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  • An issue of Weekend magazine said that, in the episode "Treehouse of Horror X", Maggie is the daughter of Kang and Kodos rather than Kang and Marge. A double-offender, considering they also got the title of the episode wrong (it was IX, not X).
  • A book about the show is full of little mistakes:
    • The book claims Maggie killed a man. Maggie shot a man, but that man is still alive.
    • Marge's sister Patty is gay, not Selma as stated in the book.
  • Sky's listing for "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love" (paraphrased) - "Mr. Burns hires Homer as a fortune cookie writer to prove a point." While the first act is about Homer in that position, it's completely forgotten about after a while to make way for the title plot. Also, it's a Chinese restaurant that hires Homer to write fortune cookies, not Mr. Burns. Later in the episode, however, Burns hires Homer, but as his "wingman" to go out on dates with him and Gloria, not to prove any sort of point.
  • Sky One's synopsis for "Bart vs. Australia" (as well as every British TV guide published for the next 10 years or so) was simply "Bart gets his hand stuck down a toilet". There is a scene with Bart sticking his hands in a toilet, but it's simply to set up a gag, lasts less than five seconds, and he doesn't even get stuck.
  • An official Twitter post stated the quote "Yes, eat all of our shirts!" is said by Seymour Skinner, when it's said by Ned Flanders.
  • TV Guide's "TV's Biggest Fools" article seems to believe Homer's "you don't like me, and I don't like you" exchange with his brain from "The Front" took place in "HOMR".
  • One could practically write a book on the various ways that writers have gotten the Simpsons wrong, usually in trying to talk about why it should be cancelled or why it's a horrible show that no family should watch. Focus on the Family decried "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish", an episode in which Bart prays for the family meal with "Dear God, we pay for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing" as an example of how morally bankrupt the series was. The context is that the family is hosting Mr. Burns (who is running for governor) with a gaggle of TV reporters in tow, and Bart, being Bart, intentionally says something offensive to embarrass the family. The episode is decidedly not praising Bart's mock prayer; in fact, the show has frequently shown belief in God to be a good thing.
  • Moral Guardians have frequently suggested that the series glorifies oafish, drunken fathers and bratty children, describing both Homer and Bart as the "heroes" of the show, when in fact both are Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists whose behavior usually gets them in trouble or causes them embarrassment. In no way is it meant to be glorified.
  • A Dutch newspaper article from 1990 incorrectly says the Simpsons' skin is orange instead of yellow.
  • The official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano once declared that Homer and Bart were Catholic, citing the episode "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star" as evidence. However, the plot revolves around them merely considering a conversion to Catholicism. By the end of the episode, Bart is swayed out of converting, and a response from Al Jean (who has been the executive producer of the show since the thirteenth season) says that Homer's not Catholic either.
  • Practically every content aggregation website would inevitably have a "Perfectly Timed Freeze Frames From The Simpsons" article, and among the images, more than likely, you'd find the following two images: Homer weirdly smiling with crazy eyes, and Lisa with Mr. Burns's face. These are not real Simpsons screenshots. The former is edited from a screenshot of Homer's forced smile from the "Treehouse of Horror V" segment "Time and Punishment", with the hooks removed and Homer's pupils moved around in an attempt to make the image look more ridiculous than it already was. The latter is a composite of this screenshot of Lisa commenting on Nelson's version of "Joy to the World" from "Lisa's Date with Density" and this screenshot of Mr. Burns in his flashback to how he met his son's mother from "Burns, Baby Burns".
  • IndieWire, in an article on solar eclipse storylines on TV shows, primarily described the events of the episode "Gone Maggie Gone", adding, "This wasn't the first eclipse on The Simpsons. In the landmark 1993 episode 'Marge vs. the Monorail', it takes a solar eclipse to finally stop the runaway train." And it does indeed stop it... for about ten seconds, after which the monorail takes off again, with nobody able to get off in time.
  • The fifth issue of Australian magazine Krash features an article about the criminal activities of Homer, Bart, and Sideshow Bob, though it gets two of Homer's cases wrong. First, it claims that the inflammatory song Homer writes about Ned Flanders is called "Flanders is a Jerk", when it's actually called "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders". Also, the article notes that Homer claims he's handicapped in order to get a helper monkey, but he never actually does (he even says he's not handicapped when asked). The truth is that he gets his father a helper monkey, then promptly steals it from him.
  • The Den of Geek article about the show's various alternate future time periods wrote that in Don Hertzfeldt's Couch Gag, "'The Sampsans' is a surreal and seemingly mindless screensaver that still boils down to Marge loving Homer, while dishing out subliminal messages like 'All Hail The Dark Lord Of The Twin Moons' or 'Beam Epasode Now Into Exo-Skulls And Vigorously Touch Flippers.'" In "The Sampsans", Marge (like the rest of the family) is portrayed as a demented shell of her former self who scarcely acknowledges Homer's existence, doing nothing but spout non-sequiturs like "All animals can scream!"
