Examples of Accidentally-Correct Writing in The Simpsons.
- Santa's Little Helper is a two-fold case of this. One is he's a somewhat lazy ex-racer Greyhound. Rather than go with the normal "always energetic and fast" Dog Stereotype attributed to the breed, he's a "normal" laid back dog. This is actually accurate to Greyhounds, and especially former racing dogs. Aside from when they're on walks, they tend to be very relaxed. Greyhounds were bred for short spurts of running, not being energetic constantly. Two is his introduction in "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" where he's abandoned by his owner after a long string of losses. Much to the surprise of the writers, this actually is a common plight of racing dogs, and they were praised by animal rights groups for bringing mainstream attention to it: Matt Groening later explained in an interview that he had no idea this was an issue but was happy they were able to raise awareness of it.
- In the commentary for "The Crepes of Wrath", the writers note that the bit about adding antifreeze to wine was a parody of an incident
where some wine was found contaminated with antifreeze, but that, obviously, the contamination wasn't deliberate. Except that the contamination was discovered when a winery started listing antifreeze as a business expense, and it was very deliberately added to make the wine sweeter. The Austrian wine industry nearly went belly-up when a large scale scandal involving antifreeze shook the business.note - Played with in "Bart Gets an 'F'". Bart, after trying to bluff his way through a book report on Treasure Island, is challenged by Mrs. Krabappel to name the pirate in the story. A number of possibilities audibly run through his mind — including the correct one, Long John Silver — but he gets caught out by guessing "Bluebeard" instead. (Bluebeard, for the record, isn't even a fictional pirate; he's a serial killer.)
- In "Dead Putting Society" Lisa asks Bart, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", to which Bart immediately holds up a hand and smacks his fingers against the palm, to Lisa's frustration. Though it was meant to be a Rhetorical Question Blunder, this is actually very close to an actual answer to the koan: simply holding up one's hand with the fingers out.
- "When Flanders Failed" reveals that Mr. Burns is left-handed, even though several episodes before and since have shown him writing with his right hand. The most likely explanation for this is that whichever artist was drawing Mr. Burns that day forgot about the one episode that confirms he's left-handed. However, in the early 20th century (i.e. when Mr. Burns grew up), left-handedness was considered improper and lefties were forced to learn to write with their right hand anyways. So Mr. Burns writing with his right hand despite being left-handed is actually accurate for someone of his age.
- "Homer at the Bat" features a gag where the Springfield P.D. arrests Steve Sax. Sax attempts to ask for his One Phone Call, which is brushed off with "you watch too many movies." While the joke is obviously that the police are needlessly brutal and corrupt (demonstrated by the fact that they charge Sax with every unsolved murder in New York City, based solely on the fact that he claims to be from there), they're right that the old "one phone call" isn't a thing.
- In "Two Bad Neighbors", Homer attempts to prank George H. W. Bush with cardboard cutouts he identifies as "your sons, George Bush Jr. and Jeb Bush". In the audio commentary for that episode, it's said that the writers had no idea that there really is a "George Bush Jr." and the line was supposed to be an example of Homer being stupid. Stupider like a fox, it seems.
- "Lisa The Iconoclast" famously features the term "embiggen" as a nonsensical word (or a Perfectly Cromulent Word) that became popular thanks to pop culture, but the writers later learned that the word "embiggen" had been used by writer C.A. Ward in 1884.
- "The Day The Violence Died":
- It has a bit where Lionel Hutz asks the Itchy & Scratchy legal team if they have a copy of the film that forms the basis for his client's copyright claim, since the only copy his client had was destroyed by accident. This is played as Hutz being his usual desperately incompetent self and asking his opponent to help him out, but he's more right than he seems. The rules of civil discovery do indeed allow one side to request evidence from the opposition if they think they have it, and ignoring these requests (or, worse, lying about fulfilling them) can result in fines and sanctions. Hutz's only problem is that he's requesting it in the middle of the trial rather than in the pre-trial phase, which is when evidence is usually gathered; other than that, he would have been entirely within his rights to ask that Roger Meyers go poking around in his studio archives for a copy of the missing film.
