect foils to each other; despite their differing values, socioeconomic class, and levels of intellect, they're really not so different and have similar personalities. So why do they butt heads so often but then get along perfectly well in other scenes? It's because Mr. Burns is a terrible boss and Homer is a terrible employee. When you remove the catalyst (their working relationship,) they seem to get along just fine. Almost every instance of Homer and Burns getting along has occurred when at least one of them has been off-the-clock.
326* Possible Doylist reason for not showing Ned's death in that famous future montage that shows Maggie never dying, Lisa saying that life is pointless, etc, despite him being present in the montage. They'd have to show his age, and seeing as in the scene with him and Marge, Marge's age at death was eighty-four and her canon age is thirty-six, you'd be able to figure out his canon age, which is a bit of an inconsistent mess (is it sixty like in "Viva Ned Flanders"? In his thirties like in "Hurricane Neddy"?). Maybe the writers didn't want to add to the mess by making another statement on his age.
327* In "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish", upon being told he's dying, Homer's "death anxiety" stages mimic the Five Stages of Grief, except depression is replaced with fear. This makes sense, because when someone dies, we're greatly affected but we still know ''we're'' safe, so we're more likely to go into a depression than be scared. Homer, however, wasn't affected by a loss, ''he'' was the one dying, so it makes total sense that he'd be afraid instead of depressed.
328* In "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", the entire episode turns out to be Lisa's story in Bart's story. This explains the scene where he says that he can't do better in school because everyone has given up on him and they focus on Lisa instead. While Bart denies this, the fact that it's his story implies that he knows it's actually true; or it could be how Bart assumes Lisa sees him.
329* Fridge Funny: In "Children of a Lesser Clod", Ralph thinks "mittens" is a swear word. In "Lisa's Rival", he says that his cat's name is Mittens. Either Ralph thinks he named his cat after a swear, or Ralph uses his cat's name in place of a swear.
330* In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", Ralph mentions having eaten a thumbtack. In "All's Fair in Oven War", he puts thumbtacks in his submission for a cooking contest. Apparently he acquired a taste for them.
331* In "Blood Feud", there might another reason why Mr. Burns is reluctant to get medical help; considering his outdated mindset, he likely still believes that calling a doctor will more likely be a ''death sentence'' rather than actual help.
332* The episode where Patty and Selma kidnap [=MacGyver=] but escapes then comes back and asks for more situations to escape. One instance has him asking for items including a gun with no bullets and immediately afterwards 3 bullets. Why ask for a gun without bullets if you're going to ask for bullets anyway? Putting the bullets in the gun would require more effort than an already loaded gun and after his first escape, he asked the Bouvier sisters not to make it so easy.
333* Since Dr. Nick did survive from his accident in the movie, why he then appears in season 20 while skipping season 19 entirely? Simple; he spent the whole season healing from his injuries.
334* In "At Long Last Leave", Marge being denounced by Springfield as the worst of the Simpsons is somewhat true. Despite their complaints against Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, the Springfieldians do acknowledge that they at least didn't make their town an enemy to the United States unlike Marge.
335* In "Who Shot Mr. Bruns? (Part One)" town hall meeting Smithers tells how his life went into downhill after Mr. Burns fired him. Who is first to show concern of his wellbeing? Dr. Hibbert. And not only because he is a doctor, but has personally witnessed how much Mr. Burns meant to Smithers back in "Blood Feud".
336* The characters of DaChief in two [[ShowWithinAShow Shows Within A Show]], ''[=McBain=]'' and ''[=McGarnagle=]'', are incredibly similar, using pretty much the same character design and have the same voice. Both characters are being played by the same actor, even if they aren't necessarily same character. He's basically ''The Simpsons'' equivalent of Frank [=MacRae=]. Similarly, Mendoza seems to appear as a member of an orchestra in "Homerpalooza", meaning his actor is an accomplished musician as well.
337* In "New Kids on the Blecch", why is Otto one of the first characters to get hypnotized by the Navy recruitment video? Because his name is [[FunWithPalindromes spelt the same backwards]] and the "Yvan Eht Nioj" video means "Join the Navy" backwards.
338* One episode explains that Herb Powell lost his wealth all over again in a NoodleIncident. This seemingly makes his arc a ShaggyDogStory, but then one has to remember, most of what caused his first bankruptcy was actually his own doing, bargaining everything on Homer making a top project and arrogantly refusing to listen to his employees' warnings. Herb blames Homer for everything going wrong and his arc after regaining wealth basically culminates in him.....[[NeverMyFault forgiving Homer for being 100% to blame for everything before.]] Herb losing his fortune repeatedly seems pretty in nature with someone who always believes any failings he has are other people's fault and [[IgnoredEpiphany thus never learns from his own mistakes]].
339* "Bart Gets Hit By a Car" has Homer pondering the fact that he and Marge have been married for ten years, subtly foreshadowing the revelation a few episodes later (in "The Way We Was") that they had a ShotgunWedding after conceiving Bart, who's consistently described as being ten years old himself. (Notably, this represents a RetCon from Season 1's "Some Enchanted Evening," where Homer complains that in "eleven years" Marge has never let him forget that he banged her head against the door frame while carrying her across the threshold—the episode having likely been written before the writers came up with the backstory, under the assumption that the marriage predated Bart.)
340* Marge's appreciation for Michelangelo's "David" in "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" seems like a plot convenience given that she's never showed much personal affinity for high culture up to that point, but "Brush With Greatness" later in the season offers some context in which it makes perfect sense: she had a passion for art in high school that was crushed out of her by an unkind teacher. (Establishing that her WetBlanketWife status [[EveryoneHasStandards does not extend to being offended by artistic nudity]] also lays important groundwork for the plot of that episode.)
341* In "Krusty Gets Busted," Sideshow Bob's retooling of Krusty's show demonstrates a sophisticated and culturally literate approach to children's programming that couldn't be more different from Krusty's. He even gets in AnAesop about treating kids as equals as he's hauled away, pointing out that they were smart enough to catch him. The dark flipside of this, of course, is that Sideshow Bob sees 10-year-old Bart as a WorthyOpponent and seeks his life as ruthlessly as if they were on a level playing field, seeing no reason [[WouldHurtAChild not to hurt a child]].
342* "Bart vs. Thanksgiving." Bart is in trouble all the time. What made this particular instance so emotional for him? ''Marge'' [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness told him he'd ruined the holiday]]. She's typically the one who's in his corner while Homer is more harsh. He's initially very blasé about being sent to his room (by Homer) and even appeals his sentence to Marge, only to be shattered from the point where she tells him off.
343* The first "Treehouse of Horror" episode includes "Hungry are the Damned," [[{{SubvertedTrope}} a twist]] on the TwilightZoneTwist in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan To Serve Man]]". In this version, the aliens really ''are'' a BenevolentAlienInvasion, and they're so hurt by Lisa's suspicions to the contrary that they dump the Simpsons back on Earth without doing any of the good deeds they'd planned, to which the family scold Lisa, with Marge saying "Lisa, see what we mean when we say you're too smart for your own good?" In fact, Marge has never said anything like this, and to the extent they're aware of Lisa's intelligence her parents typically praise her for it while wishing Bart would follow suit. Who's telling this story, though? [[TheResenter Bart]].
344* Although "Separate Vocations" suggests that a computer malfunction surrounding the school's IneptAptitudeTest was what caused Bart and Lisa to get the unexpected results they did, Bart as a policeman actually makes perfect sense when you take his uncanny ability to figure out Sideshow Bob's schemes into account. On the other hand, given Springfield's track record, [[PoliceAreUseless the aptitude test is probably not accounting for actual detective skills as necessary qualities for police work]], meaning that it still took an accident to get Bart that result.