  • Here's the common description of "22 Short Films About Springfield" in TV listings: "Homer mistakenly locks Maggie in a newspaper box; Apu shuts down the Kwik-E-Mart to romp at a wild party." This makes it seem like the episode revolves entirely around those two events. Nothing about Bumblebee Man's home life, Lisa getting gum stuck in her hair, Milhouse's eagerness to use the bathroom, Dr. Nick trying to redeem himself in the eyes of the malpractice committee, Principal Skinner serving "steamed hams" to Superintendent Chalmers, etc.
  • Listverse's "10 Predictions From The Simpsons That Weren't Predictions At All" claimed that in one episode, "the Simpsons visit Fox Studios so that Homer can make a movie". Actually, in the episode in question, it was Ron Howard who came to Fox, and he was trying to sell a half-baked movie pitch based on Homer's idea. The article also claimed that Al Jean "was a former showrunner on The Simpsons", except he's still running the show to this day, having done so since the thirteenth season.
  • TV listings commonly give "Treehouse of Horror VI" the following description: "Advertising statues attack Springfield; the school janitor terrorizes children in their sleep; Homer creates a black hole." While the first two are accurate descriptions, the third description fails to note that "Homer³" is actually about Homer getting lost in the third dimension.
  • The description of "Treehouse of Horror XXVI" on Sling TV claims that Lisa, Bart and Milhouse get superpowers. While the former and latter do get superpowers, Bart does not.
  • One popular image depicts Skinner with a serious expression, captioned "Pathetic." This is a screenshot from "Bart the Genius," and in the context of the episode, he's looking down at a can of spray paint Bart hastily threw in the trash can. He doesn't speak during the scene, either; the caption is a reference to a scene Neon Genesis Evangelion where Asuka calls Shinji "pathetic", and is derived from the very similar camera angle and facial expressions
  • Another Simpsons meme is Lisa looking down at an empty plate, from "Bart Gets an F". It's often used as a reaction of shock/surprise, or just "oh okay", while in the episode it's right before Lisa says that she got a good grade on a history test.
  • Our friends at Cracked once again end up here with Dan Duddy's article drawing parallels between modern policing and Chief Wiggum's antics. In general, it isn't too bad, but at one point Duddy says, "In this video, a police officer tasers someone who is inside of their own car. There is no chance of escape, and if you watch the video, you'll see there is no reason to think they are dangerous. They are completely at the mercy of the police officer, but they are tased anyway because today's police are hardwired to respond to confusion with cruelty. It'd be like if you tasered someone who was stuck on their roof. Wait, where have we seen that before?" The video that follows is... a Dark Simpsons minisode where Wiggum torments Homer. Dark Simpsons is a fan-produced series of videos editing and recontexualizing Simpsons clips to tell original stories. In the paragraph that follows the video, Duddy says, "Our officers know that Chief Wiggum isn't supposed to be a role model, right? Our reality is a cartoon, except when we wake up from getting tasered by the police, we don't have scorch marks on our clothes, but instead years of psychological trauma to deal with." Duddy is referring to the sequence in the Dark Simpsons video where Wiggum pulls over Homer's car and breaks one of his tail lights ("I Love Lisa"), then orders his men to get their taser ("'Round Springfield", during an Imagine Spot where Bart thinks about what he'd do if he reincarnates as a butterfly), then Snake appears dressed as a policeman ("Bart Gets an Elephant"), and Homer gets zapped and later found by the other Simpsons smoldering in the bushes ("Blame It on Lisa", with the original context being that Homer is trying to restore the house's phone service after the company shuts it off when the Simpsons refuse to pay $400 for a call to Brazil). Given that the point of the article is to show what Wiggum actually does in the show, the use of a fan edit to show something he never truly does is glaring. Even more bafflingly, Duddy later cites the exact same Dark Simpsons video for a scene where Wiggum demands Homer's license and registration in response to his gloating over the nuclear plant's softball victory over the police. This in itself is a genuine Simpsons moment, and it would be simple to find a video of the moment on its own rather than a fan-produced remix episode. Finally, Duddy ends the article with the tail light scene again, this time completely unaltered ("They are? Oh, no. Have they set a date?") instead of the Dark Simpsons edit ("He's crazy, boys. Get the taser."). All in all, a mess of half an article attempting to cite an incident on the show that never exactly happened with an edited clip.
  • In 2004, thesimpsons.com published some character bios (made in Adobe Flash). One bio reworded Ralph's quote "It's recess everywhere but in his heart" to first person and attributed it to Milhouse. Others featured quotes that weren't even from the show, such as "If aquarium gravel is so bad for you, how come it tastes so good?" for Ralph. The quote actually originates from the 1994 Skybox Simpsons trading cards.
  • A radio spot for "Bart's Inner Child" makes it sound as though the entire episode is about Homer looking through classified ads, even though it's only a small part of the first act. While it does mention that Homer finds "a bargain that makes him the most popular dad in Springfield", it neglects the entire main plot of motivational speaker Brad Goodman convincing Springfield to act as impulsive as Bart.
