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1This page covers tropes found in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.
2
3TheSimpsons/TropesAToB | TheSimpsons/TropesCToD | TheSimpsons/TropesEToH | TheSimpsons/TropesIToM | '''Tropes N To R''' | TheSimpsons/TropesSToZ | [[YMMV/TheSimpsons YMMV]]
4
5----
6
7[[foldercontrol]]
8!!Tropes with their own pages
9[[index]]
10* [[NoodleIncident/TheSimpsons Noodle Incident]]
11* [[NotAllowedToGrowUp/TheSimpsons Not Allowed To Grow Up]]
12* [[PoliceAreUseless/TheSimpsons Police are Useless]]
13* [[QuoteSource/TheSimpsons Quote Source]]
14* [[RunningGag/TheSimpsons Running Gag]]
15[[/index]]
16
17!!Other Tropes
18[[folder:N]]
19* NativeAmericanCasino: Marge (who has a gambling problem) gambles away the family car during a stop at a casino just to ask for directions. In the same episode, Homer makes an Indian chief promise him that they will build a casino in exchange for Homer breaking the dam that has flooded the natives' valley. The chief says Homer will also be offered free breakfasts.
20* NatureTinkling:
21** In "On a Clear Day, I Can't See My Sister", Lisa puts a HollywoodRestrainingOrder on Bart, forcing him to keep a ludicrous distance from his sister. At one point, he decides to urinate outdoors rather than go home to use the bathroom while Lisa is visiting a friend as Marge suggests.
22** Bart begs Homer to pull over so he can "drain the inchworm" in "At Long Last Leave".
23** "Gone Boy" has Bart discover an underground bunker after peeing in the woods.
24* NWordPrivileges: Parodied in "The Haw-Hawed Couple". Milhouse calls Bart a bully after he starts hanging around with Nelson, to which Bart is offended. Soon after, we see Jimbo and Kearney calling each other bullies from across the street. Milhouse asks, "How come THEY can say it?" Bart sighs and says, "They just can, OK?"
25* NaturalSpotlight: Straight sometimes and parodied sometimes.
26* NegativeContinuity: Functionally the TropeCodifier. The first couple of seasons just didn't pay too close attention to any sort of storyline, barring the introduction of what would become many, many characters, and by the third season started [[LampshadeHanging making a few sly comments]] on the stagnation of the characters and ResetButton for the next episode. Eventually outright confirmed as canon by the producers, who plan to end the series, if and when that time should come, by literally going back to the beginning, effectively turning the show into an endless loop.
27** By the fourth season stories that involved Mr. Burns would have him react as though he hadn't heard of Homer before, and Smithers responding with "One of your employees in sector 7G." While this could also imply a BeneathNotice attitude, the persistency only reiterated how whatever Homer did in an episode he would be back at the plant by the next.
28** Major events and notable stories are still generally assumed to have happened, and there have been multiple changes to the status quo that has stuck. In one episode Apu had octuplets with his wife, leading to later gags about being a burned out dad. Maude Flanders outright died in season ten. Sideshow Bob will almost always get a rundown of his past crimes, in the eighth season they even say his ArchEnemy Bart exposed him as a criminal eight years ago despite the fact Bart would have been ''two years old'' then.
29** Every season basically takes place in the same year as when it was produced. This leaves much of the show more in ComicBookTime with all characters as the same basic age. Homer and Marge originally were in high school together in the 70's, with Grampa Simpson a WWII vet being plausible. As the show lasted decades, those dates became less and less valid. A sixth season episode "Lisa's Wedding" aired in 1995 and was a FlashForward set 15 years later in 2010. By 2019 Lisa no longer was even born when that episode was set.
30* NerdGlasses: One of the indignities suffered by Bart in "The Last Temptation Of Homer" is him needing to wear these.
31** Homer finds and starts wearing a pair of Nerd Glasses in "$pringfield", inadvertently saving his job because Mr. Burns mistakes him for a "egghead".
32* NerdsSpeakKlingon: Comic Book Guy, mainly.
33** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E21ThreeMenAndAComicBook Three Men and a Comic Book]]": Comic Book Guy mentions that he has a Masters in Folklore and Mythology, part of which involved translating ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' into Klingon.
34** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E11WorstEpisodeEver Worst Episode Ever]]":After he gets thrown out of Moes, Comic Book Guy ask himself "Is there a word in Klingon for loneliness?", looks in his pocket dictionary. "oh, yes. [[SkywardScream Garr'dock!]]".
35** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E17MyBigFatGeekWedding My Big Fat Geek Wedding]]": When Comic Book Guy tries to get married to Edna Krabappel it is conducted in Klingon; apparently the guests (sci-fi convention attendees) can all understand it.
36--->'''Comic Book Guy:''' Edna, the Klingons have a romantic saying. ''[speaks Klingon]'' Roughly translated it means I would kill the children of a thousand planets just to see you smile.\
37'''Edna:''' Oh, that is the most romantic thing I've ever heard. Which is kinda sad if you think about it.
38** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS22E10MomsIdLikeToForget Moms I'd Like to Forget]]"
39--->'''Comic Book Guy:''' The answer is no, and I can say it in [[Film/{{Avatar}} Na'vi]] and Klingon, which are pretty much the same. I have some theories about that, which I will share with you never.
40* NestedStory: The episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story". The story has many layers and narrations with narrations.
41* NeverASelfMadeWoman:
42** Inverted, in one episode of ''The Simpsons''. Lisa laments that since her father Homer is kind of an idiot, she fears that she'll ultimately fail in life due to his genes. So, he gathers up relatives from all over the country and finds that the female members of the family, and only the female members, have intelligent, fulfilling careers. Homer and Bart are crestfallen but then quickly accept the fact that most of the male line are thick-headed idiots. They even participate in a headbutting contest.
43*** One made all the more confusing by the show's NegativeContinuity. Herbert Powell, Homer's half-brother, is a flat out success in business twice over.
44*** Homer has proven to be a successful song-writer and Bart has been shown numerous times to [[BrilliantButLazy have potential for success that is usually hindered by his laziness]].
45** Marge doesn't seem to understand the idea of a woman being successful on her own merits. In "The President Wore Pearls", when Springfield Elementary School teachers dressed Lisa up, Marge said she seemed so successful and compared her to "the wife of a businessman".
46** When the family went to Africa, they found Dr. Joan Bushwell's chimp refuge and Marge initially assumed Dr. Bushwell was a man who named the place after his wife. She was shocked when Lisa told her Dr. Bushwell is a woman.
47** It's rather ironic considering there was an episode where Marge became a [[SelfMadeMan Self-Made Woman]] by opening an {{Expy}} of Curves Gyms.
48* NeverBringAFriendToAnAudition:
49** The backstory of Cecil Terwiliger, younger brother of Sideshow Bob, in "Brother From Another Series" has him trying out for the role of Krusty's sidekick, only for the Clown to express disgust at the lack of dignity he has after being pied in the face. He then throws it at an unsuspecting Bob (who wasn't considered for the role and only accompanied his brother), whose shocked reaction garnered him the role, to Cecil's lasting bitterness and jealousy.
50** Defied in "Radioactive Man". In auditions for Fallout Boy, the director spots Martin Prince and cites how he'd be perfect for the role. However, since his assistant is unable to identify him since he didn't register, he immediately dismisses him and says choosing him would be unfair to the other boys who did fill out audition forms.
51* NeverHadToys: In "Homer's Enemy", Frank Grimes, as part of his HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood, never received toys because he was abandoned at four years old and instead delivered them to rich and loving families as one of his jobs. The only possessions he has to show for his hard life, aside from his physics degree from a remote college, are his briefcase and personalized pencils.
52* NeverLearnedToRead:
53** Homer, apparently, as mentioned in "When You Dish Upon a Star".
54--->'''Homer:''' I can't read.\
55'''Kim Basinger:''' But you just read that card from the Gersh Agency.\
56'''Homer:''' I recognized the logo.
57*** Which is inconsistent even within that episode, as Homer is clearly able to write (his screenplay about the [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} Killer robot driving instructor who travels back in time for some reason]]).
58** As revealed in "Krusty Gets Busted", Krusty is totally illiterate. Somewhere along the line, though, he must have learned how to read, because he's been seen reading cue cards and written speeches in subsequent episodes.
59** When Principal Skinner didn't want Edna to win an award, Bart made it look like he never learned to read and it was her fault for not teaching him.
60* NeverMyFault:
61** While it doesn’t absolve Bart of responsibility many episode have Marge and Homer trying to understand why Bart acts the way he does despite it being shown many times that he’s mostly acting out to gain [[AttentionWhore attention]] due to ParentalNeglect. Many episodes have shown Bart becoming much better behaved when someone (and not just his parents) takes an interest in him.
62** Marge can arguably be considered the worse of the two as despite being just as responsible most of the time she will often shift responsibility on to Homer.
63** Skinner will often ignore his responsibility for problem’s he’s caused or shift the blame onto someone else.
64** Stop to “Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelt” for Skinner it was finally telling Chalmers off by challenging him to teach Bart. For Chalmer’s it was doing just that.
65* NeverRecycleABuilding: Parodied and averted in one episode where Homer tries to hide in an AbandonedWarehouse... only to find it's now no longer abandoned.
66* NeverSayDie: Occasionally lampooned, but otherwise it's fully averted.
67** Louie expresses surprise at seeing disgraced actor Troy [=McClure=], having believed him to be dead because his boss told him he 'sleeps with the fishes.' Turns out it wasn't a euphemism for death, but [[BestialityIsDepraved rather a euphemism for his alleged sexual fetish involving marine life]].
68** Ned Flanders has shown himself to be reluctant to just come out and tell Marge about Homer's "death" in the season 7 episode, "Mother Simpson":
69--->'''Ned:''' Marge, we're here because of Homer's, you know, passing...\
70''[beat]''\
71'''Ned:''' Away...\
72''[beat]''\
73'''Ned:''' ...Into death...
74** Also spoofed in the first act of an early ''[[Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow Tracey Ullman Show]]''-era short, "The Funeral." After the parents tell Bart and Lisa that their elderly uncle had passed away, Lisa asks what "passed away" means. Bart, taking sadistic glee in explaining what it means, uses various not-very-appropriate euphemisms such as "kicked the bucket," "pulled the croak chain," "had a meeting with ol' Mr. Grim," etc. When Homer scolds him for it, Bart glumly says, "That he died."
75* NeverSleepAgain: From "Lisa's First Word" when Bart says "Can't sleep, clown will eat me."
76* NewAbilityAddiction:
77** The B-plot of "Maximum Homerdrive" had Marge and Lisa install a new doorbell, then spend it waiting for someone to ring it. When Lisa gives in and presses it herself [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor it malfunctions and won't stop]].
78** The episode "Radio Bart" has Bart start labelling everything he owns near the beginning after getting a label machine for his birthday. This ends up being a ChekhovsGag when he realises he left his name on a radio he was using to impersonate TimmyInAWell for a prank and has to retrieve it.
79* NewAgeRetroHippie: Homer's mom Mona, although she's much more sympathetic and less out-there than many [=NARTHs=].
80* NewBabyEpisode:
81** The episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E7EightMisbehavin Eight Misbehavin']]" has supporting character Apu decide he wants to start a family, but his wife Manjula ends up giving birth to [[TooManyBabies octoplets]] due to fertility drugs.
82** "I Married Marge" focuses on Homer and Marge telling the story of how they got married because she was pregnant with Bart, their tribulations of Homer being unemployed after quitting his minimum wage job. The memory ends with Homer being hired at the power plant, and Bart being born right after.
83** "Lisa's First Word" centers on how Homer and Marge bought the house they live in now, Bart's initial jealousy of baby Lisa, and how saying her first word "Bart" made them bond.
84** "And Maggie Makes Three," has Homer explain why there are no pictures of Maggie in the family's photo album. Homer says that once his debts were paid off, he quit his well-paying job at the plant, [[HappinessInMinimumWage and worked his dream job as a pin monkey]], but when he found out Marge was pregnant again, he went and begged Mr. Burns to hire him again. Homer was at first miserable that he has to once again work at a job he hates, but at the very end, we find out that he posted Maggie's photos in his office to remind himself why he's working at the plant.
85* NewJobEpisode:
86** More than any other franchise, ever, and an OverlyLongGag of a {{lampshade}} to show for it.
87--->'''Bart:''' Do you even ''have'' a job anymore?\
88'''Homer:''' I think it's pretty obvious that I ''don't''.
89** Lampshaded in "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife."
90--->'''Homer:''' Guess what! I quit my job as a used car salesman!\
91'''Marge:''' You work at the nuclear plant.\
92'''Homer:''' Get with the program Marge. Your husband is now an ambulance driver.
93** Also lampshaded in "Marge Gamer. Homer volunteers to referee for Lisa's soccer games and is inexplicably already dressed for it.
94--->'''Lisa:''' Dad, where'd you get that outfit?\
95'''Homer:''' I got fired from Foot Locker.
96** Marge has gotten a job in quite a few episodes: "Marge Gets a Job" (Power Plant worker), "The Springfield Connection" (police officer), "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson" (pretzel salesman), "Realty Bites" (realtor), and "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes" (baker).
97* NewspaperThinDisguise:
98** Bart goes to a counsellor, where we find Principal Skinner in the waiting room. He doesn't want Bart to see him, so he hides behind a magazine — namely "Principal's World", with his headshot on the cover.
99** In "Adventures in Baby-Getting", Bart does this when following Lisa. He sits on a bench reading a ''Playdude'' magazine, with the breasts of the woman on the cover cut out for his eyes.
100* NiceDayDeadlyNight: Parodied in "Lost Verizon"; Bart is left home alone and becomes afraid of nature at night, resulting in an OverlyLongGag of Bart afraid in the dark and happy in the day ("Night is scary." "Day is awesome!")
101* NiceToTheWaiter: Aversion: Freddy Quimby is a complete asshole to everyone, but nobody gets it worse than the french waiter who serves him. It doesn't helps Quimby when he's accused of the savage beating the waiter received. [[spoiler:He's innocent.]]
102* NietzscheWannabe: The Swedish mixed Ice Curling team, apparently, with the quote "Joy is but the shadow pain casts..."
103* NightmareFuel: Referenced in-universe in "Some Enchanted Evening":
104-->'''Bart:''' All right! ''America's Most Armed and Dangerous''!\
105'''Lisa:''' Oh no, Bart! We'll have nightmares!\
106'''Bart:''' Relax, this is cinema vérité. When the brutal, slow motion killing starts, I'll tell you to shut your eyes.
107* NightmareSequence: Numerous instances, often accompanied by the CatapultNightmare.
108* NinjaProp: In "Marge Not Be Proud", a family portrait where Bart holds up an "I Stink" dialogue balloon behind Homer:
109-->'''Homer:''' I don't remember saying that.
110* ElNinoIsSpanishForTheNino: "The Italian Bob" has this dialogue:
111-->'''Sideshow Bob:''' I hereby swear... a... VENDETTA!\
112'''Marge:''' ''[searching through an Italian-English dictionary]'' "Vendetta" means... "Vendetta"!\
113''[all Simpson family members scream]''
114* NoAccountingForTaste: Marge's marriage to Homer has been seriously questioned in the show several times, and compared to her taking care of a Manatee... ''unfavorably'' compared, since when she cared for them they gave her a sense of usefulness and accomplishment.
115* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: "Dog of Death": "NO DOGS WERE HARMED IN THE FILMING OF THIS EPISODE. A CAT GOT SICK AND SOMEBODY SHOT A DUCK, BUT THAT'S IT."
116* NoAntagonist: This is ultimately what happened with Abe and Mona’s marriage as neither was wholly in the right or wrong. A schism just formed between the two and they let it grow and fester. Abe checked out emotionally with Mona who fell in with the Hippies as a result. It’s unknown whether or not she would have taken the risks she did if Abe was more supportive of her, but it wouldn’t be fair to say that it’s his fault he had to raise Homer alone. Nor was it fair for her to hold Herb’s birth over his head given that he was conceived before they were officially together as well as use it as an escuse to cheat on him.
117* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
118** Rainier Wolfcastle bears an uncanny resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
119** Drederick Tatum might remind you of Mike Tyson.
120** Lucius Sweet. "He's one of the biggest names in boxing! [[LampshadeHanging He's exactly as rich and as famous as Don King, and he looks just like him, too!]]"
121** [[Film/MaryPoppins Sherry Bobbins]] is a completely original character, like Ricky Rouse or Monald Muck.
122** Mr. Largo's partner Geoffrey looks near identical to the show's earlier depiction of Creator/IanMcKellen, complete with a British accent.
123* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: When Homer becomes the leader of the Stonecutters lodge he gets very little satisfaction out of everyone being at his beck and call, and when they play poker they always show him their cards, etc. He changes the group so that they do good in the community, but they don't like doing that so they all quit the Stonecutters and form a new lodge, the Ancient Society of No Homers.
124* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: The only reason Homer's mother was discovered as part of the group that ruined Mr. Burn's germ lab was because, as everybody else escaped, she stopped to help someone up--who turned out to be Mr. Burns.
125* NoIndoorVoice:
126** It seems impossible for Superintendent Chalmers to say "SKIN-NER!" without shouting it. This is lampshaded quite a few times, most notably in "Marge's Son Poisoning":
127--->'''Chalmers:''' And now our next act, ''SKIN-NER!'' and Mrs. ''SKIN-NER''!
128** In part one of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", during the meeting, everyone seemed to have picked up a habit of shouting out what Burns had recently done to their lives.
129--->'''Marge:''' He's causing us all to yell!
130** Also from "Fat Man and Little Boy"
131---> '''Marge:''' Homer, use your inside voice.\
132'''Homer:''' I DON'T HAVE AN INSIDE VOICE!
133* NominatedAsAPrank: The episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS19E10EPluribusWiggum "E Pluribus Wiggum"]] had Springfield move up its primary in order to pass a bond to repair some burnt down fast food restaurants. As this put their primary as the first in the nation, prospective presidential candidates descended on the town to start campaigning there. Tired of the obnoxious pandering, the citizens of Springfield decide to write-in Ralph Wiggum for candidate. However, instead of realizing this is a protest vote, the news media treat Ralph as a [[GoneHorriblyRight serious contender for the White House]].
134* NoMoreForMe:
135** In a clip of a StylisticSuck children's show, a cat sees something astonishing, rubs its eyes, and bats away [[HighOnCatnip a small bag labeled "catnip."]]
136** In "Jaws Wired Shut", Maggie reacts to a gay dog parade by tossing her bottle away.
137** "She of Little Faith" has a drunk in a gutter throw away his bottle in disbelief after seeing a space ship (actually a model rocket Homer just launched), only for it to be caught by a passing businessman. He promptly throws away his briefcase and lies in the gutter drinking the remaining contents.
138--->'''Businessman:''' Hey! Wine!
139** In "D'oh-in In the Wind", Barney drank a bottle of organic juice which Homer had accidently made with peyote and began seeing a monster. He promptly got out a drink of alcohol, so that a more familiar {{Pink Elephant|s}} appeared and stepped on the monster, killing it. Barney's crazy all right, but he knows it well enough to choose to stick with the version produced by his current addiction (alcohol).
140--->'''Barney:''' Thanks, Pinkie! You've always been there for me!
141** "Lisa Goes Gaga" takes this trope to the extreme with Cletus, his pregnant wife, their children and their unborn child throwing away their bottles of alcohol in quick succession after seeing the Music/LadyGaga Express.
142** In TheMovie, the sight of a giant dome being lowered onto Springfield causes all the patrons of the bar to run into a church... and [[INeedAFreakingDrink all the people in the church to run into the bar]].
143* NoNavelNovelBirth: In one episode, Homer's life is invaded by an army of clones of himself. The clones, predictably enough, lack belly buttons.
