Tropes A to B / The Simpsons

This page covers tropes found in The Simpsons.

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20% More Awesome:
- One member of the committee creating Poochie says, "I feel we should rasta-fy him by ... 10 percent or so."
- When the Simpsons went to Japan in the episode "30 Minutes Over Tokyo", they checked in a hotel with a sign reading "Now with 20% more bowing".

Abandoned War Child: In "The Regina Monologues", the Simpsons visit England, with Grandpa Abe Simpson going to try and find a woman he had a one-night stand with the evening before D-Day. In the epilogue, they find each other in the airport, and it turns out Homer has a half-sister named Abbie. Abe panics and runs for the plane.
Abandoned Warehouse:
- Subverted in "Burns, Baby Burns". Homer and Larry Burns are being chased by the police (since they faked a kidnapping) and Homer suggests they hide in a nearby abandoned warehouse. They open the door only to find that it's full of people at work.
  Homer: "D'OH! Stupid economic recovery!"
- In "Homer's Enemy", Bart buys one for a buck.
Abuse of Return Policy:
- In "Bart's Dog Gets an F" after Santa's Little Helper chews up Homer's expansive and newly bought sneakers, Homer attempts to return it, claiming they just fell apart in the dog's mouth. The sales clerk simply refuses.
  Sales Clerk: I'm sorry, sir, our warranty doesn't cover fire, theft, or acts of dog.
- The Simpsons: In "Mom and Pop Art", Homer tries to build a barbecue pit with a kit from a home improvement store. After a hilariously bad attempt at putting it together, Homer tries to return it as a mess of parts stuck in dry cement.
  Pop: All return items must be in a box and accompanied by a receipt.
  Homer: Well, if you follow the flashlight, you'll see the receipt embedded here and here, and elements of the box here, here and possibly here.
  Pop: Sorry, I didn't get this hammer-hat by handing out refunds.
Abnormal Limb Rotation Range:
- In "When You Dish Upon a Star", Homer twists his neck around 360 degrees while giving the stink eye to the kids in the backseat of the car and then looking out his window without turning his head back to normal.
  Marge: Homer, your spine!
- Maggie has also done this before, as seen in the episode where The Simpson kids are sent to live with the Flanders family by Child Welfare officers.
Abnormal Ammo: Lampshaded in "Take My Wife, Sleaze", where Homer and a biker duel using full-sized motorcycles like swords.
Meathook: We all knew it would come to this.
Homer: You and me... chopper to... chopper!
Aborted Arc: Most episodes since some years ago (it's been used on and off since around season 3, but has become near-ubiquitous since around season 8) begin narrating a story, and after the first minutes the story moves to a completely different direction. Sometimes the original story is not mentioned again, other times the characters lampshade that there's Something We Forgot.
Aborted Declaration of Love: Smithers, to Mr. Burns in "Bart's Inner Child":
Smithers: I... love you. [Burns looks up] I-in those colors! [after Burns walks away] "Oh, who am I kidding? The boathouse was the time!
Absent Animal Companion:
- In the episode "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds", the Simpsons get a new dog, She's the Fastest, and she and Santa's Little Helper give birth to puppies. While the Simpsons decide that it's best to give the puppies away and Mr. Burns ends up stealing them, they never mention anything about needing to get rid of She's the Fastest, yet she isn't seen or mentioned again after that episode. And technically, after this episode we never see whether Mr. Burns still has the puppies.
- Lisa gets a guinea pig in another Simpsons episode, which serves only as a Lead In for the main plot, and is not mentioned again after the episode is over.
Absurdly Dedicated Worker: In "Simpson and Delilah", Homer uses a hair grower to get his hair back and is promoted and gets an assistant who then takes the blame for something Homer did, gets fired, and still writes Homer's speech for him even after having been fired. The assistant is absurdly faithful to Homer.
Absurdly High-Stakes Game:
- "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" alluded to The Lady or the Tiger?. In that episode, Mr. Burns had transferred his plant's operations to India. Because he was required by federal law to keep at least one union worker in his payroll, Homer got sent there to oversee the plant. When Lenny and Carl went there to visit him, they met a man who showed them two doors, telling them that Homer Simpson was behind one of the doors and that there was a tiger behind the other door. The found a tiger behind the first door they opened and quickly closed it. As they opened the other door, they found... another tiger. Lenny and Carl were then told that one of the tigers was named "Homer Simpson".
- "Children of a Lesser Clod" had a flashback clip where Homer bet his own baby Maggie in a card game. Moe wins the hand, saying "Come to new pappa!".
- Mr. Burns plays poker with a guy who gambles ownership of an entire basketball team.
Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: On the episode where there was a hurricane coming, Homer removed the back door of the house and then nailed it diagonally over the now-exposed doorway, leaving a big gap at the top and bottom of the doorway.
Absurdly-Long Limousine: An episode had a rapper's limo that had a wax museum in its basement.
Academia Elitism:
- When Mr. Burns, a proud Yale graduate, goes to prison in "American History X-celent", he's relieved that his cellmate is a mild-mannered businessman and not a hardened criminal. Then he reacts in horror upon learning that he went to Dartmouth and Virginia State ("the public ivy").
- Sideshow Bob is Yale graduate who is revealed to hold these views in Brother From Another Series, with him referring to Princeton (where his brother Cecil attended) as a "clown college."
A Cappella: Be Sharps in "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" perform several songs A cappella.
Accidental Art: In "Mom and Pop Art," Homer's failed attempt at making a backyard grill is discovered by an art critic, who thinks it's art.
Accidental Athlete: Several examples, most notably Lisa as goalie and Bart as a ballet dancer.
Accidental Good Outcome: In "Flaming Moe's", Homer Simpson throws together an impossibly delicious cocktail out of leftover bits of liquor, plus cough syrup and a cigarette-ash flambé, thanks to his and Patty's inattentiveness.
Accidental Incantation:
- In S14 E11 ("Barting Over"), Lisa starts reading something in a musty old tome when a demon begins taking form behind her, only for her to abandon the book for Mad Libs and unwittingly abort the creature's summoning.
- S26 E4 ("Treehouse of Horror XXV") sees Bart summon not just a demon but the entirety of Hell by running an Aramaic phrase through Lisa's translation app.
Accidental Misnaming:
- Referenced in the "Easy-Bake Coven" segment of "Treehouse of Horror VIII", with Marge and her sisters as witches (which makes this also an actual Shout-Out to Bewitched).
  Patty: So, you finally left Durwood.
  Marge: His name is Homer!
- Moe often calls Marge things like Madge or Midge, though this is more of affectionate nicknaming since it's obvious he has a crush on her. There's also this scene from "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe":
  Homer: See Marge, it's just what you wanted. Me spending the day with Mugsy.
  Marge: Maggie!
  Homer: Marge, you're not naggy. You just set the bar impossibly high.
  Marge: Well can you at least bring a sweater for Maggie?
  Homer: Impossibly high.
- The season two episode "Bart's Dog Gets an F" had the dog's name read as "Satan's Little Helper" by the dog trainer instead of "Santa's Little Helper".
- When Bart fills out a credit card application in "The Canine Mutiny" using Santa's Little Helper's name, he gets a card in the name of "Santos L. Halper." Reverend Lovejoy even uses the "Satan's Little Helper" name in the episode.
- In "Grade School Confidential":
  Homer: Wait... Bart's teacher's name is "Krabappel"? I've been calling her "Krandal"! Why didn't someone tell me?! Oh, I've been making an idiot out of myself!
Accidental Pervert: In "Homer Badman". Homer being branded a pervert after he peels a gummi candy (which he stole earlier in the episode during the candy convention) off a college-aged babysitter's butt while drooling and muttering, "Precious Venus." He just wanted the candy.
Accidental Proposal: In "Apocalypse Cow", Bart accidentally becomes engaged to Cletus' daughter Mary when he gives her a stolen cow to look after (It Makes Sense in Context).
Accidentally Real Fake Address:
- In the episode "Trilogy of Error" Marge accidentally cuts off Homer's thumb. When calling 911, she is instantly accused of attempted murder by Chief Wiggum, so, when asked her address, Marge claims it to be "123 Fake Street". Remarkably, this turns out to correspond to a decrepit building in Springfield where Bart and Milhouse are hiding fireworks in an unrelated plot, and the spontaneous appearance of the police there leads to Bart and Milhouse getting caught.
- After angrily leaving Artie Ziff's party in "Half-Decent Proposal", Marge tells the cab driver to send the bill to "Baron Von Kiss-a-lot", referencing Artie's inappropriate advances towards her. However, the bill, instead of being sent to Artie, is shown in a Cutaway Gag to be sent to a literal baron of the same name with, naturally, Gag Lips.
- Zigzagged in "Funeral for a Fiend", when Luigi mentions that Bart made a prank order for pizzas to be delivered at "888 Poopypants Lane". As it turns out, Poopypants Lane was real... but it ended at 700.
- Additionally, one of Bart's many prank calls to Moe was for a "Hugh Jass" (pronounced "huge ass")... and a man with that name happened to be at the bar when Bart called. Fortunately, the man wasn't upset with Bart and seemed to be fine with it.
Accidental Suicide: "Homer's Enemy" is all about how Frank Grimes is driven insane trying to figure out how Too Dumb to Live Homer managed to succeed while he's had to struggle through life. Eventually, Frank cracks and starts acting like Homer, doing reckless things and shrugging off the consequences because "I'm Homer Simpson!" It all leads to him electrocuting himself by disobeying the "Do not handle without gloves" sign at a panel with electrical cables.
Acquaintance Denial: One episode opens with Bart and Lisa watching Krusty's show and remarking on how he's trying to distance himself from his Jewish heritage. Then Homer runs in with a plunger stuck to his head and Bart and Lisa discuss what names they're going to take to distance themselves from him.
Acquainted in Real Life: In the episode "Marge Gamer", Marge gets into an MMO titled Earthland Realms and meets the Shadow Knight. While doing laundry, she soon finds out the Shadow Knight is in fact her own son. Upon this discovery, she starts treating Bart in the game the same way she does in real life. she even declares vengeance toward everybody who took part in killing her son's in game avatar.
Acquainted with Emergency Services: The Simpson family, mainly Homer and Bart, are prone to this.
- In Season 5, "Homer Goes to College", after Homer causes a meltdown in class when the professor asks him to demonstrate how a proton accelerator works. The clean-up crew arrives to stop the problem:
  Homer: [glowing green, gesturing over shoulder] In there, guys.
  Crew: Thanks, Homer.
- In Season 12 "Worst Episode Ever", Bart makes a bet with Homer to eat spoonful of rotten baking soda which he agrees to:
  Lisa: [dialing Poison Control] I'll call Poison Control. [talking on the phone] Fran, it's me. Just a heads-up.
- In Season 13, "The Parent Rap", the Simpsons go to court when Bart and Milhouse get in trouble for stealing Chief Wiggum's squad car. Judge Roy Snyder is shown to know Bart already pretty well when he is brought to court. Bart knows him pretty well too, since he knows that he will let him off the hook, since "boys will be boys".
  Marge: I love our court days. It's about the only thing we do as a family anymore.
  [the Simpsons walk past a bailiff]
  Lisa: [to the bailiff] Hey, Karie.
  Karie: Hey, Lisa.
Acrofatic:
- Homer in "Sex, Pies, and Idiot Scrapes," who does complex acrobatics to escape Ned. This is rather odd, since Homer has often been shown out of breath from even the simplest movements (like running only a few feet in "The Springfield Connection" and "New Kids on the Blecch").
- Then again, one flashback shows him to be a very talented gymnast in high school (until his dad screwed up his floor routine by yelling, "You're gonna blow it!")
- He also performed ninja-like feats of acrobatics while practicing killing snakes for Whacking Day.
- Barney, when he sobered-up in "Deep Space Homer"
  - It's also been implied he can do ballet and tap dance.
Acronym Confusion:
- One Running Gag example of the "sharing an initialism" variety, like when Krusty named his TV special Krusty Komedy Klassics and, not only was ignorant that the initials spelled out KKK, but had the initials in white onstage at the Apollo Theater (which is home to Showtime at the Apollo, a variety show known for launching the careers of a lot of talented black artists). Krusty's own Judaism, as well as the reasoning that no one would ever do anything that stupid, apparently failed to tip the balance in his favor.
- Another having nothing to do with sharing an initialism:
  Chief Wiggum: Uh, Mrs. Simpson, I have some bad news. Your husband was found DOA.
  Marge: Oh my God! He's dead?
  Chief Wiggum: Oh wait, I mean DWI. I always get those two mixed up.
  [Mrs. Phillips walks in]
  Mrs. Phillips: My name's Mrs. Phillips. You said my husband is DWI?
  Chief Wiggum: Uh, why don't you talk to that officer over there? I'm going out to lunch.
- From "Days of Wine and D'oh'ses":
  Barney: My name is Barney, and I'm an alcoholic.
  Clerk: I feel for you, pally, but, uh, you want AA; this is Triple A.
Acting for Two: invoked This trope is lampshaded in "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show", where the same voice actress was revealed to do the voices of both Itchy and Scratchy. Ironically, in real life Itchy and Scratchy AREN'T played by the same actor, as Dan Castellaneta voices Itchy and Harry Shearer voices Scratchy.
Acting Unnatural: Skinner and Chalmers do it in "500 Keys" while waiting to snatch the key to the hidden classroom of Lisa.
Action Insurance Gag: Subverted in "Strong Arms of the Ma". After Homer has talked a roided-up Marge out of totalling Moe's Tavern, Moe decides to set the place on fire to cover for his losses. After he starts by burning down the counter, he's reminded of a little something:
Carl: Oh, whoa, wait a minute. Don't you have to buy insurance first?
Moe: Oh, crap.
Action Mom:
- Homer's mother is pretty badass.
- Marge was a policewoman.
Actor Allusion:
- The Genie from Disney's Aladdin appears in "Mypods and Boomsticks", once again voiced by Dan Castellaneta. Castellaneta voiced Genie in the first Aladdin sequel, TV show, and the Kingdom Hearts video game series.
  - Crossing with Self-Deprecation on this one, in the segment "The Fat in the Hat" from "Treehouse of Horror XXIV", The titular character states before dying that he'll tolerate hellfire, but not a movie adaptation with his character played by Mike Myers. Castellaneta voiced Thing 1 and Thing 2 in that film.
- Downplayed with Rodney Dangerfield as Larry Burns. Instead of the actor's trademark catchphrase of "no respect," Larry talks about how he don't get "No regard. No esteem either."
- In "Moe Baby Blues", Fat Tony mentions that he once "Hasn't cried this hard since he paid to see The Godfather Part III", which Joe Mantegna was in. He also played himself playing Fat Tony in a Made-for-TV Movie within "Bart the Murderer".
- In "Them, Robot", Brent Spiner provided the voices for all the robots. He is best known for playing another kind of cybernetic being, namely an entire "family" of them.
- In "The Lastest Gun in the West", Dennis Weaver, a former Western star who did a detective show in the '70s, voices Buck McCoy, a former Western star who did a detective show in the '70s.
- In "Pulpit Friction", Edward Norton's preacher character's last hip reference before the crowd turned on him: "...Fight Club?"
- Sideshow Bob, his father Robert Sr. and brother Cecil are respectively voiced by Kelsey Grammer, John Mahoney and David Hyde-Pierce from Frasier.
  - When hired as school announcer, Bob claims to have always had an interest in a radio career.
  - In "The Bob Next Door", Homer and Marge note that Sideshow Bob sounds like "Frasier on Cheers" and "Frasier on Frasier" and "Lt. Commander Tom Dodge in Down Periscope".