345* The title of the episode "Lisa's Substitute" is intentionally vague--it doesn't refer to Mr. Bergstrom's role at the school, but to his role as a ParentalSubstitute in Lisa's life. He's not a substitute for Lisa's teacher, he's a substitute for ''Homer.''
346* "Lisa's First Word" reveals that Lisa looked up to Bart when she was younger—according to Marge, "she thinks [Bart] hung the moon"--and that she even followed Bart's disrespectful habit of [[CallingParentsByTheirName calling Homer by his first name]], saying the word "Homer" before she ever called him "Dad." This could serve as an InUniverse explanation of Lisa's [[EraSpecificPersonality earliest characterization]] in the ''Tracey Ullman'' shorts, where she was essentially a lesser Bart who went along with his troublemaking.
347* In "Selma's Choice," an employee at Springfield's sperm bank assures Selma that donors have to go through a "rigorous screening process" to ensure quality, which is InstantlyProvenWrong by the reveal that Barney is a frequent donor and has fathered multiple children this way. When you think about it, though, he looks pretty good on paper: as an ambitious student bound for Harvard in his youth, he presumably had an excellent academic track record before he became TheAlcoholic, was later part of a Grammy-winning musical act, and generally is TheAce whenever RuleOfFunny demands it. Assuming he managed to cover up his alcoholism somehow, it's hardly surprising that his sperm would be in demand.
348* In "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" the "Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence," a made-up award Mr. Burns invents on the spot for legal reasons. It's a reference to his CatchPhrase. He even delivers the word "excellence" with the same intonation.
349* The fact that Sideshow Bob [[ObviouslyEvil made killing Bart and Selma part of his mayoral platform]] in "Sideshow Bob Roberts." Bart has numerous enemies, most of the town's residents WouldHurtAChild (heck, they've run a lynch mob on Bart before!), and "Cape Feare" shows that literally everybody at Sideshow Bob's parole hearing, up to and including ''Patty'', was thinking of murdering Selma. [[ComedicSociopathy Offering to kill them was actually a sound political strategy]]. (It's also pretty much the only moment where Bob doesn't seem to suffer VillainDecay in the episode: once he's actually elected mayor he uses his power to [[EvilIsPetty bother the Simpsons as much as possible]] rather than threaten anybody's life. Politicians never do keep their campaign promises, do they?)
350-->'''Homer:''' Hmm, [[SkewedPriorities I don't agree with his Bart-killing policy, but I do approve of his Selma-killing policy]].
351* "Homer the Great" shows that most of the adult male population of Springfield we've seen up to this point are members of the Freemason-esque Stonecutters. Conspicuously absent are Flanders and Lovejoy, who are religious conservatives.
352* "And Maggie Makes Three" shows that Marge's third SurprisePregnancy—her first in about 7 years—occurred not long after Homer had settled his debts, quit his job at the nuclear power plant and taken a [[HappinessInMinimumWage lower-paying job that made him happier]]. Given that "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" established that Homer is unknowingly infertile due to radiation exposure ([[ContinuityNod something actually touched on in this episode]], as we see that during Maggie's conception most of his sperm were ineffective), was this really the LawOfInverseFertility in action, or did the time he spent away from the plant get things moving again ''just'' enough to make Maggie happen?
353* The nonsensical ending of the "Bart Simpson's Dracula" segment in "Treehouse of Horror IV" may seem like a rushed AssPull, but it makes sense when you remember what Bart said about it during the third and final ''Series/NightGallery'' host segment: "We had a story to go with [''A Friend in Need'']...but it was far too intense. So we just threw something together about vampires. ENJOY!" He wasn't lying; it really was a rushed mess in-universe.
354* Why is ''WesternAnimation/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'' [[CrossesTheLineTwice horrifyingly violent to us]] and [[HumorDissonance light, kid-friendly comedy]] offensive only to the [[WetBlanketWife Marges]] of the world InUniverse? Simple: that universe happens to ''be'' a cartoon. Events on a roughly ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' level of violence, such as a grown man throttling his 10-year-old son, happen every day, go largely uncommented-on, and don't cause lasting harm to anybody involved. To truly be the InUniverse equivalent of a show like ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry,'' ''Itchy and Scratchy'' has to be cartoonishly violent relative to ''its'' universe, meaning that by our standards it's up to eleven.
355* "Bart the Daredevil" seems to take a high-stakes plot into RuleOfFunny territory in its last few minutes, with the whole story being driven by the assumption that no one could survive a fall into Springfield Gorge, which Bart wants to risk by jumping it with his skateboard--only for Homer to take that exact fall, ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice twice]]'', and merely end up in traction. This was before later episodes would show Homer to be uniquely MadeOfIron, with physical qualities including a stomach that can take repeated cannon shots and a medical condition that minimizes head trauma. Assuming Bart didn't inherit those traits, the same fall probably ''would'' have killed him.
356* In "Bart the Lover," Maude asks Ned if he was too hard on Todd by punishing him for cursing at the table with no Bible stories that night, to which Ned says, "You knew I had a temper when you married me." It's PlayedForLaughs because Ned is a ridiculously mild-mannered person, but Season 8's "Hurricane Neddy" would reveal that Ned in fact has an aggressive, explosive temper which he suppressed after therapeutic treatment as a child, meaning that he's not being inaccurate.
357* The RunningGag of Homer forgetting about Maggie, while it still solidifies him as TheDitz, makes a bit more sense when you recall that there's a 7–8-year gap between Lisa and Maggie compared to a 2-year gap between Bart and Lisa. Homer had the better part of the decade to get used to being a father of two, and Maggie is [[ComicBookTime consistently]] one year old or under. While the viewer "meets" her along with the rest of the Simpsons, from Homer's perspective her presence is still something of a novelty.
358* "Bart the General," the first episode to feature Nelson Muntz, also depicts him undergoing a quick shot of VillainDecay from [[BullyBrutality a neighborhood terror who genuinely causes Bart to fear for his life]] to something closer to the FriendlyEnemy / BullyTurnedBuddy he'd become later. After Bart and his "army" defeat him, he's forced to sign terms of armistice, which include "Although Nelson shall have no official power, he shall remain a figurehead of menace in the neighborhood." Is this the origin of his role as Springfield's one-man [[TheFreelanceShameSquad Freelance Shame Squad]]?
359* Troy [=McClure=] is always shown in his movies as being woefully incompetent and clueless about the topics he covers except for one: ''The Half-Assed Guide to Foundation Repair.'' He knows the material, speaks confidently with deep understanding of the subject and works quickly through the steps with an experienced hand. This suggests that Troy worked as a foundation repairman before he started his acting career.
360* In "Catch 'Em If You Can," Bart ''and'' Lisa take BrattyHalfPint behavior to a new level by [[{{Determinator}} tailing Homer and Marge to three separate vacation destinations]] to punish them for lying about where they were to get some privacy. This seems like a severe case of DisproportionateRetribution, especially coming from ''Lisa''...until you remember that the two were, for a brief time, fully convinced that their parents were ''dead'' after watching the Dayton hotel they'd originally planned to stay at get destroyed by a tornado live on air. If their parents had let them know that they'd opted out of going to Dayton instead of keeping it a secret, they would have been spared that terror--and who can blame the kids for being a little clingy after the fact to boot?
