Sometimes, there’s just no excuse, Homer.
The Simpsons, particularly Homer, have experienced so many Epic Fails that it's almost a mainstay of the show.
- In "Moaning Lisa," Bart beats Homer so badly in the boxing video game that it shows Homer's boxer being lowered into a grave. Bart's boxer dances on his opponent's grave.Bart: Gee, Dad, you're really bad at this!
- In "Oh Brother Where Art Thou", Homer's up-until-then-long-lost brother Herb asks Homer to help his company design a car for the "average American man". Homer instead designs an $82,000, ridiculous-looking Hummer Dinger that gets Herb laughed straight into bankruptcy. Herb didn't really make things easy on himself by 1) believing that Homer, with his immense stupidity, actually could represent an "average American" or 2) deciding not to listen when the rest of the research team tried to warn him.
- In the subplot to "Bart the Lover," Homer strives to develop a doghouse for Santa's Little Helper. He manages to complete it, only for this exchange to occur (and it is implied afterwards that he has to contribute to the Swear Jar):Homer: What do you think?
Lisa: How's the dog supposed to get in?
Homer: Well, he just goes... [realizes that he forgot to add a door to the doghouse] Oh--! - In "Homer's Triple Bypass," the COPS parody has Chief Wiggum trying to locate a cattle rustler. He ends up mistaking Reverend Lovejoy's location with the cattle rustler's location next door, despite the obvious hints that they got the wrong house (the next door neighbors had an odd amount of cattle especially for a suburban neighborhood, whereas the house they raided, Lovejoy's, was normal). He also fails to identify the car or even the driver—beyond being "hatless"—despite the driver poking his head out to taunt the cops long enough to have even a ten year old give the specific details.
- In "Marge in Chains," Lionel Hutz (who is defending Marge) gets taken down for jury tampering when he intercepts the jury's verdict en route to Judge Snyder and replaces it with his own.Judge Snyder: This verdict is written on a cocktail napkin!... And it still says 'guilty'! And 'guilty' is spelled wrong!
- In "Homer Goes to College," he's put in a truck containing a simulator of his work station and somehow causes a meltdown. He later, somehow, does the same with a model proton accelerator in a classroom.Inspector: I'm still not sure how he caused the meltdown. There wasn't any nuclear material in the truck!
- In "Burns' Heir," Lionel Hutz somehow manages to screw up the custody battle for the Simpsons getting Bart back from Mr. Burns so hard (largely offscreen) that Burns is declared Bart's biological father.Marge: You know, we should really stop hiring him.
- In "Bart of Darkness," the Simpsons are assembling a pool in their backyard. Somehow, they instead manage to build a steel barn out of the pool's prefabricated components. Bonus points for the barn being well-constructed enough to impress a local Amish man.Homer: All right, everybody into the pool!
Amish Man: 'Tis a fine barn, but sure 'tis no pool, English.
Homer: D'oh-eth! - In "Bart's Comet", the plan to get rid of the eponymous comet is to blow it up with a missile. It lasts ten seconds in the air and then blows up the only bridge out of Springfield.
- In the same episode, Skinner orders Willie to shoot down the weather balloon Bart vandalized to mock Skinner. Willie nearly hits some passing fighter jets. The radar identifies him as an Iraqi jet, and the attempt to shoot him down takes out the shooter's wingman and then himself. Then their parachutes fail just before they land.
- In "A Star is Burns", one scene of Mr. Burns' film A Burns for All Seasons has him falling from his horse and being dragged by it. The scene ends with Mr. Burns being dragged with a cactus on his back, and at the film's premiere at the Springfield Film Festival, he comments that it was the best among twenty takes.
- In "King-Size Homer", to qualify as "disabled" and work at home, Homer becomes so morbidly obese that he can no longer dial a phone number without assistance.The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm... now.
- In "Marge Be Not Proud", after Marge doesn't put marshmallows in Bart's hot cocoa because she thought it would make him feel like more of an adult, she then suggests that he do it himself. His attempt results in the marshmallow absorbing every drop of the liquid to form a sort of gelatin, which Bart gloomily eats with a knife and fork. Of course Grandpa views it differently and even asks if he can have a slice of the marshmallow.
- In "Homer the Smithers" (pictured above), Homer has to cook breakfast for Mr. Burns at 4:30 in the morning and is out to make sure it's the best damn breakfast he can provide. He starts off with a shish kebab on a burner, which he doesn't know how to use, and it catches fire. Then he goes to a simple microwave, smashes the window open and sticks in the kebab, and (rather unsurprisingly) it also catches fire. Having gotten nowhere with the kebab, Homer gives up and settles for a bowl of cereal, which is not only a disaster, but also breaks several scientific laws (the cereal randomly catches fire after Homer pours cornflakes and milk into the bowl).
- In "22 Short Films About Springfield" and the memetic "Skinner and the Superintendent" segment, it's not enough that Principal Skinner is so inattentive to the roasted ham he plans to serve to Superintendent Chalmers that it catches fire. No, he's so concerned with salvaging his luncheon he forgets to turn the oven off when he finds out. Skinner proceeds to gloss over the oven setting his house on fire.
- In "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in The Curse of the Flying Hellfish", one of the members of Abe's military unit was Chief Wiggum's father, Iggy Wiggum. He mentions having somehow lost the pin to one of his grenades before it explodes in his backpack.
- Then there's the entire point of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?". It turns out that Mr. Burns was shot after he unsuccessfully tried taking candy from a baby (Maggie). Not by someone ambushing Burns while he was doing this act. By being so Pathetically Weak that his struggle to take the candy made his gun fall from its shoulder holster, on Maggie's hands, and went off from the jolt, hitting Burns.
