This is Mrs. Gross, who was originally planned for the show back in season 1, but was cut.
The Simpsons has a lot of scrapped and/or changed ideas:
- The entire series originally had an at birth concept counterpart in mind by Matt Groening, where the show would be about a Nuclear Family living in a surreal 1950s-early 1960s era parallel universe America, satirizing history, then-common events, and having mondegreen references of famous celebrities and politicians. Traces of this were still seen in the Tracey Ullman Show shorts, which had black and white TVs and films, and a short where Homer does a Nuclear Drill in the middle of the night.
- Back when The Tracey Ullman Show was searching for someone to do animated fillers, Groening initially wrote material based on Life in Hell. After realizing that the licensing could have cut into his publishing rights, he immediately drew up a crudely-drawn family, named it after his family, and voila, that's how the longest-running, most influential and memorable series on American TV came to be.
- During the casting call for the Tracey Ullman shorts, Yeardley Smith auditioned for Bart and Nancy Cartwright auditioned for Lisa. Cartwright leaned towards Bart when she discovered that Lisa didn't have much personality at the time. Casting director Bonita Pietila also observed that Smith's voice was too high for Bart so she gave Smith the part of Lisa instead.
- An early storyboard
◊ of the opening sequence has two different introductions for Homer and Marge.- After Homer leaves work, he is seen driving out of the power plant's parking lot.
- The checkout scene has Marge and Maggie facing left rather than right.
- "Kamp Krusty" was originally conceived as the first full-length film. They eventually scaled back their vision as they couldn't come up with a decent way to stretch the plot to 90 minutes (and even had problems with it when they rewrote the episode as a typical 30-minute episode, as heard in the DVD Commentary), and a Simpsons film would not be made until more than a decade later.
- The writers originally considered having Skinner wear a toupee, but it was dropped as Groening thought toupee jokes were cheap and predictable. Despite this, one image from the book The Simpsons Guide to Springfield (specifically one relating to King Toot's Music Store) did have Skinner's top hair fly off in a similar manner to a toupee when covering his ears from Willie's bagpipe playing. Also, one of the blackboard punishment gags is, "The principal's toupee is not a Frisbee", plus an illustration in the HarperCollins book Bart Simpson's Guide to Life and the comic book story "The Perplexing Puzzle of the Springfield Puma" also support the idea of Skinner actually wearing a toupee.
- Some of the DVD commentaries mentions plotlines or episodes that never got off the ground. For example, the B-story of "New Kid on the Block" was originally going to involve Homer and Marge going to see a Don Rickles comedy show, and a brawl breaking out between Rickles and Homer after Homer became the target of Rickles' insults. This never manifested because Rickles refused to lend his voice or image to the show note (which might explain the gag in "Viva Ned Flanders" where Rickles gets caught in the casino explosion and run over by the Simpsons).
- Marge was supposed to be an irresponsible drunk who always humiliated Homer - in the earlier drafts of "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", Marge was supposed to show up in the plant drunk, and cause Homer to get fired (which was the real reason why they had no money, and Homer had to play Santa). Though a similar thing happened in "There's No Disgrace Like Home", where Marge becomes an embarrassing drunk at Mr. Burns' picnic.
- The "Robot Richard Simmons" scene in "Burns' Heir" where Bart gets adopted by Mr. Burns got cut because table readings didn't get consistent laughs (it was shown at conventions and college events, which convinced the writers to put it on that clip show episode where Troy McClure narrates the series' history and behind-the-scenes moments). On the DVD commentary, then-showrunner David Mirkin stated that Simmons wanted to do a guest voice, but not as a robot.
- The season 10 episode "Bart the Mother" where Bart kills a mother bird and has to care for the eggs was originally a B-story that didn't have a place in any episode and was originally supposed to be used as a subplot for a season seven episode. The original B-story involved Homer saving a nest of eggs found in the nuclear plant chimney from being orphaned in the winter.