  • A radio spot for the first "Treehouse of Horror" only describes "Bad Dream House" and doesn't mention it as either just a story, a Halloween episode, or an anthology.
  • A radio spot for "Treehouse of Horror II" primarily describes Homer's dream, questioning if Homer will ever recover his brain from Mr. Burns. Thankfully, by "Treehouse of Horror III", they'd start describing all three plots.
  • The official website once got the ending of an episode completely wrong. It says that "Little Orphan Millie" ends with Milhouse's parents being forced into slave labor and building a Chinese stadium. The real ending is that Milhouse's parents are living on an island and about to escape with a hang glider.
  • A radio spot for "Rosebud" describes the episode's plot as Homer getting a job as a comedian for Mr. Burns. While he does perform comedy for Mr. Burns as a joke in the first act, the majority of the episode is focused on Mr. Burns searching for his long-lost teddy bear.
  • On Amazon, the episode "Black-Eyed, Please" is called "Blake Eyed Please".
  • A TV promo for "Two Bad Neighbors" promotes Gerald Ford as the ex-president who moves in next to Homer, instead of George Bush. While Ford does move into the house, it's not until the end of the episode when Bush moves out.
  • The Disney+ short description for "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass" is "Homer encourages athletes to develop taunts and Ned Flanders is so outraged, he makes his own movie." Flanders' decision to make movies has nothing to do with Homer's activities, and Marge is the only person upset about it.
  • Official summaries for "Dangerous Curves" include the sentence "Bart and Lisa also reflect on happier times from their early childhood." Bart and Lisa don't have a major role in the episode (they're only featured as little kids twice in Homer and Marge's flashbacks), and while they get a minor subplot, it never gets its own reflection like other parts of the episode.
  • This Mental Floss article manages to perfectly nail all sorts of hidden easter eggs throughout the series. But despite everything the article gets right, it refers to "Lisa the Vegetarian" as a Season 5 episode (it's actually from Season 7).
  • The Disney+ description for "Bart Gets an 'F'" is "Bart gives the class brain antigeek lessons, but regrets it when the brain becomes too Bart-like." While such a thing does happen, it's a minor throwaway gag, and the main focus of the episode is Bart studying for a test so he won't have to repeat the fourth grade.
  • While "Bart To The Future" did "predict" a Trump Presidency, many images online pointing this out often use a screencap of this YouTube short. Not only is the short animated with digital ink and paint in widescreen while "Bart to the Future" was animated on cels in standard definition, it was made after Trump had announced his candidacy. Which the short even uses audio from. Even some news corporations got this wrong when reporting on it.
  • Some French newspapers claimed Canal+ was going to air the show on October 17, 1992, but it never did. The show was replaced with Rugrats (1991) that week.
  • Sky's EPG description for the episode "I Am Furious (Yellow)" mentions that after the Angry Dad comic becomes a success, Homer vows to give up getting angry for Lent. Whilst he does vow to give up getting angry again, Lent is never once brought up, nor does anything ever relating to Lent happen in the episode.
  • Sky's EPG description for the episode "Diggs" reads as follows - "Bart makes an eccentric new friend called Diggs (guest star Daniel Radcliffe), and Marge tries to teach abstinence to hormonal teens.". Whilst the A-plot about the episode's eponymous character is correct, the B-plot of Marge teaching abstinence is from the following episode, "The Man Who Grew Too Much".
  • According to CBR's 10 Times Fans Improved Famous TV Scenes, "After Bart received a failing grade in school, fans rallied behind the character and sent in numerous letters of support. The show's creators were so touched by the outpouring of support that they decided to give Bart a second chance, leading to the creation of the heartwarming 'Bart the Genius' episode." The problem with this statement is that "Bart the Genius" was never produced in response to fan reaction to "Bart Gets an F". In fact, it was the second episode ever produced for the show — "Bart Gets an F" didn't come about until a second season was commissioned.
  • Disney+ refers to "Homer the Moe" as "Homer to the Moe." It's possible that they confused it with "Homer to the Max."
  • The Virgin Media description of the episode "Milhouse of Sand and Fog" only refers to the opening plot of Homer holding a chicken pox party, instead of the main plot about Milhouse’s parents getting back together.
  • The BBFC rated the episode "Pygmoelian" 12 for "bleeped strong language and moderate sex references". However, the word that the BBFC thought was an F-bomb is actually "fudge", with the "u" sound Censored for Comedy.
  • Perhaps inevitably for such a Long Runner, the show once got the facts about itself wrong. In the episode "Angry Dad: The Movie," it is stated that Bart originally created Angry Dad in the 90s... except the episode in question ("I Am Furious (Yellow)") was actually from 2002.
  • On IMDb, the cover image for The Tracey Ullman Show short "Family Therapy" is actually taken from "There's No Disgrace Like Home".
  • In TheRealJims' "Season Retrospective" for season 16, he erroneously says that Goose Gladwell in "Fat Man And Little Boy" was played by Eric Idle. In actuality, he is played by series regular Hank Azaria.

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