144* NoNonsenseNemesis: Sideshow Bob's brother Cecil to Bart, having learnt his brother's lesson.
145* NonResidentialResidence:
146** In the episode "Natural Born Kissers", Homer and Marge steal a hot air balloon that was being used to advertise a car dealership. As the balloon flies away, [[ButtMonkey Gil the unlucky car salesman]] shouts "They took the balloon! I've been living in there!"
147** Bart's treehouse has been used as a living space at least twice; in "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", Homer lives there after being kicked out by Marge, and in "Bart Carny" the whole family lives there after Cooder and Spud locked them out of their house.
148* NoOSHACompliance:
149** The Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is a safety nightmare. There are repeated scenes of Burns doing things to try and circumvent getting shut down, from running for governor to bribing officials.
150*** If only it stopped at Mr. Burns. His employees seem to be the most incompetent gaggle of nitwits ever created. They hired Homer Simpson for crying out loud, and have not fired him after numerous accidents that came within a hair's breadth of looking like the sordid offspring of a threeway with Chernobyl, Three-Mile Island and the Love Canal... Then there's Lenny, who refitted the soda machines in Sector 7G to dispense beer if one asked for club soda. The only sane employee they ever had (Frank Grimes) killed himself after Homer showed him up during a kids' nuclear plant design contest. Homer was once able to cause a nuclear meltdown in a test environment containing no nuclear materials. The worst part is, Homer is the one in charge of the safety (which he got after Homer, ironically, led a public safety campaign against the nuclear plant. Prior to that, Homer was just a waste handler).
151*** To see how good Homer is at his job, three times he temporarily leaves his spot at reactor control station. He is replaced by a 1) chicken, 2) a brick hanging from a lever and 3) "drinking bird" plastic toy that presses the "y" button on the keyboard on every question asked.
152*** Mr. Burns' YesMan Waylon Smithers seems somewhat competent (at least compared to most of the plant's employees) but even he isn't perfect. He once admitted that one of his 2,800 duties is lying to Congress.
153*** And the icing on the cake? It's been like that for so long, that bringing it up to code would cost MILLIONS.
154*** In various episodes, we see clips of plant workers doing everything from playing chess in the reactor core to holding cockfights in the lunch room to engaging in "Nap Time" in the middle of the day. One episode started with everyone at the plant (Burns and Smithers included) sleeping on the job. They also scream and panic whenever there's an emergency, remove emergency procedure posters to make get-well-soon cards, have sword fights with nuclear rods, and engage in log-rolling contests using drums of nuclear waste.
155*** [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And perhaps worst of all,]] the employees at the nuclear plant are required to visit 3 separate rooms to get coffee, cream and sugar.
156*** The nuclear power plant does however get regular visit from safety inspectors who do point out the dangers and flaws of the plant. They are diligent enough to demand Burns fix the plants hazards and don't take cheap bribes from him.
157** Also played for laughs when Skinner and Bart were fighting over a large boiling vat of Peanut Shrimp (Bart is allergic to shrimp, Skinner is allergic to peanuts), and the ramp they are on is easily cut with the wooden sticks they were fighting with.
158** Itchy and Scratchy Land had rides where people would come within inches of being gouged by spikes and have the ride hit a buzz saw. This was before the robots revolted. Particularly bad is the part where a ride has spikes on top extend over the front seats. Apparently tall people sitting in front never occurred to them.
159** Also mentioned but not seen is the Krustyland House of Knives; Krusty swears that the tourists were decapitated BEFORE they entered it.
160** Springfield Elementary suffers from a lack of budget control. And in "The PTA Disbands" it opens with the kids riding a school bus to a field trip on a bus that's falling apart and Skinner has to ask Otto to siphon gas from another school bus.
161* NoPoverty: In Hank Scorpio's company town of Cypress Creek in "You Only Move Twice".
162* NoProductSafetyStandards: Krusty the Clown will endorse any product as long as the price is right. This has made him a favorite among manufacturers who knows that their product is toxic, infected, explosive, highly flammable or simply not working right. Clearly, it's easier to get an endorsement from Krusty than to make even a mediocre product.
163* NoSuchThingAsHR:
164** Played for comedy as there's not only no HR department to complain to at the power plant, there's absolutely no layer of management ''at all'' besides Mr. Burns.
165** Although due to the series inconsistent continuity, this does change. "Homer and Delilah" depicts an executive committee of some sort, Frank Grimes was initially supposed to be hired as an executive vice president a la "Homer's Enemy," and the episode where they go to Florida shows an on-site psychologist to help Homer with his insanity.
166* NoTimeToExplain: Parodied in "Lemon of Troy". Nelson bursts into Krabappel's class and says something terrible has happened, and that there's no time to explain. A group of fellow students run out and follow Nelson. Nelson stops to get a drink at a fountain before continuing to run.
167-->'''Milhouse:''' Are you sure it wouldn't be faster to just tell us what happened?\
168'''Nelson:''' No, I said there's no time to explain, and I stick by that!
169* NoTimeToThink: In "Homer Defined", Homer uses "Eeny, meeny, miney, moe" to guess which button to press to prevent the nuclear reactor from melting down. ...Successfully. ''...Twice.''
170* NobodysThatDumb:
171** In season 14, "The Dad Who Knew Too Little", when Lisa is framed for a crime she didn't commit and the cops sees her and Homer flees when they arrive to arrest her, Chief Wiggum said something that even his own son, [[TheDitz Ralph]], knew the answer to:
172--->'''Chief Wiggum:''' ''[to Marge]'' Would an innocent person flee?\
173''[beat]''\
174'''Chief Wiggum:''' No, really. Tell me. I honestly don't know.\
175'''Lou:''' Chief, no.\
176'''Ralph:''' Even ''I'' knew that.\
177'''Chief Wiggum:''' Yeah, yeah, I'm not... I'm not good.
178** In season 23 [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS23E14AtLongLastLeave "At Long Last Leave"]], after the Simpsons were banished from Springfield, Homer and Marge sneak back into Springfield under the disguise of Mr. Burns and Smithers. When Chief Wiggums first spots them, it appears that he fell for it but it's later revealed that he had seen through their disguises and only pretended to be fooled in order to have time to rally the people to arrest Homer and Marge.
179--->'''Chief Wiggum:''' You really thought you could fool me with that Burns and Smithers getup. I mean, I'm not the sharpest pencil in the pencil thing, but I'm least as smart as a cat. Right, Lou?\
180'''Lou:''' Uh, what breed, Chief? I mean, I saw an Abyssinian once who could change channels.\
181'''Chief Wiggum:''' Eh, that is pretty smart.
182* NonsenseClassification: Dr. Nick's recommendation, when Homer wants to gain weight: "You'll want to focus on the neglected food groups such as the whipped group, the congealed group and the chocotastic!". See the tropes page illustration.
183* NonSpecificallyForeign:
184** Dr. Nick Riviera, who is ''some'' kind of Latin (though obviously not Romanian), but we're never told which one.
185** Moe self-identified as a Dutch immigrant in one episode, although Szyslak is more Eastern European than Dutch. Another episode had Moe imagining his "inner child", who spoke with an Italian accent. So... yeah.
186** "Mom and Pop Art" had a one-shot character named Astrid Weller, who was a slightly spacey art dealer trying to promote Homer as an "outsider artist" after he smashed up a homemade barbecue and put it in a child's red wagon. Her name would suggest someone who was English, Dutch, or German... but her accent was quite vague, sounding like it could be Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, or even Russian. The safest guess would probably be "Frenchwoman of undetermined Central European ethnicity, trying to sound English and/or American." Fittingly, Astrid Weller was voiced by half-Italian, half-Swedish actress Isabella Rosselini.
187* NonStandardCharacterDesign:
188** Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are the only major characters with flesh colored hair, it's meant to be blonde but compared to the other blonde characters have more realistic hair. (The Simpsons children's hair points coming directly out of the top of their heads identical in color to their skin and with no visible dividing line between forehead and hairline.)
189*** PlayedForLaughs and heavily [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in one scene where Bart and Lisa start to panic when they realise even they don't know where their hair starts.
190*** Another episode has Homer worry about the kids getting mutated and comments on them having peach-colored skin, five fingers and normal blonde hair, by which we get a brief image of them in a completely different, more naturalistic art style.
191** Homer and some other early characters like Comic Book Guy have hair represented more like line squiggles than anything more defined. Homer's brown muzzle is meant to be PermaStubble, and while we've occasionally seen him completely clean shaven (if only briefly) only his brother Herbert shares this feature.
192** {{God}} is actually the ''only'' character in the show to ever actually be drawn with [[FourFingeredHands five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot.]]
193--->'''Creator/MattGroening:''' ''[quoting "Comic/LifeInHell"]'' The theological implications are staggering.
194** The Space Coyote in Homer's hallucination from "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (voiced by Music/JohnnyCash) is drawn in a boxier style partially to resemble the style of coyotes in American Southwestern sand paintings.
195** When there is a {{Crossover}}, no matter how brief, they stand out as significantly different. Jay Sherman from ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic'' shows up with the same character design but with his skin colored yellow to better match. ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' and ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' characters arrive looking exactly the same as they did in their own shows.
196* NoodleImplements: The episode "Large Marge" has Bart and Milhouse watch a fake episode of the 1960's "Batman" series. Krusty the Clown plays a villain who ties Batman and Robin to a carousel. They escape because Adam West had in his belt a can of "Carousel-Reversal Spray".
197* NoodleIncident:
198** Bart's mortal enemies are Sideshow Bob and Dr. Demento.
199*** Also, Bart once made annoying phone calls to Linda Lavin because of something she did to deserve it.
200** In "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace," Bart finds Homer reading in the elementary school library:
201--->'''Bart:''' Dad, what are you doing here?\
202'''Homer:''' Reading about this Edison character. They won't let me in the big people library down town. There was some... unpleasantness. I can never go back.
203** The season eight episode "My Sister, My Sitter," had Lisa trying to get in line at a clinic so she can get Bart medical attention, but Smithers won't let her through because of an injury he sustained that makes it hard for him to sit down (though given his sexuality, [[{{Pun}} it's really not that hard]] to figure out what could have happened to him).
204** The episode "Moe Baby Blues" has Moe end up with a bunch of angry gangsters point guns at him. He gives a nervous chuckle and says "Wow, that's the second largest number of guns I've had pointed at me at once" with nothing known to us about the bigger time.
205** Season five's "Homer and Apu" had a scene where Lisa played an Indian instrument called the shenai. After a few notes, Homer shudders and comments that it's worse than the album his father [Grampa] released without a flashback or further explanation.
206** Season seven's "Team Homer" had a scene where Mr. Burns mistakes a check for boweling for a check for bowling (which he wrote to Homer while high on ether). Smithers then reminds Mr. Burns about the time he skipped his monthly boweling. The only information we get about the incident is that "It was unpleasant for all concerned."
207** Season four's "Marge Gets A Job" had Mr. Burns talks to Smithers about arranging a date with Marge:
208--->'''Mr. Burns:''' Yes, well, Smithers I want you to arrange a party for two at my estate. Marge. Me. And do you think you could dig up Al Jolson?\
209'''Smithers:''' Uh, do you remember we did that once before?\
210'''Mr. Burns:''' Oh, that's right, he's dead. And rather pungent. The rest of that night is something I'd like to forget.
211** Season ten's "Lisa Gets An A" has Bart's line before he lets Lisa in the boys' bathroom: "Relax, there's nothing here you didn't see when Dad boycotted pants," though this stops being a NoodleIncident when you think back to the times that Homer has gone bottomless ("Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy," where after a wild night of love-making, Ned and Maude Flanders find Homer's pants in a tree and try to get it down, thinking that it's possessed by the Devil, and "D'oh-in in the Wind," where Hippie Homer goes naked and sits on his couch out on the lawn).
212** In "Bart Gets an Elephant", when the kids hug Homer while he's covered in tar:
213--->'''Bart:''' Uh, Mom? We're stuck to Dad.\
214'''Marge:''' Mmm, this is just what happened at the caramel factory.\
215'''Homer:''' [[MadLibsCatchPhrase Mmm, caramel.]]
216** From the same episode, after Homer pulls his head out of Stampy's mouth, he says "Now I've had my head inside an elephant, a hippo, and a giant sloth."
217** "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore": When Mr. Burns was about to show his employees a movie, he asked for a moment of silence for the employees who died at some heroic, well, whatever it was, we never got to learn because Homer demanded the movie when Burns was about to say and the issue has never been brought up again.
218** In order to make Bart take his shots, Dr. Hibbert had some people dressed like him. That got Dr. Hibbert banned from the library for something Moe did while on disguise (knowing Moe, it was either sexually harassing female library patrons or trying to download porn on the library computers).
219** In "The Book Job", whilst setting up their ghost-writing operation, Homer and Bart make several references to something that happened in Kansas City. Apparently it did not end well.
220** In "Lisa the Simpson", Abe apparently had a grudge with his barber, Louie, that is never elaborated upon:
221--->'''Abe:''' ''[reacting to Marge's attempt at a haircut]'' No! No, no, no, no! The George Raft look is dead! I want an Audie Murphy!\
222'''Marge:''' Well if you'd just apologise to Louie, you could get your hair cut the way you want!\
223'''Abe:''' ''No'' apology! Not until he admits he's a ''jerk''!
224** The Simpson family is apparently banned from nearly all U.S. states. The reasons are never revealed, though "Kill The Alligator and Run" showed why they were banned from Florida (even though they were found innocent of killing Captain Jack the alligator), and the only states that haven't banned them yet were North Dakota and Arizona. This later is ignored, as "Special Edna" showed The Simpsons going to Florida (again), the episode written by Ricky Gervais had them travel to California, and "Holidays of Future Passed" had Lisa tell Milhouse that they're going to Michigan (which is under sharia law in the distant future). On top of that, there's the old Fridge Logic question of "If The Simpsons have been banned from every state in the union -- including Alaska and Hawaii, the freak states -- then where is Springfield?"
225** In "The Seven Beer Snitch", Chief Wiggim tells Smithers, "If I didn't arrest you that time in the park, I'm not going to arrest you now".
226* NoseShove:
227** One episode blamed Homer's reduced IQ on his having shoved a crayon up his nose and into his brain.
228** In another episode, Bart whacks Ralph on the head, causing coins and milk to fall from his nose. "My milk money!... And my milk!"
229* NostalgicNarrator: Sideshow Mel in "All About Lisa".
230* NostrilShot: In [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E14TheZiffWhoCameToDinner "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner"]], Lisa {{parodie|d}}s ''The Blair Witch Project''.
231-->'''Lisa:''' If I don't make it out alive, I love you, Mom and Dad. Maggie, you can have my books. And ''Bart'', I'll SeeYouInHell, you booger-eating wuss! Yeah, that's right, ''we all know!''
232* NotAfraidOfHell:
233** The second-season episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E10BartGetsHitByACar Bart Gets Hit by a Car]]" sees Bart sent prematurely to Hell, where he and Satan [[VillainRespect are rather cordial toward each other]]. He responds to the command "lie, cheat, steal and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking listen to heavy metal music]]" with a sincere "yes, sir!"
234** Lisa no longer fears Hell after the fourth-season opener, "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E1KampKrusty Kamp Krusty]]", because, as she states in a letter to Homer and Marge, "I have been to Kamp Krusty." She then describes the experience, comparing nature hikes to grim death marches, arts and crafts being no more than sweatshops, and – while Bart hangs on to fleeting, false hope that Krusty will come and make things right -- pessimism that her letter will be delivered without being censored. (It actually is, but Homer and Marge think she's being hilariously overdramatic and don't take the complaints at all seriously.)
235** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS25E2TreehouseOfHorrorXXIV Treehouse of Horror XXIV]]", the Fat in the Hat (Homer as a psychotic Cat in the Hat parody) is killed in self-defense by Maggie. As he lays dying, he states that he doesn't fear Hell, [[TakeThat just being portrayed by]] Creator/MikeMyers [[Film/TheCatInTheHat in a movie]].
236* NotAllowedToGrowUp:
237** In a mock behind-the-scenes exposé, Lisa accuses the producers of slipping her "anti-growth hormones".
238--->'''Homer:''' That's ridiculous. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial How could I even get all five necessary drops into her cereal?]] ''[beat]'' What?
239** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the CouchGag of the episode "Them, Robot".
240* NotHelpingYourCase: In "What Animated Women Want", Homer catches Helen Lovejoy browsing in a sex shop. She claims she was protesting, but then her husband comes out of a changing room wearing BDSM gear.
241-->'''Rev. Lovejoy:''' Is this dominating enough for you, sweetheart?
242* NotInFrontOfTheKid: A few times.
243** Grampa Simpson babysits Selma's adopted daughter and modifies his old war stories to be baby-friendly.
244--->'''Grampa Simpson:''' I was just telling her how we chased the teddy bears into their cuddle bunkers, ''[in a creepy voice]'' then had to tickle them out with machine hugs and fun throwers! ''[sinister zoom-in]'' They say the more soldiers you tickle, the easier it gets. Well, sir, it doesn't.
245** Moe does a similar thing while babysitting Maggie, telling her a bedtime story which is a cleaned up version of ''Film/TheGodfather'' (after trying to read through ''Alice in Wonderland'' and thinking that it's too drug-influenced for children).
246* NotInTheFace: In "Homer the Moe", a bird starts pecking Moe's face. He says:
247-->'''Moe:''' Ow ow! Not the face! ''[the bird pecks his crotch]'' Ooh! OK, the face! ''[bird pecks his face again]'' Whoo... to think that actually feels good after the, after the crotch.
248* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: When Homer was telling the family about the time he worked at the Bowl-o-rama, there was a flashback scene of him shooting at the air with a shotgun, scaring people away in a failed attempt to attract more customers. Lisa interrupted to ask Marge to make him tell the true story. Marge sadly told her it did happen like that.
249* NotMeThisTime: Happens in "Lisa the Vegetarian," when Lisa steals a roast pig that Homer is planning to serve at a barbecue:
250-->'''Marge:''' Bart, [[BigNo Nooooo!]]\
251'''Bart:''' ''[Standing beside her, indignantly]'' [[DefensiveWhat What?]]\
252'''Marge:''' Sorry, force of habit. Lisa, [[BigNo nooooo!]]
253* NotSoAboveItAll: Marge and Lisa, while usually much smarter and CloserToEarth than Homer and Bart have frequent moments of equal [[IdiotBall stupidity]] or [[JerkAss callousness]], especially later on.
254* TheNotSoHarmlessPunishment:
255** Homer, portrayed King Henry VIII, responds to Ned Flanders' (as St. Thomas More) objections to seceding from the Church by offering to canonize him. [[GilliganCut Cut to]] Ned being [[VisualPun fired out of a cannon]].
256** The episode "Lisa On Ice" features a daydream Lisa has where she worries that failing her gym class would greatly damage her reputation later in life. In the daydream, the Supreme Justice of the United States learns this just before swearing Lisa in as the new President.
257--->'''Supreme Justice:''' I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island... Don't worry, it's just a name.\
258''[[GilliganCut Cut to]] Lisa and others being chased by monsters.''\
259'''Lisa:''' He said it was just a name!\
260'''Man:''' What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a ''peninsula''.
261* NotSoImaginaryFriend: Homer's friend Ray Magini in "Don't Fear The Roofer".
262* NotThisOneThatOne:
263** In the episode "The Old Man and the C-Student", Bart is ordered to go on community service:
264--->'''Bart:''' What are you gonna do to me?\
265'''Principal Skinner:''' Bart, not all Community Service is gang warfare and dangerous infection, and to illustrate that point here's where you'll be working.\
266''[Principal Skinner points in the direction of a storefront]''\
267'''Bart:''' The Fireworks, Candy, and Puppy dog store!?\
268'''Principal Skinner:''' No, no, no. Next to it.\
269''[Next to the store is the Springfield Retirement Home, where we see Jasper and the [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Old Jewish Man]] sitting. Grampa comes outside:]''\
270'''Grampa Simpson:''' Settle a bet: boil or mole?\
271''[Bart gapes in horror]''
272** In another episode, "King of the Hill", where Homer is convinced to become a mountain climber, has it done twice with the size of the mountain.