- "New Kid on the Block" had another subplot idea involving Homer after the Don Rickles one fell through that had Homer trying to get a job as a barber (this was in season four, well before the episodes where Homer is put into a new job every other week and doesn't acknowledge that he's a nuclear plant safety inspector unless the plot called for it), but this was scrapped in favor of the subplot where Homer sues a seafood restaurant manager (Captain McAllister, a.k.a The Sea Captain) over not getting his fill at the "All You Can Eat" buffet. The "Homer as a barber" plot would later be changed to "Homer as a hairdresser" and be the main plot to the season 22 episode "Homer Scissorhands".
- Otto the bus driver's original name was supposed to be "Otto Mechanic" (instead of Otto Mann), but the writers thought the joke was too predictable.
- "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" was originally going to have Japanese businessmen trying to buy the nuclear plant, but, at the time, Japanese businessmen buying out major American companies was a reality, and would have been too predictable for a lot of viewers, so the writers made the businessmen German to keep things fresh.
- Originally at the end of "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish", there was going to be a scene where Homer held a barbeque, and was being approached by the other characters for the actions he pulled earlier. Unfortunately, the scene couldn't be edited smoothly enough to fit near the end, so the episode ended with Homer telling Marge he was going to live life to the fullest, followed by a cut to him just watching TV and eating pork rinds as the credits rolled.
- O. J. Simpson turned down an opportunity in appear in "Last Exit to Springfield," what is often hailed as the series' greatest episode. The writers consider this, in hindsight, to be a good thing, considering O.J.'s murder trial a few years after the episode originally aired. His place in the episode was taken by newspaper columnist Dr. Joyce Brothers. Similarly, Anthony Perkins was cast to voice the dentist in the episode, but passed away before he could record his dialogue, and the role ultimately went to regular Hank Azaria. Additionally, Clint Eastwood and Anthony Hopkins were offered the part, but both turned it down.
- "Stark Raving Dad" note was originally supposed to have a sequel where the same big, bald mental patient returns and now thinks he's Prince and encourages everyone in town to be open and free with their sexual sides. While the premise of Springfield being free and open with their lives (with disastrous results) would be visited on the season five episode "Bart's Inner Child" (only it would be changed to everyone acting like Bart, and the man who encourages them is a motivational speaker named Brad Goodman, voiced by Albert Brooks) and, to some extent, also visited in the season 23 finale "Lisa Goes Gaga" (which has a famous pop singer whose clothes and music are considered offbeat and highly sexual trying to change Springfield), the original episode with Prince was written, but never made, due to one of two reasons: either Prince turned down the chance to do voicework or the producers gave Prince the chance to write the script himself and rejected the results (which were too weird and sexual for primetime TV at the time). Bill Oakley remembers it being the second reason, and that Prince and the producers could not reach a compromise, as Prince wanted his version on TV while the showrunners preferred their tamer script.
- In another Season 3 episode, "Radio Bart" (the one where Bart gets a radio microphone for his birthday and tricks the town into thinking a boy is stuck in a well), Bruce Springsteen was originally going to guest star in the role that eventually went to Sting.
- Also, originally, when Bart tricked Homer into thinking aliens were invading Earth, Homer was supposed to mix a batch of poisoned Kool-Aid so he and his family can commit suicide. The censors voted it down as they felt it would lead to a lot of copycat incidents, while the writers realized that it would have been too dark to be funny, so they changed it to Homer getting a shotgun and running for the front door, until he finds that Bart is the one who's making the announcement.
- In "Marge vs. the Monorail", before it was decided to have Leonard Nimoy voicing himself, the producers originally wanted to have William Shatner voice himself. Shatner declined, as did George Takei, who stated that he didn't want to do an episode making fun of public transit. At the time of production, Takei was a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD) in Los Angeles.
- Marge was initially planned to become The Alcoholic out of boredom during "You Only Move Twice", having nothing better to do in a house that can clean itself. This was deemed too depressing, so the final version of the episode features a Development Gag where she just takes occasional sips of wine while the viewer is assaulted by scare chords and dramatic closeups.