- In "Homer's Phobia", after Bart accidentally breaks the family's gas line, Homer tries to pay the $900 repair bill with money from his retirement fund. Translation: a water cooler tank full of pennies, which he is struggling to carry. Homer barely makes it through his front door before he drops the tank—which promptly buries itself deep in the Earth, leaving a neat hole in the ground.Homer: Aw, nuts! [looks in the hole] Helloooooo! China? A little help?
- In "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment", Duff tries to create a non-alcoholic beer so they can keep selling it once Springfield bans alcohol. It does so poorly, it bankrupts the company in thirty minutes.
- Frank Grimes attempted to invoke this trope on Homer in "Homer's Enemy" by having him join a nuclear power plant model-creating contest (intended for children) with the intention of having him lose, thus exposing him as a fraud. Homer actually won. But for "Grimey" (as Homer refers to him throughout the episode), the trope is played straight. When his contest scheme fails, Grimes snaps and runs amok through the plant, eventually touching live high-voltage wires that fatally electrocute him on contact.
- In "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace", Marge goes on Jeopardy! to try to repay Springfield, but ends up with -$5200, which she owes Alex Trebek.
- In "Natural Born Kissers", we learn that when he served in the US Army during World War II, Grampa Simpson was so terrible at clearing minefields that he was awarded the Iron Cross.
- In "Homer to the Max", Homer and Marge are dragged along to a protest where they're chained to redwoods. After Homer declares this to be the worst party he's ever been to, Marge adds it's not as bad as Lenny's New Year's Eve party where he apparently didn't even have a clock for the occasion. Also, Homer single-handedly demolishing the entire forest (and killing a bald Eagle) as a result of trying to avoid becoming a victim of Police Brutality courtesy of said protesting.
- In "Marge Simpson In Screaming Yellow Honkers", Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers attempt to perform the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" routine. It's a skit that can go on for some time... but Skinner, who has such a poor sense of humor, a need to appease Chalmers, and thinks the audience wouldn't get it, IMMEDIATELY explains the joke in his first sentence as "Costello" by describing who the "Who" is in the routine. Chalmers is beyond frustrated by Skinner's idiocy:Chalmers: Well, that's just great, Seymour. We've been out here six seconds and you've already managed to blow the routine.
- In "Mom and Pop Art," when Homer attempts to build a barbecue, he has several epic failures in short succession. All he manages to build is a chaotic pile of the grill's components (including, somehow, his wristwatch) embedded in a slab of concrete. Angrier than usual, Homer charges the debris with an umbrella like Don Quixote after beating it with a pipe, with about the same measure of success.Homer: Oh yeah, that's one fine looking barbecue pit. (brings the box down, revealing his crappily made version) WHY DOESN'T MINE LOOK LIKE THAT?! (screaming in rage) WHY MUST LIFE?! BE SO?! HARD?! WHY MUST I FAIL AT EVERY ATTEMPT AT MASONRY?!
- In "Guess Who's Coming To Criticize Dinner?" Krusty's disastrous dinner theatre role has him dubbed, according to the newspaper article, the "Worst King Lear in 400 years," since he thought that the play was a comedy instead of a tragedy until a co-star informed him otherwise.
- In "Eight Misbehavin'", Homer's forced to perform in a circus-like show at the zoo. When the show's trained cobras start attacking him, the zookeepers bring out a mongoose to kill the cobras... but the mongoose gets scared by the many number of cobras so it instead joins the cobras in attacking Homer!Homer: Stupid mongoose! Get the snakes! The snakes!
- In "Bart to the Future", one of the dilemmas President Lisa Simpson's administration has to deal with is that the previous administration's attempts at helping children and keeping them off crime not only didn't turn them off crime, but instead transformed them into implacable supermen capable of doing crime literally all day long.
- In "Days of Wine and D'ohses", Homer crudely creates an alternate gas main in order to allow him to do pyrotechnics with a tiki idol that he got as a result of rummaging through garbage, resulting in a massive gas leak in the kitchen. While ranting to Marge as the tiki idol, he accidentally drops it, causing it to combust, and it is also implied that the house was going to end up destroyed shortly thereafter.
- In "Fraducast News", after Mr. Burns projects a laser of Lisa kissing Milhouse on the moon, he says it's "as easy as crushing an ant". He then tries to actually step on ant to prove his point, only for the ant to grab his foot and topple him over.Mr. Burns: (frightened) Take my wallet and leave me alone!
- In "My Fair Laddy", after Willie has become a proper gentleman thanks to Lisa, Principal Skinner hires Mr. Largo to be the school's new groundskeeper. When Mr. Largo tries to drive Willie's tractor, he ends up on the school's roof.Mr. Largo: How did I get up here?!
- In "Homerazzi", Homer accidentally sets fire to the house while trying and failing to blow out his birthday candles. Even worse, the candles were supposed to be easier to blow out than regular candles.
- Homer's encounter with the wrecking ball in The Simpsons Movie crosses into this by the end, when it resumes swinging for no apparent reason a couple of seconds after seemingly coming to a stop.
- In "The Devil Wears Nada", Homer and Marge use snuggle dice to get into the mood. Homer rolls three times and gets decisively unsexy (or even uncuddly) "lick eyes", "spank hair" and "whisper into ass".
- In "Homer The Father", the new nuclear power plant that Homer helped build explodes into a mushroom cloud as soon as it's opened.
- In "Bart's New Friend", Homer can't even adjust his tie properly without help from his co-worker.