273* NotWearingPantsDream: Homer has one in "Homer Goes to College". Subverted in that it actually happened.
274* NotWhatISignedOnFor: The original settlers of Springfield and Shelbyville split into two feuding groups when some of them found out their pilgrimage ''wasn't'' about getting to [[KissingCousins marry their cousins]].
275* NoteToSelf: In "Lisa's Rival", Bart comforts Lisa over Allison, saying, "I can't stand to see you so miserable, Lis... unless it's from a rubber spider down your dress." He then turns away and records a note on doing this into a pocket tape recorder. Afterwards, he offers to dig up dirt on Allison and attempts a MyCard, but Lisa reminds him that he lives in the room next to her. Bart promptly records another note on his recorder: "Next year, order fewer cards."
276* NothingCanStopUsNow: Combined with HopeSpot in "Team Homer":
277-->'''Homer:''' Nothing's going to stop us now!\
278''[in Mr. Burns's office]''\
279'''Burns:''' Stop everything! I don't remember writing a check for bowling.\
280'''Smithers:''' Uh, sir, that's a check for your ''boweling''.\
281'''Burns:''' Oh, yes. That's very important. [...] Anyway, back to the checks... Stop everything! I don't remember writing a check for bowling.
282* NotUsedToFreedom: One episode has Bart stuck in a giant hamster ball for a while. After he's released from it, he becomes agoraphobic.
283* NowILayMeDownToSleep: The clown bed Homer botches up for Bart recites parts of the prayer.
284-->'''Krusty bed:''' If you should die before you wake, hoohuhuhhyukhyukhyuk...
285* NPCAmnesia: {{Parodied}}. In one episode, Homer takes a free sample offered by someone in a store but is refused a second. So he comes back with a fake mustache on and is refused again. Until Homer comes back on the other side of the screen, and it's actually someone else who looks exactly like Homer with a fake mustache.
286%%* TheNthDoctor: Dr. J. Loren Pryor has always been played by Harry Shearer. However, in his first few appearances (such as "Bart the Genius" and "Separate Vocations"), he had a Mr. Burns-style voice, only calmer and younger. However, when he appeared in later episodes (such as "Lisa's Sax") he has a much lower voice, sort of like Reverend Lovejoy or Smithers.
287* NutritionalNightmare: The show is the TropeCodifier. [[BigEater Homer]] in particular tends to get involved a great deal.
288** In "Homer the Heretic", Homer is staying home from church eating a stick of butter with waffle batter wrapped around it.
289** In "Lisa the Vegetarian" it's revealed that Homer drinks a glass of pancake syrup every morning.
290** From the episode "Bart Star":
291--->'''Dr. Hibbert:''' Your cholesterol level is lethally high, Homer, but I'm more concerned about your gravy level.\
292'''Homer:''' Now, wait a second! You doctors have been telling us to drink eight glasses of gravy a day!\
293'''Dr. Hibbert:''' Well, you're a little confused.\
294'''Homer:''' Oh, confused, would we?
295** In "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", the subplot involves Homer trying to lose weight through intelligence. Homer watches commercials for two products: The Good Morning Burger (eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, soaked in rich, creamery butter, and topped off with bacon, ham, and a fried egg) and a candy bar (pure milk chocolate with a layer of farm-fresh honey, sprinkled on four kinds of sugar, and dipped in rich, creamery butter.)
296** In season 19, "E Pluribus Wiggum", Homer decides to eat a bunch of fast food before Marge starts him on his diet. Among the foods he eats is a cheese pizza which he adds french fries and a lobster as toppings. He shakes it up in a pizza box and then proceeds to eat the food while it's inside the box.
297** The Ribwich from "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can" is so unhealthy that there is a scene (a ShoutOut to ''Film/RequiemForADream'') where we see barbecue sauce flowing in Homer's bloodstream and he develops a [[GRatedDrug huge addiction to the product]]. It gets even worse when the Ribwich has a label with Krusty saying [[DeathByGluttony "Will Cause Early Death"]].
298** In the ChristmasEpisode "She Of Little Faith", Homer makes Bart add butter to his bacon.
299--->'''Homer:''' So, you think you know better than this family, huh? Well, as long as you're in my house, you'll do what I do and believe what I believe. So butter your bacon!\
300'''Bart:''' Yes, Father.\
301'''Lisa:''' ''(walks in)'' Mom, Dad, my spiritual quest is over.\
302'''Homer:''' Hold that thought. Bacon up that sausage, boy!\
303'''Bart:''' But Dad, my heart hurts.\
304''(Homer glares disapprovingly; Bart sighs and wraps a piece of bacon over some sausage before eating it.)''
305** In "King-Size Homer", Homer intentionally wants to gain weight (just to get out of work for being obese) and at least half the stuff he eats is this trope; the rest verging on inedible. (page quote came from that episode).
306** In "King Of The Hill", after experiencing some success at the gym after becoming hooked on Powersauce bars, Homer resolves to eat only what he can compress into bar form. He extrudes a copious amount of spaghetti and meatballs into a small bar, takes a bite, and calmly calls the hospital.
307[[/folder]]
308
309[[folder:O]]
310* ObfuscatingDisability: In "Little Big Mom", Marge gets injured and lands in the hospital. But since she doesn't have to do housework for the first time in her life, she fakes it after she's healed.
311* ObituaryMontage:
312** [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E6HomerAndLisaExchangeCrossWords "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words"]]: One of the three musical montagues is about honoring the words that were taken out of the dictionary, with "Fanfare for the Common Man" playing in the background.
313** [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E9IAnnoyedGruntBot "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot"]]: Homer daydreams about making an acceptance speech at the Oscars and a robot killing him for going over the time limit. The robot then segues into this trope, of which the first photo is Homer himself.
314* ObjectCeilingCling: Bart sticks a waffle onto the ceiling, which Homer mistakes for God. Marge pries the waffle off the ceiling and Homer eats it.
315-->'''Homer:''' Mmmm, sacrelicious.
316* ObjectTrackingShot: When they did a parody of ''Film/ForrestGump'' in the S14 clip show "Gump Roast" they used the same shot of the infamous feather. However it ends up stabbing Homer in the eye... twice!
317* ObligatoryJoke: "Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off", as a StylisticSuck ShowWithinAShow is made of this trope, from the title (which is an obligatory joke if one is deeply-immersed enough in theatrical naming conventions) to the [[EnforcedTrope enforced]] [[MandatoryTwistEnding ending]]. Specific jokes:
318
319--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' What's wrong with me?
320--> '''Dr. Zaius:''' I think you're crazy!
321--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' Want a second opinion!
322--> '''Dr. Zaius:''' You're also lazy.
323
324--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' Can I play the piano anymore?
325--> '''Dr. Zaius:''' Of course you can!
326--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' Well I couldn't before.
327--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' ''demonstrates his newfound proficiency''
328
329--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' Oh my god! [[DullSurprise i was wrong]]; it was Earth, all along. You've finally made a monkey -
330--> '''Chorus:''' Yes, we've finally made a monkey -
331--> '''Troy [=McClure=]:''' Yes, you've finally made a monkey out of me!
332* ObnoxiousInLaws: Patty & Selma. Subverted as usually the obnoxious in-law in a family sitcom is a mother-in-law, but here, it's twin sisters-in-law. Marge's mom (Homer's mother-in-law) has nothing against Homer -- though in "Bart vs. Thanksgiving" and "The Way We Was," it is implied that Marge's mom is disappointed in Marge marrying Homer, though she's not as vocal about it as Patty and Selma are. And even then, out of the both of them, Selma is the one who probably has some grudging respect for Homer (she told Marge where Homer disappeared to before Bart was born, and he played a big part in helping her adopt Ling), while Patty just flat-out hates him.
333** In "The Real Housewives of Fat Tony," Selma admitted that she hated Homer out of [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy for their happiness]] and she's willing to start over. [[DependingOnTheWriter Whether or not this sticks remains to be seen]].
334%%* ObstacleSkiCourse: Along with StupidSexyFlanders.
335* ObviouslyFakeSignature:
336** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E2BartTheGenius Bart the Genius]]": Principal Skinner has a meeting with Bart, Marge, and Homer, where he accuses Bart of forging Homer's signature on several admission slips because of how childish the writing is. Then he compares one of the admission slips he brought along as evidence to the check Homer just signed for him and is proven wrong; [[SubvertedTrope Homer's handwriting really is just]] ''[[SubvertedTrope that]]'' [[SubvertedTrope bad]].
337** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E20TheBoyWhoKnewTooMuch The Boy Who Knew Too Much]]": Lampshaded. Skinner reads an obviously forged letter Bart did of Marge, in part stating "Please excuse my bad handwriting; I recently busted whichever hand I write with."
338* ObviousStuntDouble:
339** When they shoot the Radioactive Man film in Springfield, Milhouse plays Fallout Boy and a late middle age European little person is his stunt double.
340** Krusty and Sideshow Mel have very obvious doubles for an ice dancing routine they do.
341* OctopoidAliens: The aliens Kang and Kodos are green with helmets and have squid-like bodies.
342* OddCouple: Homer and Marge, obviously.
343** Also, Homer and Skinner while they are "sequestered" due to a jury "deadlock". Skinner points this out. Homer tells him to shut up.
344** When Lisa is forced to share Bart's room due to the cell phone tower built in her room in "Make Room for Lisa". Homer lampshades it by singing ''Series/{{The Odd Couple|1970}}'' theme while informing her of the arrangements.
345* OddlySmallOrganization:
346** All over the place, but most often the Springfield Police and Mafia. From the episode "'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky":
347--->'''Chief Wiggum:''' Uh oh, all the lights are out. We better get the entire force working on this.\
348'''Lou:''' Chief, we are the entire force.\
349'''Chief Wiggum:''' Okay, we've gotta start recruiting, Lou!
350** Homer's private force Springshield was no larger, prompting Homer to say that if he were to die, someone would take his place, but admit that after killing two more people, Fat Tony's Mafia would have the run of the town.
351* OdeToFood: In "Guess Who's Coming to Criticise Dinner?", Homer is asked to be ''The Springfield Shopper'''s new food critic since he likes food so much. He begins singing about his favourite foods to the tune of "I Feel Pretty".
352* OddReactionOut: When Mr. Burns does a speech, everyone boos, but Smithers tries to lie that they were instead [[SayMyName chanting Burns's name]] (pronounced "Boo-urns"). While most of them were saying, "Boo!", Hans Moleman later reveals that ''he'' was saying, "Boo-urns".
353* OfficeSports: In one episode, Homer, Lenny, and Carl are playing chair hockey at work. Mr. Burns comes in to yell at them, but it turns out he's the coach and he's yelling at their poor teamwork.
354* OffOnATechnicality:
355** Snake, in "Stop! Or My Dog Will Shoot". It's the reason Santa's Little Helper (a canine cop in that episode) becomes disgruntled.
356** Inverted and invoked in "My Mother the Carjacker"
357--->'''Lisa:''' Dad, I'm just as sad as you are. What happened to Grandma is an outrage.\
358'''Homer:''' How do you figure?\
359'''Lisa:''' She was acquitted! Then they put her back in jail on a technicality!\
360'''Homer:''' You're right. People should only be let ''out'' of jail on technicalities!
361* OffScreenMomentOfAwesome:
362** Mr. Burns' subduing and capture of the [[StockNessMonster Loch Ness Monster]] in "Monty Can't Buy Me Love." Even being swallowed by the beast couldn't stop him.
363--->'''Willie:''' That was amazing, Mr Burns!
364--->'''Burns:''' I was a little worried when he swallowed me but, well, you know the rest.
365** In "The Twisted World Of Marge Simpson", Homer points out the one member of the Yakuza on their lawn is just standing there not fighting the Springfield mob, and he's probably about to do something awesome. Marge still forces Homer inside, and we hear a [[{{Kiai}} scream]] and a lot of people thudding against the door that seems like the Yakuza man did something cool, but we don't get to see it.
366* OffscreenTeleportation: In "Two Dozen And One Greyhounds", Lisa and Bart try to escape Mr. Burns and Smithers in Burns' mansion by jumping down a laundry chute. They land a couple floors down, and somehow Mr. Burns and Smithers were already there waiting for them.
367* OhCrap: Troy [=McClure=] after he tries Dr. Nick Riviera's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1QnijwxtY Sun 'n Run]]: A Sun Tan Lotion/Laxitive cream.
368* OhGodWithTheVerbing: Professor John Frink is known for this.
369%%* OhTheHumanity: Parodied a few times.
370* OhWaitThisIsMyGroceryList: When Bart and Milhouse volunteered to run the Comic Book Guy's shop in "Worse Episode Ever", the instructions left for them turn out to be a shopping list.
371* {{Oktoberfest}}:
372** Uter was this type of German exchange student. In the German dub he is from Switzerland.
373** Also, Homer and Marge have gone to an Oktoberfest celebration on at least a couple of occasions.
374** At one point Principal Skinner created a Scottish Oktoberfest to entrap Bart in a prank, much to Groundskeeper Willie's chagrin:
375--->'''Principal Skinner:''' ''[dramatically]'' There's no such thing as Scotchtoberfest!\
376'''Willie:''' There's not? You used me, Skinner! YOU USED ME!
377* TheOldConvict: 'The last registered Democrat' in "Bart-Mangled Banner".
378* OldSchoolIntroductoryRap:
379** In the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E9MrPlow Mr. Plow]]", Homer's "fresh and original" ad idea is a rap that goes "I'm Mr. Plow and I'm here to say, I'm the plowinest guy in the USA", which elicits instant groans from the kids.
380** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E13SelmasChoice Selma's Choice]]", at the Duff Gardens Beer Hall of Presidents they have [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln Abe Lincoln]] do this:
381--->"We-e-ll, I'm Rappin' A.B. and I'm here to say,\
382If you want to drink beer, well Duff's the only way!\
383I said the only way! Break down!"
384* OlderThanTheyLook:
385** Kearney (one of the three bullies): Despite looking old enough to be in high school (yet is held back in elementary school), Kearney is actually older than that (around 20-30 years old), according to "Lisa the Iconoclast", when Principal Skinner told the kids at an assembly that the only person who's old enough to remember the 1976 Bicentennial is Kearney (who is shown shaving and commenting on how the Bicentennial took everyone's mind off the Watergate scandal). Later episodes showed that Kearney has custody of a son from a divorce, has been tried as an adult and sent to an adult prison, has a car (yet one episode showed him on the school bus with his son) -- yet doesn't appear to have a job or any source of income, voted in a U.S. general election (you have to be 18 to vote in American elections -- the age used to be 21), and was in the third grade around the same time as Otto the bus driver (who could also be older than he looks, despite looking and acting like a teenager).
386** Ned Flanders: Before "Viva Ned Flanders," it was assumed that Ned was around the same age as Homer (late 30s/early 40s, depending on episode writer). In "Viva Ned Flanders," Flanders revealed that he was 60 years old and looks young because he's never done anything crazy and sinful.
387** In "Duffless", elderly-looking Hans Moleman claims he's actually 31, looking older as a result of alcohol.
388*** The episode "Selma's Choice" three episodes previous to "Duffless" had a FreezeFrameBonus where you can see his driving licence has his date of birth as second of August 1961. "Duffless" aired in February 1993 meaning he was indeed 31 years old.
389* OldTimeyAnkleTaboo:
390** "Simpsons Tall Tales" has a segment set in the 1800s, where the buy-your-photo section of a log flume ride has to deal with a shot of a lady "flashing her private parts". It's her ankle, and the man running the shop claims he'll take care of it before shiftily stowing it in his pocket as if it were porn.
391** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E21LadyBouviersLover Lady Bouvier's Lover]]" Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier recounts how she was arrested for wearing a OldTimeyBathingSuit because it exposed her ankles.
392** In "All About Lisa", Bart and Homer become coin collectors researching a double-struck "Kissing Lincolns" penny, which was made in 1917 when the sight of a woman's ankle caused three days of rioting at the Philadelphia mint.
393** In "The Burns and the Bees", Mr. Burns' cheerleaders for his basketball team, the Basket-Belles, do this. Due to ValuesDissonance, the spectators boo them for being boring.
394--->'''Mr. Burns:''' Enough of this vulgarity! Back to your brothels, harlots!
395* {{Omniglot}}: Bart and Homer share the ability to rapidly become fluent in any language they encounter, despite being genetically predisposed to become dumber as they grow older. Bart has spoken French ("Crepes of Wrath" while living with the abusive French winemakers), Japanese ("Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" when he and Homer were in jail), and Spanish ("Grift of the Magi," while watching Spanish daytime TV), while Homer is fluent in German ("The Canine Mutiny" when Lisa goes over her German verb wheel and "The Heartbroke Kid" when Homer sings the original German version of "99 Red Balloons") Spanish ("Simpson Tide"), Mandarin Chinese (also "Simpson Tide"), Japanese ("Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo"), and penguin ("Simpson Tide," though that was just there for a gag).
396** At one point Homer claims to understand "food talk" in every language.
397* OnceASeason:
398** The HalloweenEpisode "Treehouse of Horror" happens every year from season two onward, with a roman numeral like IX following it. Originally it was more scary stories being told InUniverse and the characters in the show taking on completely new roles, with Marge BreakingTheFourthWall to explain it to the audience, but later fell into a groove using a ThreeShorts format and a CanonDiscontinuity approach (such as Ned being revealed as the actual Satan "It's always the last guy you'd expect").
399** Sideshow Bob (voiced by Creator/KelseyGrammer) appeared about once a year in the earlier seasons, before slowing down to every couple of years. He originated with Bart having exposed him as framing Krusty for armed robbery, and will never let go of that vendetta, but other stories show him dealing with other nefarious plots. The "Sideshow Bob episodes" are about as iconic as the Treehouse of Horror episodes, and he has guest starred in a few of them.
400** A prolonged version happens with certain FlashForward episodes. It started with "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E19LisasWedding Lisa's Wedding]]" in the sixth season, then "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E17BartToTheFuture Bart to the Future]]" in season eleven, "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E15FutureDrama Future Drama]]" in season sixteen, "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS23E9HolidaysOfFuturePassed Holidays of Future Passed]]" in Season 23 and then "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS25E18DaysOfFutureFuture Days of Future Future]]" in season 25. The generally long gaps between these episodes makes it feel intentional, but isn't as noticeable as other examples of the trope.
401* OnceDoneNeverForgotten:
402** In "Bart Gets Famous," Bart makes a disaster in a TV studio, broadcasted live, and tries to excuse himself by saying "I didn't do it!". It was a big success, and he soons becomes the "I didn't do it" kid. Everything is fine, until he realizes that it's all just a fad. Everywhere he goes, nobody cares about anything he has to say, except for his line. And then, the end: as all fads, he becomes old-fashioned, and that's it.
403** Another Simpsons example is "The Boys of Bummer", in which Bart misses a fly ball, losing his team the game, and is bullied until he attempts suicide. The professional baseball player Joe [=LaBoot=] is another example, as he is still bullied for being a terrible player despite having retired decades ago.
404* OnceForYesTwiceForNo: Or, in this case, 63 times for 'out of air', 64 times for 'found the treasure'.