- There was an alternate ending to the season 12 episode "I'm Goin' to Praiseland", where Ned Flanders' Christian theme park, Praiseland, he built for his deceased wife Maude (who originally sketched the idea in a notepad), blows up, caused by a gas leak and Flanders ends up hospitalized. The alternate ending can be seen on the Season 12 DVD as a deleted scene.
- William H. Macy was picked to voice Frank Grimes for the infamous season eight episode "Homer's Enemy", but due to scheduling conflicts, Hank Azaria's beforehand recorded voices were used instead and according to writer Josh Weinstein via Twitter in September 2020, Nicolas Cage was also considered to voice Grimes.
- Jim Carrey originally wanted to voice the Singing Hobo in the Season 12 finale "Simpsons Tall Tales", but the producers were unable to work it into Carrey's schedule. The hobo was instead voiced by Hank Azaria.
- Tom (Bart's big brother figure from "Brother from the Same Planet") was meant to be voiced by Tom Cruise. When Cruise declined, Phil Hartman stepped in and the rest is history.
- "Rosebud" originally had several darker scenes in Bobo's backstory, such as Bobo being involved in John F. Kennedy's assassination, and two more scenes before the robotic Burns finds Bobo, the first where Canadian troops invade and destroy Washington DC and find Bobo, the second where the earth is overrun by giant Redwoods and spotted owls. The scenes of Bobo's backstory, such as the one with JFK, were cut because the writers felt they were in poor taste, while the ending scenes were cut for time.
- The Halloween specials have loads of stories that never made it off the ground. For example, there was a segment parodying The Exorcist with the ghost being voiced by none other than Gary Oldman, but scheduling conflicts scrapped that (though a light Exorcist parody was used at the end of the "Treehouse of Horror XVI" story, "B.I.: Bartificial Intelligence," which revealed that Bart's story of becoming a robot to fight back against his equally robotic replacement turns out to be a dream from the mind of a possessed Homer as he's being exorcised). More recently, a storyboard (from 2008), which shows two large carnivorous dinosaurs fighting in the Simpsons' house came up and was to be used as a segment that was a parody of an obscure British sci-fi show called Primeval. The parody was apparently scrapped when Impossible Pictures demanded excessively high licensing fees and the fact that Douglas Henshall flatly refused to lend his voice to the show. In interviews after the segment was scrapped, Tim Haines expressed remorse at the idea not being used and Ben Miller (the actor who plays Lester) mentioned that he would have loved to do the episode.
- For "Krusty Gets Kancelled", there were many possible guest stars who were being discussed. According to the DVD commentary, producers looked at getting The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would subsequently appear in "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation""), and every living former U.S. presidentnote was asked to appear; only Reagan responded to the invitation, sending a "politely worded" letter of declination.
- The part that James Woods had as himself in the season 5 episode "Homer and Apu" when he replaces Apu at the Kwik-E-Mart was originally intended to go to Michael Caine.
- The original plot for season 12's "Insane Clown Poppy" dealt with Homer finding out he had a daughter with another woman (before he met Marge) out of wedlock. Al Jean didn't like this idea and they decided to make it Krusty's daughter instead.
- The season 23 episode "Holidays of Future Passed" was originally planned as the final episode of the entire series, due to FOX having budget issues with The Simpsons and planning to replace the show with another Seth MacFarlane cartoon (a revival of The Flintstones), but when MacFarlane announced that he was putting the project on hold and the cast and crew of the show agreed to take a pay cut in order to keep the show afloat, "Holidays of Future Passed" went from being a Series Finale to a Christmas Episode.
- Several musicians and bands were considered for guest roles in Season 7's "Homerpalooza". Peter Frampton's role was originally meant for Bob Dylan, who declined. Neil Young and Pearl Jam, who were collaborating with one another at the time, were sought for the episode but also turned down the offer. Courtney Love and her group Hole were also considered for the episode, but they declined. However, Sonic Youth said that if Love were in the episode, they would not be, and they were considered to be the bigger priority because they were one of Groening's favorite bands. Love was wanted specifically for one joke which would be in an exchange between her and Homer, which was later changed to accommodate The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan.