  - And in a couch gag for "How the Test Was Won", the Simpsons are seen in parodies of different sitcoms leading into Cheers where Sideshow Bob walks in.
  - In "Brother from Another Series", they do a whole Frasier parody with Sideshow Bob and his brother, Cecil. Even including the intertitles; and when Bart jumps on Cecil, covering his eyes, he says "guess who?" to which Cecil replies, "Maris?"
- In the "evolution" Couch Gag, Agnes Skinner briefly appears as a pterodactyl. This wouldn't be the first time Tress MacNeille played a pterodactyl.
- A purely coincidential one, but one that was pretty accurate nonetheless. One Couch Gag had the Simpsons as anime characters, with Lisa being Sailor Moon. Both characters had the same voice actresses in Latin Spanish (Patricia Acevedo at the time) and German (Sabine Bohlmann).
Actually Pretty Funny: In "Bart-Spangled Banner", Skinner shows photos of disabilities and injuries Bart faked, including one, "railway-spike through head Bart", that Skinner says is his favorite.
Actually Quite Catchy:
- In "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds". After Mr. Burns sings "See my Vest", Bart is humming the theme until Lisa scolds him.
  Lisa: Bart!
  Bart: Sorry, you gotta admit that it's catchy!
- One episode involves Lisa making a salad for a BBQ party. Homer and Bart start teasing her and singing, "You don't win friends with salad!" and Marge, despite disapproving of their teasing, joins in because she got "caught in the rhythm".
- In "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", Homer's song "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders" soon becomes very popular everywhere, and at some point we see Ned himself singing along to the radio in his car.
- In "Sex, Pies, and Idiot Scrapes", Homer and Flanders are hunting down criminals. While Homer normally disagrees with pretty much everything about Flanders, he likes the Christian cover of an AC/DC song he sings, and even joins in.
Adam Westing: The trope namer himself plays an exaggerated version of himself in "Mr. Plow".
Added Alliterative Appeal:
Mr. Burns: You clinking, clattering, cacophony of colligenous cogs and camshifts...
Adoring the Pests: Homer doesn't see anything wrong with possums infesting a monorail and crawling around on a fire extinguisher.
Adults Are Useless: While not every adult is useless, most adults on the show are fairly incompetent. Creator Matt Groening talks about many of the adult characters as morons. He said in an interview that authority isn't always quite as smart as it should be, and people like teachers and doctors all have flaws.
Advanced Tech 2000:
- The Spine-Melter 2000 from "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?"
- Also the Rap Master 2000 [1]
Advance Notice Crime: In "Homer the Vigilante", Homer sets up a neighborhood watch group in response to a spate of burglaries throughout Springfield. When the group is accused of vigilantism, he goes onto Kent Brockman's talk show to defend their actions. The cat burglar calls the show and tells Homer that his next crime will be stealing the world's largest cubic zirconium, currently on display at Springfield Museum.
Advice Backfire: In "The Love-Matic Grampa" (part of "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"), Abe tells Moe to tell his date that her rump is as big as the queen's, and twice as fragrant. Moe reluctantly does so, and in the next cut, he's covered in food dumped on him by his date.
Aerosol Flamethrower: In "Pranks and Greens", Homer attempts to put out a burning pile of snack foods by spraying it with Kool Wip. The topping catches fire and burns back up the stream to the can, which explodes.
An Aesop:
- "Moaning Lisa": "Don't try to bottle up your emotions. If you want to be sad, be sad. You will always have your family or friends to help see you through your crisis." Also, when a loved one is feeling depressed or despondent, the worst thing you can do is try to cheer them up, as it will only make them feel worse, because it's the nature of those kinds of conditions that they can't "just snap out of it." What Lisa needed was for her emotions to be validated and it's only when Marge tells her she has an absolute right not to be happy does she legitimately feel better.
  Marge: It's okay Lisa, you don't have to smile now.
  Lisa: But I feel like smiling!
- "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" shows us exactly what happens to a show if it deviates from itself in order to please the Moral Guardians. Marge also learns that censorship necessarily breeds hypocrisy, TV shows (or any form of media) shouldn't be censored just because someone doesn't like it, standing up for what you believe in sometimes isn't worth the trouble (especially if it destroys the livelihood of everyone else around you), and no matter what choices you make, there's always going to be consequences.
- "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington": Idealistic belief in the political system can lead people to turn a blind eye or not notice political corruption happening under their noses, but that doesn't mean the system won't try and fix that corruption once it's genuinely aware of it. In other words, 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilance'.
- "Homer Badman": Editing news for entertainment purposes, as well as over-the-top or wrongful accusations, can destroy peoples' lives, and you shouldn't believe everything you hear on TV.
- "Lisa the Vegetarian": Paul McCartney and Apu agree that Lisa shouldn't try to force her beliefs on those who choose not to follow her lifestyle. Her attempts to use extremism as a form of activism only discredits the cause and does more harm than good. That's the message; in order to truly support a cause; find equilibrium and perform your activism in moderation.
- "The Itchy And Scratchy and Poochie Show": Don't change art in an attempt to please others, because you may end up destroying perfectly good material in the process.
- "Lisa the Skeptic": People have a right to their beliefs, no matter how silly you may find them, and intolerance cuts both ways.
- "Lisa the Simpson": Lisa's TV speech about putting your brain to good use and not letting it go to waste is very powerful.
- "Lard of the Dance": Don't rush to grow up. Enjoy your childhood while you still have it.
- In two episodes, anger is a healthy and natural emotion to have and being angry doesn't automatically make you a villain if you a have a justifiable reason to be angry but it must be controlled and monitored in a healthy way.
  - For Ned in "Huricane Neddy", he bottled-up his anger because he never saw his anger as just or fair towards people who had earned his ire (such as Homer stealing his possessions under the excuse of "borrowing"). When Ned reaches his breaking point, he berates the Springfieldians for failing to build him a proper house and he needlessly lashes out at them again for being incompetent, selfish, slovenly. When Ned finally calms down, he commits himself to psychatric hospital because he saw his own anger as unhealthy and a sign of mental illness (despite his anger having some merit). When the doctors speak to him, they tell him that it's unhealthy for Ned to bottle-up his anger like that and he needs to process his anger in a healthy way and in short, controlled bursts.
  - For Homer in "I am Furious (Yellow)", he has violent anger issues and when he learns how his actions effect others and how his anger had made him a laughing stock on the internet, his first response is to bottle up his anger for the rest of his life. While Homer did need to do something about his anger, his suppressed rage instead came out on his body as boils that could have killed him if Bart didn't set him off with his prank.
- The gender segregation in "Girls Just Want to Have Sums" doesn't solve gender inequality, so Lisa has to give a speech at the end that feminism is about equality for both sexes and there has to be a balance between both sides.
- As despised as it is, "The Boys of Bummer" shows us that shaming someone for a minor offense can have detrimental effects on their psyche.
- "Sky Police" has Marge tell the people of Sprinfield that you shouldn't depend on your faith to solve problems and you can't categorize situations as an act of God. It's pretty clear that the audience is supposed to take the home the same message.
  Marge: God's plan? God isn't some video gamer up there controlling us like we were Pac-Men and Dig Dugs. God isn't Sky Police. God didn't do this. I lied to my husband and made my kids lie, too. We did this.
- "The Serfsons": The episode gives a lesson about death and the afterlife. Death is a painful inevitability of life and it's best to mourn and grieve than try to selfishly control the fate of another. You're entitled to your beliefs, as long as you respect the faiths of others.
Aesop Amnesia:
- Homer and Marge can’t seem to get it in their heads that Bart responds far better to positive reinforcement than negative.
- Many episodes will have them actively encourage Bart’s behavior such as when Homer started bullying Bart upon finding him reading a book in Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood.
Affair Letters: In "Homer's Paternity Coot", a frozen mailman is discovered and his letters are finally delivered; one of them is a letter from a Mason Fairbanks, whom Homer's mother Mona cheated with, causing him to doubt if Abe really is his father.
Affectionate Gesture to the Head: In an educational film, Troy McClure does this to little Tommy at the end.
Tommy: You're... hurting... me.
Affectionate Pickpocket:
- In "Curse of the Flying Hellfish", Mr. Burns forces Grampa to give up his key to the Hellfish fortune. Bart throws himself at Burns and wraps his arms around him, saying "Can I go with you to get the treasure? I won't eat much and I don't know the difference between right and wrong." This seems like a very in-character thing for Bart to do; but when Burns leaves (without Bart) Bart shows to Grampa that he picked Burns' pocket, so now he has both keys needed.
- In "Bart Carny", Bart swipes Marge's pearls while hugging her, a move taught to him by Spud.
Affection-Hating Kid: In "The Way We Was", Homer and Marge tell their children the story of how they fell in love, and after finishing the story, they happily embrace. While Lisa is touched, Bart pretends to puke.
Afterlife of Service: "The Simpsons S5 E18 "Burns' Heir"": Following a near death experience as he has no children or living family members, Mr Burns begins to worry about who will inherit his wealth and carry on his legacy when he dies. Smithers suggests himself, only for Burns to reveal that he has made preparations for "a far greater reward," upon his death Smithers shall be Buried Alive with him (showing him a model revealing his corpse will use Smithers as a footstool) so that he may carry on serving him in the afterlife.
After-School Cleaning Duty: Bart has been punished in this manner more than a few times.
Age-Gap Romance: "Rome-Old and Juli-Eh" revolves around the romance and marriage of Abe Simpson and Selma Bouvier, their ages separated by nearly four decades (she was in her forties, he was in his eighties). Their marriage didn't work out, due to Abe's senility leading to the ruination of their kitchen and Selma finding her new job as a department manager too stressful.
Ageless Birthday Episode: Lisa has had a number of these but remains 8. Averted in the episode where the mental patient who thinks he's Michael Jackson shows up, which is when she turns 8, the age she will remain for the rest of the series.
Aggressive Categorism:
- Played straight with Lampshade Hanging as Moe explains why he doesn't want Mr. Burns on the bowling team:
  Moe: Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people are no good at everything.
- From "The Seven Beer Snitch":
  Bart: All plays suck, all the time, and always will, and everyone knows it.
Ahem: In "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder", Homer is late for work and says he'd hate to see the look on Mr. Burns's face. Sure enough, Mr. Burns is right behind him and lets out an "Ahem." After realizing who it is, Homer refuses to turn around, stating that he can't get in trouble if he can't see him.
Burns: Turn around, Simpson.
Homer: No! I can't get in trouble if I can't see you.
Smithers: I'm afraid he's got us, sir.
The Ahnold: Rainier Wolfcastle is shown within any movie within a movie to parody Schwarzenegger.
Albinos Are Freaks: In the "Treehouse of Horror VIII" segment "The Homega Man", Homer mistakes real-life albino musicians the Winter Brothers for flesh-eating mutants and runs them over.
Homer: Die, you chalk-faced goons!
The Alcoholic: Most of the adults, but especially Homer and Barney.
Alcoholic Parent: Homer is the reigning king of this. One of the contact numbers at Springfield Elementary is at Moe's, which he can use to his convenience.
Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Displayed often by Homer (and sometimes Barney).
Alien Autopsy: "Worst Episode Ever" sees Bart and Milhouse uncover a secret room in Comic Book Guy's shop which houses a secret stash of bootleg videos and other illegal video clips. Among the video titles mentioned are "Alien Autopsy" and "Illegal Alien Autopsy".
Alien Geometries: Homer and Marge's bedroom's orientation changes often. Including in some impossible ways.
Aliens Speaking English: Subverted the hell out of with Kang, Kodos and their entire species: They are actually speaking Rigelian, which just happens to be identical to English.
The Alleged Boss: Carl is apparently Homer's supervisor. He mentions this only once to get him to stop insulting him and for the rest of the series acts as Homer's drinking buddy and even joins in on some of his antics.
The Alleged Car: Many examples, especially the car Crazy Vaclav tries to sell Homer in "Mr. Plow". It has three wheels, comes from a country that no longer exists, and does "300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene". "Put it in H!"
- Springfield Elementary's school bus puts Vaclav's car to shame, made especially apparent in the episode, "The PTA Disbands": The exhaust leaks, there are rust holes in the floor big enough to swallow seats, and completely non-functional brakes that requires the kids to use their shirts as drag chutes.
The Alleged Computer:
- The school's aptitude tests are scored by a huge mainframe-like machine named "Emma" which takes some Percussive Maintenance to operate. It said Bart should be a cop and Lisa a homemaker.
- When Lisa's dishonest exam result pushes the school's average into the boundaries of acceptability, the school is awarded some money which is spent on, among other things, an IT department consisting of a single desktop computer, which was visibly about 15 years out of date at the time of the episode.
The Alleged House:
- The Simpson household, either from lack of maintenance or poor construction, is often shown with such unpleasantries as paper thin walls or faulty plumbing and wiring. This may explain how the family can afford such a large house with Homer's paycheck.
- When Marge gets a job as a real estate agent in "Realty Bites", she doesn't do well because her employer expects her to lie through her teeth to trick people into buy terrible homes.
Lionel Hutz: There's "the truth" [shakes head] and "the truth." [smiles wide] Let me show you. [shows pictures of homes for sale]
Marge: It's awfully small.
Lionel Hutz: I'd say it's awfully "cozy."
Marge: That's dilapidated.
Lionel Hutz: "Rustic."
Marge: That house is on fire!
Lionel Hutz: "Motivated seller."
All Gays Are Pedophiles:
- The show, unfortunately, regularly finds humor in depicting homosexuals as predators. A couple of examples include Doctor Smith of Lost in Space attempting to lure Bart in "Fear of Flying" and the ghost of Oscar Wilde showing an interest in Bart in "Father Knows Worst".
- It usually averts this trope, however. "Fear of Flying" was Marge's phobia mixing with other rational fears like someone hurting her child. Contrast regular character Mr. Smithers; John, in "Homer's Phobia"; or Karl in "Simpson and Delilah", to name a few.
All Girls Want Bad Boys:
- Lisa having a crush on Nelson Muntz in "Lisa's Date with Density".
- Also in "Bart's Girlfriend":
  Jessica: [walking up] You're bad, Bart Simpson.
  Bart: [plaintive] No, I'm not! I'm really —
  Jessica: Yes, you are. You're bad... and I like it.
  Bart: [suave] I'm bad to the bone, honey.
- Little would he know that she's even worse than him. And she's Rev. Lovejoy's daughter, mind.
Alliterative List:
- In "The Itchy & Scratchy Movie", Homer tells the class that he taught Lisa the three R's: "Reading TV Guide, writing TV Guide, and renewing TV Guide."
- In "Viva Ned Flanders", Ned tells the church he kept his youthful appearance with the three C's: "Clean living, chewing thoroughly, and a daily dose of vitamin church."
All-Natural Gem Polish: The diamonds in the African mine owned by the crazy woman who used ape slave labor.
All Take and No Give: Played with Bart and Lisa. While they fight a lot (though Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male is usually in play when they do), they both have many instances of Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other. However, while Lisa does do nice things for Bart (buying his soul back, telling their parents when he was going to jump over Springfield Gorge), Bart regularly sacrifices himself for Lisa in ways such as giving up his future for her twice, using all of his money to buy Bleeding Gums Murphy’s record, and agreeing to stay crippled so she can be the better musician. What makes this worse is that the episode "On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister" shows that Lisa doesn’t even acknowledge these incidents.