405* OneCastMemberPerCover: There is a different character on the [=iTunes=] cover of each season, as well as the DVD releases of Seasons 11 to 19 (with Seasons 6 to 10 being an ensemble picture with the same character from the [=iTunes=] cover showing up at the front.) [[labelnote:And they are...]]1. Santa's Little Helper. 2. Blinky. 3. Itchy. 4. Scratchy. 5. Snowball II. 6. Homer. 7. Marge. 8. Maggie. 9. Lisa. 10. Bart. 11. Krusty. 12. Comic Book Guy. 13. Ralph Wiggum. 14. Kang. 15. Otto. 16. Professor Frink. 17. Sideshow Bob. 18. Fat Tony. 19. Milhouse (the DVD cover uses Homer again instead) 20. Moe. 21. Mr. Burns. 22. Edna Krabappel. 23. Ned Flanders. 24. Grampa. 25. Apu. 26. Duffman. 27. Selma. 28. Chief Wiggum. 29. Bumblebee Man. 30. Troy [=McClure=] 31. Brandine Spuckler. 32. Bleeding Gums Murphy. 33. God. 34. The Devil.[[/labelnote]]
406
407* TheOnlyOne: The show does it all the time, whenever a problem or commotion happens in Springfield (which may or not have been caused by the Simpsons), one or two of Simpsons take the initiative to solve it or get other people in Springfield to help in doing something about it.
408* OneBookAuthor: For some of the guest voice actors, that role will be their only one in an animated work. Noteable examples include Kirk Douglas, Halle Berry, Music/JustinBieber, Martha Stewart, Roger Daltrey, Mick Jagger, Max Von Sydow (in his only voice role that wasn't a video game version of a work he was in), David Bryne, author Judy Blume (which was also her only acting credit in any medium that wasn't a CreatorCameo), Music/{{Sting}}, Stephen Sondheim and Music/EdSheeran.
409* OneDoseFitsAll: As a bear wanders through Springfield, Chief Wiggum tries to shoot it with a tranquilizer dart. The first shot hits Barney instead, while the second shot connects. Both Barney and the bear react the same (despite the differences in time of administration, body mass, constitution and species), and there is no indication that the tranq shot into Barney gave him any ill effects.
410* OneEpisodeFear: In "Fear of Flying", Marge is, well, afraid of flying. While it makes sense that she's not afraid of flying in later episodes since TheShrink made her come to terms with it which could well have led to it going away, it's odd that it's never shown up before because the incident that gave her the fear happened when she was a kid and she's been on a plane in previous episodes.
411* OneJokeFakeShow:
412** In "Homer to the Max", there's the show ''Admiral Baby'', a MidSeasonReplacement about the adventures of a baby who has somehow become an admiral in the U.S. Navy. Even [[ThisLoserIsYou Homer Simpson]] [[EveryoneHasStandards thinks the show is dumb]].
413** In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", Bart and Lisa while under curfew try watching prime-time TV and find the line-up to consist mostly of such shows, particularly an adult sitcom named after its "zany" catchphrase, ''Don't Go There!''
414* OnePersonBirthdayParty:
415** Nelson throws a birthday party and invites all of his classmates. Bart is the only one to turn up because Marge forces him to go.
416** In the episode where a crazy big white guy thinks he's Michael Jackson, it's Lisa's 8th birthday. She begs Bart not to forget but of course he does. She sits with only the baby Maggie for company, singing:
417--->'''Lisa:''' Happy birthday to me\
418Happy birthday to me\
419Happy birthday, overlooked middle child\
420Happy birthday to me.
421%%* OnePhoneCall: Done to Homer in "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish".
422* OneShotCharacter: Too many to list, but often the one-shots are the characters played by celebrities, such as Garth Motherloving (Creator/BenStiller) and Ray Patterson (Creator/SteveMartin).
423* TheOneThingIDontHateAboutYou: In "Colonel Homer", where Homer's new job as Lurleen Lumpkin's manager is driving him away from his family:
424-->'''Marge:''' You've got a wonderful family, Homer. Please don't forget it when you walk out that door tonight.\
425''[Homer leaves.]''\
426'''Bart:''' Much as I hate that man right now, you gotta love that suit.
427* OnlyAModel
428* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname:
429** Mild examples in the form of Krusty (real name Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofski), Sideshow Mel (real name Melvin Van Horne) and Sideshow Bob (real name Robert Underdunk Terwilliger). Also a semi example with Mr. Burns, as it's easy to forget that "Monty" is actually his middle name (his full name being Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns). Parodied when Homer pretends to be Mr. Burns in order to get back an insulting letter that he posted to him from the post office.
430--->'''Homer:''' Hello. My name is Mr. Burns. I believe you have a letter for me.\
431'''Postal clerk:''' Okay, Mr. Burns, uh, what's your first name?\
432'''Homer:''' ...I don't know.
433** Again parodied when Homer pretends to be Mr. Burns's mother on the phone to him (after accidentally disconnecting the call from his real mother). After originally calling him "Mr. Burns" and being reprimanded by Smithers for doing so, Homer calls him "Montel".
434** Better examples of this trope would be Squeaky Voiced Teen (real name Jeremy Freedman) and Comic Book Guy (real name Jeff Albertson).
435** Even Marge (Marjorie), Bart (Bartholomew) and Maggie (Margaret) are only known by their nicknames.
436* OnlyOneFindsItFun:
437** Marge, being a bit of a square, gets this a lot:
438*** In "Burns, Baby, Burns", the Simpsons spend the day at an apple-picking cider mill. While most of them find it boring, Marge enjoys it greatly and leaves decked with souvenirs.
439*** The plot of "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" begins with her dragging the rest of the family to go for a walk with her through a part of town widely considered the most boring. She enjoys it and points out parts of it as though she's a tour guide. However, when the family discovers a superstore, she's the only one ''not'' to enjoy it because it interrupts the walk.
440** In "Skinner's Sense of Snow", Skinner plays a film called "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, Then Was" to pass the time with all the students because there are no teachers (it's snowing, so they faked an emergency meeting and are partying at a ski resort) and he refused to let the kids leave early (heck, he refused to close the school). The film is terrible quality and the plot makes no sense, so when the kids find out that they're snowed in, are going to miss Christmas, and have to keep watching the film, they shout out three increasingly-horrified [[BigNo Big "No"s]]. Skinner, however, enjoys the film to the point of being outright ''gleeful'' when told he has to keep watching it.
441** In "You Only Move Twice", Homer accepts a better paying-job with Globex Corporation and relocates the family to a town called Cypress Creek. He enjoys the extra challenges and gets on well with his new boss, but the others find things they hate about the place: Marge is bored because of technology that does all the chores for her, Bart gets humiliated when the new school puts him in a remedial class, and Lisa is allergic to all the plants.
442* OnlyOneName: [[LampshadeHanging Lou states in "The Frying Game" that he and Eddie don't have last names, like Cher.]]
443* OnlySaneMan: Parodied by Frank Grimes in "Homer's Enemy".
444** Ray Patterson, the Springfield sanitation commissioner Homer ousts of office in "Trash of the Titans", played by Creator/SteveMartin.
445** There are precious few sane people in Springfield who are main or recurring characters, with Lisa and Superintendant Chalmers being the most prominent examples. In general, the series' sane characters tend to be one-shot ones, who never stay in Springfield for longer than one episode; either they leave of their own accord for a variety of reasons (such as Mr. Bergstrom, Lisa's [[CoolTeacher cool teacher]] who had to leave on account of his work as a substitute teacher constantly on-call by other schools) or they are driven out by the town or leave in disgust at the town's antics (such as the above-mentioned Ray Patterson, who didn't want to be saddled by Springfield's apocalyptic sanitation situation when the town gave him his old job back). On a metalevel, the sane characters in Springfield are few and far between because "normal" people cannot survive for long in a heavily toxic environment like Springfield, as demonstrated by the fate of Frank Grimes. Someone like Chalmers is an exception to the rule, because he has basically come up with a survival strategy that basically involves him not asking too many questions and knowing when to give up and move on, which has generally served him well when having to deal with the antics of Principal Skinner and Springfield Elementary School.
446* OnlySixFaces: Played with, the characters designs are so distinctive that most characters, especially background characters, tend to look alike. That said characters from the earlier seasons, including the main family, [[NonStandardCharacterDesign tend to have more exaggerated designs]] (like squiggly lines for hair) [[ArtEvolution that were phased out for a more standardized and refined look]]. Given the massive cast and utilizing more subtle changes in the designs, the show can also be seen as a CastOfSnowflakes.
447* OnlySmartPeopleMayPass: In "Lost Our Lisa", Comic Book Guy refuses to let Lisa take the seat next to him unless she can answer "these questions three". An annoyed Lisa doesn't even bother and walks away.
448* OnSecondThought: In "Bart After Dark", Marge and Lisa leave. Homer asks how he should raise Bart and Maggie while they're gone. Marge starts to say "Use your best judgement", but then remembers what Homer normally does. She changes her response to "Just do what I would do."
449* OnTheRebound: After Edna breaks up with Skinner, she then hooks up with Comic Book Guy on the Rebound. Lampshaded by Marge:
450-->'''Marge:''' You meet the worst people on the rebound.
451* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
452** Lisa's reaction when Marge actually supports Homer's beer baron activities in "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment".
453** In "Rosebud":
454--->'''Marge:''' ''[of Mr. Burns]'' I'm sure he'll offer a fair reward. And then we'll make him double it.\
455'''Simpson family:''' Huh?\
456'''Marge:''' Well why can't ''I'' be greedy once in a while?
457** An amusing example in "Bart's Comet". While the rest of the town is panicking, Homer is blasé, predicting the comet would burn up in the atmosphere and end up no bigger than a chihuahua's head. This is ''exactly what happens'', right down to the size of the comet (there's a chihuahua next to it for comparison. This is so OOC, that Bart, Lisa, and Homer huddle in fear.
458* OpenTheDoorAndSeeAllThePeople:
459** Happens when Homer has been accused of sexual harassment.
460** As well as the episode featuring Mulder and Scully. Immediately after Lisa argues that the townspeople aren't going to take three seconds of blurry video as proof that Homer met an alien, Homer opens the door to find half the town on his lawn.
461* OperatorFromIndia: Seen in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" with Apu's relative. He juggles several different phone lines and talks with a different fake accent for each call.
462* OperatorsAreStandingBy: {{Parodied}} in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E13RadioBart "Radio Bart"]]. Homer sees an advertisement for the Superstar Celebrity Microphone. [[note]]a parody of Ronco's Mr. Microphone, a short-range transmitter that would broadcast to a nearby radio via FM: "[[MemeticMutation Hey, good lookin, we'll be back to pick you up later!]]"[[/note]] Homer, convinced that his time for buying the product is running out, hastily calls and asks if there are any left. The operator there replies "Yeah, a couple." The camera then pans out to reveal that the warehouse is, in fact, full of unsold microphones.
463* TheOperatorsMustBeCrazy:
464** In "Homer Alone", Homer's on hold with '''the police department''' waiting for word on Maggie, and the song he hears on told, "Baby Come Back," brings him to TEARS.
465** In "Stark Raving Dad", Marge is also driven to tears by the song "Crazy" (a country song by Music/PatsyCline) while being placed on hold with the Springfield Mental Hospital.
466** In "Saturdays of Thunder", Homer is on hold for the Father/Son Institute and hears the song "Cat's in the Cradle". He sniffs.
467** In "Clown Without Pity" (part of "Treehouse of Horror III"), Marge is on hold with the company that made the killer Krusty doll and hears the song "Everybody Loves a Clown (So Why Don't You?)".
468* OpinionChangingDream: In "Bart the Lover" Bart's class watches a 1950s educational film which has a young man foolishly wish that zinc didn't exist (?!), which proceeded to ruin his life because he couldn't (a) drive his zinc-less car to pick up his girlfriend for a date; (b) call his girlfriend to postpone their date with his zinc-less telephone; and (c) shoot himself in despair (as even the hammer in the gun was made of zinc). The young man is quick to regret his desire for a world without zinc ("Zinc! Come back!"); fortunately, it turns out to be AllJustADream. Then he happily states to be glad to live in a world of zinc.
469* OpposedMentors: Lisa makes a square on a family heirloom patchwork quilt honoring her two musical mentors:
470-->'''Lisa:''' Look, Mom, I've finished my patch. It depicts the two greatest musical influences in my life. On the left is Mr. Largo, my music teacher at school. He taught me that even the noblest concerto can be drained of its beauty and soul. And on the right is Bleeding Gums Murphy. He taught me that music is a fire in your belly that comes out of your mouth, so you better stick an instrument in front of it.
471* OppressiveImmigrationEnforcement:
472** In [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E23MuchApuAboutNothing "Much Apu About Nothing"]], [[MayorPain Mayor Quimby]] creates a law project to instantly deport all illegal immigrants from Springfield if it's passed ([[BittersweetEnding and it does, although Apu is able to get naturalized as a citizen almost on the nick of time]]) to toss chaff on a $5 tax to create a Bear Patrol that made the population angry (ItMakesSenseInContext). What little we see of the deportation process (on top of being a heavy case of ArtisticLicenseLaw because it affects only one small town) implies that Chief Wiggum, [[DirtyCop in his customary style]], rounded up all of the immigrants and placed them in an old cruise ship that heavily resembles the ''Titanic'' to send them to Europe (the fact [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Springfield's geography changes from episode to episode]] raises the additional question of if the ship is actually set in the ocean and, thus, if it wouldn't be more practical to just send them to another state).
473** PlayedForLaughs in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E6MidnightRx "Midnight Rx"]] when the up to that point [[CourteousCanadian friendly and personal Canadian]] Border Patrol aggressive react upon mistaking Apu for a vocal Muslim (Apu had burned his tongue on Ned's coffee [[NotWhatItLooksLike causing him to start ululating, so Ned wraps a towel around his head to cool him off]]), with multiple agents pulling guns on them. To hammer it home, the same agents behave much more reasonably and professionally when they discover the group are really smuggling prescription drugs.
474---> Border Guard: Stop him! [[FelonyMisdemeanour He's expressing his faith, eh!]]
475* OrigamiGag: In "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood", one of the many problems that [[TheMillstone Homer]] causes on the father-son rafting trip involves him folding Ned's river map into a hat and wearing it.
476-->'''Ned:''' Now, what happened to that gosh-darn map I brought?
477-->''(the map-hat suddenly blows off Homer's head)''
478-->'''Homer:''' [[BlatantLies Um, I don't know.]]
479* OrWasItADream: The episode "Treehouse of Horror II" has Homer having a nightmare where Mr. Burns puts his brain in a robot. It gets put back in his body, but then after Mr. Burns gets crushed, Smithers transplants his head onto Homer's neck. Homer wakes up to find out this really happened.
480* OurFounder: Jebediah Springfield founded Springfield and has at least one statue in his honor.
481* OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope: Subverted in "The Mansion Family": Homer says he wishes he won an award, and clarifies "an award worth winning" when he's told he won a Grammy. Immediately after he says this, a disclaimer runs at the bottom of the screen:
482-->'''Legal Disclaimer:''' Mr. Simpson's opinions does not reflect those of the producers, who don't consider the Grammy an award at all.
483** The episode "The President Wore Pearls" is a parody of "Evita". At the end of the show, on screen it says:
484On the advice of our lawyers, we swear we have never heard of a musical based on the life of Eva Peron.
485* OurNudityIsDifferent:
486** Skinner is horrified when his mother goes on a date in an outfit that reveals her... ''figure''.
487** In an episode set in the 1800s, the buy-your-photo section of a log flume ride has to deal with a shot of a lady "flashing her private parts". It's her ankle, and the man running the shop claims he'll take care of it before shiftily stowing it in his pocket as if it were porn.
488* OurSirensAreDifferent: in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS13E14TalesFromThePublicDomain Tales from the Public Domain]]", Homer plays [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]]. The sirens are Patty and Selma.
489* OurSloganIsTerrible: "Come to Duff Gardens, where roving gangs aren't a big problem anymore!"
490* OutlawCouple: Homer and Marge are a bank-robbing couple in "Bonnie and Clyde" (part of "Love, Springfieldian Style"), a parody of the movie of the same name, which in turn was based on a real couple.
491* OutOfContextEavesdropping: In "My Pods and Boomsticks," Homer, who is prejudiced against the new Muslim family, hears the father talking about his demolition job. Unfortunately, the parts of the conversation that Homer hears makes it sound like he is a suicide bomber.
492* OutOfFocus:
493** Barney used to be Homer's best friend in early seasons; later, he drifted away and Lenny and Carl became Homer's main friends.
494** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d a couple times. For example, a gag in "Homer to the Max" where Lisa commented about characters that don't get used, and then Mr. Largo (the music teacher) and the Capital City Goofball (as seen in "Dancin' Homer" [the episode where Homer tells his bar buddies the story of how he became famous as a sports mascot]) walked past the window.
495* OutrunTheFireball: Homer, after causing an explosion at the candy convention in "Homer, Badman".
496%%* OvenLogic: Marge and her Raisin Sponge Cake.
497* OverlyLongGag: Used ''very sparingly'' in the early seasons, and up to a couple of times ''per episode'' in later ones. With the exception of the Rake Scene from "Cape Feare". The animators even admitted that the episode was running [[{{Padding}} low on time]] and, since it was the last episode with some of the original writers, they didn't care if it was too long. It was CUT in syndication!
498** ''"Dental plan!"'' ''"Lisa needs braces!"'' ''"Dental plan!"'' ''"Lisa needs braces!"'' ''"[[MemeticMutation Dental plan!]]"'' ''"[[MemeticMutation Lisa needs braces!]]"''
499* OverlyLongName:
500** Selma's full name is Selma Bouvier-Terwilliger-[[NoodleIncident Hutz]]-[=McClure=]-Stu-Simpson. There's possibly another Terwilliger in there if she amended the name to the end when she [[NoodleIncident married Bob again.]]
501** A vintage Rainier Wolfcastle commercial:
502--->'''Rainier:''' Mein bratwurst has a first name, it's F-r-i-t-z. Mein bratwurst has a second name, it's S-c-h-n-a-c-k-e-n-p-f-e-f-f-e-r-h-a-u-s-e-n.
503** In the first story in "The Wettest Stories Ever Told", Marge's name is Constance Prudence Chastity Goodfaith, also known as Marge Obedience Temperance Sexwont to her friends.
504* OverlyLongScream:
505** In "The Blunder Years", the family goes to a nightclub/restaurant. Homer gets hypnotized by a stage hypnotist, and unearths a traumatic childhood memory and starts screaming. He continues screaming as they leave, he tips the valet, drives home, brushes his teeth, and lies in bed. The next day Lenny and Carl bring him home from work '''still''' screaming; it was interrupting naptime at work.
506** In "Brother From Another Series", Bob and Bart fall from the dam and scream so long that they have to catch their breath.
507* OverlyLongTongue: Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie at the end of "Time and Punishment" have lizard-esque tongues.
508* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: In "Lisa the Simpson", Lisa calls ''Yertle The Turtle'' "possibly the best book written on the subject of turtle stacking".
509-->'''Chief Wiggum:''' ''[reading the book in bed]'' She's got that right.
510* OverlyNervousFlopSweat:
511** In the episode "Weekend at Burnsies", Homer and Mr. Smithers are listening to Mr. Burns rehearse for a meeting. After a joke falls flat:
512--->'''Smithers:''' ''[whispering to Homer]'' One of us has gotta start laughing. If Mr. Burns gets flop sweat he'll die of dehydration.
513''[Burns gets a drop of sweat on his forehead and starts to feel giddy.]''
514'''Burns:''' Oh, I'm drenched with sweat. ''[pushes the droplet back into his head]''
515** On WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie, Krusty is seen dumping a whole cistern tank of flop sweat into Lake Springfield.
516* OverlySpecificAfterlife: There's a CouchGag where there is a heaven for fit dogs and a hell for unfit dogs. Santa's Little Helper dies from overeating. At the Pearly Gates, he is shown that he isn't fit enough for heaven. He is weary about going to hell, but the enticement of free pizza changes his mind and he heads there.