361* In "The Way We Weren't," Marge is angry at Homer for an incident in their past that really wasn't his fault and he points out worse things he's done in [[ContinuityNod prior episodes]], including "ruining Lisa's wedding in the future--remember that?" This seems like a [[RuleOfFunny deliberately nonsensical]] [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth wall break]] until you remember the FramingDevice for that episode--the whole story is a prediction by a fortune teller talking to Lisa in the present, and she could very well have told her family about it. (Sadly, it seems Homer missed the point of it a bit, as he really only "ruined" the wedding in the sense that Lisa's fiancé's dismissive attitude toward him made Lisa realize they weren't right for each other.)
362* One clip from "Lisa the Boy Scout" has Homer reveal that he dreamed the events of the series while in a coma after his failed attempt to jump Springfield Gorge in "Bart the Daredevil". If that had been true, it would have explained why Bart, Lisa, and Maggie haven't aged over the course of all those adventures.
363* In "Funeral For a Fiend," Sideshow Bob's initial plot, which is easily foiled, turns out to have been a deliberate failure meant to lead in to the larger plot, which takes up most of the episode. Lisa figures this out by recalling an OutOfCharacterMoment, but another way she might have guessed would have been by noticing that the first "plot" targeted the entire Simpson family. Historically, out of the five main Simpsons, Bob has only cared about killing Bart, who's the only target in his real plan.
364* In "Lisa's Wedding," Bart comments that seeing Lisa prepare for her wedding makes him want to get married "a third time." As of Seasons 18 and 19, your call on whether he's a double divorcee at 25 or whether he's referring to his two (incompleted) marriage ceremonies in "Little Big Girl" and "Apocalypse Cow."
365* In "Smoke on the Daughter," Homer and Lisa wait eagerly in line for the midnight release of the final "[[Literature/HarryPotter Angelica Button]]" book. In what seems like an uncharacteristic move, Lisa, despite being her usual bookworm self and basing her costume on the books rather than the films, ends up flipping through the new installment long enough to catch all the spoilers and throwing it out when she's done. This makes more sense when you remember how the series was introduced in "The Haw-Hawed Couple": a major character Lisa loved was killed off and Homer, who was reading the book aloud to her, made up a happy ending to spare her feelings. She realized what he'd done but decided she preferred his ending to the real version. For her, the series really stopped at his conclusion and she's less invested in where the rest of it goes.
366* In the montage of Homer growing up in "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind," we see that he had to repeat second grade--this, according to "Lisa the Simpson," being roughly the age when Simpson men lose their intelligence.
367* In "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII"'s 'Simpsonsworld' segment, the Homer robot's first actions on gaining self-awareness is distress and asking where his family is. Since this Homer is from the portion of the park based off of "Marge vs. the Monorail", he is likely based on early-season Homer's JerkWithAHeartOfGold tendencies more than some of his later ItsAllAboutMe incarnations.
368** The park also notably mainly has attractions based on older Simpsons episodes, with callbacks to the first 10-15 seasons far outnumbering later ones. This may seem odd given in-universe the show has been on for over 45 seasons, but considering already-existing allegations of SeasonalRot and the Lisa robot claiming even further seasonal rot occurred after season 45, it would make sense the park focuses on the show's perceived golden age.
369* In “$pringfield,” the announcer in the newsreel in the flashback says “Watch out Utica” when talking about Springfield’s growing economy. Superintendent Chalmers says I’m from Utica two seasons later. This scene takes place in the 1940s and with this episode airing in 1993, meaning Chalmers could’ve been a child then. It’s possible his family moved from Utica to Springfield due to economic and job opportunities.
370* In "The Ned-Liest Catch," Ned Flanders meets Edna Krabappel when he [[FallingIntoHisArms comes between her and the pavement as she's falling from a three-story drop]]. His first wife, Maude, died when she fell off the top of a set of bleachers into a parking lot, and Edna, who he saves from a similar end, becomes his SecondLove.
371* 740 Evergreen Terrace, aka "the Brown House," has seen a laundry list of tenants, some of whom [[NoodleIncident disappeared without explanation]], such as Ruth Powers and her daughter (who seem to still be living in the neighborhood) and Ned Flanders' cousin Ted and his family. This makes perfect sense: episodes like "No Loan Again, Naturally" show that, aside from the Flanders, all the neighbors on the Simpsons' street [[HatedByAll hate them]] and are eager to have them move out. Ned is the only one who's enough of a {{Determinator}} to handle living directly next door to the Simpsons, meaning that (despite at least one attempted move that didn't go so well) [[StatusQuoIsGod he always remains where he is]] while the house on the other side can't seem to keep an occupant.
372* According to "The Kids are All Fight," Homer randomly came up with "Maggie" as a potential name for a third child about five years before that child was born, when he was looking for a missing Bart and Lisa and realized that "Maggie" would be "a good name to yell if we lose her." Another WholeEpisodeFlashback, "The Clown Stays in the Picture," has Homer nearly dying in the desert as a young man and hallucinating his future children as living cactuses who urge him to fight for his life so that he'll one day have them. Maggie is the only one whose name comes up in the vision (with the Lisa-like cactus saying, "I don't think we'll ever be born. Sorry, Maggie"). Homer subconsciously remembered the name, making Maggie's name the product of a StableTimeLoop.
373* In ''It'' parody "Not It," Marge marries Comic Book Guy instead of Homer and their two children, Bert and Lizzie, are RoleSwapAU versions of Bart and Lisa. Comic Book Guy's real name is Jeff Albertson, meaning that "Bert" could be his son's nickname based on his surname.
374* In the Treehouse of Horror segment "Ei8ht," the killer targets the firstborns of Springfield. While not directly stated, her final victim fits the pattern: Robert "Sideshow Bob" Terwilliger, older brother to Cecil.
375** In a way, despite the RedHerring the killings come full circle: Lisa lost her older brother, the Simpsons' ''firstborn'', and so took away other people's older siblings as well.
376** The title isn't just a reference to another movie, but to the number of people that die by Lisa's hands--Rod, then Montaigne, Dermott, an unnamed "another one", Sherri, Nelson, the "Professor Lisa" persona, and finally Bob.
377*** If we only count murders of actual people instead of personas, the title still applies--Bart being the first to die, chronologically and onscreen, with the other seven following.
378** As Bob accuses Bart of only having him sing to stall the murder, Bart laughs and replies "Guilty as charged." Innocuous enough, until you remember back to the original episode--Bart got Bob to sing by telling him he had a beautiful voice, to which Bob replies, "Guilty, as charged!" Bob's savagery in the murder may have been fuelled by Bart not only tricking him, but cheekily throwing his own words back as well!
379* "Smoke On The Daughter" sees Homer averting AdultsAreUseless and getting on Lisa's case about smoking, even confiscating the cigarettes of the other ballerinas. But Homer has good reasons for keeping Lisa and the other girls away from cigarettes.
380** He associates smoking with Patty and Selma, two women whose existence Homer ''dreads''. Homer wouldn't want Lisa or her classmates copying them in any way.
381** Homer struggles with alcohol addiction, so he would want to save Lisa and the other ballerinas from going down the road of substance dependency.
382* In "Bart's Girlfriend", Jessica is unimpressed with Bart's initial "good guy" act. This seemingly foreshadows Jessica's "bad girl" attitude. But in reality, she saw Bart behaving obsequiously and desperately, something most girls wouldn't like or appreciate.
383* In "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Mayor Quimby's campaign song features a lyric that insists that the collapse of a stadium wasn't his fault. It very well could've been: many civil engineering projects have suffered because of graft or straight-up embezzlement that led to cutting corners. Mayor Quimby pilfering funds for a stadium to the point where its own structural integrity was compromised isn't out of character. It ties into a bit of fridge horror since Quimby's greed is so bad he's willing to endanger others for his own gain.