- Two great examples are the episodes "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" and "A Test Before Trying". In the former, Bart secretly trained Lisa for a test, and on the day of the final, even though it would most assuredly get him beat up, he loudly cheered her on. However, in the latter, Lisa aided Bart in his test less for his benefit and more for hers, as a failing grade would have gotten the school shut down for having low scores. And on the day of the test, instead of cheering him on, she gave him a Death Glare while ominously tapping the window.
All There in the Manual:
- Although rare, some information tidbits only come from Word of God, such as how the family escaped The Island after "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes". (The army raided the Island, arrested the villains and saved the captives, including the Simpsons).
- The waitress at Flaming Moe's is named Colette according to Simpsons-related sites.
All Women Love Shoes: Rather downplayed with Marge. From her point of view, you only need one pair of shoes and you're set for life.
All Work vs. All Play: Marge and Lisa are All Work while Homer and Bart are All Play. This gets lampshaded a couple of times.
Aloof Leader, Affable Subordinate: Mr. Burns is the aloof and iron-fisted CEO of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, while his assistant Smithers, who is sweet and affable, if a bit awkward.
Alphabet Architecture: In "Homer the Vigilante", a criminal claims to have buried a fortune under a big letter T. The entire town then goes mad hunting for it, and several sight gags include T-shaped buildings such as the "Big T Burgers & Fries", the "Big T Building", and the "Big T Theatre" (with Ice-T appearing with Booker T. in concert)
Alphabet News Network: In the year 2010 in "Lisa's Wedding", Kent Brockman is now a news anchor on CNNBCBS (a division of ABC).
Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: Inverted when Dr. Nick meets with the Medical Review Board in "22 Short Films About Springfield" and they respond to his greeting with the usual words ("Hi, Dr. Nick!") but in a bored, deadpan tone as opposed to the cheerful tone most use even if they hate him. Then, played straight when Dr. Nick says, "Hi, everybody" in a serious way while trying to talk down an unhinged Grandpa.
Alternate Timeline Ancestry: In "Bart and Homer's Excellent Adventure", Bart goes back in time and ruins his parents' first meeting, ensuring Marge never falls for Homer. He initially fears that this will erase him from existence, but instead discovers that he, and his sisters Lisa and Maggie, are now the children of Marge's old boyfriend Artie Ziff (and have gained his hairstyle, to boot).
Alternate Species Counterpart:
- The early short "Zoo Story" has the Simpsons meeting ape versions of themselves at the zoo.
- The Couch Gag for "Team Homer" gives us a glimpse at a mouse version of the family, complete with them having their respective haircuts.
- In "Smoke on the Daughter", Homer and Bart encounter a family of raccoons that eerily resemble the Simpson family.
Always in Class One: "Remedial Science 1-A" in "The Front".
Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
- Agnes embarrasses Skinner more than once.
  Agnes: Seymour needs to use the toilet! His bladder's full! Full of urine!
- Homer and Marge turn into these whenever they find themselves interacting with Bart and Lisa's classmates (or future fiances).
Amazing Technicolor Population: Almost every character, the Caucasian and Asian ones at least, has yellow skin.
Ambiguously Bi
- Mob boss Fat Tony had a wife (now deceased), but also expressed interest in Homer during the latter's time as The Mole for the police. He described as "heterosexual male friendship like the Greeks wrote about," which is an extremely ambiguous line.
- Milhouse is described by the school psychologist as having “many homosexual tendencies”. However he also has a crush on Lisa as well as several other girls over the course of the series.
Ambiguously Gay:
- Waylon Smithers in earlier seasons; Lenny and Carl in later ones.
- Mr. Largo, the Springfield Elementary music teacher, before being confirmed later on.
Amnesiac Lover: "Regarding Margie" has the plot based on this trope.
Amplified Animal Aptitude: Laddie, the turtle from Terrapin Wax, and Itchy & Scratchy.
Amusing Injuries:
- Homer suffers many of them. So does Hans Moleman. Hans even made a short film entitled "Man Getting Hit By Football".
  Homer: But... the ball! His groin! A-ha! It works on so many levels!
- In "Cape Feare", Sideshow Bob gets trampled by a marching band, followed by six elephants.
Amusingly Short List: Power plant announcement: "Attention, workers: we have completed our evaluation of the plant. We regret to announce the following layoffs, which I will read in alphabetical order: Simpson, Homer. That is all."
Anal Probing:
- Bart and Lisa are chased around an Air Force base and see an airman open a door before quickly closing it again after seeing a Grey with a glowstick. The airman proclaims, "Look out, he's got his probe!"
- When Homer and Flanders marry floozies in Vegas, Homer decides they should tell their wives they were abducted by aliens, who "gang-probed" Ned.
  Ned: Do we really have to tell them I was "gang probed"?
  Homer: Would you rather tell them the truth?
  Ned: [Sigh] What do the aliens look like?
  Homer: Well, I only saw them from the back 'cause they were so busy gang probing you!
Analogy Backfire: In "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation", Homer tries to deliver an analogy which he believes will prove he doesn't hate his family. It doesn't work.
Homer: Marriage is like a coffin, and each kid is another nail. But as coffins go-
Lisa: Please don't say any more!
- Another episode has Lisa feeling insecure about her appearance. Marge tries to console her with the story of the ugly duckling, which Lisa interprets as confirmation that she's ugly. Marge then tries to backtrack and say that Lisa represents one of the other ducklings, before realizing that this would make Lisa a bully and thus is no less questionable a moral.
And I Must Scream:
- While it's a funny gag and meant purely for laughs, one still can't help but feel bad for Ozzie Smith's fate in "Homer at the Bat". The guy is being catapulted through space and time in an unknown dimension, with no possible way of getting out ever. It's made even worse by the fact that he did nothing wrong to deserve such a fate.
- Also, when Homer got stuck apparently forever in the Third Dimension.
And Knowing Is Half the Battle:
- Parodied, of course, in "Bart Star":
  Joe Namath: [as Bart is taken to jail in Wiggum's cop car] Hehe, poor Bart. You know, we had a lot of fun tonight. But, there's nothing funny about... vapor lock. It's the third most common cause of stalling. So please, take care of your car and get it checked. I'm Joe Namath. Good night.
- In "Bart the General":
  Bart: Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: the American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy. If you'd like to learn more about war, there's lots of books in your local library, many of them with cool gory pictures.
- In "New Kids on the Blecch":
  Justin: You know, we've had a lot of fun tonight, at the expense of the U. S. Navy.
  Lance: But they're out there every day protecting us from Godzilla.
  Chris: And don't forget pirates!
  J. C.: And jellyfish.
  Joey: Those whack invertebrates will sting you, old-school!
  Justin: So check out the Navy for a two, or four-year hitch.
  Lance: We signed J. C. up yesterday.
  J. C.: What? [is dragged away] Nooooooooo!
Androcles' Lion: Parodied in "Blood Feud", where Homer tries to tell the story to Bart just to teach him the moral that you should help wealthy people because they can give you money.
Homer: Don't you know the story of Hercules and the lion?
Bart: Is it a Bible story?
Homer: ...Yeah, probably. Anyway, once upon a time, there was a big mean lion who got a thorn in his paw. All the village people tried to pull it out, but nobody was strong enough! So they got Hercules, and Hercules used his mighty strength, and — bingo! Anyway, the moral is, the lion was so happy, he gave Hercules this big... thing... of riches.
Bart: How did a lion get rich?
Homer: [dismissively] It was the olden days.
And the Rest:
- In "Eight Misbehavin'", Apu and Manjula's octuplets are made the stars of a show called "Octopia" at the Springfield Zoo. Only four of the babies are explicitly given stage character names and are introduced to the audience. The others are introduced as "And the Rest."
- In the "Treehouse of Horror VIII" segment "The Homega Man", after Springfield is destroyed by an atomic bomb, Homer mourns the apparent loss of li'l Bart, li'l Lisa, li'l Marge... and the rest◊.
And Then I Said:
- From "Maximum Homerdrive":
  Homer: So then I said: "You can take your free tetanus shot and shove it!"
  Bart: You told her, dad!
  Homer: You better... [jaw locks shut; says next line through gritted teeth] believe I did!
- From "New Kid on the Block":
  Homer: [drunk] So I sez, "Yeah, if you want that money, come and find it, 'cuz I don't know where it is, ya baloney. You make me wanna retch." [immediately falls asleep]
- From "The Springfield Files":
  Homer: [drunk] So I says, "Blue M&M, red M&M, they all wind up the same color in the end."
- From "Homer Defined":
  Barney: So the next time someone tells you carnies are good honest people, you can spit in their face for me!
- From "Homer the Vigilante":
  Homer: So I said to him, "Look, buddy, your car was upside down when we got here. And as for your grandma, she shouldn't have mouthed off like that!"
- From "Days of Wine and D'oh'ses"
  Lenny: So I says to the cop, "No, you're driving under the influence — of being a jerk!"
- Finally: From "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer":
  Bart: So anyway, I says to Mabel, I says...
  Homer: Hi, kids!
  Bart: I'll finish this later. Hi, Dad.
And You Were There:
- Said in "Bart Gets Hit By a Car" (at the end of pointing everyone out, he mentions that he's never seen Lionel Hutz before).
- In "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish'" Abe wearily recounts how several family members were there when an assassin made an attempt on his life. In actuality, the assassin, Mr. Burns, and Smithers had dressed as the Simpsons to get close to Abe.
Angelic Aliens: Subverted in "The Springfield Files". Homer sees in the woods what appears to be a glowing, smiling Grey saying, "I bring you peace" and "I bring you love." It turns out to be Mr. Burns, disoriented and high after a medical treatment "to cheat death", with the glow coming from his exposure to nuclear plant radiation.
"Anger Is Healthy" Aesop:
- "Hurricane Neddy" shows that Ned has had behavioral problems since he was a child and the method used to control Ned's anger overcorrected it and caused Ned to bottle up any feeling of anger, no matter how justified he is to be angry. After a series of unpredictable tragedies, Ned has a breakdown and berates the entire town for failing to help him in his time of need (despite a well-intentioned but ultimately flawed attempt of rebuilding his house). The lesson of the episode is that expressing anger isn't automatically evil, it just needs to be controlled and done appropriately.
- "I am Furious Yellow": After learning that his anger has made him the laughing stock of the town after Bart bases a webcomic on his many outbursts, Homer decides to overcorrect himself by suppressing all of his anger for the rest of his life. Bart forms a prank to set him off but changes his mind, unfortunately, Homer falls victim to the prank and finally loses it and goes on a rampage that somehow results in millions of dollars in damages. Before Marge can punish Bart, Hibbert informs her that Bart had just saved Homer's life by making him angry as his suppressed anger was forming into boils that would have otherwise fatally overwhelmed his system.
Angry Fist-Shake:
- In "Fly vs. Fly" from "Treehouse of Horror VIII", Fly Bart tricks a spider into thinking that he's caught in his web. When he's about to be eaten, he slaps him and flies away. The spider watches him in anger, shaking his four legs in synchronized movement, probably swearing revenge.
- There's also an episode where Abe shows a clipping from the newspaper doing this to clouds for his driver's license photo.
- In "Lemon of Troy", when the Springfieldians finally get the lemon tree back from Shelbyville, the owner of the impound lot and his son get "revenge" in this fashion.
  Impound Lot Owner: Shake harder, boy!
Animal Athlete Loophole:
- Parodied; after adopting a horse, Homer spends hours training it as a placekicker, then checks the rulebook to see whether horses can play in the National Football League. (Turns out, there is a rule.)
- Homer participated in a robot fighting league disguised as a robot. When he's found out, two officiators share:
  Officiator 1: And the winner is nature's greatest killing machine... man!
  Audience: Boo!
  Officiator 1: Show me where in the rulebook it says that a human can't be a robot.
  Officiator 2: Right here. Rule one.
Animal Lover: Seems to be the case for the two eldest Simpson kids.
- Bart has adopted a bull and a bear in the past.
- Lisa seems to be the closest to Snowball II, went vegetarian due to feeling sorry for a lamb, and up until "Lisa's Pony", she wanted a pony.
Animated Shock Comedy: There's a definite shift towards "edgy" and "adult" content. This resulted in an increase in mean-spirited humor, and gross-out gags that aren't particularly funny and don't fit the show's milder, more laid-back tone. It all culminated in the infamous panda rape scene in "Homer vs. Dignity."
Animated World Hypotheses: The "actually a cartoon" variant. The characters see themselves with the art style they are drawn in— in one episode, the Simpsons kids freak out over not having visible hairlines.
Animated Sitcom: The undisputed Trope Codifer, to the extent that 30 years after its premiere, most of its tropes and character archetypes can still be seen in the vast majority of the genre.
Animation Bump:
- At the expense of consistency, the animation during the earlier seasons (roughly seasons 1-8) is a lot more expressive and fluid compared to the other seasons.
- The movie, for obvious reasons.
- The Tracey Ullman shorts and first three seasons in particular were animated by Klasky-Csupo, and as such the episodes were more expressive and vivid in movement. And this is very noticeable in the shorts and the first season, often bordering into animation mistakes.
- The episodes with Matt Selman as co-showrunner (since 2011) often have higher-quality animation than the other episodes that have Al Jean as sole showrunner.
- Season 33 itself is a general bump in animation that nearly matches the movie's.
- Specific examples:
  - Any episode directed by either David Silverman or Lauren Mac Mullen are generally more visually interesting and better animated than the rest of the series.
  - Several sequences from the original opening theme song stick out, animated by Kevin Petrilak, including Lisa dancing while playing her saxophone and Marge gracefully turning her head, with her hair flowing.
  - The babysitter demanding that Bart "watch the tape" in the episode/pilot "Some Enchanted Evening" is animated in a very fluid manner, courtesy of Disney animator Dan Haskett.
  - Sideshow Bob's character animation in "Krusty Gets Busted" is also animated in a very fluid way. In addition to this, so is Krusty's heart attack, animated by Disney/Pixar animator, Brad Bird.
  - While the 1920's shorts featured in "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie" are, true to the era, fairly simple and low on details, the Wartime Cartoon features complex character designs more in line with a Tex Avery short, fluid, fast-paced lines of motion, and a fully airbrushed background.
  - The heart attack in "Homer's Triple Bypass" is extremely intricate, animated by Silverman (who also directed the episode), with Homer contorting and smearing into multiple bizarre positions in his agony while the inset of his heart shorts out and shatters itself.
  - The couch gag done by veteran Disney animator Eric Goldberg. Naturally, it features Disneyesque fluid animation, while notably keeping the characters mostly on model (despite the obvious different Art Shifts for each character). At the end of the gag, when the Simpson family is back in their normal style, there is still a noticeable animation bump, due to Goldberg handling that as well.
Animeland: The Simpsons are attacked by Kaiju on the plane back home in "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo".
Annoyingly Repetitive Child:
- Invoked in "Brush with Greatness". There's a montage of Bart and Lisa following Homer around and asking him to take them to Mt. Splashmore. He finally gives in when they continue their requests when he's trying to sleep.
- Invoked in "Bart of Darkness" when Lisa calmly explains to Homer that he has to buy a pool to avoid a whole summer of the kids chanting, "Can we have a pool, Dad?" in unison.
- One of the more memorable examples from the episode "Sleeping With The Enemy" has Bart getting a house party for getting a 100 on a test in school. Among other family members and friends, Ralph Wiggum attends as well. During a game of Duck Duck Goose, no one reminds him to actually say, "Goose", with everyone being worn out by the repetition, and the implication that Ralph's turn goes on for a while.
  Bart: Rrrgh! Say GOOSE, you stupid freak!