- Season eight's Very Special Episode "Homer's Phobia" was supposed to be called "Lisa Goes to Camp" in which Lisa finds an interest in kitschy collectibles and Bart gets into it too, only for Homer to worry about Bart's sexuality. The "Homer worries about Bart's sexuality" part was still there, but the rest of the story was changed to the story of Homer befriending the John Waters-esque antique store owner.
- It would have been the first Banned Episode in the show's history. Back in the 1990s, producers were wary over sitcom writers doing episodes dealing with homosexuality and homophobia, and when they saw the original script for "Homer's Phobia", they told the writers that they couldn't do it. It wouldn't be until FOX got a change in management that the episode would be made, albeit with two changes in dialogue: one for censorship reasons, and the other for personal reasons.
- There was supposed to be a season seven episode that dealt with racism called "Homer vs. Dr. Hibbert", but the writers ditched it after realizing how heavy-handed and preachy it was.
- Had they known the series would run longer, they would have made separate episodes on Homer and Marge's marriage, Homer getting the job at the Nuclear Power Plant (as technical supervisor or supervising technician), and Bart's birth. Hence fitting all three plots into "I Married Marge".
- There were several spin-offs planned, including a live-action Troy McClure film (presumably starring Phil Hartman), a series of vignettes on the people of Springfield (inspired by the episode "22 Short Films About Springfield"), the adventures of young Homer, a feature length film parody of Fantasia, and a live-action Krusty the Clown sitcom starring Dan Castellaneta, where he hosts a talk show in LA. The Krusty sitcom came the closest to being made. Whether it would have branched continuity or Krusty would have dramatically left Springfield like Cleveland left Quahog in Family Guy is unknown, though it would have had Krusty's house be on wooden stilts slowly being eaten by beavers. When Groening was told that trained or animatronic beavers would have been prohibitively expensive, he decided to abandon the idea instead of compromise, and ended up making Futurama.
- Some other ideas that were dropped early on included Kang and Kodos being aliens that only Homer could see and the season six episode "Homie the Clown" actually being about Homer revealing that he is Krusty the Clown (as opposed to going to a clown college where he gets a job as a Krusty impersonator who appears at events that the real Krusty wouldn't touch with a ten-foot clown pole). The Kang and Kodos concept was dropped for being too surreal and the Krusty idea was phased out, as it would have royally screwed up the continuity, not unlike Principal Skinner's past as Armin Tamzarian or the entirety of "That '90s Show."
- As Cracked notes here, it had been Groening's idea that Krusty would be Homer's alter ego, to the point that on a closer look, you can see that Krusty has the same facial build as Homer, aside from the hair and makeup. But it was decided to make Homer and Krusty be separated into two different characters for a couple of reasons, because Cracked points out that "it would be a bit far-fetched to think of Homer as being capable of successfully leading a double life as a local celebrity while maintaining a job at a nuclear power plant and also barely being competent and sober enough to tie his own shoes. Not to mention that a number of early storylines about the family's financial difficulties would have lost a bit of their oomph factor if Homer was secretly sitting on a wealth of branded Krusty home pregnancy test and imitation gruel royalties." Another part of this was that Bart looked down on his own father, but idolized Krusty, meaning he really did look up to his father in secret.
- As Cracked notes here
- Phil Hartman was supposed to voice Disco Stu in his debut appearance in "Two Bad Neighbors", with the character originally designed as an elderly John Travolta lookalike. But when the animators remodelled his design to resemble as we see in the show, Hartman was unavailable to record a new voice for the redesigned character, so Hank Azaria voiced Stu instead.
- James Earl Jones was originally going to voice Sideshow Bob, but the producers chose Kelsey Grammer instead.
- The Simpsons Movie would have featured Hank Scorpio from the episode "You Only Move Twice" as its villain, but he ended up being replaced by Russ Cargill due to potential derailment for Scorpio. Fortunately, Scorpio's voice actor, Albert Brooks, remained on board as he was more than willing to voice Cargill.