384* Season 27's "To Courier with Love", Marge mentions Bart taking a road trip despite being the only family member (besides Maggie) not to know about it. How did Marge know about it to mention it? The episode ended with Marge receiving three phone calls about Bart from Principal Skinner, Tennessee State Police and the courier service Bart worked for and sending Bart to the DMV with her sisters for career day, she could put the pieces together.
385* Homer and Ned both have a mother named Mona whom they were estranged from due to their involvements in counter-cultural movements (Mona Simpson was an anti-war hippie in the 1960s, Mona Flanders was a beatnik in the 1950s).
386* Fridge Humor: [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS25E3FourRegrettingsAndAFuneral Chip Davis']] funeral board mentions that he played the role of Duffman from 1992 to 1996, and for a brief period in 2008. When you consider that Duffman only first appeared on the show [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E1TheCityOfNewYorkVsHomerSimpson in 1997]], and only appeared in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E6HomerAndLisaExchangeCrossWords one episode from 2008]], it actually adds to his RememberTheNewGuy status, since it's pretty likely we've never actually seen Chip Davis as Duffman on-screen.
387* Marge complimenting Homer on being drunk with Burns on the job in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS34E6TreehouseOfHorrorXXXIII "Death Tome"]] isn't just a gag about Japan's cultural norms. Considering [[HateSink who]] [[BadBoss Montgomery]] [[CardCarryingVillain Burns]] [[EvilOldFolks is]], being willing to drink with him, even for [[TheAlcoholic Homer]], ''might genuinly be'' something he is doing out of dedication to his job and his family.
388* In "Little Girl in the Big Ten", Lisa passes herself off as a college student to hang out with some girls in her gymnastics class. When asked if she lives with any cute guys, Lisa starts "well, Bart's kinda..." before giving herself a BluntNo. The IncestSubtext is the obvious joke here, but it's also that if Lisa did introduce Bart to her friends, it would ruin her cover.
389
390[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
391* In "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)", Kent Brockman says in a newscast that "Dozens of people are gunned down in Springfield each day". Even using the smallest amount for dozens (24), that would mean 8,760 people are shot every year in Springfield. With a canon population just over 50,000, that's almost ''a fifth'' of Springfield's population getting gunned down every year.
392* In the third episode, "Homer's Odyssey," Homer loses his job (due to circumstances that weren't entirely his fault,) repeatedly fails to find a new one, and slips into a deep depression. Unable to take any of his family's encouragement to heart and believing that they're better off without him, [[DrivenToSuicide he tries to commit suicide]]. The fridge horror kicks in when you realize that, if his family had shown up a second or two later than they did, all of them, '''including his children''', would have seen Homer ending his own life. Homer was only ''seconds'' away from killing himself right in front of his wife and kids, and only by a slim sliver of luck did they show up in time to talk him out of it.
393** Curiously this episode also establishes Sherri and Terri's father. The brief interactions he has with Homer plus the kids discussions seemingly set him up as a foil for Homer as he is one of few members of the Nuclear Plant who doesn't tolerate his incompetence. However, after Homer is KickedUpstairs and is no longer under his supervision, he is not seen again throughout the show. Keep in mind the next OnlySaneMan employed in the Power Plant who lacked the power to fire or discipline Homer ''killed himself'' after his stupidity drove him insane.
394* Smithers has been shown repeatedly to react ''very'' badly to extreme amounts of stress, usually choosing to [[DrowningMySorrows get completely plastered]] and stop shaving/taking care of his personal grooming when something in his life goes seriously awry. And he's also been shown to have really bad separation anxiety, claiming that without Burns, he would "wither and die." Mr. Burns has repeatedly been shown to be extremely old, DelicateAndSickly, more or less chronically tight-roping the line between life and death. Given how "even a slight breeze" could kill him, as a doctor claimed, and given how fragile Smithers' mental health is, it's only a matter of time before Mr. Burns eventually kicks the bucket... and it's safe to say that Smithers probably wouldn't react well; possibly even being DrivenToSuicide over losing him. This really puts episodes like "Blood Feud" in a depressing light; if Burns' blood transfusion had occurred just a few seconds later, he would have certainly succumbed to hypohemia, and Smithers would '''definitely''' have gone off the deep end.
395* In "Homer at the Bat," Mike Scioscia accidentally shoots Smithers, who brushes it off something that "happens all the time". While this could be seen as him just placating Scioscia, we know that he works for a sadist who in other episodes has been perfectly fine with hunting people.
396* In "Two Cars In Every Garage And Three Eyes On Every Fish," an incredibly depressed Mr. Burns downs an entire decanter of wine and stumbles out of the plant, clearly drunk, and retreats to his car to cry. After he and Homer have a brief chat, he drives home, and also drops Homer off at his house. He and Homer are both lucky that Burns didn't cause a serious drunk driving accident.
397* Near the end of the flashback in "The Way We Was," it's ''heavily'' implied that Marge was almost sexually assaulted by her prom date. He tries to grope her, and ends up tearing her dress sleeve and bra strap.
398* In "When Flanders Failed," Mr. Burns is shown to have a [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse small white cat]], which we see him stroking and feeding. We never see the cat again after this episode. Several episodes later, in "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds," he declares (in song) that he had his previous cat skinned and made into a hat. It's likely we never see Burns' white cat again because he killed it off-screen and made into some kind of article of clothing.
399** [[TheBusCameBack Surprisingly]], averted: we actually see [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmWaTuMXMAAcFRx?format=jpg&name=large Burns' white cat]] in season 32, and she's doing well.
400* Bart getting stuck down a well in ''Radio Bart'' is quite horrific if the community itself didn't care for helping a boy. Would they have all left him down there ''forever'' if Bart's parents didn't intervene?
401** How citizens of Springfield treated Bart in "The Boys Of Bummer" was terrible and cruel, yes, ''even for the comedic standards in the series''. The fact that they abused and humiliated Bart just because over a [[DisproportionateRetribution lousy baseball game]] makes you wonder: what kind of mindset would allow that to happen?
402* "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS27E9Barthood Barthood]]" tells us that Bart can’t be successful unless he completely shuts Lisa out of his life.
403* In the end of "Boy Scoutz N Da Hood", the rest of the campers are seen being attacked by an [[BehindTheBlack unknown monster]]. None of them are ''ever seen again, ever.''
404** Not just any monster. Judging by the music, it is implied they were attacked by [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]].
405*** So yeah, they probably died. Selma mentions earlier in the episode that "it's cougar season", so they could have been attacked by a cougar.
406*** If it's any consolation, Jason doesn't kill kids, so he probably just killed Ernest Borgnine.
407* We find out in "The Fool Monty" that the thing that keeps Mr. Burns alive [[spoiler:is bile and hate.]] That's right, not only is [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Mr. Burns]] ''immortal'', but in order to do so he has to be a heartless millionaire. We've seen the damage to Springfield and the world that Burns has caused. Unless someone can bankrupt/kill him ([[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney which probably]] [[StatusQuoIsGod won't work]]), Springfield is going to have to put up with him ''[[ImmortalityImmorality For]][[KarmaHoudini ever]]'', making Mr. Burns' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns,_Baby_Burns genuinely]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Can%27t_Buy_Me_Love nice]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hunka_Hunka_Burns_in_Love moments]] utterly meaningless.
408** In Rosebud, it's revealed that Mr. Burns is still alive ''[[TimeAbyss one million years from now.]]'' At which point the world has become a Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes with numerous Homers running around. Given Mr. Burns has done some genetic engineering, the mutations we've seen his nuclear waste create and the fact he's immortal, Mr. Burns could've been responsible for the apocalypse.