Another Story for Another Time: In "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", Bart and Lisa have so many questions after Homer's story of a Beatles-esque career.
Lisa: How come we never heard about this until today?
Bart: Yeah, and what happened to the money you made?
Lisa: Why haven't you hung up your gold records?
Bart: Since when could you write a song?
Homer: [laughs] There are perfectly good answers to those questions, but they'll have to wait for another night.
Answer to Prayers:
- Bart Gets an F Bart prays for a miracle to help him get a passing grade on a test, or he'll be held back. The next day is a snow day, giving Bart more study time. When Bart is about to go play in the snow, Lisa stops him, pointing out that this is the miracle he'd asked for, and that he shouldn't waste it, to which Bart agrees. After he passes the test by the skin of his teeth and his parents are putting his test on the refrigerator, he says, "You know, part of this D- belongs to God."
- Played for Laughs in A Star Is Burns . Todd Flanders falls into a river and is being swept away. Ned Flanders drops to his knees and immediately prays, "Flanders to God, Flanders to God; Get off your duff and save my Todd!" Instantly, a tree falls over, barring the river and allowing Todd to cling to it and pull himself to safety. When Flanders gives thanks, a giant hand comes out of the clouds making the OK sign, and a booming voice says "Okely Dokely!"
Anti-Advice: Homer has a card in his wallet that tells him "Always do the opposite of what Bart says."
Anti-Humor: In "The Sweetest Apu", when Homer and Marge find out about Apu cheating on Manjula:
Homer: Let's tell Krusty.
Marge: What would that accomplish?
Homer: That guy's hilarious. His reaction would be priceless.
Homer: Apu is cheating!
Krusty: [somber] That's sad. All those kids.
Homer: I think he's building to something.
Antiquated Linguistics:
- Mr. Burns seems to have a lexicon dating back to roughly 1911.
- Grampa also tends to lapse into long, meandering stories full of 1940s slang.
Apocalypse Anarchy: After Springfield is nuked by France, Homer takes the opportunity to dance naked in the First Church of Springfield.
Apocalypse How:
- Springfield gets threatened with a Class-0 annihilation fairly often (and it does happen for real in some of the Treehouse of Horror episodes). Sometimes it's due to a villain or some outside force ("Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", "Bart's Comet"), sometimes it's due to Homer's incompetence ("Homer Defined", "King-Size Homer") and in The Movie, it's a combination of the two.
- Class-Z in a Treehouse of Horror intro, when Kang and Kodos open up a wormhole that's powerful enough to even suck God into it, leaving nothing but a blank slate. Of course, this was done as a joke.
Applied Mathematics: When Homer is an inventor. During a montage, he's shown writing equations on a blackboard. After he's done, the camera moves to a shot of the house — where there's a massive explosion. Cut back to Homer: who examines his equation and replaces his less than symbol with a greater than or equal to symbol. This results in another, bigger explosion. He goes back to the board, and removes "TNT" from the equation.
Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?:
- Demonstrated in "Take My Wife, Sleaze" when Marge is surprised that the bikers who kidnapped her don't want to have sex with her.
  Marge: Could you at least tell me what you're planning to do with me?
  Meathook: Oh, don't worry, you're completely safe. None of us finds you sexually attractive.
  Marge: None of you? Really? I could have sworn that Ramrod... [Ramrod shakes his head] Hmm. Well, did you see that picture of me in... [gang nods] And you still don't... [gang shakes their heads]
  Meathook: Sorry.
  Marge: Well, good, I guess.
- In "Rednecks and Broomsticks", when a bunch of hillbillies pull guns on Moe, he says he expects they're going to violate him now. When the hillbillies complain that this is a nasty stereotype and that they have no intention of violating him, Moe rides off complaining about how he thought they had a connection and how they'd never know what they missed.
Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing?:
- Subverted where Homer is dangling in a gorge and Marge asks Bart to drive the car, to pull Homer up using a rope attached to the bumper; Bart at first acts nervous about it, but then reveals he has his own set of keys and his own driving gloves.
- Bart stole Otto's bus. In front of Metallica.
Argentina Is Nazi-Land:
- The international prank calls by Bart in "Bart vs. Australia" almost reaches a Hitler-lookalike in Argentina. Someone on a bike actually addresses him has "mein Führer." Apparently, Hitler survived WWII and went on to live out his days in South America.
- "New Kids on the Blecch" showed an aged Hitler at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.
Armor-Piercing Question:
- Burns of all characters asks one in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", when Springfield's hatred of him was even more intense than usual.
  McCallister: Arr, Burns, your scurvy schemes will earn ye a one-way passage to the boneyard!
  Ned: I'd like to hear from Sideshow Mel!
  Mel: I'll see to it that Burns suffers the infernal machinations of hell's grim tyrant!
  Otto: Yeah!
  Burns: Oh, you all talk big, but who here has the guts to stop me?
- From "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield":
  Marge: [to Lisa] Why do you always have to question everything I do?!
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The trope formerly known as "Bus Full Of Nuns".
- To elaborate, Snake received the death penalty from the three-strike system by burning down an orphanage, blowing up a bus full of nuns (which he claims was in self-defense), and smoking inside the Kwik-E-Mart.
  - The show's overall style is full of "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking" moments. Plenty of "lists" in various episodes end off with the least significant example of something. Arguably the clearest example is in "The Crepes of Wrath", when Bart describes to a policeman, (in French, but with the on-screen subtitles translating it) what the winemakers were doing to him. Here is what the subtitles say:
    Bart: You gotta help me! These two guys work me night and day! They don't feed me. They make me sleep on the floor. They put anti-freeze in the wine and they gave my red hat to the donkey.
- In "Itchy and Scratchyland", at the entrance of said amusement park, there's a sign saying: "Rides not operating today: Head Basher, Bloodbath, Mangler and Nurse's Station".
Art Evolution:
- The original shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show were especially crude, in fact the character designs were apparently very rough sketches done by Matt Groening to get in before a deadline, hoping the animators would clean them up but instead translated them faithfully. The oldest episodes start off with more refined character designs, but various animation quirks were present such as the "overbite" looking more like a beak and when their teeth were seen while talking or smiling they sometimes were individually drawn rather a more stylized bar. The designs of the family and numerous early characters also became outdated to the more standard character designs (such as Homer's squiggly lines for his hair or the brown muzzle for his beard), making them oddities in the design scheme of the overall show.
- The show shifted to computer-colored animation in the 14th season and started integrated Cel Shading computer graphics, so episodes look much cleaner.
- This also works backwards too, as while the colors are more vibrant, backgrounds more pretty and characters more consistent, the animation itself became more standardized, less expressive and less animated, more so after the switch to HD.
  - In the vein of this, the fluid animation and the standardization of the character designs and range of movement has caused the show to lose comedic timing and punch, since in earlier seasons, the show had a more "cartoony" vibe; case in point, an earlier still◊ versus a later one◊
- Don Hertzfeldt's Couch Gag parodies this trend to horrifying effect — first Homer fiddles with a time-traveling remote that viscerally morphs him back to his cruder 1987 design, then in a panicked attempt to undo the rewind, he launches into a far future where he and his family are grotesque mutant caricatures that barely resemble their original selves.
The Artifact: There's so many examples that they have their own page.
Artifact Title: The original Halloween episode was called "Treehouse of Horror" because it involved Bart and Lisa telling ghost stories inside of Bart's treehouse. None of the subsequent Halloween episodes have anything to do with treehouses but still bear the name "Treehouse of Horror" anyway.
Artistic Age: It's often overlooked but Homer and Marge are parents to three pre-teens, an early episode established them to be around 32. Marge's beehive hairdo makes her seem a little older, with alternate hairstyles making her look much younger, but Homer's exaggerated weight and baldness makes him look like he is in his fifties.
Artistic License: The writers will do extensive research on the place the family is going, and then ignore many of the facts because they aren't funny, preferring instead to make things up.
Artistic License – Education: Everything regarding Springfield Elementary, which is crappy to a point that is absurd or horrifying Depending on the Writer. The building is literally falling apart, children are fed shredded cushions, teachers not only ignore bullying but encourage it in a fashion worthy of The Social Darwinist and actively seek to destroy children's capacity to be anything but a drone (and not a well-educated one at that), and there is a chapter in the school's charter that says in black and white that they won't care if children are killed under their watch (or at least Bart). The only true absolute limit the faculty has in being abusive is in having teachers physically attack children, and even that depends on the episode.
Artistic License – Geography: In Blame it on Lisa, Homer is kidnapped during the family's vacation in Brazil. He's taken from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon Rainforest and back to Rio again in a single day, before sunset. Rio de Janeiro is located in Brazil's southeast, while the Amazon Rainforest is in its north and they are more than 4200km (roughly 2600m) apart, which means that those travels would take several days in real life (unless the kidnappers used a supersonic plane, which is very unlikely).
Artistic License – Traditional Christianity: In the episode where the kids are given to Ned and Maude Flanders as foster parents. Aside from the legal absurdities of the episode, Ned attempts to baptize the kids, and Homer intervenes, fearing that the baptism will make Ned and Maude their parents in the eyes of God. Quite a few things wrong with that. Although many Christian denominations allow baptism of children, it can only be licitly done with the consent of someone with the right to give such consent: i.e. a parent or permanent guardian. As foster parents, Ned and Maude lack the authority to baptize the Simpson kids according to the rules of most denominations. Also, although a licit baptism of an underage child does require the consent of parents or permanent guardians, a valid baptism does not confer a parent-child relationship. Technically, any baptized Christian can validly baptize anyone who is unbaptized, with no relationship being conferred between the two, certainly none that would supersede the natural relationship of parent and child. Therefore, even if the Simpson kids had been validly (if illicitly) baptized, Ned and Maude would not be considered their parents in the eyes of God.^note
Artistic License – History:
- In "The Devil and Homer Simpson", Blackbeard cannot read Homer's letter, and Benedict Arnold peevishly notes the pirate is illiterate. This is false: Blackbeard not only could read, he was a very rare pirate who kept an actual journal of his daily life.
- If The Simpsons were to be believed, a voice actress named June Bellamy (voiced by Tress MacNeille) provided the "meep meep" for the Road Runner, whereas in actuality, it was done by background artist Paul Julian.
Artistic License – Law:
- In "The Otto Show", Otto comes home to find his door padlocked, the locks changed, and an eviction notice on the door. He seems completely surprised, but this is not how eviction works in real life. Before padlocking the door, his landlord is required to give him the chance to go to court; Otto has the right to appeal the eviction before the lockout, even if the reason is nonpayment of rent. If Otto failed to show up in court or failed to comply with the payment plan set up there, then a warrant of removal would be placed on the door at least three days before the door would be padlocked.
- Let's just say that the entire show thrives off of this, almost always for Rule of Funny or Hilarity Ensues.
- From "The Canine Mutiny": creditors, by law, are not allowed to call you after 9:00 P.M. (your time, not theirs) On the other hand, it is a good indicator of how much trouble Bart's in.
Artistic License – Law Enforcement: In "A Star Is Torn", Homer asks for a change for $1 to call the police at the Kwik-E-Mart. However, payphones do not require payment for 911 emergency calls—which an armed robbery in progress would definitely qualify for.
Art Shift: Plenty.
- The couch gags for "Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts" and "Treehouse of Horror XXVI", done by John Kricfalusi.
- Ren and Stimpy's cameo in "Brother from the Same Planet"
- The Crossover cameos with the Hills, The Flintstones, and the Riverdale gang^note has each in the style of their actual series.
- Bart's "Dark Stanley" story in "Yokel Chords".
- Lisa's daydream about the politicians in "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington".
- The Amendment Song in "The Day the Violence Died" is done in the style of Schoolhouse Rock!.
- The California Raisins and The Year Without a Santa Claus parodies in "Tis the Fifteenth Season" are done in claymation, as is the Gumby couch gag.
- The "Cards" parody in "Mommie Beerest" is done in CG, as is Homer in the 3D world in "Homer³" (part of "Treehouse of Horror VI").
  Homer: Holly Maccaroni!
  - On that same note, most of "Brick Like Me" Is done in CGI, to further reference that of the film its parodying.
- The Davey and Goliath parody in "HOMЯ".
- The Tintin cutaway in "Husbands and Knives".
- Homer's fire pepper hallucinations in "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer".
- The puppet/live-action story featuring Katy Perry on "The Fight Before Christmas".
- In one episode, Homer briefly imagines Bart and Lisa as their real-life equivalents. Of course, they're hideous.
- There is a definite difference in art quality from Maggie's P.O.V. whenever she feels threatened or terrified, namely, everything from her angle appears to look distorted and monstrous. Even in "Hello Gudder, Hello Fadder", when at a father-child swimming class, when she imagined Homer as a Kappa-like creature, the water around him began to take on a distinct orange color.
- The opening to "The Love-Matic Grampa" in "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase".
- The 1930s cartoons couch gag, where the characters are drawn in rubber hose style and the picture is black and white.
- Some of the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons in "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie" were a parody of the animation style of the 1920s and 1940s cartoons. In "The Day The Violence Died" parodies of Fritz the Cat, 1920s cartoons and Schoolhouse Rock! can be found.
- The "Worker and Parasite" cartoon segment from "Krusty Gets Kancelled" is drawn in a style spoofing Eastern European Animation.
  Krusty: What the hell was that?!
- In "Angry Dad: The Movie" parodies The Triplets of Belleville, Persepolis, Wallace & Gromit and Pixar.
- The Adventure Time-inspired Couch Gag as seen before "Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus". Bonus point for having series creator Pendleton Ward sing the theme song.
- Many of the guest Couch Gags are done up in completely different styles- Besides the two done by John K., the others of note include:
  - The aforementioned Gumby couch gag, as done by the Chiodo Bros., who are also responsible for many of the in-show examples listed above.
  - the ones as seen in "Beware My Cheating Bart", "Black-Eyed, Please", "Married to the Blob", "Lisa the Veterinarian" and "22 for 30", as directed and animated by Bill Plympton.
  - Sylvain Chomet's gag, as seen in "Diggs".
  - Don Hertzfeldt's, as seen in "Clown in the Dumps".
  - The Rick and Morty Crossover gag done for "Mathletes Feat", animated by Bardel Entertainment, which keeps the titular duo in the style of their home series.
  - The rotoscoped gag as seen before "Barthood".
  - Stoopid Buddy Studios' gags as seen before "The Fabulous Faker Boy" and "The Cad and The Hat". Both of which invoke, and include a Shout-Out to, Robot Chicken.
  - The "LA-Z Rider" gag by Steve Cutts, as seen before "Teenage Mutant Milk-Caused Hurdles".
  - Michal Socha's gag from "Orange is the New Yellow", done in the style of an IKEA manual.
  - Eric Goldberg's gag, as seen before "Fland Canyon".
  - The crossover gag with Fox stablemate Bob's Burgers in "My Way or The Highway to Heaven" is produced by Bento Box, much like the show. With Homer's appearance and animation changing slightly to accommodate.
- The "Death Tome" segment in "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII" was animated by DR Movie.
Artsy Beret:
- One episode has Lisa posing as a college student to hang with her fellow gymnasts. Given that she is 10 years younger than the average student, she takes to wearing a black beret with hopes of fitting in with the intellectuals.
- When Homer and pals become a barbershop quartet a la the Beatles, Barney gets a bizarre Japanese conceptual artist as a girlfriend, who wears black and a beret. So did Barney when he was with her.