- In "Barting Over", Homer originally squandered Bart's commercial money on buying a star that went supernova, but after Michael Jackson's baby-dangling incident occurred during production, the idea was changed to Homer buying back incriminating photos of him dangling (and dropping) Bart from a balcony (which, unfortunately, made the episode even more dated).
- In "Bart Sells His Soul", Bart tricks the congregation of Rev. Lovejoy's church into singing "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly, passing it off as a hymn. The song the producers originally intended to use was "Jesus He Knows Me" by Genesis, which is an attack against corrupt televangelists. The producers were not able to acquire the rights to "Jesus He Knows Me", so they changed the music to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" instead.
- Groening once said that in the final episode, Marge was going to be revealed to have rabbit ears under her hair as a nod to his rabbit-populated comic strip Life in Hell. This was scrapped due to inconsistencies and being deemed too surreal. This gag appears in the arcade game when Marge gets shocked.
- The character Milhouse was originally created by Groening for a Saturday morning cartoon show on NBC that never went past the planning stages. He was reused in a Butterfinger commercial that aired a month before the series premiere, then went on to be a recurring character.
- Comic Book Guy's name originally was going to be "Louis Lane", and would have a Running Gag of being infuriated when someone mentioned the similarity to the name Lois Lane. Season 16's "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass" reveals that his name is "Jeff Albertson".
- Bill Oakley published the original draft for his famous "Skinner and the Superintendent" segment from "22 Short Films About Springfield", revealing a number of things:
- The segment was originally called "Chalmers Vs. Skinner".
- Before getting the idea to replace the burnt roast with Krusty Burgers, Skinner looks into his fridge and finds he has no other roasts.
- While Skinner is insisting that the hamburgers are his creation, Chalmers argues that he's been to Krusty Burger hundreds of times and that the food is identical to Krusty Burgers.
- When Chalmers points out that the so-called "steamed hams" are obviously grilled, instead of Skinner being lost for words, he simply nods and Chalmers responds, "I see."
- At the end, Chalmers says, "Well Seymour, thank you for a pleasant dinner.note Perhaps I can return the favor sometime." Skinner responds, "I look forward to it." In the finished production, Chalmers instead says, "Well Seymour, you're an odd fellow. But I must say, you steam a good ham." Skinner says nothing in turn.
- In another early draft, Chalmers was going to give a speech to the "Union of Amateur Astronomers" in Albany about Skinner’s supposed aurora borealis in his kitchen.
- After that episode, the creators wanted to make a Spin-Off called Springfield Stories, which would tell three separate stories each episode about random Springfield residents. The workload, however, would have been too much for the writers, but they maintain the series could happen someday.
- "Homer Is Where the Art Isn't" was going to have a scene involving a crowd demanding a female Doctor Who. It was dropped when Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth Doctor.
- "Daddicus Finch" was originally titled "Lisa Has a Crush on Homer". The title was changed due to falsely suggesting Oedipal subtext (when it's just idolization due to Homer acting like Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird).
- Having succeeded in getting Thomas Pynchon to make a couple vocal cameos, the staff decided to go all-out and recruit the king of Reclusive Artists, J. D. Salinger, to make a guest appearance. He turned them down quickly and decisively.
- The character of Herman was originally planned to have a Running Gag in which his explanation for his missing arm would change every time he appeared. In his debut episode, Season 1's "Bart the General", he explains that he lost his arm by hanging it out of a bus, but the joke was never revisited for any of his subsequent appearances. A joke suggesting that he lost it in a bowling return machine was written, but never used. It would take until Season 24's "To Cur with Love" for an alternate explanation to be provided; namely that it was torn off by Chief Wiggum's dogcatcher van while Herman was attempting to hail a car.
- The voice cast was almost replaced during production of Season 10. FOX would not give any of them raises, and the network went as far as announcing casting calls until Groening got involved. The incident inspired a gag in "Homer to the Max" where Homer says, "Networks like animation 'cause they don't have to pay the actors squat." Then Ned Flanders walks by and adds, in a completely different voice than usual, "Plus, they can replace them and no one can tell the diddly-ifference." This was also referenced in a chalkboard gag where Bart writes "I will not demand what I'm worth" in "The Trouble with Trillions."