409** Also, in Rosebud, there's a newspaper clipping in which he credits his long life to Satan, which would explain why bile and hate keeps him alive, Satan owns him and will take his immortality away if he defies him.
410* Homer has attempted suicide multiple times (when he couldn't find a job, when he tried to stop Bart from jumping Springfield Gorge, when he couldn't grow crops on his father's farm, when his fifteen minutes of fame over bowling a perfect game were up -- to name a few, and that's not counting the foolish things he does that would get a real person killed or injured, like boxing a professional heavyweight, eating an extremely rotten hoagie, drinking dishwashing liquid, driving his bartender buddy's car off a cliff, getting electrocuted [several times by everything from lightning to [[MyLittlePanzer dangerous toys]]], getting a flower shot in his head, or trying to escape a riptide while teaching his baby daughter how to swim). In "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind," he predicts that he will do so again after losing his memory, and knows exactly how, when, and where he is likely to do so. He has been thinking about it a lot. Maybe all of his innocent buffoonery (and alcoholism) is actually an expression of deep-seated self-destructive tendencies.
411* In "Three Gays of the Condo", Moe force-feeds beer to Homer when the latter comes "dangerously" close to realizing that alcohol is actually a problem. Combine that with Moe's encouragement of Homer to become the "new Barney", and his feeding of Barney's new coffee addiction, both in "Days of Wine and D'ohses", and throw in his robbing of Homer in "The Parent Rap" ("[[LampshadeHanging Yeah, I rob now.]]"), and Moe looks like an [[TheAggressiveDrugDealer Aggressive Drug Dealer]] willing to do anything to keep his patrons addicted and paying him.
412** Potential Fridge TearJerker - given Moe's main character trait is his misery, bitterness and loneliness, he does these things because Homer, Barney, Lenny, and Carl (plus the assorted other winos who pass through in the background) are the only constants in his life. If they stop drinking, they stop coming to Moe's, they stop being there. These are his only friends, and the only way he thinks he can keep them around is by plying them with alcohol.
413* One of the most beloved and longest running gags on the series is Homer strangling his ten year old son. Think about that for a second.
414** Though a lot of later episodes do mention how brutal and abusive that is, such as "Love Is A Many Strangled Thing" and "Behind the Laughter."
415** Yes, it is Lampshaded, but not deconstructed or justified. And a few episodes after that, it's back to being PlayedForLaughs again.
416** *thinks* {{Refuge In Audacity}}.
417** The ThisExplainsSoMuch joke in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E6TodayIAmAClown Today I Am A Clown]] has many UnfortunateImplications attached to it. The episode shows that not only has Bart been severely injured multiple times but Homer and Marge have lied about how it happened to escape punishment.
418** Additionally, in "Regarding Margie", Bart says "it hurts when I swallow" after being strangled.
419* The drastic {{Flanderization}} of [[TropeNamer Ned Flanders]]? It all came after Maude's death. Or when Flanders went insane after yelling at everyone who tried and failed to fix his house (as seen in "Hurricane Neddy"), though that could have been the StartOfDarkness and Maude's death was the last straw.
420** "Hurricane Neddy" showed that Ned has been repressing anger for decades, leading him to release it after the destruction of his house. Given how utterly devastated he must have been by Maude's death, he's probably venting his frustration through religion, and at the same time tries to be as non-aggressive as possible due to his high moral standards. [[JerkassWoobie Poor guy probably thinks he'll be damned if he acts out in genuine rage.]]
421*** Dr. Foster says that Ned's {{Verbal Tic}}s, such as "diddly" and "okily-dokily" were how his anger would manifest. In "Lisa the Vegetarian", the whole Flanders family is shown saying "diddly-doodily", "okily-dokily" and variants thereof, which would suggest that [[InTheBlood suppressed anger runs deep throughout the Flanders family]].
422** Ned doesn't have house insurance because he thinks it's a form of gambling. We see the results of that in this episode+-no money to purchase a new home or properly rebuild the old one. What other insurance doesn't he have? It's flat-out illegal to not have car insurance. What if he had died and left his wife and children with no financial support because he didn't have life insurance? Even now, that could happen, or he or one of his sons could be injured or get sick and be swamped with medical bills because he doesn't have health insurance either.
423*** Given nothing is certain except for death and taxes. It is likely Ned at least puts money away for Health and Life Insurance for his family.
424*** And Ned would never be one to disobey the law, so he probably has car insurance as well, since we see him driving in multiple episodes.
425** Also FridgeHorror the third future episode-one of other visions Professor Frink has, "Ned's Revenge", has Future Ned [[BewareTheNiceOnes impaling Homer]]. Maude's death and having to deal with years of penting up his anger must've made him want to pay Homer back for causing Maude's death.
426*** Even creepier? Ned was smiling while impaling Homer.
427** This could be {{Canon}}. In "You Kent Always Say What You Want" Rod and Todd seem concerned when he's going through TV shows to intentionally find something offensive, saying they need a new mommy.
428* Homer has been getting dumber as time passes. However, given the head injuries he's suffered, his increasing stupidity may not be a result of flanderization but rather severe brain trauma caused by many unfortunate injuries. Any flashback of Homer being stupid long before these may be a result said injuries turning him into an UnreliableNarrator. Made worse by the fact that the first major injury Homer suffered was in Season 2, which happened due to trying to stop Bart from attempting to jump over the Springfield-Homer's HairTriggerTemper towards Bart may be somewhat justified.
429** He does say that he had brain damage after being in a coma in the clip show, so this could be the case.
430* [[http://www.screwattack.com/news/top-10-sad-truths-behind-simpsons-0 This article pretty much explains dark implications of many elements of the series]]
431* A more subtle one: [[JerkassWoobie Moe Szyslak]] is known for numerous suicidal attempts, and most of the time survives due to luck. In "Future Drama" Moe has access to cloning technology so advanced that they can't tell who's the original. It's quite possible that the original Moe [[DrivenToSuicide offed himself.]] [[ParanoiaFuel It's not like we would notice.]]
432* In "Moms I'd Like to Forget it's shown that [[spoiler: Ralph Wiggum was dropped on his head as a baby.]] Considering his {{Flanderization}} have his parents been neglecting him and does he keep injuring himself?
433** This is however also an example of the Flanderization of Chief Wiggum as in the episodes ''I love Lisa'' (season 4) ''This Little Wiggy'' (season 9) he is shown as being deeply caring and protective of his son. Maybe he genuinely did get worse over the years, but season 22 Wiggum is certainly not the same man as season 4 Wiggum.
434* A potential bit of tear-jerking Fridge Horror: With Marcia Wallace's passing and the Mrs. Krabappel character being "retired", unless they plan on simply [[DemotedToExtra having her seen but not heard]], Ned will be a widower... again.
435** Edna has now been confirmed to be dead onscreen with a scene showing Ned (and Nelson) remembering her fondly.
436* In ''Bart's Comet'', the only damage the caused by the comet is the destruction of Ned's bomb shelter - the one that pretty much the entire town had been using until a few minutes before the comet hit.
437* In "Catch 'Em if You Can," Marge and Homer plan on going to Ohio to visit Homer's uncle Tyrone. They decide to go to Miami as a getaway, and Bart and Lisa find them out due to a weather report of a tornado ripping through Dayton. Since Uncle Tyrone is never seen or mentioned again, it's possible he was killed by the tornado.
438** The Dayton hotel where Homer and Marge planned on staying is utterly devastated by the tornado, and they're only spared because of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to Florida for a second honeymoon. They had planned on taking, at a minimum, Bart and Lisa to the party and only didn't bring them along because they begged not to go, with Bart threatening to give himself diarrhea on the plane ("I know how!"). If they'd had the kids along, they never would have switched flights and the entire family would have been killed.