Ascended Meme:
- "D'oh!" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
- As was "meh" (an adjective describing something boring or mediocre or an interjection expressing boredom or indifference), "cromulent" (an adjective describing something that's valid, adequate, or appropriate for a certain situation), and "embiggen" (a verb meaning "to empower or raise someone's spirits").
- A critic once wrote a negative article on the subject of The Simpsons, which was titled "Worst Episode Ever!" Since then, the phrase "Worst. X. Ever!" became Comic Book Guy's catchphrase.
- This video has Homer welcome their new corporate overlords, a reference to the "Insect Overlords" meme from "Deep Space Homer."
Ascended to Carnivorism: In "Helter Shelter", the retirement home residents are watching a nature show about elderly animals. An elderly lion runs out of energy, whereupon the zebra turns around and takes a bite out of it.
Ashes to Crashes: Homer's mom wants him to spread her ashes at a certain place at a certain time; it turns out it was her last act of uncivil disobedience, as her ashes interfere with the launch of a missile sending nuclear waste from the power plant to the Amazon rainforest.
Asian Rudeness: Cookie Kwan. Stay off the west side!
Aside Comment:
- In "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?", Homer says, "We'll be right back" to the camera.
- In "Pygmoelian", Carl tells the camera, "See, this is why I don't talk much." when he insults Homer, Barney, and Lenny and they break down crying.
Aside Glance: In "Little Big Girl", Mr. Burns gives one to the camera when Smithers, who is on fire, shouts that he's flaming.
Asinine Alternate Activity:
- In "Marge Be Not Proud", Bart wants to get the new video game Bonestorm for Christmas, but Marge finds it too violent and suggests getting Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge. At the end, after their relationship falls apart and is subsequently repaired, Marge reveals that she bought him a certain video game as a surprise gift. Take a good guess what it was.
- In the episode "Bart the Murderer", Bart leaves his permission slip to visit the chocolate factory at home, so he ends up spending the day in Principal Skinner's office licking envelopes; Skinner suggests that Bart could "make a game out of it", by seeing how many envelopes he could lick in an hour, and then try to beat that record.
- In "Itchy and Scratchy Land", Bart and Lisa plead with Homer and Marge to take them to Itchy and Scratchy Land, the most violent theme park on earth, but Marge is initially set on the family vacationing at the Highway 9 Bird Sanctuary, where they've just installed a new bird feeder that she's interested to see.
- In "The Old Man and the "C" Student", Principal Skinner decides to make the students at Springfield Elementary do mandatory community service to teach them respect. When Bart gets taken to his placement, he at first thinks it will be at the Fireworks, Candy and Puppy-Dog Store, but it's actually at the Springfield Retirement Castle next door.
Assurance Backfire: When Lisa is feeling depressed after seeing an unflattering caricature of her, Marge attempts to cheer her up by singing "There Once Was an Ugly Duckling", but then Lisa says, "So you think I'm ugly, then?" and Marge hastily says, "No, you're one of the good-looking ones...who makes fun of the ugly one."
As the Good Book Says...:
- Used many times, often for comedic effect. Some examples: "Homer the Heretic" (Matthew 7:26 and 21:17), "Bart's Girlfriend" (Matthew 7:1), "Lisa's Sax" (John 8:7), "The Otto Show" (Matthew 25:40), "Dead Putting Society" (Matthew 19:19).
- Subverted in "Catch Them If You Can", where Homer says, "As the Bible says... 'Screw that'!"
Artists Are Attractive: Mentioned a few times, usually spoofed
At Arm's Length: Done to Bart by Nelson in "Bart the General".
Attack Backfire: From one episode parodying stories from The Bible, when Moses (Milhouse) sends a plague of frogs to vex the Pharoah, (Principal Skinner) he and the other Egyptians just end up eating the frogs' legs. The Pharoah comments that Ra must be rewarding them for punishing their slaves.
Attack of the Political Ad: When Sideshow Bob ran for Mayor of Springfield, his campaign took out an ad against Mayor Quimby parodying George H.W. Bush's "Revolving Door Prison" attack ad from the 1988 election. In the ad, prisoners are seen leaving the Springfield State Prison through a revolving door and over the walls on escalators and ski lifts while a narrator lets us know,
Narrator: Mayor Quimby supports revolving door prisons. Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob, a man twice convicted of attempted murder. Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby? Vote Sideshow Bob for Mayor.
Audience Murmurs: When the Flanders walk into church after Ned is arrested in "Homer Loves Flanders", the congregation immediately start murmuring disparaging things about Ned, including someone who thinks Ned is the one who wrote "Homer" all over the bathroom.
Audience Participation: The Season 22 finale ended with an invitation for viewers to vote online on whether or not they want Ned Flanders and Edna Krabappel to become a couple. Others include: the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" contest and a recent one where viewers get to design their own couch gag for the season 24 finale episode.
Audience Shift: Thanks largely to much more risque shows like Family Guy and South Park hitting the airwaves and inability of The Simpsons to be as provocative as it once was, the show's target audience has shifted towards a younger age range, with many of the guest stars (i.e. Lady Gaga) being popular with a younger demographic.
Author Appeal: Mike Scully is a fan of the band NRBQ. Many of their songs ("Always Safety First", "12 Bar Blues", "It's a Wild Weekend", "I Like That Girl", "Mayonnaise and Marmalade") were used in the show during his tenure as showrunner, to the point where they were declared an "unofficial house band" for the show.
Author Avatar: Comic Book Guy is this for Matt Groening. According to Matt, "He's what I think I look like to other people".
Author Usurpation: The popularity of The Simpsons has overshadowed all of Matt Groening's other works, and it will always be mentioned first when discussing his career.
Awesome McCoolname:
- Max Power! He's the man whose name you'd love to touch, but you musn't touch!
  - Homer's other choices for his new name included Hercules Rockerfeller, Rembrandt Q. Einstein, and Handsome B. Wonderful (which the judge rejected as they were all misspelled, though the judge really has no say in how Homer should spell any of his new names).
- Bart has stated that when he grows up he plans to change his name to Joe Kickass, a name that is so cool Homer doesn't mind that it will be the end of the Simpson family name.
Auto-Incorrect: In "Lisa on Ice", when Martin Prince praises the school's new "Academic Alert" system, Kearney tells Dolph to take a memo on his Apple Newton (a device known for its autocorrect fails) "Beat up Martin" but it transcribes it into "Eat up Martha." Kearney then chucks the Newton into Martin. This scene was infamous with Apple employees during the development of the iPhone's keypad, with "Eat up Martha" being a nickname for screwing up inputs within the company.
Awful Wedded Life: Kirk and Luann Van Houten's first marriage crash lands in divorce court in "A Milhouse Divided" after one fight too many over Kirk being an incompetent loser who gets no love or support from Luann. Although they re-tie the knot eleven seasons later in "Little Orphan Millie", their second marriage isn't much better; Kirk is still a loser who can't hold down a job and keeps putting his foot in his mouth, while Luann is just as spiteful and dismissive of him as she was the first time around.
Awkward Poetry Reading: In "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", Lisa channels her anger at Bart into a poem, "Howl of the Unappreciated". She tries to read it to her family, but gets five words in before they notice Bart on a TV broadcast and push her aside indifferently.

Baby-Doll Baby: Homer takes a quiz that indicates he's going to die and goes a little crazy. At the plant he's found "nursing" a doll (missing an arm). His theory is that if he's a mother he can't die.
Baby See, Baby Do: In "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge", Maggie copies Itchy and Scratchy and accidentally injures Homer. This makes Marge angry and she writes to the screenwriters, asking to make the show lighter. The first "light" episode involves Itchy giving Scratchy a lemonade, and then Maggie gives Homer a lemonade.
Baby's First Words: In "Lisa's First Word", the parents talk about Bart's ("Ay Carumba!") and Lisa's ("Bart") first words and eventually Maggie says her first word: "Daddy".
Babysitter's Nightmare: Numerous examples, mostly having to do with Bart.
- In "Some Enchanted Evening", Homer and Marge call a babysitting service. When we see the receptionist's office, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie's heads are pasted onto a board with a note reading "NO! NO! NO!" The Simpsons are denied a babysitter until Homer calls under the name of the "Sampson family".
Receptionist: Those Simpsons. What a bunch of savages. Especially that big ape father.
- In "The War of the Simpsons", Homer and Marge try to hire a babysitter while they go to a couples retreat. She runs off screaming at the sight of Bart ("Back for more?"), so they decide to have Grampa babysit instead.
- In "New Kid on the Block", Homer tries to call up Abby, the kids' usual babysitter, but her sister answers instead, telling him that her last encounter with the Simpsons destroyed her.
  Abby: (rocking in her chair) No, Bart, put it down... Put it down, Bart... Bart, put it down...
- Invoked in "My Sister, My Sitter", in which Bart, outraged that his younger sister is babysitting him, tries to make Lisa's job difficult by being be the worst kid ever, which includes feeding Maggie coffee ice cream and making several prank phone calls.
- Exaggerated in "The Changing of the Guardian", in which Homer and Marge decide to search for someone to be their kids' legal guardian in case they die. Once word gets out, the whole town start avoiding them everywhere they go.
- As mentioned in the initial trope description, this trope also applies to Bart's schooling—teachers dread having him in class, and only the sour Edna Krabappel has ever shown any ability to get a handle on him (although Marcia Wallace, Mrs. Krabappel's late voice actor, went on the record as saying that the two were more like Friendly Enemies who enjoyed their interactions with one another). In one particularly heartwarming instance, Edna is up for a Teacher of the Year Award, and Bart decides to help by presenting himself to the judges and explaining that anyone who could survive having him in their classroom must be worthy of the title. The committee members can't believe that the infamous Bart is real and immediately hand Edna the prize.
Babysitting Episode:
- In what was originally the very first episode, "Some Enchanted Evening", but was delayed to the first season finale, concerns Homer and Marge going out for the evening while the kids are sat by what turns out to be "the Babysitter Bandit", who gets a babysitting job and then ties up the kids and steals everything from the house.
- In “New Kid on the Block” new neighbor and Bart’s crush Laura Powers babysits for the kids twice. The first night Bart dresses like Hugh Hefner, Laura teaches the kids (and pets) to waltz, and they order Pakistani food. The second night Laura invites her new boyfriend Jimbo over and Bart uses a prank call to get Moe to scare him off.
- In "My Sister, My Sitter", 8-year-old Lisa offers her services as a babysitter, but the only ones who will take her up on it are Homer and Marge, who have her watch Bart and Maggie. Bart does a lot of stupid things mostly for the sake of being contrarian, which eventually lends him in the hospital (she even has to drive him there in a wheelbarrow because he prank-called them earlier), but she still gets work afterwards.
- "Children of a Lesser Clod": While healing from a work injury, Homer starts a Daddy Day Care-type in-home babysitting service.
Back Blocking: In "Bart the Murderer". Fat Tony fills the screen as he and his boys corner Principal Skinner in his office and Skinner asks how they got past the hall monitor.
- In "Much Apu About Nothing", Lisa shows Apu where Springfield is on a map of the United States. Before we can see it, Bart walks in and the back of his head blocks the camera.
Back from the Dead: Dr. Monroe (though now he's gone again), Dr. Nick and Poochie (even though "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" established that Krusty went through the trouble in getting a legal document stating that Poochie, by law, is not allowed back on the show).
Backing Away Slowly:
- In "Mr. Plow", Homer and the kids back away from an unhinged Adam West when he tries to do a campy 60s dance for them.
- In "The Principal and the Pauper", a man bursts in claiming to be the real Seymour Skinner at a celebration honoring the Skinner we know. As our Skinner confesses to being an impostor, Homer thinks to himself, "Keep looking shocked and move slowly towards the cake".
- In "The Sweetest Apu", Homer catches Apu having an affair at the Kwik-E-Mart and walks backward all the way to his house. The scene is repeated at the end, when Homer spies on Apu and Manjula having sex in their apartment and hops back home on his stilts.
- * In "Homer the Moe", Bart inexplicably begins digging a hole in the backyard. When Lisa asks him why, he claims he's making a hole for more digging, causing her to back away from him.
Backing into Danger: Lampshaded in the episode "The Lastest Gun In The West." Bart, running from a attacking pit bull, climbs over a fence and backs away from it; when a safe distance away, he relaxes, saying, "Ah, safe at last. Now, I'll just turn around, and confirm that safety," only to find a menagerie of menacing creatures ready to attack.
Backwards-Firing Gun: Mr. Burns moves the power plant to India. When one of Moe's patrons comments that the bar is being powered by imported electricity, Moe sees no problem and points out other imported stuff. When he's asked if he has anything made in America, he shows his shotgun and tries to shoot, causing it to backfire.
Badass Family:
- It's a bit of a Running Gag that Maggie Simpson is the most badass member of the family.
- Strangely, Homer shows some elements of this, especially in the movie. In the main series, he's often got involved in car chases that required him to kick someone's ass.
- He is also handy with a chain and cement block (which he calls "The Defender"), as well as being able to wield a motorcycle. Marge has thrill issues. Bart can hit a target with his slingshot at what is practically sniper range, and was able to perfectly wield a grenade launcher on his first use, even managing to hit Skinner's car at Springfield Elementary from his new military school (Springfield wasn't visible in the background). Really, all the characters have occasional flashes of this. With the possible exception of Lisa.
  - Lisa has her moments, most notably with the episode "Lisa on Ice".
  - There's also the time that Lisa one-hit KO'd Bart in a MMA ring.
  - She also connects a gloriously-animated punch on Bart in the movie.
- Lampshaded by Marge of all people in an early episode, when Homer worries about his parenting.
  Marge: The way I see it, if you raise three kids that can knock out and hogtie a perfect stranger, then you must be doing something right!
Badass Adorable:
- Again, Maggie Simpson. She shot Mr. Burns (though that was said to be an accident, as Burns' gun fell from his holster, and he didn't have the safety on). Oh, and she also shot the mobsters who were threatening to murder Homer. Homer didn't know she did the latter, but when he heard the gunshots and saw those mobsters fall to the ground, he said "I must have a guardian angel with a rifle." This might actually have put her into a borderline Enfante Terrible Anti-Hero category if not for how obvious it was that her targets deserved it. In a later episode when Homer was imprisoned in a basement of a tow truck driver, Maggie saved him by riding on Santa's Little Helper to the place and attaching the guy's tow hook to the cellar window bars.
- Maggie also led a Great Escape-esque mission through a daycare in order to secure pacifiers for all of the babies there.
Badass Boast: In "Missionary:Impossible", Bart pledges $10,000 to the Fox network and a hilarious caricature of Rupert Murdoch shouts "You've saved our network!" to which Bart replies, looking at the camera, "Wouldn't be the first time". This is of course Lampshade Hanging as the popularity of the Simpsons has ensured the ongoing success of Fox despite their long list of failed, forgettable live action shows. This came right after Betty White discussed the importance of saving 'lowbrow and crude' shows on the network and the Family Guy logo showed.
Bad "Bad Acting":
- In the episode "Burns's Heir", Mr. Burns hires actors to portray the rest of the Simpson family in order to persuade Bart that they don't love him. They do this in the most wooden way imaginable (even though the actors picked to play the family only gave a crummy performance because of how bad the script was^note.
  Fake Homer: [Monotone] I do not miss Bart at all.
  Fake Marge: [Also monotone] I am glad he's gone.
  Fake Lisa: [Also monotone] As am I.
  Fake Homer: [Drops his sandwich] B'oh!
  Bart: It's probably my imagination, but something about them just didn't feel right.
- Another example of bad acting occurs in "D'oh-in' in the Wind": Homer, Lenny, and Carl acting in Mr. Burns's Power Plant commercial.