- In Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky's original script for "Bart the Daredevil", Dr. Hibbert was a Caucasian woman named Julia Hibbert. But when Fox moved The Simpsons's timeslot to compete against NBC's The Cosby Show, the writers changed the character to an African-American male as a nod to Bill Cosby's character.
- In the planning stages on the series, Barney Gumble was envisioned as the Simpson family's neighbor and the owner of Barney's Bowl-a-Rama, on top of being Homer's sidekick in his adventures. But as development continued and new elements such as Moe's Tavern and the character of Ned Flanders came in, Barney was changed to drunker and more pathetic character, leading to his finalized role as a Moe's regular (but still Homer's best budnote ). As a result, the idea of him running Barney's Bowl-a-Rama was dropped as the writers felt it no longer fit the new version of the character, with the Season 6 episode "And Maggie Makes Three" eventually explaining that Barney's uncle owned the place and named it after his nephew.
- The idea of Ned Flanders being a devout Christian was only developed after Harry Shearer was cast in the role, as the creators felt it fit the sweet-sounding voice that he gave the character.
- In the original script for "Bart The Genius", a scene following the Simpson family's meeting with Skinner would have revealed what happened to Martin as a result of the exam paper switch. Martin would be quietly reading outside Skinner's office before overhearing Dr. Pryor explaining to his parents that Martin's abysmal test results shouldn't be too crippling so long as he takes special studies, causing him to drop his book in horror.
- Frank Zappa offered to perform a guest role on the show, but was unable to because of his declining health.
- For the Season 14 episode "Three Gays of the Condo", Harvey Fierstein was invited to reprise his role of Karl from Season 2's "Simpson and Delilah" for a cameo where he would introduce Homer to Julio and Grady. However, Fierstein turned down the role, as while he felt that "the script was a lot of very clever gay jokes, and there just wasn't that Simpsons twist".
- A selection of examples related to "Treehouse of Horror VI", as can be found in this script draft dated April 21, 1995...
- In "Attack of the 50ft Eyesores", after the crowd stops looking at the monsters, the monsters resort to two desperate stunts not unlike attention-grabbing promotional stunts: a trendy hip-hop dance routine (the advertising executive brings up "Rap-Master Kenmore" while this happens) and a sex orgy (depicted with sounds and silhouettes of the monsters having sex). Also, Kang and Kodos' obligatory cameo originally occurred during the monsters' attack, which they mock the Earthlings until one of the monsters attacks them. The scene where the cameo ended up (which was after Lard Lad dies) was originally the colossal donut rolling past a sign indicating Guest Star Paul Anka's birthplace was one mile away. Anka promptly goes after it, exclaiming, "Oh no! My beloved Ankabello!"
- In "Nightmare on Evergreen Ter.", after Marge tells the kids how Groundskeeper Willie died and Lisa realizes they could get killed in their sleep by him, the episode would subsequently show Maggie dreaming she's on Sesame Street, which is soon corrupted by Willie's presence. The Simpsons manage to wake her up, and she clutches the kitchen table cloth like a Security Blanket. In the final product, this whole sequence is instead replaced by Grampa declaring, "Welcome to my world," and falling asleep.
- "Homer3" originally opened with Marge preparing party snacks as Maggie watches. Also, there was going to be a Shout-Out to Monday Night Football, as Bart witnesses two football helmets crashing into each other before being sucked up by the black hole. Finally, the Homer in the real world was supposed to be portrayed by Dan Castellaneta in costume instead of continued use of the 3D CGI model.
- According to Matt Groening, after Phil Hartman's death in 1998, the producers thought about having Harry Shearer take over the role of Lionel Hutz before deciding to retire Hutz from the show along with Hartman's other recurring role, Troy McClure, out of respect.
- When the original Latin American Spanish voice cast returned in Season 32, Humberto Vélez asked Nancy McKenzie to return as Marge, but she refused because she already left Disney Character Voices International several years prior, and didn't think she was capable of doing the Marge voice anymore. Claudia Motta (who returned as Bart) took over the role of Marge instead.