- Not long after, when the judge asks him if he has any actual evidence, Hutz nervously answers that he has plenty of hearsay and conjecture which "are kinds of evidence." As noted on Real Lawyer Reacts To The Simpsons, he's actually right.LegalEagle: That's actually true! Hearsay and conjecture are kinds of evidence. They're not good forms of evidence, but technically they are types of evidence. Many of the lawyers I know use that line all the time. It's a staple among lawyers. It's fantastic.
- In "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", Principal Skinner attempts to sell Jimbo on the side of the road. When Jimbo asks if this is legal, Skinner replies "only here and in Mississippi". Mississippi only made child selling illegal in 2009 after a 2008 incident where a woman was arrested for selling her granddaughter only for the police to find there was no law against it.
- Abe Simpson in "Much Apu About Nothing" recalls his father talking about America being the greatest thing since sliced bread. He then says that sliced bread had been invented the previous winter. It was just meant as an "old fart" joke, but given that he served in WWII and the first commercial bread-slicing machine was invented in 1928, the writers were surprisingly accurate with this one.
- In "The Springfield Files", Milhouse plays an arcade game adaptation of Waterworld, in which he only gets to move the Player Character a few steps before he get a Game Over out of nowhere and Milhouse is forced to insert 40 quarters in order to keep playing, which he grudgingly accepts. This joke was meant to parody the Troubled Production for Waterworld, namely the ballooning expenses needed to make the film, but it also accidentally parodies a real feature arcade games had at the time: Arcade games could be made deliberately Unwinnable by Design via operator settings. The feature, when activated, would put the player in a no-win situation that could only be overcome by using another credit. It's not as extreme as Milhouse's situation, no sane operator would've charged $10 per credit, and these games tried to stay subtle that the player doesn't notice they cannot win without inserting more coins, but the principle is identical.
- In "Miracle On Evergreen Terrace" (1997), Marge goes on Jeopardy! to pay back Springfield, but she ends up with a score of -$5,200, which is so terrible that Alex Trebek actually asks Marge to pay the show back. It is possible to end up with a negative score in the real show, and some contestants even managed scores as low as Marge, but they obviously are not required to write a check to the producers for the difference.
- While the writers may have known that a torus is one of the contenders for the shape of the universe, Homer certainly doesn't know that when he tells Stephen Hawking about his theory of a doughnut-shaped universe in "They Saved Lisa's Brain".
- In the "Treehouse Of Horror XIII" story "The Island Of Dr. Hibbert", where Ned Flanders takes pleasure and relief in getting milked when his lower half got transformed into the body of a cow, which actually is a valid reaction. As for why that half of his body is female, though...
- On a slightly meta level, Matt Groening named Homer, Marge, Lisa, and Maggie after his own family, but didn't give Grandpa Simpson a name. Later writers eventually settled on "Abraham", which, by sheer coincidence, was the name of Groening's real-life paternal grandfather.
- The chalkboard gag for "When You Dish Upon a Star" has Bart writing "butt.com is not my e-mail address." It was later discovered that butt.com was a real website... a pornographic one. In subsequent airings, Bart's alleged email address changed to "butt.butt".
- "Bart To The Future" is infamous for the prediction about a Donald Trump presidency in the distant future. In reality, they were skewering Trump's attempts at seeking the Reform Party's presidential candidacy for the 2000 election. By the time episode aired, Trump already ended his campaign. It wasn't till the 2016 election that Trump sought the presidency again and won to the shock of the whole world.
- In the Simpsons Super Spectacular #13, in the story Splotchmen, a parody of Watchmen, Lisa takes up the mantle of Pastry Face, a Rorschach stand-in, outright claiming she's his successor. In Doomsday Clock, Rorschach is indeed succeeded by someone new taking his name and costume.