  Homer: Well, there were script problems from day one.
  Bart: Didn't seem like anybody even read the script.
  Homer: That was the problem.
Bad Future:
- The year 1,000,000 A.D. at the end of "Rosebud": The Earth is a barren place, the only human alive is Homer (who has been cloned and used as slave labor to apes, who have taken over the world), and Mr. Burns and Smithers are still alive, albeit as cyborgs (with Smithers as a cyborg dog).
- "The Good, The Sad, and the Drugly" mentioned this trope in the subplot where Lisa researches what life will be like in 50 years, and becomes paranoid and depressed (to the point that she has to be put on anti-depressants) over predictions of Springfield becoming a barren wasteland.
- In the "Clown in the Dumps" Couch Gag, Homer finds himself in the year 10,535, where he is deformed and sees his entire family becoming deformed blobs uttering non-sequiturs, broken catchphrases, and advertisements on merchandise. He then reminisces through the millennia of how his family wasn't so deformed and could still communicate with each other; his family tried telling him that they were still a loving family and would not forget him as the millennia passed on, and the series became more dependent on shock humor, non-sequiturs and merchandise schilling that through time the family would become more deformed and ultimately forget him.
Badge Gag: When Mulder & Scully guest starred on The Simpsons, Mulder flashes his FBI ID which has a photo of him in a thong bikini.
Bad Job, Worse Uniform:
- The teenagers who work at Krusty Burger or Phineas Q. Butterfat's ice cream parlor.
- Also Barney, when he was hired to pass out flyers in front of a baby furniture store called Lullabuy$, clad only in a diaper and bonnet during the dead of winter.
  Barney: [after his diaper flies away in the breeze and he runs naked down the street] Hi, Ma!
Bad Present:
- In "The Springfield Files", a man wakes up from a 23-year coma and asks if Sonny and Cher still have "that stupid variety show". Kent Brockman replies that Cher won an Oscar and Sonny (before he died in 1998) is a Congressman. The man says, "Good night!" and dies.
- Lampshaded in "Bart to the Future":
  Homer: What a bleak and horrible future we live in!
  Bart: Don't you mean, "present"?
  Homer: Right, right, present.
Baffled by Own Biology:
- In "The Scorpion's Tale", Ralph is sweating so much that there are noticeable stains on his shirt, and he says he thinks he peed through his armpits.
- In "The Milhouse of Sand and Fog", Ralph tries to catch Maggie's chicken pox at a "pox party" and thinks this will turn him into a chicken. He thinks he's laid an egg in his pants, but this obviously can't happen; most likely he soiled himself if anything happened at all.
Bags of Letters: When Homer files a lawsuit against a seafood restaurant whose definition of "all you can eat" differed from his, the defendant asked for a display of how much Homer ate that night. At that point parodying the film Miracle on 34th Street, a huge convoy of people carrying large sacks enter the court, but it turns out that they just contain letters for an adjacent courtroom (People of Springfield vs Santa Claus, IIRC).
Bait-and-Switch: The absolute master of this form of humor, and arguably one of the first comedies to use it on a regular basis. Naturally, it has its own page
Bait-and-Switch Suicide: Happens in four episodes.
- In the ending of "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds" we are cut to the basement where we see Homer's shadow hanging with Marge walking by, and she starts to panic. Pan over to Homer to show he is just batting a lightbulb.
- In "Dial N for Nerder", after Bart and Lisa believe they have killed Martin, Bart leaves Lisa a note saying he can't take the guilt anymore and that he's going to Martin's house to "end it all". She goes there and sees a shadow of him getting ready to hang himself in the greenhouse, but it turns out he is actually just hanging a lightbulb so he can complete Martin's butterfly project.
- In the ending of "Grift of the Magi", Moe is seen with his head in the oven, invoking the Running Gag around him being suicidal. Then it turns out he's in the oven to pull out a turkey he had cooked for the Simpson's Christmas dinner.
- In the 24 parody episode "24 Minutes", after The Mole sells Bart out to the villains, we see a close-up of him kicking a stool out from under himself and his feet suspended in mid-air. It then zooms out to reveal he merely hooked his underpants onto a coat hook and is now giving himself a wedgie as penance.
Bait-and-Switch Time Skip:
- In the episode "And Maggie Makes Three", Marge's sisters Patty and Selma promise not to tell Homer about Marge's pregnancy and use the telephone to call other people about it. We see the following happen:
  (Patty and Selma open a phone book and dial the first number)
  Patty: Hello, is this A. Aaronson? It might interest you to know that Marge Simpson is pregnant again.
  (Time Skip occurs)
  Patty: Just thought you'd like to know, Mr. Zykowski.
  (Patty hangs up)
  Patty: There. Aaronson and Zykowski are the two biggest gossips in town — in an hour, everyone will know.
- In "Bart's Girlfriend", Bart resolves to avoid seeing Jessica Lovejoy for a while, and he's seen marking several months' worth of days on his calendar. He then concludes, "There. I just need to make it this many days," and re-marks the first day.
Balcony Wooing Scene: In the episode episode "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge", Otto holds up a boombox and plays a song for his girlfriend at a drive-in.
Ballistic Discount: Homer attempts this in "The Cartridge Family" while checking out a gun he wanted to buy, actually pointing it at the clerk and pulling the trigger multiple times - but accomplishing nothing because it wasn't loaded. The clerk seems oddly unfazed by this, as well as by Homer's thinly-veiled threat when the clerk takes the gun back and informs him of a five-day waiting period before he can get the gun.
Banging Pots and Pans: In a Flash Back to when Bart was two and Marge was pregnant with Lisa, we see Bart with a pot on his head, banging another pot.
Bart: I am so great! I am so great! Everybody loves me, I am so great!
Marge: Honey, honey, honey, honey, honey. Could you please be quiet?
Bart: Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quie —-
Marge: Bart, get out!
Barbershop Quartets Are Funny: An entire episode was dedicated to Homer's old barbershop quartet, who's story is a clear send up to The Beatles, complete with a Sgt Pepper Shout Out and naming one of their albums Bigger Than Jesus.
Bare-Bottomed Monkey: In "Black-Eyed, Please", Flanders has a Nightmare Sequence about dying and going to a personalized version of Hell that features various Faux Horrific things, including "those monkeys with the red butts".
Barefoot Suicide: Played with. In "Homer the Moe" Moe goes back to his alma mater to talk to his old professor because he is getting tired of his bar. The professor confesses to Moe that he's dying, and then walks into the local pond to commit suicide.
Moe: Hey, don't you want to take your shoes off before you go swimming? Professor? [realizes] Oh. Oh.
Bathroom Control:
- Played for Black Comedy in "Homer Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble'". Grandpa Simpson has to use the bathroom, but he can't because his son Homer won't stop the car. This makes his kidneys explode.
- In "22 Short Films About Springfield", Milhouse goes into Comic Book Guy's store to use his bathroom, but Comic Book Guy says it's for paying customers only. Mulhouse buys a comic, but his father walks in and mistakenly thinks his son lied about needing to go so he could purchase something. Comic Book Guy refuses to say anything in his defense, and Milhouse is dragged out.
- There's an indirect example in "On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister" where the Hollywood Restraining Order Lisa has against Bart prevents him from being within 200 feet of her. This means Bart can't even live in the same house as her, and thus, he can't use the bathroom while she's there. Bart eventually settles for Nature Tinkling instead.
Bathtub Scene:
- Edna gets one in "Bart the Lover" when she reads "Woodrow"'s love letter.
- Selma gets one in "Black Widower" (also reading a love letter she got from a man).
- Homer gets one in "A Milhouse Divided" (when Bart breaks a chair over Homer's head to see if he can withstand the pain from the hit).
- Homer and Marge try to spice up their romantic life by having a bath together in "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" (which fails, as Homer is too fat to fit in the tub, the water kills the light on all the candles, and the two have to call the kids in to get out).
- Marge gets one in "Homer Alone" (the scene where she watches Thelma & Louise while eating a hot fudge sundae with a chocolate chip cheesecake and drinking tequila)
Batman in My Basement: In "The Fool Monty", Bart finds a brain-damaged Mr. Burns in the woods and takes him home, attempting to hide him in his bedroom.
Bat Scare:
- In "The Seemingly Never-ending Story", the Simpsons get stuck in caves. The obligatory flock of bats appears, and everybody is scared but baby Maggie; being the Badass Adorable that she is, she enthusiastically greets the bats with waving.
- Bats fly out of the card catalog drawers at the public library.
Bat Signal: Accidental example when Homer stands in front of a lighthouse, causing his silhouette to be projected onto the clouds.
Bart: Hey look! Is that Dad?
Lisa: Either that or Batman's really let himself go.
Bawdy Song:
- On "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo," The Simpsons are seated at a restaurant table shaped like Massachusetts:
  Homer: Hey, you know, I once knew a man from Nantucket.
  Bart: And?
  Homer: Let's just say the stories about him are greatly exaggerated.
- Another time, Homer referred to the poem in a very Purple Prose manner, still stopping before he got to "the good part".
Beach Bury: Ned is buried like this and Homer parks his car on top of him.
Flanders: Homer, is that my muffler?
Beast in the Building:
- In "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song", Bart brings his dog Santa's Little Helper to show and tell at school. The dog soon escapes into the air ducts, leading to a chain of events that leads to Principal Skinner getting fired.
- In "Jazzy and the Pussycats", Lisa gets depressed when Bart's drumming skills land him a gig in the jazz band she wanted to be in, so she copes by adopting abandoned animals (including some from a circus) and hiding them in the attic... which just happens to be where Bart and his pals like to practice, leading to a tiger cub biting Bart in his drumming arm. The next day, Lisa is told by Chief Wiggum that she has to sell the animals within 24 hours or they'll be seized and put down; Bart manages to raise money for surgery to fix his arm, but he feels bad for Lisa and decides to use the money to build a homeless animal sanctuary named in her honor.
- In "My Octopus and a Teacher", Lisa makes a documentary about an octopus that ends with it seemingly eaten by a shark. It turns out, however, that Lisa saved the octopus and took it home, hiding it from the family. The octopus, however, keeps getting out of its tank and wandering around the house, narrowly avoiding danger on several occasions. Through a complicated series of events, the octopus latches on to Bart's face during a school assembly, leading to him accidentally wreaking havoc.
- In "Whacking Day", Bart and Lisa hide all the snakes in Springfield in the Simpson house to keep them from being killed during the titular holiday.
- A brief gag on "Marge vs. the Monorail" has Marge finding a family of possums living in the fire extinguisher compartment of the monorail engine.
  Homer: I call the big one Bitey.
Beat Still, My Heart: On "New Kid on the Block," after Bart is crushed to hear that Laura has a boyfriend, he imagines Laura ripping his heart out and kicking it into a garbage can, complete with blood trail. In "Goo Goo Gai Pan," a monk rips Homer's heart out and puts it back in, without Homer feeling any pain. Also, "Homer's Triple Bypass" had an inside look on Homer's heart reacting to Mr. Burns yelling at him.
Beautiful Singing Voice: Several examples:
- Ned Flanders in "Bart's Girlfriend". His singing is so beautiful that Bart thought it was the siren song of Jessica Lovejoy, the Manipulative Bitch he had a crush on.
- The episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" shows that, of all the recruited members of Homer's band The Be Sharps, Barney has the most beautiful Irish tenor voice. Homer, Apu and Skinner discover this by accident and immediately recruit him for the group, quickly propelling The Be Sharps into enormous success.
- In "The Homer of Seville", Homer discovers that he has an amazing operatic singing voice — good enough to bring a flatlining patient back from the dead — but only when lying flat on his back.
- In "Homer's Triple Bypass", Homer is shown singing "O Holy Night" as a soloist in a choir. Grandpa Simpson comments on how Homer's voice will make him rich...and then Homer suddenly hits puberty and his voice breaks mid-song, giving him the voice he has now.
Beard of Sorrow: Homer has grown one before when separated from Marge.
Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Run through the gamut in the first segment of "Treehouse of Horror II," which itself is based on "The Monkey's Paw," one of this particular trope's codifiers. The segment revolves around a monkey's hand that grants four wishes.
  - Averted with Maggie, who uses the hand's first wish for a new pacifier.
  - Played straight with both Bart and Lisa, who use the second and third wish for "the Simpsons to become rich and famous" and world peace, respectively. The town gets sick of the family's image appearing everywhere, leading to the Simpsons being ostracized, and Lisa's world-peace wish leads to a destruction of all the planet's weapons, which allows Kang and Kodos to take over the globe and enslave its people.
  - Played for laughs with the last wish: Homer, determined to "make a wish that can't backfire," decides to request a turkey sandwich. He's even smart enough to make various codicils for the wish, including "no zombie turkeys," not being transformed into a turkey, and not wanting "any other weird surprises." And yet Homer still winds up on the losing end, as the sandwich is a disappointment (the turkey is a little dry!) and he ends up throwing it away.
  - Finally, it's invoked and averted again in the ending. As Homer goes to throw out the hand, he instead gives it to Flanders, hoping to see Ned suffer because of this trope. Ned uses his first two wishes to get rid of the aliens and "spruce up the ol' homestead," transforming his house into a castle, with no repercussions, much to Homer's chagrin.
- Brick Joke version: In one episode Marge tells Homer not to wear a tie with a short-sleeved shirt; Homer counters that "Sipowicz does it...I wish I was Sipowicz." In a later episode Homer gets in trouble for molesting a babysitter (he was reaching for a gummi that had stuck to her jeans). During that episode the family watches a terrible Made-for-TV Movie very loosely based on this incident starring Dennis Franz (who plays Sipowicz on NYPD Blue) as a hypersexual, lusty Homer.
Bedsheet Ladder: Used by the couch to escape from the Taj Mahal in a Couch Gag.
Before I Change My Mind: In "Simpson and Delilah", Mr. Burns almost fires Homer for making a "mockery" of the morning meeting (merely due to being bald), but decides not to because he can empathize with Homer's baldness. He lets him return to his Sector 7G job, but states "Now get outta here before I reconsider."
Befriending the Enemy: Bart's tried to befriend his bully and antagonist. Nelson Mutz, in some episodes. The first time to become popular, which resulted in Bart being bullied even harder when Nelson found out he was being manipulated. In later seasons however, Bart and Nelson have become friends over time, and Bart even calls him "his other best friend" in one episode.
Benevolent Dictator: Parodied and played straight at the same time in "Simpsons Bible Stories": When King David (Bart) challenges Goliath II (Nelson) for killing his friend Methuselah (Grandpa), David is soundly defeated by being sling-shotted into the mountains. David tells a random Ralph Wiggum shepherd (as himself) of being usurped by Goliath, and Ralph decides to go try defeat Goliath. He seemingly dies in the process. David returns to his city and fights Goliath. David seems to defeat him, until Goliath rises from the rubble of the fight, ready to fight again; however, a very much alive and well Ralph, with his own tombstone, stabs Goliath in the back, killing him. When David proclaims his return to the city, it turns out that Goliath was a much better king than David, instituting several positive reforms. David is then arrested, as a movie-style ending credit plays over the scene.
Berserk Button: A one-time thing, but in "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song", Apu gets very mad (to the point of dropping his placid and polite demeanour) when Skinner says he's planning on writing a novel which turns out to be a (unintentional on Skinner's part) ripoff of Jurassic Park, entitled Billy and the Cloneasaurus.
Apu: Oh, you have got to be kidding, sir. First you think of an idea that has already been done, and then you give it a title that nobody could possibly like. Didn't you think this through? [...] the bestseller list for eighteen months! Every magazine cover had it [...] popular movies of all time, sir! What were you thinking!? (Beat) I mean, thank you, come again."