439* In "22 Short Films About Springfield", one subplot involves Snake and Chief Wiggum captured by Herman in his weapons shop and having them tied up until "Zed shows up". Sure it is a parody of ''Film/PulpFiction'' but those who have seen the film would realize that if it wasn't for Milhouse and his dad showing up before Zed does, the said viewers could imagine that Zed and Herman would do something unspeakable to Snake and Chief Wiggum "in the end"!
440* It's played for laughs, but a nuclear plant owner as greedy as Mr. Burns and a nuclear plant safety inspector as dumb as Homer, as well as a police chief as dumb as Wiggum, probably causes a lot of deaths.
441* In "Homer the Vigilante" there is this exchange:- Kent Brockman: "Hordes of panicky people seem to be evacuating the town for some unknown reason. Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?" Professor: "Mmm, yes I would, Kent." So, what if some people listened and did?
442* At the end of "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner," Artie goes to prison and makes a lot of inmates angry when he puts out their cigarettes. Other than a non canon Treehouse of Horror episode, we haven't seen Artie since. It's quite possible that poor Artie got shanked or beaten to death in prison.
443** Thankfully, that would be a "no". He's back and perfectly fine in "Hail to the Teeth".
444* In "Scenes From A Class Struggle In Springfield", Marge goes to her sisters' apartment to ask if they have any classy clothes she can borrow. One of the outfits she tries on is a tacky, oversized red leather dress, which is comical enough, but the fridge horror sets in with the next dress she tries on, a pink and ridiculously tight minidress that, according to Patty, was originally a Halloween costume but has since "worked its way back into our regular wardrobe". If that dress was too ill-fitting for slim Marge, one can only imagine how it looked [[BrainBleach on Patty or Selma's frames...]]
445* At the end of "Lisa the Drama Queen", Lisa lets her former best friend ride off into the night because Lisa wants to live in reality. She let an 8 year old girl ride off alone at night, who knows what could have happened to her, especially since she's a OneShotCharacter.
446* In "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", Bob threatens Springfield at the air show on tv, telling them that if they don't get rid of all television, he'll detonate a atomic bomb, and he shuts the screen off. People murmur. Then, Sideshow Bob comes back on to say he's aware of the irony of appearing on tv to complain about it, so don't bother using that logic on him, and shuts the tv off again. Only then, the people start panicking and running away.
447* In another Sideshow Bob-related episode, "Cape Feare" when he is driving around the neighborhood declaring who will ''not'' be murdered by him, he not only omits Bart's name, but you notice how he doesn't mention Rod and Todd by name, either.
448** It was probably just a mistake on Bob's part. He's probably unaware that the Flanders family has kids, or if he is, he just forgot to mention them.
449* Elon Musk, creator of electric cars, is vilified by Springfield after Mr. Burns decides to sack most of his staff and send Springfield into economic collapse, [[EvilisPetty all because he wouldn't turn a ridiculously high profit]]. Mr. Burns is a member of the Stonecutters, who sing about how they ''"held back the electric car"''. Springfield's economic downturn was most likely a powerplay [[StatusQuoIsGod so that the locals would continue to fund the Stonecutter's excessive lifestyle]].
450** And speaking of the Stonecutters, they really were not kidding about holding back the development of the electric car, as in the episode ''Beyond Blunderdome'' we discover that the best electric car that 1999 has to offer channels the power of Thor's hammer when submerged in water to kill all those around it. Any major flood that hits Springfield (such as "Mom and Pop Art" that came just five episodes prior to this) is running the risk of electrocuting far more than just some fish.
451* "Marge Be Not Proud" has become known as an infamous example in Marge not showing Bart any affection after he did something horrible. This leads Bart to fear that his mother doesn't love him anymore, which would certainly qualify for FridgeHorror in itself if it weren't within the story. But what if something terrible happened to Bart, like a serious injury, a heartbreaking experience, childhood trauma, etc.? Would she STILL not show any affection for Bart then? It doesn't help that, not counting the 138th Episode Spectacular, this episode was immediately after [[ArchEnemy Sideshow Bob's]] Last Gleaming…
452* How was [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E6ItchyAndScratchyTheMovie Maggie able to get into Homer's car and go on a joyride]]? With the obvious RuleOfFunny out of the way, it wouldn't be too out-of-character for Homer to have left his keys in the ignition... So not only was Bart unfairly punished, he was punished for Homer's screwup.
453* In "Mypods and Broomsticks", when Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney were bullying Bashir, Kearney mentions "I'm going to punch you extra hard because I find you cute!"... remember that Bashir is around Bart's age and Kearney has been said to be either a teen or an adult...
454* It's revealed in "Much Apu About Something" that Homer allowed Bart to see "A Clockwork Orange" at age 5... Bart saw the movie at age 5!!!! Let that sink in readers... oh and he probably saw the parts with rape too!
455** [[FridgeBrilliance That does explain why he has an Alex costume in "Treehouse of Horror III.""]]
456* Sideshow Bob has demonstrated to have a taste for Bart's blood in a Halloween episode.
457** Sure, the ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS27E5TreehouseOfHorrorXXVI Treehouse of Horror XXVI]]'' segment "Wanted: Dead, then Alive" features some ([[FoeRomanceSubtext possibly romantic]]) subtext between Sideshow Bob and Bart (Bob even goes further when he decides to revive his ArchEnemy because it brought him some excitement in his life); but on the other hand, Music/ElvisCostello's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU_zMvaX05Q "Accidents Will Happen"]],[[note]]a song about "the gamesmanship of romance" and "a kiss-off to a lover given her walking papers for crimes both real and imagined"[[/note]] played in the background of Bart's DeathMontage, may be this, since the song implies Bob to be a pedophile or a MemeticMolester [[RapeAndRevenge taking revenge toward Bart]]. Perhaps the song is a bit too... unsettling. Well, that... and the "I ♥ Bart" tattoo on Bob's back and the [[ILoveTheDead necrophilia between both of them]].
458*** There's also that time where he kidnaps Bart and sings to him "I've grown accustomed to his face! And dream of [[EyeScream gouging out his eyes]]!"
459* In the episode where Lisa competes in the Spelling Bee, Homer is hopelessly addicted to ribwiches which gives him "the shakes". Shakes are a symptom of consuming human meat. [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies Just what the hell are in those sandwiches]]?!
460** [[{{Squick}} Think smaller, think more legs]]"
461* [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-simpsons-are-extradimensional-beings-created-by-futurama/ As talked about on here,]] the entire fabric of reality and the space time continuum is in a constant flux, who knows when their reality will be shattered completely?
462* A meteor initially mistaken for a harmless comet, once pierced the skies of Springfield, and after shrinking to the size of a baseball, it strikes Ned Flanders' bomb shelter, completely destroying it. Some time later, a hurricane hit the town, and only Ned's house (no one else's) was destroyed or even damaged. And over the course of several years later, Ned loses two wives. Does God actually have it out for Ned for some reason?
463** In "Hurricane Neddy", he did compare himself to Job.
464** On the one hand Ned and the Flanders family in general have been shown to have God's ear to an astonishing level such as "A Star is Burns" where a quick prayer is all that it takes for God to immediately save Todd from drowning (and to receive an ''OK'' hand gesture from the All Mighty Himself). On the other, such as in the episode "Mr Plow," he is shown to be a spiteful and vindictive character who deliberately melted all of the snow in Springfield just to stop Homer and Barney from becoming closer friends. This all leads to the terrifying conclusion that the God of ''The Simpsons'' is not only prone to bouts of nepotism (he clearly doesn't save everyone's life who prays to him) but is also perfectly willing to let horrible things happen to those exact same people as mentioned in the OP. It almost seems as if this God is a believer in reverse karma: for every good deed that he does for you, he will repay you with a bad deed later on.