517* OverthetopChristmasDecorations: In the early seasons, Flanders put up really elaborate Christmas decorations, including mechanized Santas, lots of lights etc.
518* OvertRendezvous: When Homer is forced into working for the feds, he meets his handler in a public park.
519* OverusedRunningGag:
520** Homer strangles Bart ''all the time''.
521** The ParodyNames being constantly used in the Al Jean-era episodes. They're half-assed and used in situations where the originals would've worked fine.
522[[/folder]]
523
524[[folder:P]]
525* PackedHero: Parodied. Bart goes missing on a school trip at a box-making factory. Homer sees a ''completely ordinary'' cardboard box with Bart's lucky red hat on it, and immediately assumes the worst.
526* PaddingThePaper:
527** In the episode "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner," Homer becomes a food critic for ''The Springfield Times'' and has to write a proof-of-concept review that has to meet a minimum of 500 words. HilarityEnsues as Homer struggles to write the review with a little help from Lisa.
528--->'''Editor:''' You make numerous threatening references to the UN, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and at the end, you repeat the words "Screw Flanders."]]
529** In Season 14 "Special Edna", when Bart has to write a ten-page essay about UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and he gets too distracted to finish it, his end result is his report containing only four pages of report and six pages of ads.
530* PainfulBodyWaxing: Referenced in one episode. They let Sideshow Bob out of jail to catch a man attempting to murder Homer. He must wear a device that acts as a RestrainingBolt. "And don't bother trying to take it off. Because it's duct-taped to your leghairs. And that really hurts!"
531* PanFromTheSkyBeginning: Each episode begins in the sky with the title being sung by a chorus as clouds uncover it written in the sky. Then, it shifts down to Springfield Elementary where Bart is WritingLines.
532* PantsPositiveSafety: In "Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes", Homer becomes a bounty hunter and starts carrying a taser, which he shoves down the front of his pants because it looks cool. The results are predictable.
533* PaperDestructionOfAnger:
534** In "Selma's Choice", the family stops at a diner on their way to Aunt Gladys' funeral. Homer keeps failing to solve a maze on a placemat, so he keeps crumpling them in anger and tossing them on the floor.
535** In "Lisa on Ice", Lisa receives an academic alert that's she's failing gym. She angrily crumples up the alert and hurls it at a trash can, but airballs it by several feet.
536** In "The Old Man and the Lisa", Lisa coldly tears a check from Mr. Burns in half because the money was made immorally and destroyed a chunk of sea life.
537** In "Burns, Baby Burns", Chief Wiggum crumples a piece of paper with a tracked phone number which Eddie hands him and then throws it into fire. He thinks it's fake because it starts with FiveFiveFive.
538** In "White Christmas Blues", Lisa catches Bart burning a book which she got him for Christmas. He's angry because she knew he wouldn't like such a gift.
539* PaperThinDisguise:
540-->'''Homer:''' ''[disguised as Ed [=McMahon=]]'' You've just won $10 million from that Publisher's Cleary Dealie!
541** Mr Burns does this twice, once when he is fined $3,000,000 and attends the town meeting for what to do with the money as [[SdrawkcabAlias "Mr Snrub"]] from "some place far away" wearing only a fake moustache to suggest they reinvest the money back into the nuclear plant. And once when he disguised himself as a school child by only putting on a hat to convince Principal Skinner to give the school's oil well to Mr Burns. Skinner [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] how ridiculous it was.
542---> '''Skinner:''' Mr Burns...[''Burns is visibly shocked''] it was naive of you to think I would mistake this town's most prominent 104 year old man for one of my elementary school students.
543** Subverted when Homer is banned from Moe's Tavern and appears to turn up to Moe's wearing a fancy suit, a fake looking moustache, talking in a very fake sounding variant of Homer's voice with a fake sounding accent and calling himself "Guy Incognito". He is promptly beaten up and thrown out...only for Homer to then walk past revealing the man was in fact not a badly disguised Homer.
544* PaperworkPunishment: An unintentional example in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E4BartTheMurderer Bart the Murderer]]." After Bart accidentally leaves his permission slip to go on a field trip at home, he has to stay at school while everyone else goes on the trip. Instead, Principal Skinner has him lick envelopes all day. [[TheBore Skinner]] does not see this as a punishment, though Bart, looking quite miserable, seems to disagree.
545* ParallelPornTitles: Occurs quite frequently on the show whenever there's a theater on the screen. Some examples: "Sperms of Endearment", "I'll Do Anyone", "Five Sleazy Pieces", "The Godfather's Parts, II", and "Jeremiah's Johnson", among many others.
546* ParentalHypocrisy: Homer claims that Bart getting his ear pierced as a 10-year-old is ''completely different'' from the crazy things he did as a kid, like getting his ear pierced as a 10-year-old. Well, Bart called it earring and Homer believes "God" and "The Lord" to be "different" guys.
547* ParentalSavingsSplurge:
548** Homer discovers he has stock in the power plant and when his broker calls him, and decides to sell it all for beer. Of course, just as he arrives home he learns that the value skyrocketed after he sold it (instead of having enough to buy beer he could have gotten several thousand dollars).
549** Bart discovers that he was featured in a television advert when he was a baby, but Homer spent all the money that his son made.
550** Homer casually mentions to Lisa that he sold the rights of Bart's kidnapping story (he faked being kidnapped to prevent being punished because he went to a rap concert while already being grounded) for a fortune that he had already spent -- and because of this he becomes part of the cover-up of this aforementioned fakery while Lisa tries to bring it up to light.
551* ParentheticalSwearing: A subverted example occurs at the end of "Bart's Dog Gets an F": Emily Winthrop, the obedience school's owner, says "You son of a bitch, good show" at the graduation ceremony. [[note]] The word "bitch" originally referred to a mother dog before taking on the negative connotations it has today.[[/note]]
552* ParkingProblems: Homer tries to park the family's station wagon in a stall marked COMPACT ONLY against his passengers' advice. He squeezes the vehicle in, [[WatchThePaintJob grinding both sides of the station wagon against the parked vehicles on either side]] and asks Marge in the passenger seat: "How am I doing on your side?"
553* ParodicTableOfTheElements: The Oscar Meyer periodic table.
554* ParrotExpowhat:
555** From "Team Homer":
556--->'''Burns:''' Listen here... I want to join your team.\
557'''Homer:''' You want to join my what?\
558'''Smithers:''' You want to what his team?
559** And from "Who Shot Mr Burns, Part 2":
560--->'''Jasper:''' You shot who in the what now?
561** And from "The Joy of Sect":
562--->'''Marge:''' You ''what''?\
563'''Homer:''' Come again, Marge?\
564'''Marge:''' You ''what''?\
565'''Homer:''' I've joined the Movementarians, and so have all of you!\
566'''Marge:''' We ''[[RuleOfThree what]]''?
567** From "HOMR":
568--->'''Lisa:''' Dad, how could you? We were connecting in such a meaningful way.\
569'''Homer:''' We were what what in the what what?
570* PassingJudgment:
571** Skinner loses his pants as Chief Wiggum drives up.
572** Ned Flanders gets pulled over for suspected DUI just as the church bus drives by.
573** {{Inverted}} in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E6DohInTheWind "D'oh-in' in the Wind"]], when Homer becomes a hippie and decides to defy the establishment. Acting out of his mind while driving in his car, he passes Krusty the Clown, who is at that moment riding a unicycle pulled by his pet monkey... and calls ''them'' weirdos.
574** The RunningGag of Nelson showing up out of nowhere and pointing and laughing overlaps when he's boarding any kind of vehicle, most usually it being his bicycle.
575* PasteEater: Ralph Wiggum is known for eating glue, crayons and worms, among other things.
576%%* PatrioticFervor: Parodied in "Bart Mangled Banner".
577* PayEvilUntoEvil: Subverted in the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" two parter; Burns is portrayed as an opportunist with no moral restraint. When he decides to block sunlight from Springfield, a town hall meeting is called on the subject, and everyone brings a gun to the meeting. But when someone actually SHOOTS Burns (hid behind a ShadowDiscretionShot) he is perceived as a victim, despite his obviously evil nature, and the attempted murder is investigated anyway. This is VERY out of character for Springfield, the kind of town that would leave a boy in a well for previously pranking the town into thinking someone else fell into a well.
578* PayingInCoins:
579** Homer once tried to pay a $900 gas bill by sending a water-cooler bottle full of pennies in the mail. When he puts it down next to the mailbox, it falls into the earth.
580--->'''Homer:''' Hello? [[DiggingToChina China]]? A little help?
581** Another instance, although offscreen: The family pays for a doghouse from the change inside a SwearJar.
582** Bart pays for his fat camp w/ 2 bags of change from some vending machines.
583** Homer buys a motorhome with the change from a savings jar Marge started. How they did it wasn't shown.
584* ThePearlyGates: In "Dog of Death", while Santa's Little Helper is undergoing surgery, he sees the Pearly Gates and runs toward a doggy door that's built into it. However, he's pulled away once the operation's over and he's saved from death.
585* ThePeepingTom: Groundskeeper Willy outs himself as one when he reveals he has a videotape proving that Homer didn't sexually harass a college girl.
586-->'''Willy:''' Homer! I ''love'' amateur video, and your show is the most amateur video I ever saw. My hobby is secretly videotaping couples in cars. I dinna come forward because in this country, it makes you look like a pervert -- but ''every'' single Scottish person does it!
587** Possibly Moe too as he once announces himself on stage with "or, as the ladies like to call me, "Hey, you behind the bushes!"
588* PeriodPieceModernLanguage: The show has, on occasion, used its characters as a UniversalAdaptorCast, moving them from their contemporary setting to a period story where they will mix their modern dialogue with the linguistics of the time.
589-->'''Moe:''' (about Homer, in a retelling of the Mayflower voyage) Man! That guy sends my humors from sanguine to bilious! ''(To audience)'' That's how we talk. Weird, huh? Time to think of a plan most sneaky.
590* PerformanceAnxiety: Seen in "The Lastest Gun in the West" when Krusty tells Buck [=McCoy=] not to be nervous.
591-->'''Krusty:''' Just remember: There'll be millions of people watching you. ''MILLIONS''. ''[Buck takes a drink from his flask]'' And TV Guide's Cheers and Jeers editor! And he's already given out all his Cheers.
592* ThePerfectCrime: One of the original ''[[Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow Tracey Ullman]]'' shorts had Bart claim that stealing freshly baked cookies and blaming it on Maggie is the perfect crime, as his pre-verbal sister can't defend herself. Then he eats an entire sheet of cookies and gets caught because he has chocolate smeared all over his hands and face. As Homer drags Bart away for punishment (the latter lamenting that there is no such thing as a perfect crime), Maggie steals ''one'' cookie - whose absence will be blamed on Bart if it is noticed at all.
593* PermanentElectedOfficial: Mayor Quimby, through lack of opposition, general corruption, and general apathy from the population.
594-->'''Birch Barlow:''' You know, ther-- there-- there are three things we're never going to get rid of here in Springfield. One: the bats in the public library. Two: Mrs. [=McFeerly=]'s compost heap. And three: our six term mayor. The illiterate, tax-cheating, wife-swapping, pot-smoking, spend-o-crat, Diamond Joe Quimby.\
595'''Quimby:''' [[ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne Hey! I am no longer illiterate.]]
596* PerpetualMotionMachine: Lisa is going crazy while the teachers are on strike and creates a perpetual motion machine. Homer later tells Lisa that no physics law should be broken in his home.
597-->'''Homer:''' This "perpetual motion" machine that she made today is a joke — it just keeps going faster and faster.
598* PersecutedIntellectuals:
599** Used several times as throwaway gags to illustrate how much of a CrapsackWorld the town is (at least once to the point that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even the corrupt mayor gets sick]]). TorchesAndPitchforks are a common sight.
600** Seymour Skinner ''saying that the Earth rotates around the Sun'' almost has him torched on the stake once.
601** When tests of a mysterious skeleton fail to prove that it was the remains of an angel, the citizens of Springfield become enraged at science. The resulting riot culminates in the local research laboratories being bombed with Molotov cocktails and the museums being thrashed.
602* PestEpisode: When the country was trying to pick a town to have the Olympic stadium, Springfield discovers that there's a rat infestation in town.
603* PhantomLimbPain: In "See Homer Run", Homer dresses as a mascot called the "Safety Salamander", and is somehow able to manipulate the tail. At the end, Homer says that he can still feel it despite not wearing the suit anymore.
604* PhoneaholicTeenager: In the episode of where a fortuneteller tells Lisa about her future wedding, teenage Maggie is shown to have her own home phone and always be on it. The joke is, we never hear her voice during the whole episode because Maggie is TheVoiceless.
605* PhoneWord:
606** In "Homer the Smithers" Mr. Burns tries to call Smithers by dialing S-M-I-T-H-E-R-S, but after the first seven digits gets Moe's Tavern, where Moe thinks that it's a PrankCall.
607** "Some Enchanted Evening" features 1-800-YOU-SQUEAL.
608--->'''Lisa:''' 1-800-YOU-SNITCH-- No, YOU-SQUEAL!
609* PhonyDegree: Dr. Nick, [[MultipleChoicePast maybe]]. In one episode he says he got his medical degree from "Hollywood Upstairs Medical College".
610* PhosphorEssence: Subverted: the green-glowing space alien who claims to come in peace [[spoiler:turns out to be [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Mr. Burns]] addle-brained from the side effects of his pain medication and glowing due to years of irradiation from nuclear power (which he remains somewhat bitter about)]].
611* PickOnSomeoneYourOwnSize: Parodied in "Much Apu About Nothing": When Proposition 24 comes into the public awareness, the Springfield Elementary students harass foreign exchange students like Üter. Willie cuts through the crowd and says, "You want to pick on immigrants? Then pick on Willie!" Skinner replies with, "Willie, please. The students want to pick on someone their OWN size."
612* PickedLast: The episode "King of the Hill" simultaneously plays this straight and subverts this in a few ways with Bart and Rod Flanders picking teammates for a game of Capture The Flag. Bart picks Nelson over his best friend Milhouse, who naïvely comments on how he must be "saving the best for last." Rod, on the other hand, chooses his brother Todd as his first pick.
613* PiecemealFundsTransfer: In [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E23ThirtyMinutesOverTokyo "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo]], Snake Jailbird steals all the Simpsons' money by downloading it onto a floppy disk, employing this trope in an internet cafe called the Java Server.
614* PigLatin: In "Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens and Gays", there's an entire bit where the characters speak in this after Maggie becomes interested in a children's singer named Roofi and Marge wants to let her watch it on TV.
615-->'''Bart:''' Why don't you let us watch TV and get her a Roofi CD?\
616'''Lisa:''' Bart! ''[subtitled]'' Don't tell mom Roofi has [=CDs=]!\
617'''Bart:''' ''[subtitled]'' Why not? What could go wrong?\
618'''Lisa:''' ''[subtitled]'' She'll buy them, stupid.\
619'''Marge:''' ''[subtitled]'' You know, I was young once too.\
620'''Bart and Lisa:''' ''('''[[{{Punchline}} un]]'''[[FunWithSubtitles subtitled]][==])'' [[OhCrap Ap-cray.]]
621%%* PingPongNaivete: Bart.
622* PinkElephants:
623** When the town is accidentally dosed with peyote, TheAlcoholic Barney is able to drive off his threatening hallucinations by consuming enough liquor to summon a friendlier pink elephant hallucination. Curiously enough, the pink elephant seen here [[ShoutOut looks exactly like the ones seen in]] ''Dumbo''.
624** In another episode, Barney is beating on the ground, yelling "Take that, snakes!" Lenny complements him on rehearsing for Whacking Day (where the townsfolk whack snakes). Barney's reply: "What's Whacking Day?"
625** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in a HalloweenEpisode where aliens come to earth and Homer sees them land; they make sure Homer isn't believed by spraying him with rum to make people think he hallucinated the whole thing.
626** In "The Springfield Files" episode Homer sees what he thinks is an alien while going home from Moe's bar. The creature he saw was real but nobody believed him.
627** Invoked again with the Duff Days beer festival in "Pygmoelian", where pink helium balloons shaped like elephants are available for sale. Homer buys a balloon for Maggie, but it gets loose and floats into a meeting of [[GayConservative Log Cabin Republicans]] who are trying to choose a logo.
628* PinkIsErotic:
629** The Lovejoys were originally depicted as the standard religious family. In later seasons, the reverend and his wife were depicted as being adventurous with their sex lives. Reverend Lovejoy wears a pink shirt; Helen Lovejoy wears a pink sweater and also wears a pink nightie.
630** Dr. Julius Hibbert and his wife Bernice Hibbert wear pink and both are shown to have an open relationship. They hosted a key party, both were shown with a group of swingers, and Hibbert has a sexual history. The good doctor performed as a stripper under the name of "Malcolm Sex" and he apparently got sued by a housemaid for sexual harassment after kissing her under the mistletoe.
631** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS24E17WhatAnimatedWomenWant What Animated Women Want]]", Homer wants to apologize to Marge by making sex more exciting, so he goes to a local sex shop. He buys and builds a lot of pink sex toys and equipment, but gets injured by them while showing them to Marge. While they don't use the items, it does allow them to make amends and they sit together while burning the toys.
632* PinkIsForSissies
633* PinnedToTheWall: In the version of ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', when Odyssyus comes home he finds a bunch of suitors for his wife's hand and throws a spear through all of them, pinning them all to the wall.
634* PinPullingTeeth: Grampa Simpson is shown doing this in his flashback to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"".
635* PiousMonster: In one episode, aliens Kang and Kodos reveal that they're Young Earth Creationists.
636-->'''Kang''': We have been monitoring your species ever since your planet was created, 6000 years ago, by God.
637* PissTakeRap: In "Pranksta Rap", Homer and Marge embarrass Bart by rapping to him about why he can't go to the rap concert:
638-->'''Homer:''' You did it on the straight / Got your dad's permission / But your mom dropped a bomb / So I flipped my position!\
639'''Marge:''' Don't argue with Marge / I know what's best / The only rap in this crib / keeps sandwiches fresh!
640* PlainPalate:
641** In "Father Knows Worst", Homer gets new tastebuds after his old ones burn off and becomes very sensitive to taste, only eating plain food.
642** In "Viva Ned Flanders", Ned says his favourite food is plain food with water.
643* PlanetBaron: Kang becomes ruler of the Earth twice, in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E7TreehouseOfHorrorII Treehouse of Horror II]]", and "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E1TreehouseOfHorrorVII Treehouse of Horror VII]]".
644* PlanetOfHats: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h55HYoV0HH4 Bronson, MO.]]
645-->'''Child:''' 'Ey ma, how 'bout some cookies?\
646'''Mother:''' No dice.\
647'''Child:''' Dis ain't ova.
648* PlasterCastDoodling:
649** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E1BartOfDarkness Bart of Darkness]]", Bart breaks his leg and tries to get his friends to sign his cast, but they're too busy playing in the Simpsons' new pool to care, let alone notice. He catches Milhouse attempting to sneak past him and implores him to sign his name, but he ends up writing "Mil[[FreudianSlip pool]]" (with the "L" written very sloppily) before rushing off.
650** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS25E12Diggs Diggs]]", Bart visits Diggs in the hospital after he breaks his arm while attempting to fly like a falcon. Since he has no friends, Diggs signed his cast with the names of fictional characters he wishes were his friends, including [[Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays Phineas Fogg]], [[Film/DrStrangelove Major T. J. "King" Kong]], [[Franchise/DoctorWho the TARDIS and Dalek #7]].
651** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS28E9TheLastTractionHero The Last Traction Hero]]", Homer ends up in a torso cast and Bart signs it, but on Homer's stomach so he can't see what it says. When Homer demands to know what he wrote, Bart says it starts with an "f" and ends with a "ck", prompting Homer to try (and fail) to strangle him. Once we get a glimpse of the signature, it actually says [[ExactWords "Father Good Luck".]]