Bested at Bowling: In "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder", Maggie, the baby, beats/ties Homer at bowling. In response, he accuses her of walking over the line and docks her a point. The celebratory "300" balloon still falls from the ceiling, but Homer knocks it away quickly.
Bestiality Is Depraved:
- A lot of people have made fun of Bill Clinton's promiscuity, but probably no-one else has gone quite as far as "Hell, I done it with pigs. Real, no-foolin' pigs!" from "Homer to the Max".
- It's heavily implied that Troy McClure's career went down the drain at least in part due to the fact that he has a sexual fetish for fish. Naturally, this is all he is remembered for, his many B-movie roles notwithstanding.
  Louie: Troy McClure!? You said he was dead!
  Fat Tony: No, what I said is that he sleeps with the fishes! You see...
  Louie: Uh, Tony, please, no. I just ate a whole plate of dingamagoo.
Be Yourself: Tacked on at the end of "Homer to the Max" to explain why Homer changed his name back from Max Power to Homer Simpson. Also the Aesop for the episode "Lisa Goes Gaga".
The B Grade: Lisa freaks out in "Kamp Krusty" when she's given a "B" in "Conduct". She also stresses when she gets an "A-" in "Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade", especially since Bart scored a solid "A".
Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls: Played straight most of the time, with cows being bicolor and bulls being single color, except in the episode "Maximum Homerdrive", when one of the bulls has a yellow patch around his eye.
Big Damn Movie: The Simpsons Movie is about rescuing Springfield from ecological destruction.
Big Eater: Homer, bordering on Extreme Omnivore
Bigger Than Jesus:
- In the episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," Homer's titular band with a history that very much resembles that of The Beatles is alleged to have frequently boasted to be "bigger than Jesus" and even titled their sophomore album as such with a cover that shows the band Walking On Water in the Abbey Road Crossing pose.
- A later episode referenced The Beatles controversy when it turns out that Ned Flanders has a huge collection of Beatles memorabilia. Why? Because they were bigger than Jesus!
Big Honking Traffic Jam:
- Homer finds himself right in the middle of a traffic jam. He tells his family, "I've got an ace up my sleeve"; the "ace" turns out to be... sounding the horn repeatedly.
- Homer sounds his horn at former president George Bush (senior) when the latter is taking too long to order something from the drive-thru at Krusty Burger; Bush has his Secret Service agent disable Homer's horn.
Bilingual Bonus: Done frequently with Bumblebee Man sketches; whilst they're always non-sequiturs, what is gibberish to the layman becomes funny gibberish to the bilingual:
- Original "¿Dónde Está Justice?" transcript:
  Plaintiff: ¡El Ford Escort que me vendío es un limón!
  Defendant: No, no, no, no, no. No es un limón. Es un carro fuerte.
  Judge: Hmm, limón... fuerte... limón... fuerte... limón... ay-yi-yi-yi-yi, ¡mi estómago!
- Translated:
  Plaintiff: The Ford Escort he sold me is a lemon!
  Defendant: No, no, no, no, no. It's not a lemon. It's a strong car.
  Judge: Hmm, lemon... strong... lemon... strong... lemon... ay-yi-yi-yi-yi my stomach!
Big Little Man: Moe has a date set up with a dwarf girlfriend, but he thinks she's bigger since her online photo was of her looking tall in front of the Empire State Building (actually the one in Lego Land).
Big "NEVER!"
- Particularly in "Two Bad Neighbors":
  Homer: For the last time, Bush, apologize for spanking my boy!
  Bush: Never! You make him apologize for destroying my memoirs.
  Homer: [to Bart] You didn't tell me you destroyed his memoirs... (to Bush) Never!
- In the school play about the founding of America in "I Love Lisa":
  Lisa: [as Martha Washington] Wouldn't it just be easier to give in to the British?
  Ralph: [as George Washington] NEVER! (audience applauds)
Big "NO!" and Slow "NO!": Many, many instances in several episodes:
- "Bart's Comet": Skinner shouts this four times: First, when he sees a hulminating messagre that reads "Hi! I'm Big-Butt Skinner" Second when he hears the other end of a phone conversation that congratulates Bart for discovering a comet; third when he accidentally releases the balloon and it floats away; and last when a paperboy throws a paper at Skinner's feet with the headline: "Prez Sez: School is for losers." All of them in defeat.
- "Duffless": Shouted in slow motion when Lisa's giant tomato is thrown at Skinner's butt.
- "Homer: Bad Man": Shouted by Godfrey Jones when Homer comes towards him during the interview.
- "King-Size Homer": Homer shouts this when he's forced to join the calisthenics class.
- "On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister": Played with, as Grampa is actually shouting "Gnomes!"
- "She Used To Be My Girl": Marge shouts this after a daydream.
- "Bart's Dog Gets an F": Homer shouts this after SLH eats apart his brand new ASSASSINS sneakers. Only it morphs into a howl when Homer says it at the same time.
- The German dub turns all of Homer's D'ohs into Little Nos (Nein!)
- "Elementary School Musical": Lisa says this after spending a week in an arts camp, which Lisa explains to Marge via digital camera.
- "Marge's Son Poisoning": Marge shouts this when she envisions herself and Bart as older singing karaoke together.
- "Homer The Vigilante": Homer does this after Jimbo says he wants to go to law school.
- "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words":
  Lisa: My name is now Lisa Bouvier
  Nelson: Hi, Mr. S. Lisa B.
  Homer: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
  Janey: Want to buy some band candy?
  Homer: YESSSSSS!!!!!
- "I Love Lisa": Said by Lisa in a live audience at the Krusty Anniversary special:
  Krusty: And is this your girlfriend, Ralph?
  Ralph: Yes, I love Lisa Simpson, and when I grow up, I'm going to marry her.
  Lisa: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Now you listen to me. I don't like you. I never liked you. And the only reason I gave you that stupid valentine is that nobody else would!
- "And Maggie Makes Three": Happens the moment Homer finally finds out about Marge's pregnancy:
  Maude: By the way, congratulations on your new job, Homer.
  Homer: New job? ...Marge is pregnant?! [pulls hair out] Noooooo! [runs upstairs screaming, slams bedroom door]
- "Hurricane Neddy":
  Ned: I just attacked all my friends and neighbors just for trying to help me. I'd like to commit myself.
  Nurse: Very well. Shall I show you to your room, or would you prefer to be dragged off kicking and screaming?
  Ned: Ooh, kicking and screaming, please.
  Nurse: As you wish.
  [Two men in white grab hold of him and drag him away]
  Ned: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
- "Mayored to the Mob": Homer does two of them in Training
- In "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily", when Homer stops Ned from baptizing Bart.
- In "Homer Alone", when Marge has a nervous breakdown after Maggie spills milk all over the car.
- In the first minute of "The Bart Wants What It Wants", one of the Olympic Administrators do this when they survive the plane crash, but realize the Olympic Flame is not lit anymore. Oh, and a 'Big No' it is.
- In "Homer Mobile", Bart and Lisa end up on a ship going to Turkey. The Captain says he plans on keeping the children. Homer asks if he'll raise them Christian. He replies, Coptic Christian which causes a huge no from Homer.
- In "The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson", when town drunk Barney Gumble pulls the black egg from Moe's pickle jar, making him the designated driver for the night, he gives one of the most epic ones ever.
Big "WHY?!": In the episode "Brother From The Same Planet" Homer yells this as he dreams Bart having turned into a skeleton. He then yells "Why?.... Who?....When?.... How?..."
Binomium ridiculus: One episode gave a direct nod to the Road Runner series by having a freeze-framed Bart and Homer identified as "Bratus Donthaveacowious", and "Homo Neadrathalus" respectively.
A Birthday, Not a Break:
Homer: I can't believe it. I'm being mocked. By my own children. On my birthday!
Bart: It's your birthday?
Homer: Yes! Remember, it's the same day as the dog's.
Lisa: Santa's Little Helper, it's your birthday? Ooh! We've gotta get you a present.
Birthday Episode:
- In the episode "Life On The Fast Lane", Homer gives Marge a bowling ball for her birthday - despite the fact that she doesn't bowl. He even got it inscribed with his name, on the assumption that she'd give it to him to use. She takes up bowling just to spite him, claiming that Homer is the name of her ball.
- "Stark Raving Dad":
  - Lisa turns 8-years-old, and nobody pays attention. In the end, "Michael Jackson" & Bart write a song for her.
    Lisa it's your birthday
    Happy birthday Lisa!
  - Bart and Lisa also watch a birthday-themed episode of "Itchy & Scratchy" where Itchy kills Scratchy at his birthday party.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: It depends on the writer whether it is intentional or not (see Amazingly Embarrassing Parents) but Marge Simpson is very much this. For example in "Eight Misbehavin'" knowing how bad Apu and Manjula had it Marge decided bake them banana bread to make them feel better. However the sheer magnitude of their situation made this gesture seem outright insulting.
Apu: [sarcastic] Oh hallelujah, our problems are solved. We have banana bread.
Bizarre Beverage Use:
- In the episode "Skinner's Sense of Snow", Chief Wiggum writes his name in the snow with coffee for no good reason.
- In "Looking for Mr. Goodbart", Homer gets sprayed by a skunk, so Marge gives him a bath in tomato juice. Homer also puts some celery and vodka into the tub.
Black Belt in Origami: In one episode, Homer tries to bluff his way into getting a veteran's discount by pretending to have served in Vietnam. He shouts several Asian words (up to and including Margaret Cho) as reference to specific battles he was supposedly involved with.
Black Comedy: Progressively more so over the years.
- Most fans blame "Homer's Enemy" as the episode that brought about the use of this trope on a frequent basis.
- "The Boys Of Bummer" from season 18 is an oft-cited example. While it did have moments of comic relief (i.e., the subplot of Homer being a mattress tester and the end where Marge tells Homer that ghost sex isn't the same as real sex), the main plot of Bart losing the big Little League game and becoming a town pariah (to the point that he goes insane and attempts suicide) just crossed the line.
- The Itchy and Scratchy Show, an obvious parody of Tom and Jerry, removes the classic "Wile. E. Coyote immunity" from the scenario and each cartoon typically ends with Itchy the mouse brutally murdering Scratchy the cat.
Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: A photo from "Dog of Death" shows Homer strangling Santa's Little Helper.
Black Comedy Burst: The examples listed under Darker and Edgier. "Homer's Enemy", in particular, is among the series' darkest episodes.
Black Comedy Pet Death:
- In "I (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot", Snowball II (already a replacement for another cat, hence her name) dies and the family tries to replace her but the cats keep dying, until they get one last cat and name her Snowball II to pretend it never happened.
- In another episode, the Flanderses try to have a funeral for their bunny, only for trash to break through the surface.
- In the episode "The Boys Of Bummer", Lisa tells Bart that his pet bunny died when he was at camp because Homer accidentally buried the poor thing alive. The black comedy comes from how she says it:
  Lisa (deadpan): Bart, Cottontail died. Dad buried him in the backyard - but not in that order.
- In "Lisa Gets An 'A'", Homer purchases a lobster to eat but he falls in love with it and accepts it as a pet, calling it 'Pinchy'. In the final minutes of the episode, in a showcase of lethal stupidity, he accidentally boils the poor thing by giving it a hot bath and leaving it alone... and then we cut to Homer approximately a half hour later, feasting on Pinchy's boiled corpse and quickly alternating between crying for his dead pet and blissing out on the taste. He even refuses to allow any of the other members of the family to have a bite because "[being eaten only by me] is what Pinchy would have wanted".
Black Dot Pupils: The standard design for the show. Lampshaded In one episode where Marge is angry at Homer for not remembering what color her eyes are, despite the fact that, like all characters in the show, her eyes are just black pinpoint dots. When the camera finally zooms in on her eyes, her irises are just a thin hazel ring around the pupil, invisible from a distance.
Black Republican: The Springfield Republican Party are a group of stereotypical archetypes of different kinds of Republicans with Julius Hibbert representing the black Republican.
"Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Inverted in "Tennis the Menace", after Homer replaces Lisa with Venus Williams as his tennis partner. The following exchange occurs:
Lisa: You're replacing me?
Homer: "Dumped" is such a strong word. Let's just say I'm "replacing" you.
Bland-Name Product:
- Malibu Stacy, obviously based on Malibu Barbie.
- One episode featured Red Umbrella Insurance, a takeoff of the Travelers Insurance Company logo.
- The Mapple MyPod.
- The Fjord Fjiesta from "The Saga of Carl".
- Squishies are a replacement for Slurpees of Seven-Eleven fame.
Blatant Lies: Played with on a couple occasions:
- Principal Skinner tells a whole bunch of these to Superintendent Chalmers in the highly memetic "Steamed Hams" segment of "22 Short Films About Springfield", each one more over-the-top than the last.
- In "Homer vs. the 18th Amendment", when Homer is questioned by Marge about where he's going (that is, to go to the bowling alley to roll alcohol in bowling balls to Moe's), Homer replies with, "I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge...... so long!"
- In "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore", Marge questions where Homer's getting all the extra money. Homer replies that he's not going to lie to her... only to not say another word and continue reading the paper.
- In "Lisa's Sax", Homer flashes back to having said to Barney as a kid "Let's Never Drink Again!" Then in the present day he says, holding a beer, "And we never did!" as he proceeds to take a sip.
Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: The Merciless Pepper of Quetzalacatenango, also known as the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper. Homer has to lacquer his mouth and esophagus in order to eat one.
*Bleep*-dammit!: At a yard sale in "Two Bad Neighbors", the Simpsons sell a T-shirt with "Ayatollah A*saholla" written on it, with one of the S's in the second word always censored by Marge's hand, a fold, etc.
Blinding Camera Flash:
- Used as a weapon against crazed robot Itchys and Scratchys at Itchy And Scratchy Land. Flashing them causes their brains to go haywire.
- Also in "Monty Can't Buy Me Love", after the Loch Ness Monster is put on display, Mr. Burns falls around from the camera flashes in a spoof of "King Kong".
Bluffing the Authorities: Parodied in this encounter between Mafia boss Fat Tony and Chief Wiggum.
[Fat Tony approaches the lake with a bag with feet sticking out of it]
Chief Wiggum: Sorry, no dumping in the lake.
Fat Tony: Fine. I will go and put my [air quotes] "yard trimmings" in a car compactor. [Leaves]
Lou: You know, Chief, I think he had a dead body in there.
Chief Wiggum: I thought that too, right up until he said "yard trimmings." You gotta learn to listen, Lou.
Blunt "Yes": Nelson uses this twice in a row during "22 Short Films About Springfield," when confronted by someone he pointed and laughed at.
Very Tall Man: Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
Nelson: (meekly) ...Yeah?
Very Tall Man: Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto that I could afford. Am I therefore to be made the subject of fun?
Nelson: ...I guess so.
Bold Explorer: "Margical History Tour" features Lenny and Carl as Lewis and Clark, exploring the American Northwest, and Lisa as Sacagawea, the native woman who helped them—or, in this case, tried to help them, but gets frustrated by their stupidity.
Bond One-Liner:
- McBain has quite a few of these: "Ice to see you." after breaking out of an ice sculpture and shooting up the place; "Meeting adjourned" after shooting up a villain board meeting.
- Principal Skinner in "Lisa the Beauty Queen": "Copyright expired."
Bond Villain Stupidity:
- In "Cape Feare", Bart is successfully able to stall Sideshow Bob from killing him by saying he has such a beautiful voice and asking him to sing the entire score of the H.M.S. Pinafore.