465* In one episode where Lisa is being bullied by a teacher, Homer has to get Edna to help. Edna does this by sending Bart to be the new teacher's student. In the two minutes that the teacher was in the bathroom, Bart has managed to basically destroy the classroom and terrify the other students. A hint that Bart may have been holding back the whole time!
466** Even worse, Lisa gently suggests that the teacher only has to be nice and like her in order for Lisa to stop Bart. The teacher gets HORRIFIED and refuses, quitting instead. Just how much did she hate Lisa, a child?!
467** Or maybe Edna had him under control pretty well.
468** Edna is a sour individual, but at the end of the day, she usually doesn't do much to get Bart riled up besides being a teacher. Lisa's new teacher made her school-life a living hell, and as crass as he is, Bart isn't without a BigBrotherInstinct.
469* The ultimate fate of Homer once he gets thrown into the third dimension in Treehouse of Horror 6. Not only is he homeless, jobless, friendless and in a place he has no knowledge of; he also does not exist on any government database in the world. Technically speaking, not only is he no longer an American citizen (and thus no social security to add to his misery) but he isn't a citizen of anywhere on Earth. He is basically Tom Hanks in ''Film/TheTerminal.'' Then there is the fact that he is obviously not a normal human being. Fortunately finding himself in 1995 rather than 1895 means that he ''may'' be able to get away with being yellow and out of proportion to everyone else although normal socialization would still be difficult; but we cannot ignore the fact that he fell from the sky at speed and crash landed without a bruise, cut or break so clearly he still has at least some of his previous durability and HealingFactor left (such as being able to survive a drawbridge closing on his head). That is going to get some people very interested in seeing what makes him tick once they find out. His only hope seems to be that this really is ''our'' universe as opposed to somewhere else and he is smart enough to exploit the fame and money that being the actual Homer Simpson made flesh would bring.
470* In "Lisa the Veterinarian", Bart pulls a prank in the indoor water park that the waters are infested with the fish that can "swim up people's wieners". It's mostly played for laughs, but its nerve-wracking when one considers the fact that [[AluminumChristmasTrees there's a fish in the wild that can do just that]], a parasitic catfish known scientifically as "Vandellia cirrhosa", or commonly known as "candiru".
471* Remember the TV channel showing the hotel toilet in "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo"? It may have been funny when Homer used it to (inadvertently) horrify the family, but you then realize the potential for perversion and invasion of privacy that such a channel provides...
472* In "The Blunder Years", Smithers Jr saw his father die in a rather gruesome way. Luckily he was just a baby when it happened, but it doesn't mean he didn't notice that something was wrong.
473* In "Itchy & Scratchy Land" the Simpsons watch a car (and, therefore, its occupants) having an accident and catching fire, ''without raising an eyebrow!''
474* Ralph Wiggum is constantly the butt of jokes about how dumb he is, and many people suspect he has a mental disorder. But Ralph is also the son of the police chief, making him a target for all the criminals of Springfield. What if Ralph's condition is actually the result of trauma from being kidnapped?
475* The Treehouse of Horror XIII segment ''The Island of Dr. Hibbert'' has Dr. Hibbert mutating people into animals. He mutates Lisa into an owl who's all too willing to eat anteater Maggie and is only stopped by Homer. That's already horrifying and it contradicts Lisa being vegetarian. When Homer decides being an animal would be better, the next scene has him as a walrus and Maggie is nowhere to be seen. Did Lisa succeed in eating Maggie and did her parents let her?
476** Did she eat Bart as well? He is not there either...
477*** Since the story is non-canon we can rest easy.
478* "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" had a cemetery moved behind the Simpsons' house.
479** A hand pops out of the ground which Gravedigger Billy dismisses as a mere tree branch [[BlatantLies with a nice wristwatch]]. Was somebody buried alive?
480** Dr. Nick appears with a bag of body parts. He tells Lisa that she has a checkup with him soon, and when Lisa says she doesn't go to Dr. Nick anymore, he quickly runs off. Why did Dr. Nick think he had an appointment with Lisa, and why exactly does he have a bag of disembodied parts?
481* In "Bart The Lover", Sparkle gives Lisa an autographed picture of a different performer. Sparkle then tells her "That's the old Sparkle" mournfully. Considering that her boss was seen as somewhat uncaring, this has some darker implications.
482* The Treehouse of Horror XX segment ''Don't Have a Cow, Mankind''; before Dr. Hibbert is devoured alive by the munchers, he tells the Simpson family that if they see his wife, tell her that he loved her. But Simpsons never encounter Bernice and [[DeadAllAlong she is no where to be seen...]]
483* At the end of "Homer the Smithers," Mr. Burns, after surviving a fall out of a window, is bedridden, both of his arms are in casts, and Smithers is shown spoon-feeding him. FridgeHorror sets in when you realize that Smithers, as his caretaker, is going to be stuck doing a ''lot'' more than just merely feeding him. And YMMV, but the fact that Smithers may enjoy ''all'' of it possibly makes this worse. *shudder*
484* According to "Barthood", Grandpa Abe only has five years--or ''fewer''--to live.
485** For what it's worth, other flash forward episodes like ''Holidays of Future Past'' and ''Mr. Lisa's Opus'' show him living longer.
486* In ''Homer Badman'', Homer takes a piece of candy off of a babysitter's pants. The babysitter, not knowing this, thinks he's sexually harassing her and launches a crusade against him. While we sympathize with Homer because he meant nothing bad by it, the Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize... He did commit Sexual Harassment. Unwanted physical contact, especially on a person's more vulnerable areas, counts as Sexual Harasment and even Sexual Assault by the law, regardless of whether it was intended that way or not. While the crusade against him did go way too far, the babysitter is completely right in that Homer did sexually harass her, and if she had actually taken him to court, Homer would be in jail and possibly on a Sex Offenders registration...
487** On a similar note Patty and Selma were in line for being registered as sex offenders this has a lot of chilling implications.
488*** It's possible that Patty and Selma were actually queueing for something else but got in the wrong line by mistake.
489* "Code of the Schoolyard" in Springfield Elementary School is a thing, It’s where children amongst themselves are expected to always make fun of those different from them. Does this mean it promotes racism and other forms of prejudice?
490* "Bart-Mangled Banner"; after Dr. Hibbert succesfully vaccinated Bart, he turns to Moe who was dressed up like him and says he wasn't needed. Moe then replies that he enjoyed being Hibbert and mentions that Hibbert himself ''isn't welcome to the library anymore''. Given that Moe is perverted this line becomes much more darker...
491* Also in "Bart-Mangled Banner", the Rich Texan claims that the Stars and Stripes is the flag his grandfather rebelled against. This may seem chronologically unlikely, but it is not - if RT's grandfather was born in 1840 and fought in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar when he was 21-25, had RT's father when he was 50 in 1890, and RT's father had him at 50 in 1940, RT would be 64 when the episode came out in 2004, an age he looks like.
492* "A Tale of Two Springfields" has Homer wearing a vest strapped with dynamite at the town hall meeting. At one point, he attempts to set it off, but doesn't succeed because Bart wired it wrong. What would have happened if Bart did it correctly?
493** Well sure, Bart knows his explosives too well to make mistakes, but he also knows his dad. It's pretty clear [[EveryoneHasStandards he set Homer up with a dud vest on purpose so that he could have the fun of threatening the town without the consequences of getting blown to bits]].