652* PlatonicValentine: At the end of the episode "I Love Lisa," Lisa gives a Ralphie a Valentine's Day card that reads "Lets [[{{Pun}} Bee]] Friends."
653* PlayboyParody: One of the fictional brands in the series is "Playdude" magazine, which serves as the stand-in for Playboy magazine. "All's Fair in Oven War" had Marge find Homer's collection of vintage "Playdude" magazines, with Homer claiming that he's keeping for the articles. He throws them out however after Marge tests this theory by cutting out all of the pictures of naked women. Meanwhile, in an earlier episode, Bart was told by Sherry Bobbins that if she caught him reading "Playdude", she would make him read ALL of the articles.
654%%* PlayingATree: Bart and Milhouse play sheep.
655* PlayingCatchWithTheOldMan: This trops is usually used to symbolize the relationships of the generations of Simpson men with each other:
656** In "Bart The Genius", Bart is going to confess to Homer that he is only in a gifted school because he switched tests with another student, but when Homer invites Bart (for the first time) to play catch in the backyard, Bart decides not to confess.
657** In the episode "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" Homer thinks he's dying after eating poisonous cuts of a blowfish so he makes a list of things he wants to do on his last day. One of the items is reconcile with his father; when he does so, Abe asks to play catch with him (as well as do other things like go fishing). Homer crosses off several other activities off of his wishlist in favor of catch with his dad.
658** In "Lisa's Sax", Bart rejects Homer's offer to play catch. Homer says that there's something wrong when a boy doesn't want to play catch with his father; Abe (wearing an old-fashioned baseball uniform) then offers to play catch with Homer, but Homer tells him to go away.
659** In "Life in the Fast Lane", Bart tries to cheer up a depressed Homer by inviting him to play catch. Bart beans Homer with the ball, and he wordlessly plops to the ground without flinching.
660-->Bart: Dad, you didn't even say "Ouch".
661-->Homer: Oh, sorry. Ouch.
662** In "Like Father, Like Clown", Krusty shows an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon in which Scratchy and his son have a came of catch before Itchy and his son kill them and play catch themselves, using Scratchy's head as the ball. This episode drives Krusty, who hasn't spoken to his own father in years, to near-tears.
663* PlayingPictionary: In "A Milhouse Divided," the Simpsons host a dinner party with a game of ''TabletopGame/{{Pictionary}}''. Maude Flanders guesses "cornstarch" from three dots drawn by Ned, while Kirk Van Houten is unable to draw "dignity."
664* PleaOfPersonalNecessity: After Bart and Lisa proved Sideshow Bob rigged the election to win his [[EngineeredPublicConfession Engineered Public]] Rant ends with one of these. Essentially making this statement the ''source'' of his downfall.
665-->'''Sideshow Bob:''' Because you ''need'' me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. ''That's'' why I did this, to protect you from yourselves! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a city to run.\
666'''Judge:''' Bailiff, place the mayor under arrest.\
667''[Bob is handcuffed]''\
668'''Bob:''' What!? ...oh yes, all that stuff I did.
669* PlumbersCrack: Marge once became a carpenter but nobody would hire a woman to do that kind of job. As she commented to Homer that it seemed people expected carpenters to be overweight people with visible buttcracks, she immediately thought about using Homer as a facade.
670* PointlessCivicProject: Springfield seems to be a magnet for these:
671** The Monorail project in "Marge vs. the Monorail". In it, the townspeople are sold on the idea by the slick-talking salesman, despite the fact that Springfield has no ''need'' for a monorail. The end of the episode reveals that the city routinely builds pointless things, such as a Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, a 100ft Magnifying Glass (that sets the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper on fire) and a huge escalator to nowhere (whereupon reaching the top, riders simply plummet to their death).
672** In another episode, Kent Brockman mentions the Clamatorium, described as "a million dollar boondoggle based on nothing more than clever word play."
673** Another example revolves around a music hall in "The Seven-Beer Snitch". Because Springfield is filled with a bunch of "stupid hicks", they leave after hearing the first five notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and the music hall becomes a porno theater, "An Evening with David Brenner", and finally, a prison.
674* PokingDeadThingsWithAStick:
675** In ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E4TreehouseOfHorrorX Treehouse of Horror X]]'', the "I Know What You Did-Iddly-Did" segment sees Marge accidentally run over Ned Flanders with the car. Homer ascertains that he's dead in a super-technical medical way--poking him in the eye with a stick.
676--->'''Homer:''' ''[Squelch]'' He's dead alright. ''[Squelch, squelch]''
677*** Later, when Ned catches up with the family and is revealed to be undead, Homer again pokes him in the eye with the stick.
678--->'''Homer:''' ''[Squelch]'' He's undead alright.
679** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E21SimpsonsTallTales Simpsons Tall Tales]]", the family decides to ride the rails to Delaware. After everyone hops on board a train car, Bart discovers a "dead hobo," and his first instinct is to pick up a stick and jab it at the hobo's foot. However, [[SubvertedTrope the hobo turns out to not be dead]], and he is jolted upright by Bart's poke with the stick, which comes as a shocking surprise to the Simpsons.
680** PlayedWith in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS13E5TheBlunderYears The Blunder Years]]", as Homer gets to the root cause of a traumatic childhood experience, he recalls his younger self crawling into a drainage pipe at a muddy quarry to find out what's clogging it. Young Homer pokes at the clog with a stick without knowing what it is, and when the pipe is unclogged, the water flushes him back out, and he discovers to his horror that the clog was a dead, decaying body.
681** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E1TreehouseOfHorrorXIV Treehouse of Horror XIV]]", in the segment "Reaper Madness", after Homer [[TheDeathOfDeath kills the Grim Reaper]] with a bowling ball, Lisa has a stick in hand and uses it to poke the Grim Reaper's bare skull.
682--->'''Lisa:''' Dad, do you realize what you've just done? ''[Poke]'' You've created a world without death!
683** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS21E8OBrotherWhereBartThou Oh Brother, Where Bart Thou?]]", when Bart adopts a brother named Charlie, one scene has him teach Charlie how to poke a dead raccoon with a stick.
684--->'''Bart''': When poking a dead animal, don't go straight for the eye. Build up to it.
685** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS21E19TheSquirtAndTheWhale The Squirt and the Whale]]", Bart and Milhouse head toward where a beached whale is lying, and Bart says it will be "the biggest dead animal we ever poked". They don't get the chance, however, as Mayor Quimby had decided to have the carcass blown up.
686%%* PoliceAreUseless: Given it's Wiggums who's running the show...
687%%** This is even lampshaded in a song.
688* PoliceCodeForEverything:
689** "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder":
690--->'''Chief Wiggum:''' Alright smart guy, where's the fire?\
691'''Homer:''' Over there.\
692''Homer points at a fire at the police station''\
693'''Chief Wiggum:''' Okay, you just bought yourself a 317, pointing out police stupidity... Or is that a 314? Nah nah, 314 is a dog uh, in, no or is that a 315?... You're in trouble pal.
694** In another episode, Wiggum reports "an 812 - Waking a Police Officer".
695* PoliticiansKissBabies: An episode has Mr. Burns running for governor, and there's a scene where he mentions that he needs to go off and do this.
696* PoorMansPorn:
697** On the season seven premiere, "Who Shot Mr. Burns, part II," Moe is forced to admit under a lie detector test that he spends his evenings ogling the women in the Sears catalogue.
698** Moe invokes this trope again when he brings up "this porn channel I'm too cheap to descramble," which turns out to be an infomercial for shoe inserts.
699---> '''Moe:''' I've been writing creepy letters to ''that''?
700* PornStash:
701** Subverted in the episode "Million Dollar Maybe"; Homer offers Barney access to the hollow tree where he keeps his "adult" magazines... Namely, "The Economist".
702** Played straight on "All's Fair In Oven War," where Homer finds his old Playdude magazines in the wall of the house (all of which have the pornographic pictures cut out) and Bart uses them to act like a swinging bachelor.
703** In "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", "We have searched every square inch of this base and all we have found is porno, porno, PORNO!"
704%%* PortmanteauCoupleName: Nedna, in-universe.
705* PortraitPaintingPeephole: Demonstrated in "Bart Gets Hit By a Car" when Burns listens to Homer and Marge's conversation while staring at them through the eyes of his own portrait.
706* PostMortemConversion: The stonecutters claim that (among others) the signers of The Declaration of Independence [[AndZoidberg and Washington]] were Stonecutters, according to their Secret World History.
707* PostRobberyTrauma: Marge, after having her pearls stolen, in "Strong Arms of the Ma". She ends up becoming a bodybuilder and beats up the person who robbed her in response.
708-->'''Chief Wiggum:''' ''[to a crowd of people who just witnessed Marge's revenge]'' Yeah. She caught her own criminal unlike the rest of you lazy bones. You're not gonna find those criminals looking at your own feet, people.
709* PosthumousCharacter:
710** Snowball I, the first cat of the Simpsons family, is already replaced by Snowball II at the beginning of the show.
711** The town's founder, Jebidiah Springfield, is long since dead.
712* PottyDance and PottyEmergency: Happens a lot to Homer, particularly in the following episodes: "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?", "The Otto Show," "Marge Gets a Job" (while Smithers was cleaning the urinals), "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" (probably the most popular example of a PottyEmergency next to the ''Animaniacs'' episode of the same name), "Homer the Heretic" (only it wasn't as blatant as the other examples. For one thing, Homer was in bed, content on staying in it all day, until he feels the urge to go to the bathroom. He then decides after a few minutes to just go to the bathroom) and "The Cartridge Family."
713** Marge had a PottyEmergency on "Waverly Hills, 9021-D'oh" when she drank several bottles of Vitamin Water.
714** Grampa's PottyEmergency led to a kidney blowout (which, in RealLife, is medically impossible) thanks to too many drinks of sarsparilla and Homer wanting to get home so he can see ''Inside the Actor's Studio''.
715* PoweringVillainRealization: In the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E6TreehouseOfHorrorVI Treehouse of Horror VI]]" segment "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores", giant advertising mascots run amok in Springfield. Lisa goes to an advertising executive for assistance on how to stop them and he suggests that, being [[AttentionWhore attention whores]], they get their power from people looking at them. This turns out to be the right idea when Lisa and Music/PaulAnka convinces the townspeople to [[JustIgnoreIt just not look at them]], leading to them quickly dying off.
716* PowersuitMonkey: There's a duck named Stuart who works at the power plant. And outranks Homer.
717** In "Homer's Enemy", Mr. Burns hires a dog to fill the job he originally planned to give Frank Grimes.
718* PracticalJoke: Bart violently shakes Homer's beer can, hoping it will merely spray him in the face when opened. It backfires when the beer can opening [[DeadlyPrank actually causes an explosion]].
719* ThePratfall: Bart awakens after falling, to find himself staring into the eyes of an attractive young girl.
720-->'''Bart's brain:''' She's beautiful! Say something clever.\
721'''Bart:''' I fell on my bottom.\
722'''Bart's brain:''' D'oh...
723* PrayerIsALastResort:
724** From "Bart Sells His Soul":
725--->'''Bart:''' Are you there, God? It's me, Bart Simpson. I know I never paid too much attention in church, but I could really use some of that good stuff now. I'm... afraid. I'm afraid some weirdo's got my soul and I don't know what they're doing to it! I just want it back. Please? I hope you can hear this.
726** Played for laughs in "Lost Our Lisa":
727--->'''Homer:''' I'm not normally a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me, Superman!
728** From "Bart Gets an F":
729--->'''Bart:''' Well, old timer, I guess this is the end of the road. I know I haven't always been a good kid, but, if I have to go to school tomorrow, I'll fail the test and be held back. I just need one more day to study, Lord. I need your help!\
730'''Lisa:''' Prayer: The last refuge of a scoundrel.\
731'''Bart:''' A teachers strike, a power failure, a blizzard... Anything that'll cancel school tomorrow. I know it's asking a lot, but if anyone can do it, you can! Thanking you in advance, your pal, Bart Simpson.
732* PrayerOfMalice: When Sideshow Bob's after Bart, Bart prays to God to kill him.
733-->'''Bart:''' ...and please, God, ''kill Sideshow Bob!''\
734'''Marge:''' No, Bart! You can't ask God to kill someone!\
735'''Homer:''' Yeah! You've got to do your own dirty work!
736* PrecedentExcuse:
737** A flashback in the episode "Homer The Great". To clarify, Homer as a kid was barred access to a club because they don't allow people named Homer. Kid!Homer points out that they let a kid named Homer Glumplich in, only for the club to respond that it is called [[OneSteveLimit No Homer]]''[[OneSteveLimit s]]''. It repeats himself at the end of the episode with the Ancient Mystic Society of No Homers.
738** This is also Parodied in the episode "Simpson Tide". When Homer joins the Navy, Bart asks him to bring him back some torpedoes. When Homer says no, Bart argues that [[BlatantLies Flanders got his kids torpedoes]] and Homer vows to bring him a "weapon of unimaginable destructive power". Luckily, Marge vetos it.
739** Another example is from the episode "The Great Wife Hope". In it, Marge told Bart to stop fighting with Nelson, Bart pleads that he is only copying the moves he saw at a Martial Arts match. Marge then goes on a crusade to ban those matches too.
740* ThePreciousPreciousCar: In "The Italian Bob", Homer and his family get sent to Italy to pick up Mr. Burns' new Lamorgotti Fasterossa car. While tooling around Italy, the car is crushed by huge wheels of Mortadella and cheese.
741* PrecisionCrash: Played for laughs in "Bart's Comet": Springfield is hit by a comet; fortunately most of it burns up in the atmosphere so only a small rock lands. It scores a direct hit on Ned Flanders' bomb shelter, which everyone had left mere minutes before.
742* PrecociousCrush:
743** The episode "Lisa's Substitute", where Lisa gets a crush on substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom.
744** Lisa's obsession with Corey magazine (and the hotline) in earlier seasons, all full of boys who were at least in their teens. One example in the "Brother From The Same Planet" subplot, when Marge found out about Lisa's phone calls to the hotline, she revealed to Lisa that she was in the same situation in her childhood when she had a crush on Bobby Sherman:
745--->'''Marge:''' Oh, honey, I know how you feel. When I was a girl, I had a crush on Bobby Sherman...\
746''[Lisa bursts out laughing]''\
747'''Marge:''' ''[annoyed]'' The point is, I want you to stop making these calls!\
748'''Lisa:''' ''[serious]'' All right, Mom. I promise you, you will never be billed for another call.\
749''[giggling uncontrollably]''\
750'''Lisa:''' Bobby Sherman?\
751'''Marge:''' [[CatchPhrase Mmm...]]
752** Bart had a crush on new neighbor Laura Powers, who was in her mid teens. When he found out she was going out with Jimbo, one of the bullies who picks on him, he arranged a plan to break them up. It was successful -- by the end of the episode, Laura had broken up with Jimbo and even told Bart that she would date him if he were older. The character was never seen again.
753** In one episode, in regards to Marge, Milhouse says "She's HOT! ...sorry it just slipped out."
754** It happens in "The Devil Wears Nada" with Nelson and Milhouse looking at a pin-up calender featuring Marge.
755* PreemptiveApology: Marge told Lisa, "Don't hate me for this" right before she bared her breasts to Krusty in "Large Marge" (thus causing Krusty to say the magic word, "magumbo", to cause Stampy to spit out Homer, Bart, and Milhouse).
756* PrefersTheIllusion: In "Take My Life, Please", Homer is shown what his life would have been like had he won Student Council President in high school. He's shown this in a pot of [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext magic spaghetti sauce]]. At one point he shouts "I want to live in the sauce!" and tries to jump in. He is restrained by the chef who prepared the alternate-universe-showing sauce, who says "If you could live in the sauce, don't you think ''I'd'' live in the sauce?"
757* PreInsanityReveal: In one episode, framed as an ''Series/{{Up}}'' style documentary, we meet [[spoiler:Eleanor,]] who is both a doctor and lawyer--and then see burn-out turn her into [[spoiler:the CrazyCatLady.]]
758* PrejudiceAesop: "Mypods and Boomsticks" is an episode from the 2000's that is all about how demonizing Muslims is wrong. When Lenny and Carl show Homer an SerialNumbersFiledOff version of ''Series/TwentyFour'' that depicted an Islamic terrorist, he begins to suspect that the Muslims in his neiborhood are terrorists, even though he's known and trusted these people for years. Homer learns the error of his waus and the episode even notes the similarities of the plight of Muslims to the persecution Jews.
759* PrematureAggravation: Homer Simpson does this with some frequency. Oddly enough, they usually spur him to do the right thing, although it is almost always for the wrong reasons. In [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E16TheWanderingJuvie "The Wandering Juvie"]], Homer is initially unconcerned about Bart's escaping from the juvenile hall--his emotion is ratcheted up to alarm once his mental hypothesis concludes with Bart being forced into a shotgun wedding to an alien.
760* PrematureEncapsulation: "Homer's Odyssey" is a season 1 episode that has nothing to do with Homeric epics. Later episodes that actually do {{Whole Plot Reference}}s to ''Literature/TheIliad'' and ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' are therefore forced to have less intuitive names.
761* PreMortemOneLiner: "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace".
762-->'''Willie:''' ''[to a Latin-speaking Martin]'' You may have mastered a dead tongue, but can you handle a live one?! ''[strangles Martin with his tongue, [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]]-style]''
763* PresentPeeking: In one Christmas episode, Bart wakes up very early to see the gifts before the others. He ends up destroying all the presents and the tree in a fire.
764* PrideParade:
765** In one episode, a gay pride parade goes through town.
766--->'''Marchers:''' We're here, we're queer, get used to it!\
767'''Lisa:''' You do this every year. We ''are'' used to it!
768** There was also a float dedicated to those still in the closet.
769---->We're gay, we're glad\
770But don't tell mom and dad
771** When there was a [[BearsAreBadNews bear "attack"]] in Springfield Homer led an angry mob to the mayors office with this chant:
772--->'''Crowd:''' We're here, we're queer, we don't want any more bears.\
773'''Lenny:''' Hey, that's a pretty catchy chant. Where did you hear it?\
774'''Homer:''' Oh, I heard it at the mustache parade they have every year.
775** Lisa apparently made the rest of the family march in a Gay Pride Parade one time. Bart still has the newspaper with his own picture on the front page under the headline "Local Gays Show Their Pride".
776* PrimalScene:
777** In "Lisa's First Word", there was a flashback to Bart's first words. He's walking down the hall and sees Homer and Marge fooling around, to which he says "[[CatchPhrase ¡AY CARAMBA!]]" For obvious reasons, Marge thought it better not to bring it up.
778** In another episode, Bart walks in on his parents again, worried about [[ItMakesSenseInContext having seen a UFO]] - he doesn't figure out what they were doing, but both Homer and Marge scream "Don't turn on the light!" in panic as they cover themselves with the pillows.
779** Also happens in "The Haw-Hawed Couple," when Bart and Lisa walked in on Homer and Marge 'Snuggling', despite the boombox playing the fake argument tape Homer and Marge made, leaving Bart traumatized. At least until he gets some perspective from Milhouse.
780--->'''Milhouse:''' Trust me, Bart, it's better to walk in on both your parents instead of just one of them.
781* PrimpOfContempt: In "Round Springfield", [[CassandraTruth a visibly ill Bart tries to tell Mrs. Krabappel that he's sick and needs to go to the nurse's office]]. But she ignores him, [[SuckySchool saying that the school isn't responsible for anything happening to Bart]], and then she starts filing her nails humming "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Stars And Stripes Forever" before finally allowing him to go.
782* PrisonEpisode: Several of them, mostly involving the villains, but occasionally major characters (especially Homer, sometimes Marge) end up in jail as well.
783* PrisonerPerformance: In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E21BartMangledBanner Bart Mangled Banner]]", the prison inmates who have been arrested for hating America perform a talent show. It starts with former president Bill Clinton putting one hundred cigarettes in his mouth. Then the Simpsons perform a musical number about America, which turns out to be a distraction for the guards in order for the family to escape the prison.
784-->'''Last Registered Democrat:''' You guys are on after Al Franken, so the guards will have used up most of their bullets.
785* PrisonersLastMeal:
786** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E23TheSpringfieldConnection The Springfield Connection]]", Homer, while in jail for harassing Marge after she had become a Springfield police officer, eats Hans Moleman's last meal--lobster tail and raspberry tort--as Reverend Lovejoy delivered to Hans the last rites.
787--> '''Rev. Lovejoy''': Alright, Hans, time to go.
788--> '''Moleman''': But he ate my last meal!
789--> '''Rev. Lovejoy''': Well, if that's the worst thing that happens to you today, consider yourself lucky!
790--> '''Moleman''': Are you really allowed to execute people in a local jail?
791--> '''Rev. Lovejoy''': From this point on, no talking.
792** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E6AMilhouseDivided A Milhouse Divided]]", after finishing his meal at the Simpsons' dinner party, Dr. Hibbert makes reference to this when he "compliments" Marge's cooking in a way that does not entirely sound like a compliment.
793--> '''Dr. Hibbert''': Marge, if that were my last meal, I'd tell the warden, "Bring on the lethal injection!" [SignatureLaugh]
794** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS13E21TheFryingGame The Frying Game]]", Homer is sentenced to the chair, and his last meal consists of an overabundant variety of junk food like burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, a pizza, a box of donuts, a pie, and a keg of beer.
795--> '''Marge''': How can you have such an appetite at a time like this?
796--> '''Homer''': Let's just say I'm planning a little surprise for the execution. [Patting his belly] This cannon is gonna be full when I go off--[=KaBOOM!=]
797* PrivateProfitPrison: The epilogue of the episode "The PTA Disbands" showcased Springfield Elementary becoming one of these in order to provide money to raise the budget. Which meant psychotic killers and violent robbers sharing the classroom space with innocent kids (and Bart). And the teachers don't care one bit.
798* PrivateTutor:
799** In "The PTA Disbands" when the teachers of Springfield Elementary go on strike all the kids treat it as an extra vacation from school - but Milhouse's parents get him a tutor in order to bridge the gap.
800** In another episode Superintendent Chalmers takes Bart under his wing, giving him private lessons outside of school. Eventually all the bully characters start taking these lessons.
801* PrizedPossessionGiveaway: In the Season 5 episode "Rosebud", it is revealed that the teddy bear Maggie has (Bobo) was the same toy Mr. Burns lost several decades ago. He tries to get it back in different ways, to no avail. Near the end of the episode, Maggie herself gives the bear to him, as she feels somehow that the toy means more to him than it does to her. Homer and Marge witness this scene, and the former is unsure if this should count as a happy or sad ending (Marge simply sees it as an ''ending'', as she was quite tired of the matter by then).
802* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: Parodied in universe with Milhouse depositing forty quarters to play an arcade game of ''Film/{{Waterworld}}''. Upon starting the game, the Mariner takes one step at which point the machine states "GameOver. Please deposit forty quarters." Milhouse is annoyed that he got ripped off, yet still adds more quarters. Martin is also seen playing an arcade adaptation of ''Film/MyDinnerWithAndre'' with three dialogue options: "Tell Me More", "Bon Mot" and "Trenchant Insight".
803* ProducePelting:
804** Happens to Krusty in "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious" when he realizes his comedy special of Krusty Komedy Klassic is abbreviated as "KKK".
805** A variant occurs in "The Twisted World of Marge Simpson" when the angry baseball spectators throw pretzels onto the field at Whitey Ford in response to Mr. Burns winning the Pontiac Astro-Wagon.
806* ProductPlacement: Parodied in "Lady Bouvier's Mother".
807-->'''Jackie:''' I remember Lisa's third birthday. She and Bart did this adorable little song and dance routine.\
808'''Abe:''' Oh, heh heh! That was a real horn-honker! Let's see it. ''[Bart and Lisa feel uneasy]'' Now! Do it! ''[They groan]'' '''Do it!'''\
809'''Bart and Lisa:''' ''[get into position and singing flatly]'' Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs...\
810'''Abe:''' Sing it like you mean it!\
811''[They fully launch into a song and dance routine at this point, complete with Homer walking by with a sign promoting the hot dogs at the end]''\
812'''Lisa:''' [[LampshadeHanging Doesn't this family know any songs that aren't commercials?]]\
813''[Lisa walks off while everybody else does the Chicken Tonight song and dance]''
814* ProductPromotionParade: Featured as part of a larger spoof of MerchandiseDriven kids' shows, ''The Mattel and Mars Bars Choco-Bot Hour''. The group's leader tells them to "put down those fun Mattel toys, we've got work to do!" This is followed by AnInsert showing the characters' hands as they place the toys very carefully on a blank background to show kids what they should ask their parents for this Christmas.
815%%* ProfessionalSlacker: Homer, when the need arises.
816* ProfileViewGag: In one episode, the Simpsons walk by Apu, who is facing the camera, wearing a baby carrier pouch with one of his babies. But then he turns to the side, revealing that the pouch actually extends outwards to carry all eight of them.
817* ProgressivelyPrettier: Marge, twice. She was quite dumpy in ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'' shorts. Early in the show's run she was more of an example of HollywoodHomely. Now of course she's treated as if she's supermodel-attractive.
818* ProofDare: One of Bart's early {{Catch Phrase}}s is "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything."
819* ProstheticLimbReveal: In "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" Part 2" we learn that Jasper Beardly has a wooden leg when Smithers confesses to shooting him. Jasper didn't even know he'd been shot. "You shot who in the what now?"
820* ProneToVomiting: Wendell Borton is sickly and often throws up. When he goes through a bus ride without barfing, Bart gives him a congratulatory slap on the back only for Wendell to throw up then.
821* ProveIAmNotBluffing: Spoofed in "You Only Move Twice":
822-->'''Scorpio:''' Good afternoon, gentlemen. This is Scorpio. I have the Doomsday Device. You have 72 hours to deliver the gold or you'll face the consequences. And to prove I'm not bluffing, watch this.\
823'''UN Man 1:''' ''[all the men look at the explosion]'' Oh My God, the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge!\
824'''UN Man 2:''' Maybe it just collapsed on its own.\
825'''UN Man 1:''' We can't take that chance.\
826'''UN Man 2:''' You always say that. I want to take a chance!\
827'''Scorpio:''' "Collapsed on its own"...? [[{{Angrish}} You...]] You have 72 hours. See ya!
828%%* ProWrestlingEpisode: "Gorgeous Grampa"
829* PublicDomainSoundtrack: In "Simpsons Christmas Stories", a segment is named "The Nutcracker... Sweet", that uses music from "Nutcracker", and Lisa even makes fun of how cheapskates use classical music because it's public domain.
830* PublicSecretMessage:
831** In "My Mother the Carjacker", Mona Simpson encodes secret messages to her son in the newspaper, in food articles, using the first letter from each word.
832** Homer sends a message to Lisa in the ''New York Times'' CrosswordPuzzle. {{Defictionalized}} by the ''NY Times'' running that same puzzle.
833* PunBasedTitle: "A Star is Burns", "You Kent Always Say What You Want", "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", etc. These would only increase over time, to the point where nearly every episode title was a pun of some sort.
834** Including ''four'' different puns on "Mona Lisa".
835* PunctuatedForEmphasis:
836** The Comic Book Guy is fond of saying "[[WorstWhateverEver Worst/Best. [Noun]. Everrrr.]]".
837** "Breath! Short! Left arm! Numb! Can't go on ... describing symptoms much longer!" (From an episode actually titled "Worst Episode Ever".)
838** The nurse from "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'" (punctuated with shotgun blasts:) OUR RESIDENTS! ARE TRYING! TO ''NAP''!!!
839** From the same episode. "You. Are. DISMISSED."
840** And Mr. Burns in a Treehouse of Horror: "Bad corpse! Stop -- scaring -- Smithers!"
841** When Abe goes on a death race after promising not to, Homer: "Abraham J. Simpson.... You are never! driving! again! EVER!!!"
842** In "Homer Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble'", Homer won't let Grampa make a pit stop because he wanted to catch a TV special on F. Murray Abraham. When Grampa protested, Homer emphasized, "F! MURRAY! ABRAHAM!"
843** Afer Bart tricked Homer into eating fire and drinking lighter fluid. '''''"WHYYYYY!!! YOOOOOU!!! LIIIIIITLLLLE!!!"'''''
844** In the episode "A Streetcar Named Marge", Marge auditions for the part of Blanche [=DuBois=] in ''Oh, Streetcar!'', a musical version of ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire''. After she fails her audition, Llewellyn Sinclair, the director, tells her that Blanche is supposed to be "a delicate flower being trampled by an uncouth lout". When he then sees a depressed Marge talking to Homer on the phone and agreeing to bring back some food for him, he grabs the phone and yells "Stop! Bothering! My! BLANCHE!"
845** In "The Great Wife Hope", Marge has to fight Englebrit, the creator of "Ultimate Punch Kick and Choke Championships" (an MMA-type sport) before he'll agree to put a stop to it. At first she gets soundly thrashed, until Bart attacks Englebrit and gets beaten up. [[MamaBear Marge exclaims "That's. My. Son!" and commences kicking Englebrit's ass.]]
846* PunWithPi:
847--> '''Apu:''' I can recite pi to 40,000 decimal places. The last digit is "1".
848--> '''Homer:''' Mmm, pie.
849* PursueTheDreamJob:
850** Homer once quit the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant to become a pin-monkey at the local bowling alley as soon as he got out of debt. He loved every minute of it. Once he learned that Marge was pregnant with Maggie, however, he tried to get a raise by attracting more customers, but was ultimately forced to give up the job and go back to the power plant.
851** In another episode, Homer gets fired from the plant and decides to go back to his favorite job, as a dish-washer at a Greek restaurant. He quits upon learning he's being paid in dracmas and blackmails his way back into the plant.
852** Marge Simpsons is a talented artist. As a teenage girl, she painted portraits (Ringo Starr's in particular). Some episodes show her trying her hand in art again, like paintning Mr Burns' portrait or making life-size sculptures out of popsicle sticks, but she returns to being a happy mother and homemaker.
853** Ned left his job as a company clerk to open a store for left-handed people. Unlike the above examples, it lasts.
854* PutMeInCoach: Parodied in "Bart Star"; at the big game, Chief Wiggum announces that Nelson has an arrest warrant and wants to know which one of the players is Nelson. Homer laments that he's about to lose his star quarterback, but Bart says, "It's OK, dad: I can fill in for Nelson!" But instead of assuming the role of quarterback as expected, Bart is next seen in the back of Wiggum's police car.
855* PutOffTheirFood: In the episode where Homer becomes a food critic, some chefs plan to assassinate him with a lethal eclair. After other attempts to stop Homer from eating it fail, Lisa tells him that it's low-fat, causing him to throw it away in disgust.
856* PuttingThePalInPrincipal: Dean Peterson from "Homer Goes to College" is laid-back and friendly, and used to play bass for Music/ThePretenders. Homer, however, is convinced that he has to be a "crusty old dean" like the ones in the college movies he sees.
857[[/folder]]
858
859[[folder:Q]]
860* QueerPeopleAreFunny: Gay people are usually on the show as a parody or gag.
861-->'''Homer:''' You're all ''sick!''\
862'''Gay Steel Worker:''' Oh, be nice!
863* QuestForIdentity: In "Smart and Smarter", after realizing that she's no longer the smartest, Lisa attempts to gain new identities for herself, such as being a cowgirl, taking up [[GratuitousRap rapping]], stand-up comedy, soccer, cheerleading, and even becoming a {{Goth}}.
864* QuietCryForHelp: In the episode "Marge Gets a Job", Music/TomJones (guest-starring playing himself) is kidnapped by Mr. Burns and forced to play a private concert for him and Marge. He keeps trying to plead secretly with Marge to get him help, but she's too preoccupied to notice.
865* QuirkyDoctor: Dr. Julius Hibbert, despite being one of the most intelligent people in Springfield (even a card-carrying Mensa member) is known for his habit of chuckling at inappropriate moments... and pretty much all other moments. He gives odd treatments and prescriptions, such as scaring Bart with a massive injection gun (actually a button sewer) to make him sweat off objects glued to his face, and nearly beats Homer with a "surgical 2x4" to demonstrate his skull's density. Several episodes imply he may be practicing medicine without a license.
866* QuirkyTown: Springfield is probably the most iconic example on television.
867* QuoteToQuoteCombat
868** A delightful scene in the episode "Homer, the Heretic" when the reverend is trying to recover a lost sheep and Homer attempts a random and failed comeback.
869--->'''Lovejoy:''' Homer, I'd like you to remember Matthew 7:26. "The foolish man who built his house upon the sand."\
870'''Homer:''' ''[pointing a finger]'' And you remember... ''[thinks]'' Matthew... 21:17.\
871'''Reverend Lovejoy:''' ''[confused]'' "And he left them and went out of the city, into Bethany, and he lodged there?"\
872'''Homer:''' Yeah. Think about it.
873** Bart and Lisa try to do this to convince Krusty's rabbi father to start speaking with his son again. Unfortunately for them, it's not so easy to out-quote a rabbi, especially since they don't know much about the holy texts.
874[[/folder]]
875
876[[folder:R]]
877* RabbleRouser: "The PTA Disbands" has Bart stirring up the striking teachers to keep the strike going and extend his time off from school.
878* RadishCure:
879** Homer Simpson had a literal IronicHell version of this, which was subverted as he was TooSpicyForYogSothoth.
880** They also had the episode "Bart The Murderer" where Bart was storing ten thousand cartons of cigarettes for the mob, and Homer threatens to make Bart smoke each and every one of them.
881* RaidersOfTheLostParody: The episode "Bart's Friend Falls In Love" dedicated the first few minutes of its opening act to the famous introduction of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''. Bart steals Homer's change jar from his dresser, Homer wakes up and gives chase, but trips and rolls down that stairs after him.
882* RaincoatOfHorror: In one Treehouse of Horror episode, Flanders turns into a werewolf, HulkingOut and destroying the raincoat he's wearing as soon as the clouds part and reveal the full moon.
883* RaisedHandOfSurvival: In an early episode, motorcycling daredevil Lance Murdock jumps over a pool filled with sharks, lions, gorillas, etc. He manages to jump it successfully but then falls in afterwards. As he's being stretchered out he weakly gives a thumbs up. The announcer cheerfully tells the audience "He's OK, folks!"
884* RakeTake: In 'Cape Feare', Sideshow Bob gets whacked by [[OverlyLongGag nine rakes in a row]], each time followed by a low, drooling growl.
885* RankedByIQ: Springfield is left under the control of local Mensa members after the mayor skips town. They disagree on how the town should be run and eventually start arguing by stating their IQ at each other. Frink insists his 199 IQ qualifies him to be in charge -- but is soon "outranked" when Stephen Hawking arrives on the scene!
886* RapidFireComedy: Varies based on the era, and it can sometimes be sneaky about it. Still, much of the show is characterized by quick-witted, to-the-point dialogue, abrupt bursts of slapstick, sprawling, bizarre storylines [[HalfwayPlotSwitch that suddenly shift focus on a dime]], and scenery so dense and packed with visual gags that multiple viewings are almost a requirement for spotting them all.
887* RapidHairGrowth:
888** The episode "Simpson And Delilah" has Homer uses a miracle hair growth product and gets a full head of hair overnight. But at the end, [[StatusQuoIsGod he loses it]] [[HairTodayGoneTomorrow just as fast]], leaving a hairy trail form his bed to the bathroom.
889** When Homer went bald, Marge got [[StatusQuoIsGod God to make Homer's normal hair reappear.]]
890** Invokes this when Homer is shaving, possibly to mock HairReboot as well, Homer will have a clean chin for a few seconds before it grows again. Link for the clip [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzKbIzdVe-g here]] and if anyone wants the English dialog but less quality [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gIhaXYAOAQ here]].
891* RattlingOffLegal: Occurs all the time when a commercial appears on the show.
892%%* ReadingIsCoolAesop: PlayedForLaughs in "Summer of 4 Ft. 2."
893%%* ReadingTheStageDirectionsOutLoud
894* ReadingsBlewUpTheScale: Professor Frink invents a sarcasm detector, which of course explodes when [[DeadpanSnarker Comic Book Guy]] expresses how useful an invention it is.
895* RealFakeWedding: Selma gets married [[SerialSpouse (again)]] to Fat Tony. The ceremony is conducted entirely in Italian, and it turns out it's a ceremony that makes her officially TheMistress, but not the wife. The alleged wife is another woman with [[EnormousEngagementRing a much larger diamond in her ring]], who gets into a CatFight with Selma.
896* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The production of seasons five and six was delayed by the infamous North Ridge Earthquake of 1994. Consequently, some episodes that take place during summer aired that fall.
897* Really17YearsOld: Parodied. Grampa Simpson says that he fought in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI -- "of course, I had to lie about my age to get in." In the ensuing {{Flashback}}, he's five.
898* RealMenHaveShortHair: In "Mother Simpson", there is a flashback to 1969 when Homer's parents see football player Joe Namath on TV during the Super Bowl. He has a full mane of hair and his flowing, bushy sideburns inspire Mona to take part in [[TheSixties 60s counterculture]]. Abe, on the other hand, whines: "Look at them sideburns! He looks like a girl!" He continues: "Now, Johnny Unitas - there's a haircut you could set your watch to!" (Closeup of Unitas with a crew cut/flattop-type style).
899%%* RearWindowInvestigation, RearWindowWitness: "Bart of Darkness".
900* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In ''The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!'', Creator/ConanOBrien proposes that the final episode should end with an epic one.
901-->'''Conan O'Brien''': Marge is gonna take a good, hard look at Homer and say, "He's so stupid, and he's screwed us over so many times." It'd be [[PlayedForDrama humorless, it won't be funny]]. It'll just be her looking at Homer and saying, "You are such a stupid [[PrecisionFStrike son of a bitch]]...You're endangering my children, you've destroyed the town 600,000 times, you...you're a threat to mankind. I'm leaving you. I'm leaving you forever."
902* ReasonableAuthorityFigure:
903** Marge when she's not subject to Flanderization. Of the staff at Springfield Elementary, Mrs. Krabappel seems to be the most competent teacher. She cares about even her worst students, whereas other teachers are dismissive and bullying (like Miss Hoover and Mr. Largo) or too prone to bouts of insanity (like Skinner and Groundskeeper Willie.)
904** When Bart ends up in France as an foreign-exchange student and is subsequently enslaved by two winemakers, he escapes to town to find help. He finds a French policeman who doesn't understand English, but gives Bart a sweet. After Bart realises that he can speak French, the policeman is horrified to learn of his predicament and the antifreeze wine. He then proceeds to bring him to safety and reassures him that there's nothing left to worry about. A raid then ensues on the winery.
905* RebusBubble: '''Homer + Beer = [[strike:Car Crash]] President Homer'''.
906* RecognitionFailure: In "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", Homer meets Music/GeorgeHarrison. At first he appears to recognize him, but then he cries out, "Where did you get that brownie?!"
907* RecognizableBySound: In the episode "Regarding Margie", Marge has amnesia and doesn't recognize her family. The sound of Maggie sucking on her pacifier helps jog Marge's memory and recognize Maggie.
908* RecycledPlot:
909** One of the problems of the newer episodes (possibly the biggest one, besides, you know, playing FollowTheLeader with ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' and ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'') is that they keep reusing old ideas. "Saddlesore Galactica" was a parody of that kind of recycling (and the fans who bitch about this), but sadly the newer episodes play this straight.