494* Nuclear youtuber Creator/KyleHill noted [[https://youtu.be/3D--jytkUW8 in this video]] that the fuel rod Homer handles in the intro doesn't look like a typical Uranium or Plutonium fuel rod; it looked like a rod of Cobalt-60, one of the most dangerous nuclear isotopes known to man, so much that, not only is it the ideal material for making a bomb designed to spread as much radioactive contamination as possible, but a ten minute exposure from a full meter away is certain death.
495* "Bart the Murderer":
496** While treating 10-year-old Bart like an adult when it's thought that he arranged Skinner's murder, Springfield's court system stops short of actually ordering his execution per his earlier NightmareSequence, instead discussing a life sentence--but it's hard to imagine that would have been a very long sentence given that his cellmate was ''[[WouldHurtAChild Sideshow Bob]].'' Which brings up the question of why he was placed with someone with a known grudge against him, and whether [[DoWithHimAsYouWill there was an attempt to achieve the result of a death sentence through less official means]].
497** Skinner explains that he spent a week trapped under a pile of newspapers in his garage, staying alive by eating his mother's canned preserves and staying sane by dribbling a basketball. What he understandably doesn't mention is that he would have spent most of the week [[{{Squick}} lying in his own urine and excrement]].
498* Flanders displays some casual religious fanaticism at the end of "Mom and Pop Art". He's joyfully persuaded "the lord drown the wicked and spared the righteous" and is then disappointed to see Homer alive.
499* In "Bart After Dark", Marge warns Homer that the furnace has been letting off carbon monoxide. Later on, Bart says that he needs fresh air. The UsefulNotes/NationalHealthService suggests going outside as a way of tackling carbon monoxide poisoning (CO has no taste or smell, so you cannot test for it without using a detector).
500* In "Grade School Confidential," Edna and Seymour bribe Bart into [[SecretKeeper keeping their affair a secret]] by transferring his permanent record, which they claim will disqualify him from "all but the hottest and noisiest jobs," to Milhouse, with Seymour stating that "some other student can inherit your gloomy, windblown future." Does this explain why, up to this point, the future of the show has had Bart eventually [[RidiculouslySuccessfulFutureSelf making it all the way to the Supreme Court]], while Milhouse is working with Homer at the Springfield Power Plant?
501* In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken," the kids collectively strike back at Springfield's adults for instituting a children's curfew by starting a pirate radio station where they air the secrets of every adult in town until the curfew is lifted. Most of these secrets are simply embarrassing (Chief Wiggum likes to wear control-top pantyhose, Edna Krabappel steals supplies from the school cafeteria), but they also reveal that Luann, Milhouse's mom, is cheating on her current boyfriend with his best friend. They could have gotten somebody in ''lethal'' trouble.
502* The episode "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble" features a PrinceAndPauper scenario involving Bart and Simon Woosterfield, a ten-year-old boy so rich he stands to inherit more money than Mr. Burns. Bart quickly realizes that Simon has duped him into serving as a decoy for his two older half-siblings, who were cut out of their inheritance when Simon was born and are now bent on murdering him; their latest attempt only fails because Homer [[BigDamnHeroes arrives to save Bart just in time]]. Simon is happy enough to go back to his cushy lifestyle at the end, but his siblings are still trying to kill him, and his own parents seem to be [[ParentalNeglect totally absent]].
503* The end of "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII"'s 'Simpsonsworld' segment, the Simpsons family we followed escaped. Yay! Except, in this setting, not only are they in a hub of animated series-inspired theme parks operated by robots, humans in-universe do not look the way the Simpsons do. Even if they make it out of the Bob's Burgers park, their yellow skin and four fingers ensure they'll still be immediately detected if they travel ANYWHERE people live and given Homer killed two tourists in the Simpsonsworld hedge and Marge hit at least one person with the Canyonero, it's quite likely when caught they'll be demolished rather than reprogrammed.
504* In the "Kids v. Adults" song, Moe threatens to drown the kids "just like cats". While this may have been an empty threat towards the kids, it still implies he sees drowning cats as normal. Even worse, he's ''holding Snowball II in a bag''. (Thankfully, she jumps out).
505* In "I Love Lisa," Lisa's BigNo reaction to Ralph's declaration of love was humiliating enough for both of them at the time. Just imagine when they have to see it year after year in future Krusty anniversary shows, when the clip will surely take its place alongside the urine monkey and Sideshow Mel's drunken rant.
506* In "Two Cars In Every Garage And Three Eyes On Every Fish" Bart caught Blinky. Bart clearly keeps Blinky out of the water for a while and Marge later served Blinky for dinner, implying that Bart did not throw Blinky back. Yet Burns managed to include a three-eyed fish in his commercial. Clearly (as later episodes show) Blinky wasn't the only three-eyed fish and Burns' knew this. So this suggests the mutation problem was actually worse than people realise but Burns was hiding this (which is entirely in character).
507* In "To Cur With Love" has a glimpse of Dr. Hibbert's memoir ''Crying on the Inside''; given how it's mentioned in "Make Room For Lisa" that learning to laugh saved him from a early grave just makes you wonder how much he bottles his emotions inside.
508* In "Flanders' Ladder" has Bart dreaming of dead people including Shary Bobbins from "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious," who specifically mentions getting revenge on jet engines. This implies he must have seen her get sucked into the jet engine and witnessed her death. Some Fridge Brilliance here, as he's the only family member who we don't see turn away from the event.
509* In "The Mansion Family" it is revealed that Mr. Burns has every single disease in the world, as well as new diseases discovered inside of him. While Burns himself suffers no ill effects due to the "Three Stooges Syndrome" can the more contagious diseases still [[TyphoidMary spread]] to other people?
510* In "The Old Man and the Lisa" (season 8) Burns lost his fortune and ended up broke, having to move in with Smithers and collect cans for money. Then in "The Trouble with Trillions" (season 9) Burns was revealed to have stolen a trillion dollar bill back in the 40s. So, Burns would still have had the trillion dollars during season 8. Of course, selling the trillion dollar bill may have been difficult (and, in the real world, we recognise that that plot simply hadn't been thought of yet) so this doesn't completely contradict the earlier episode.
511* In ''Recap/TheSimpsonsS34E22HomersAdventuresThroughTheWindshieldGlass'', we learn that Marge keeps getting $1,000 dollars from her dead father as a part of his will, money she's been using to help the family during serious emergencies. Later, Homer is in Hell, and so in Marge's Dad. We learn that Marge's Dad is in Hell because he forged checks. Meaning that all the money Marge has been receiving from her father's will was probably stolen via those forged checks, and if anyone ever got wise to how Marge's Dad got his money, then it, as well as any cash Marge already spent from the will, could be demanded back, drying up Marge's emergency funds.
512
513!!The Video Games
514
515[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
516* It took me a while to realize why ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsHitAndRun'' has that name. Then, while sitting around doing something completely unrelated to WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons, I realized the reason. It's a ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' clone, so they named it after a different vehicular crime.
517* In [[VideoGame/TheSimpsons the arcade game]], ever notice how Marge is player 1 while Homer is player 2? This actually reflects her position as the one who wears the pants in the family. As for Bart and Lisa, Bart is probably player 3 simply because he's older than Lisa (player 4).
518
519!!The Comics
520
521[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
522* In the ''Bartman'' comic "When Bongos Collide", a nuclear explosion gives most of Springfield's population super powers. Bart isn't there at the time, so he isn't affected. He investigates in his Bartman persona which is heavily based on ''Franchise/{{Batman}}''. Batman is known for being one of Creator/DCComics' few superheroes who doesn't have any super powers.
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