910** One of the biggest differences between the old episodes and their newer carbon copies is that the older episodes broke down, challenged, rewrote, and satirized a lot of sitcom clichés and conventions and explored a lot of topics TV shows at the time either never thought to do or were afraid to do. The show didn't even spare itself, gleefully mocking the absurdity of Springfield and the situations characters found themselves in. The newer episodes however play things more straight, with life in Springfield being even DenserAndWackier, and shown as a fact of life rather than a as punchline.
911* ReferenceOverdosed: The show's use of ShoutOut and pop-culture humor and celebrity cameos makes it less funny and harder to understand for anyone who's not familiar with popular or celebrity culture. Along with Creator/QuentinTarantino, this show is perhaps the most responsible for the proliferation of this trope over the past quarter-century in American media.
912%%* RegalRinglets: Taffy in the "Homer Scissorhands" subplot.
913* RejectionRitual: When Homer was kicked out of the secret organisation known as "The Stonecutters," his punishment was to be stripped naked, shackled to a rock called the "stone of shame", and ordered to drag the rock with him as he walked home.
914* RelationshipSabotage:
915** Once had Bart try to break up the relationship of Laura Powers, his PrecociousCrush (with the added motivation that the person she was going out with had bullied him).
916** In an earlier episode, when his best friend Milhouse started 'dating' the new girl at school, Bart tipped off the girl's BoyfriendBlockingDad so Milhouse would hang out with him again. He ended up regretting it.
917** In another episode, Milhouse's parents (who several seasons back had a nasty ToiletSeatDivorce) are getting back together. Which seems great at first, except that Milhouse starts to feel that they're ignoring him. He complains about this to Bart, and Bart sees a TeenDrama on TV wherein a girl angrily dumps her boyfriend because she found another girl's bra in his room. Bart steals one of Marge's bras and leaves it in the Van Houtens' bedroom. But because the bra had Marge's name sewn into it, it poses a threat to Homer and Marge's marriage as well. [[spoiler:Homer and Marge reconcile over the fact that it was a big misunderstanding.]]
918* ReluctantGift: In episode "The Day the Violence Died", a legal battle rules that animation studio I&S Studios must pay $800 million to Chester Lampwick. When chairman Roger Meyers presents the check, he refuses to let go for a few seconds and Lampwick struggles with him. When Lampwick finally wrests the check away, [[TastyGold he bites it as if testing for a counterfeit coin]].
919* RememberTheNewGuy: The season 25 episode "Four Regrettings and a Funeral" featured the funeral of beloved character Chip Davis (in reality the character never existed). Originally the episode ended with a montage of images from classic Simpsons episodes with Chip inserted into them. It was supposed to run during the end credits but this was removed for the broadcast version and replaced with an "In Memoriam" card for the recently departed Marcia Wallace. The original credits featuring Chip can still be viewed on Hulu.
920* [[RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun Remember When You Blocked Out The Sun]]: Mr. Burns in the episode with his love interest and her ex-boyfriend Snake. After she leaves Burns for Snake because Snake is such a "bad boy", Burns complains that ''he'' is truly evil and recites a number of his evil schemes, such as ''blocking out the sun'' in Springfield.
921-->'''Burns:''' Play along, chubsy. There's a pie in it for you.\
922'''Homer:''' Oh! Yeah, Monty's a wild man! He ran his own casino, stole the Loch Ness Monster, got shot by a baby, and blotted out the sun!\
923'''Gloria:''' Wow, that was ''you''?
924* RemonstratingWithAGun: When Homer was accused of the attempted murder of Mr. Burns.
925-->'''Homer:''' Say I never shot you!... Before.
926* RepeatedCueTardyResponse: In season 23, "Exit Through the Kwik-E-Mart", Homer arranges for Paula Paul to call Marge live during her show to wish her a Happy Birthday. He makes everyone wait while he says "three... two... one!" Nothing happens. He continues to say "one" for hours. Then it turns out that Marge's new pet rabbit (given to her by Bart for her birthday) had chewed through the phone wire, preventing the call from coming through.
927* RepeatingSoTheAudienceCanHear: In "Like Father, Like Clown", both Krusty and his father repeat what they're going to the same restaurant for while on the phone.
928** In "Bart-Mangled Banner":
929--->'''Homer:''' ''[on the phone]'' You want us to tell our side of the story? You'll see us tomorrow? Goodbye? Dial tone?!
930** In "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge":
931--->'''Marge:''' What is it?! ''[pause]'' "Smartline"? Yes, I've heard of your late night talk show. Well I'd love to! ''[hangs up]''
932** In "Marge Be Not Proud", the security officer who caught Bart shoplifting appears to do this when calling Bart's parents, but after hanging up, he turns to Bart and tells him, "They weren't home. Uh huh. But I left a message on their answering machine. That's right."
933* ReReleaseSoundtrack: There was an odd variation in an episode ("Saddlesore Galactica") that used Cake's "The Distance". The rights weren't cleared in time for the original broadcast and a soundalike instrumental track was used instead, but later on, they did get the rights, and repeats (as well as the DVD) use the actual song.
934* ReroutedFromHeaven: At the end of "The Simpsons Bible Stories", TheRapture happens and Lisa (but no other Simpson) is being lifted bodily into heaven. Homer grabs her ankle and makes her go to hell with the rest of the family.
935** In "The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase", one of the pieces was that Grampa Simpson died, his soul should have gone to Heaven, but instead it ends up in Moe's Love-O-Matic machine.
936* RetailRiot:
937** In the episode ''Grift of the Magi'', there was a riot thrown by customers desperate to get the new toy "Funzo". The marketing executives responsible watched the footage, laughing, in a hot tub.
938** In another episode, there's a run at the Kwik-E-Mart when a hurricane is about to come through. Lisa gets put in a shopping cart by a crazy lady who feels Lisa's head and thinks she's a pineapple.
939* RetargetedLust: In the episode "Feelin' Frisky", Homer hints at a heightened desire for Marge after watching women's volleyball on ESPN.
940* RetiredBadass: Abe Simpson is usually shown to be a rambling, partially senile old man who crushed his son's self-esteem and abused him the same way Homer abuses Bart. However, "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in, 'Curse of the Flying Hellfish'" revealed that he was a competent military officer and he kicked Mr. Burns' ass for trying to steal the stolen art tontine and for nearly drowning Bart.
941* {{Retirony}}: Many examples, coming from the TropeNamer:
942** From "Saturdays of Thunder", [=McBain=]'s partner getting shot dead. He had only two days until retirement.
943** From "Homer and Apu", Homer smashing the camera hat, believing there's a bee in it. Kent Brockman told Homer the hat had one day until retirement.
944** From "Natural Born Kissers", a police dog trained to sniff out Homer runs off, frightened by Homer's scent. Wiggum laments that the dog had one day left until retirement.
945** From "Homer to the Max", another example featuring Wiggum: His one-day-'til-retirment car is smashed by a falling tree.
946** A variant from "Marge Simpson in Screaming Yellow Honkers": Marge accidentally breaks down the prison walls, allowing them to escape. Wiggum runs up and tells Marge that the prisoners were one day away from being completely rehabilitated.
947** From "Homer vs. Dignity", Wiggum himself uses the words "retirony" as a ConversedTrope when talking to a financial planner. This episode was the TropeNamer.
948** In one episode, Homer and Marge steal a hot-air balloon, which it's revealed the original owner was living in. They lighten the load by throwing out some of his "household" items, including a hot plate, which he laments he only had two payments left on.
949* {{Retraux}}: The episode "The Day The Violence Died" is one big love letter to classic cartoons.
950* RetroactiveWish: "I sure hope there isn't an ice-cream round!"
951** The Mayor of Springfield tried it in another episode. He had just had sex with his lover commented on how he'd like some cigarettes and a pack was thrown at his room. He then offered one to her but she rejected and explained she was pregnant. Mayor Quimby then prayed for God because he had another favor to ask.
952* RewindReplayRepeat: Chief Wiggum does this to a recording with [[BlandNameProduct Chincy Pop]] in the background to isolate it.
953* RhetoricalQuestionBlunder:
954** From "Homer to the Max", regarding "Police Cops":
955--->'''Bart:''' This isn't bad!\
956'''Homer:''' "Isn't bad"? Tell me one thing mankind has ever done that's any better?\
957'''Lisa:''' The Renaissance?\
958'''Homer:''' This is better.
959** Also this example from "Mountain of Madness":
960--->'''Bart:''' Teamwork is overrated. Think about it: I mean, what team was Babe Ruth on? Who knows.\
961'''Lisa and Marge:''' Yankees.
962** In "The Last Temptation of Krust", Krusty attempts an act of observational humor:
963--->'''Krusty:''' Did you ever notice how there are ''two'' phone books: A white one ''and'' a yellow one? What's the deal with that?!\
964'''Lisa:''' ''[flatly]'' One's residential, the other's business.\
965'''Krusty:''' Oh. ''[animated]'' What'll they think of ''next'': BLUE pages?!\
966'''Marge:''' ''[flatly]'' They have those; they're government listings.
967** In "Mother Simpson", Mona was singing a song with a rhetorical question in it:
968--->'''Mona:''' ''How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?''\
969'''Homer:''' Seven!\
970'''Lisa:''' No, Dad, it's a rhetorical question.\
971'''Homer:''' Rhetorical, eh? Eight!\
972'''Lisa:''' Dad, do you even know what "rhetorical" means?\
973'''Homer:''' ''[incredulous]'' Do I know what "rhetorical" means?!
974* RichesToRags:
975** Homer ruins his long-lost brother Herb -- the head of a Detroit car company -- by designing a terrible car.
976** Mr. Burns once lost his fortune because his yes-men didn't have the guts to tell him he was making bad investments. Lisa helped him to build a new one.
977*** Burns also lost his money in a Coca-Cola advertisement.
978* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: The entirety of Springfield when they come into any money.
979-->'''Lyle Lanley:''' You know, a town with money's a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it and danged if he knows how to use it.
980* RiddleForTheAges:
981** How Mr. Burns beat Bart and Lisa to the bottom of a laundry chute.
982** How Grampa took off his underwear without taking off his pants.
983** In "The Last Temptation of Homer", Homer, Charlie, Carl and Lenny are trapped in a room filling slowly with poison gas. Cut to Charlie standing in Mr. Burns' office, saying: "Well, sir, I won't bore you with the details of our miraculous escape, but ..."
984** In "Viva Ned Flanders," as the Monty Burns Casino is being destroyed:
985--->'''Marge:''' Remember how excited we were when this place opened? Then, a week later, we just forgot about it.\
986'''Lisa:''' I'm surprised they bothered to move it when they moved the town.\
987'''Homer:''' Oh, I can explain that. You see--\
988''[The demolition begins, interrupting Homer]''
989** From "The Great Money Caper"
990--->'''Homer:''' Wait a minute. You're telling me the police force, the TV news, a courthouse full of people, and a popular entertainer had nothing better to do than to teach me and Bart a lesson?\
991'''Lisa:''' I know it seems far-fetched, even insulting to your intelligence. But there's a simple and highly satisfying explanation. You see--\
992'''Otto:''' [burts in suddenly, carrying a surfboard] Hey, everybody, surfs up!\
993''[Everyone leaves excitedly]''
994** From "Brother's Little Helper"
995--->'''Mark [=McGwire=]:''' Young Bart here is right. [[spoiler:We are spying on you, pretty much around the clock.]]\
996'''Bart:''' But why, Mr. [=McGwire=]?\
997'''Mark [=McGwire=]:''' Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to see me sock a few dingers?\
998'''Crowd:''' Dingers! Dingers!
999* ARiddleWrappedInAMysteryInsideAnEnigma: The episode "Lisa's Date With Destiny" sees Lisa describe Nelson like this:
1000-->'''Lisa:'' A riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a vest.
1001* RidiculousFutureSequelisation: ''The Simpsons'' brought us "Star Trek XIII: So Very Tired" a couple years before ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' was released.
1002* RidiculouslyLongPhoneHold: In the episode where the family goes to Australia, Bart calls a boy in Australia to ask which direction the water in the toilet is flowing. The boy has to check with his neighbour who lives many miles away, so he places Bart on hold and spends half the day visiting his neighbor and going back to answer the question. By the time he gets back Bart had already gone to bed and no longer cared about the question at all.
1003* RidiculouslyLongPhoneNumber:
1004** When Bart calls Antarctica. For the record, the number he dials is 577562374257635623567462357736257635725.
1005** Also, beautifully drawn out as Homer requests to use the phone at the library for a local call before dialing Hokkaido, Japan.
1006* RightHandAttackDog: Mr. Burns has a pack of hounds which he likes to release on those who disturb him at home.
1007* RightHandHottie:
1008** In one episode, Homer gets an attractive male secretary (voiced by Harvey Fierstein) and in another episode, Homer fell for a female coworker who was basically his DistaffCounterpart, only skinnier, with red hair, and voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer.
1009** Also Mr Smithers, assistant to Mr Burns, as far as some of the viewers are concerned.
1010* RightOnQueue:
1011** Moe goes to register as a sex offender and complains "There's always a line."
1012** Patty and Selma work at the DMV and comment, "Some days, we don't let the line move at all. We call those weekdays."
1013** Also used in "Selma's Choice"; Bart tells Lisa a mammoth Duff Gardens queue has to be for something fun. It's actually for the complaints department.
1014** In "Brush with Greatness", there's a long line for the [=H2Whoa=] water slide. Bart and Lisa cut to the front by claiming she's a lost child and he's helping her; Homer cuts by claiming to be a "line inspector".
1015** There's yet ''another'', from one of the latest season's episodes: Marge and Homer are waiting in line for a new marriage certificate, when they both decide to get married ''properly'', they both go to leave, when they're accosted by a security guard, telling them that ''that's'' the line to leave (cut to a line as long as the rest).
1016* RiskyBusinessDance: In "Homer The Heretic" (dancing to "Who Wears Short Shorts?" instead of "Old Time Rock 'n Roll").
1017* RoadsideWave: This happens to Moe as part of a HumiliationConga in "Moe'N'a Lisa". Immediately afterwards, the sprinklers turn on and then it starts to rain, but only on him.
1018%%* RoadTripAcrossTheStreet
1019* RoguishRomani: In one episode, Roma have taken over the playground of Springfield Elementary and are seen stealing a frisbee from a small child.
1020* RooftopConcert: Homer's barbershop quartet, The Be Sharps, reunite on the roof of Moe's Tavern for a performance. George Harrison, when passing by, comments "ItsBeenDone." Meanwhile, Chief Wiggum, the band's [[ThePeteBest Pete Best]], arranges for them to be tear gassed.
1021%%* RuleOfFunny: The series practically abuses this trope.
1022* RuleOfThree:
1023** Sometimes they stop short after the second time. For example, in the episode "Radioactive Man", Bart's hat flies off upon the news that Radioactive Man is getting a movie, prompting Comic Book Guy to say, "I have got to do something about that air conditioner suction." The same gag occurs when the students hear about the auditions for the role of Fallout Boy, and Skinner follows this by saying, "Oh, and the air conditioner will be fixed this afternoon." By this point you'd expect the "hat and air conditioner" gag to come up one final time at some point, but it never comes.
1024** Played straight in "Homer the Great", with Lenny saying "It's a secret.", followed by Carl twice and Homer the last time saying "Ssssssshut up."
1025* RunningGag:
1026** Mr. Burns not remembering who Homer is, and having to ask Smithers, who gives different descriptions each episode ("That's Homer Simpson, one of your carbon blobs from sector 7G"; "One of the fork and spoon operators from sector 7G"; "One of your organ banks from sector 7G"). Abandoned after "Who Shot Mr Burns? (Part 2)".
1027** During seasons 3-5, there was frequently a joke about Homer saying that doing something was his "life-long dream". Marge quickly shot him down by saying that his life-long dream was actually to (fill in wacky scenario here), and that he did it last year.
1028** There are lots of episodes with similar names:
1029*** "Bart Gets an F" / "A" / "Z", "Bart's Dog gets an F", "[[TheBGrade Lisa Gets a B+]]" / "A".
1030*** "Moaning Lisa", "Moe'N'a Lisa", "Mona Leaves-a", "Loan-A-Lisa",
1031*** "Homer vs.s Lisa and the Eighth Commandment", "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment".
1032*** In every episode named like a court case, the Simpsons lose, with the exception of "Bart vs. Australia".
1033** From "Kill the Alligator and Run", the restaurant owner saying, "I like that.", no matter the circumstance.
1034** During the Scully seasons, there was a repeated gag of Homer waving his fist threateningly and repeating a word from his previous sentence. Examples:
1035--->'''Homer:''' I paid full price for this freak show. Now nourish the child within me! ''[shakes fist]'' NOU-RISH!\
1036'''Homer:''' So you better catch the fever! ''[shakes fist]'' CATCH IT...\
1037'''Homer:''' Well, we are not boarding that plane unless you waive that tax. ''[shakes fist]'' WAIVE IT...
1038** In "Bart the Mother", Homer falling down the stairs to the basement after the lights refuse to come on when he flicks the light switch.
1039** Whenever something that's property of the Springfield Police Department is destroyed[=/=]rendered useless, Chief Wiggum will comment "What a shame, that [X] had three days until retirement."
1040** And of course, Homer strangling Bart.
1041** As the baby of the family, Maggie never speaks -- so episodes that look into the future will usually (a) continue to keep her as TheVoiceless and (b) will imply that she has a beautiful singing voice or achieves fame and success as a singer / musician.
1042** Sideshow Bob will invariably step on a rake, get smacked in the face with the handle, and mutter angrily. [[OverlyLongGag Sometimes a few times in a row]]. [[LikeFatherLikeSon Even his son is not immune]].
1043** In a few episodes, when a character attempts to be sneaky or search for something the theme "[[Film/BeverlyHillsCop Axel F]]" will begin playing.
1044** Whenever somebody calls a helpline, an pre-recorded message will ask them to hold, then play a song that's really innapropriate given the context. If it's Homer that is calling, he'll start sobbing.
1045** Hans Moleman getting killed yet turning up later no worse for wear. A list of his deaths can be found [[https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Hans_Moleman#Deaths here]]. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Moleman himself during his radio show "Moleman in the Morning"
1046--->'''Moleman:'''Today, part four of our series of "The agonising pain in which I live everyday."
1047** Lenny has an alarming tendency to get things [[EyeScream thrown into his eye]]. "My eye! I'm not supposed to get [object] in it!"
1048** In some of the earlier episodes, Homer doesn't know that Maggie's real name is Margaret.
1049* RunningOverThePlot: Several examples:
1050** In the episode ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E10BartGetsHitByACar Bart Gets Hit By A Car]]'' Bart [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gets hit by a car]]. Being more specific, he gets hit by C. Montgomery Burns' car, and the episode revolves around the courtroom hearing that ensues when Homer decides to [[FrivolousLawsuit sue Burns for all the money he can]].
1051** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS14E20BrakeMyWifePlease Brake My Wife, Please]]", Homer gets addicted to walking after losing his driver's license, while Marge gets stressed from all driving she has to do for her family now. This culminates with Marge impulsively attacking Homer, starting with her hitting him with her car. This shows marital issues between them.
1052** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS15E09IAnnoyedGruntBot I, (Annoyed Grunt)-bot]]", Bart deliberately throws his bicycle in the path of Dr. Hibbert's car. After the collision, Dr. Hibbert assures Bart he'll pay for a new bike, then returns to his car, vowing to keep his eyes on the road... before hitting Snowball II as well, killing her.
1053* RussianRoulette: In "Simpson Tide", Moe has a [[Film/TheDeerHunter Deer Hunter]]-esque scenario going on in a back room of his bar.
1054[[/folder]]

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