- Later, in "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", this is subverted:
  Bart: So, Krusty double-crossed you. But your basic plan was pure genius. Where do you get your ideas?
  Sideshow Bob: Oh please. Let's not embarrass us both with that hoary old "stall the villain with flattery" scheme.
  Bart: I... should have known you were too smart to fall for that.
  Sideshow Bob: Really? What type of smart? Book smart? Because there are a lot of people who are book smart but it takes a special type of genius to... [Chief Wiggum tells him to come out with his hands up]
Bones Do Not Belong There:
- When Bart and Lisa are shown as skeletons in some episodes, their hair will be included in the skeleton◊.
- In the episode "Brother From Another Series", Sideshow Bob gets electrocuted in a flashback and the resulting X-Ray Sparks show that there are bones in his Funny Afro.
Book Dumb: Most of Springfield qualifies.
Book Ends: Word of God has stated that, should the series ever end, the final episode will build up to the Christmas Pageant in the first episode (making the entire series an infinite loop).
Boomerang Bigot:
- Played for laughs by Willie.
  Groundskeeper Willie: Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!
- Also subverted when Krusty comes to doubt his own credentials as a Jew:
  Krusty: I thought I was a self-hating Jew, but it turns out I'm just a plain old anti-Semite!
- In the episode in which they want to throw out the illegal immigrants, Moe is one of the most vocal about it, but he turns out to be an illegal immigrant himself.
Boot Camp Episode: "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson": Bart is sent to Military School for doing mischief; Lisa joins so she can attend the camp's superior school.
Boring Vacation Slideshow:
- In "Krusty Gets Busted", Homer is not looking forward to seeing Patty and Selma's vacation slides of their trip to Mexico. He stops on the Kwik-E-Mart on his way home, leading to him seeing Krusty (actually Sideshow Bob) robbing the store. Bart and Lisa do end up watching the slideshow, and don't enjoy it.
- In "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", Patty and Selma kidnap MacGyver. However, he starts getting too interested in escaping from their house and annoys them nonstop. To get him away for good, they tie him up and show him pictures of their vacation; he's begging to be let go by the end of it.
- In "Flaming Moe's," Homer has a boring night watching Patty and Selma's vacation pictures, so he goes to find a drink in the kitchen; he doesn't have any, leading to him creating the Flaming Homer that sets up the plot of the episode.
Borrowed Catchphrase:
- In "Summer of 4'2''", Lisa says "Ay caramba!" and "Don't have a cow, man!"
- In "Natural Born Kissers", Moe says "Won't somebody please think of the children?!", which is usually said by Helen Lovejoy.
- Bart, Lisa, Marge, Grampa, and Mr. Burns have all said D'oh at one point. Though Mr. Burns may be an aversion because he was in a mental state where Homer Simpson was literally all he could think about.
- One episode in which a public speaker insisted Springfield let loose and release their rebellious inner child. (In other words, act like Bart) Principal Skinner later attacks Bart with a slingshot "Eat my shorts young man!"
Borrowed Without Permission: A Running Gag throughout the series is Homer "borrowing" various items from Ned Flanders, without ever giving them back.
Bottomless Magazines: Just about any time gun usage is shown, usually per Rule of Funny.
- In "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson", Lisa fires an M-16 wildly for almost 10 seconds
  Lisa: Help! It's stuck on auto-fire!
- In "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" and many other episodes where Chief Wiggum uses his gun, he fires well over six times despite of it being a revolver. He's also a terrible shot.
Box-and-Stick Trap: Homer tries to lure Bart with a bottle of Focusin pills. The string tied to his finger went all the way into Moe's Tavern while he waited.
The Boxing Episode: "The Homer They Fall" has Homer boxing a bunch of bums at Moe's bar before eventually fighting a Mike Tyson expy.
A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: With Bart, Lisa and Maggie filling these roles respectively.
Boy Band: Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, and Ralph form The Party Posse in "The New Kids On The Blecch," which is being used as a recruitment tool for the US Navy.
Boys Like Creepy Critters:
- One episode of Bart talk about "letting Bart Jr. hanging out". Bart Jr. turns out to be a frog inside his pants.
- The episode with the Bolivian tree lizards, in which every member of the family except Bart is shocked and disgusted when the bird eggs he's been incubating turn out to be lizard eggs.
Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: The Trope formerly known as "Lisa Needs Braces".
Brain Drain:
- One company attempted this, first unsuccessfully on Smithers, then successfully on Homer. It was successful for them for a brief while — Homer's ideas worked for them.
- Behind the scenes, practically the entire writing staff left the show after the fourth season ended. This left Conan O'Brien as the sole bridge between the old staff and the new writers.
Brake Angrily: Ned in "Viva Ned Flanders".
Ned: Gosh darn it! Am I that pre-diddly-ictable?
Brand Names Are Better: One of the running jokes in the show is how The Simpsons can't afford the brand name products and have to get generic, obscure brands instead.
Brandishment Bluff: Happens during "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", as Moe, Mr. Burns and Rich Texan are facing off:
Rich Texan: [taking the gold from Marge] I'll take that gold...
Mr. Burns: No so fast, Shady Bird Johnson!
[Burns steps out from behind a stalactite]
Burns: I'll take that gold...
Moe Szyslak: [enters from the shadows, holding a baseball bat] Yeah, you'll take it, and then you'll give it to me if you know what's good for ya.
[Burns and Rich Texan aim their guns at Moe]
Moe: You guys have guns?! Well, so do I! [steps back into shadows, making gun-cocking noises] Heh? Heh?
Brats with Slingshots: Bart Simpson in the early episodes and on early 1990s merchandise.
Bratty Food Demand: In "Last Exit to Springfield", Homer has a scar on his head. He claims it's from being on strike, which is technically true, but it's revealed via flashback that while on strike, he took a break to get a burrito from a food truck and began banging on the food truck's counter demanding, "Where's my burrito?!". While we don't see him get the burrito, it's revealed that he got the scar because his pounding made the awning fall on him.
Brawn Hilda: Bart's impression of an East German woman consists of a fake moustache and saying "Kiss me or I crush you!" in a deep voice.
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs
- Homer comes up with a creative one.
  Mr Burns: I suggest you leave immediately.
  Homer: Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?
- From "Itchy & Scratchy The Movie" when Homer and Marge leave for a parent-teacher conference:
  Marge: So long, kids. We'll bring back dinner.
  Lisa: What are we having?
  Homer: Well, that depends on how kids have been. If you've been good: pizza. If you've been bad... Let's see, uh... Poison.
  Lisa: What if one of us has been good and one of us has been bad?
  Bart: Poisoned pizza.
  Homer: Oh, no! I'm not making two stops!
- In "The Wettest Stories Ever Told":
  Ned: Horseplay? Rough-housing? Horse-housing?!
Breakfast in Bed:
- The episode "Life on the Fast Lane" begins with Bart and Lisa preparing breakfast in bed for Marge for her birthday. When they surprise her in bed, Homer initially thinks it's his birthday but quickly realizes that he forgot Marge's birthday. Homer hurries out of the house and winds up buying Marge a bowling ball for a present.
- In "Brawl in the Family", after Homer and Ned's "Vegas Wives" return, Ned, Rod, and Todd wake up Ginger in the morning with a breakfast in bed, but she finds the Flanders' extremely nice, religious, and pious outlook almost sickening, and she snaps at them in response.
- At the beginning of "See Homer Run", Homer is treated to a breakfast in bed for Father's Day. Bart and Lisa give him gifts, only he upsets Lisa when he's not that fond of her gift, as it was homemade.
- In "Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em", as Bart has Principal Skinner at his mercy with a peanut tied to a stick, Skinner wakes up tied to a bed where Bart refers to a full trash can as his "breakfast in bed," suggesting he's going to force Skinner to eat garbage.
- In "Postcards From the Wedge", after Homer and Marge resolve their differences, Marge treats Homer to a romantic breakfast in bed.
Homer: Awesome breakfast, Marge. Breakfast in bed is so much better than breakfast in a chair.
- At the end of Marge's segment in "The Fight Before Christmas", Marge wakes up from a dream on Christmas Day to find that the rest of the family has brought her breakfast in bed... only to raise the lid off the tray to reveal breakfast ingredients. The rest of the family's attempts to make breakfast went awry, so Marge still has to make the breakfast herself.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Played with, after Mr. Burns is shot. Dr. Hibbert says "I couldn't possibly solve this mystery. Can YOU?" points and stares directly at the audience. Then the screen pans over showing he was actually pointing at Chief Wiggum.
Wiggum: Yeah, I'll give it a shot. I mean, you know, it's my job, right?
Break the Cutie: Subverted in Dog Of Death. When Burns gets a hold of Bart's friendly, gentle pet dog, he does to the dog what was done to Alex in A Clockwork Orange to, as Burns himself put it, turn the dog into "a vicious, soulless killer." However, when Burns sends said dog after Bart, the dog's memories of good times with Bart prompt him to lick Bart's face instead of attacking him. When the other dogs come after Bart, said pet dog growls at the other dogs and scares them off, only to proceed to lick Bart's face AGAIN. Burns' attempt at breaking the dog's spirit yields, if any change in the dog at all, a result of the dog taking a level in badass while no longer being on Burns' side in the long run.
Break-Up Bonfire: When Milhouse's parents get divorced, Luann carefully boxes up all of Kirk's possessions and then sets fire to the box.
Bribe Backfire:
- Chief Wiggum has a long history with bribes:
  Wiggum: I hope you're not suggesting that I would take that necklace as a bribe. Think again, dirtbag, cause I can swipe it later from the evidence locker.
  ** He has this reaction when Bart tries to bribe him with precious wedding day dishes:
  Wiggum: What does it say on my badge? (the badge says: Cash Bribes Only)
- Subverted in "Bart Carny": Wiggum is actually the one who initiates the bribe idea, but Homer is so clueless that he doesn't realize Wiggum is asking for a bribe. Wiggum shuts down Homer's carny game as a result of his failure to bribe Wiggum to keep it open.
Brick Joke:
- During "24 Minutes", Bart makes a phone call that accidentally gets crossed with that of Jack Bauer, so he leaves him a prank call. At the end of the episode, Bauer arrives to arrest Bart for the call.
- We get a triple-whammy in "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder". In the opening, Moleman is seen being hassled by a pushy New Yorker, and is seen as defenseless. When he reappears later in the episode, he is revealed to be the king of the Mole People, and about to use an earthquake machine. His CMOA and Pre Ass Kicking One Liner, "No One Escapes From The Fortress Of The Mole People", is immediately dashed, as the bungee cord both Homer and Otto were on rebounds and sends them back to the surface, to which Moleman dejectedly says "Well, except for that."
- In "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly", Homer presents a dating video he made for Ned, warning him, "The audio needs some tweaking and there's some footage of Maggie being born that I couldn't get rid of." They watch the tape, and at the end the video abruptly cuts to Marge in labor with Maggie, to Ned's disgust.
- Season 1's Homer's Odyssey has Mrs. Krabappel warning the children before a field trip not to stick their arms out of the bus' windows and mentions a story about a boy who lost his arm this way. Two episodes later, in Bart the General, Grandpa Simpson introduces Bart to Herman, an one-armed military antiques dealer. How did he lose his arm, you ask? By sticking it out of a moving bus during a field trip.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Bart in "Bart Gets an F" (especially where Bart cries over failing his test, cites a failed battle fought by George Washington, and ends up passing), and "Lisa the Simpson" (which revealed that he was smart as a kid, but became dumb due to the Simpson gene — though "Lisa's Sax" revealed that Bart became a bad student because his kindergarten teacher hated him and he had a bad first day of school).
Bring the Anchor Along: In "Homer the Great", Homer is punished for ruining the Stonecutters' sacred parchment by being stripped naked and forced to pull the "stone of shame" all the way home. When the Stonecutters' notice a birthmark identifying Homer as The Chosen One, they release him and instead make him pull the even larger "stone of triumph".
British Brevity: Parodied with the Show Within a Show Do Shut Up from the episode "Missionary: Impossible". The PBS hosts describe it as Britain's longest-running series, then say they'll be showing "all seven episodes".
British Royal Guards:
- The episode "The Regina Monologues" sees the family vacation in London, where Homer crashes their car through the front gate at Buckingham Palace and into the Queen's carriage. Royal guards beat Homer senselessly but stop half-way through to observe the Changing of the Guard. Homer's beating continues at the hands of the next group of guards on duty.
- In "Bart Vs. Australia," Homer mistakes a US Marine posted outside the American Embassy for one of these guards. The Marine punches Homer in the face after he starts making funny faces at him and curtly explains that he is not a British Royal Guard.
  Homer: Hey! Are you like one of those English guards who can't laugh or smile or anything? [makes noises and faces at him and gets punched in the face] Ow!
  Marine: No, Sir! US Marine Corps, Sir!
- And yet another episode has Homer mistake Shaolin Monks as the British guards. He's met with similar results.
Broken Glass Penalty: With a remote-control plane instead of a ball. Although it was technically Nelson and Milhouse that crashed it, Bart goes to get it and gets caught, setting off the episode's A plot of Bart working in a burlesque house.
Broken Record:
- Many examples
  Young Bart: Can't sleep. Clown will eat me.
  Lenny Leonard: Dental plan.
  Marge: Lisa needs braces.
  Bart and Lisa: Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad?
  Bart and Lisa: Will you take us to Mt. Splashmore?
  Ned Flanders: We're done-diddly-doodily, done-diddly-doodily, done-diddly-doodily, done-diddly-doodily— (SLAP!)
  Bart and Lisa: Are we there yet?
  Homer and Apu: Are we in India Yet? No. Are we in India Yet? No. Are we in India Yet? No. Are we in India Yet? No. Are we in India Yet? No. Are we in India Yet? No... wait... now we are!
  Homer: Can't sleep. Gonna die.
- A literal example in "The Great Wife Hope": When all the men of Springfield abandon their usual hangouts to watch an MMA fight at the stadium, we get a shot of an empty Moe's Tavern, where the record player is stuck on a few-second-loop of "Monster Mash".
Brother–Sister Incest:
- Cletus and Brandine are related to each other in all sorts of ways. One of them being as brother and sister.
- Subverted in "Money BART" in which Nelson makes an incest joke about Bart and Lisa's conversation, but Lisa retaliates that they're brother and sister, nothing more.
  Milhouse: So are my parents. I think.
- Subverted in the episode, "Little Girl in the Big Ten", where Lisa is pretending to be a college student. When asked if any of the boys in her house are cute, she responds with "Well, Bart is kinda... NO!"
- Subverted in "Dangerous Curves". In the beginning of the third act of the episode, Bart and Lisa, while driving a pedal car along with Maggie, argue as if they're a 'married couple'.
- Subverted in "Kill the Alligator and Run" with this quote:
  Homer: Yep, this place is great. And some day, when Lisa and Bart get married, it'll all be theirs.
  Bart and Lisa: Yuck!
  Marge: You mean when they marry other people.
  Homer: Okay, but I ain't paying for two weddin's.
Brought Home the Wrong Kid:
- Inverted; Grandpa is meant to babysit Bart and Lisa and goes to the Flanders' house by mistake.
- Played with in one episode, Homer was taking care of a bag of sugar in placement of a baby, yet when he holds it out, it's a blanket with a real baby. "Where's my sugar?" the scene changes to Cletus fondling the bag of sugar Cletus: Jr. feels more granulated than usual.
Bubble Pipe: Bart blows in one when he falls in love with older girl Laura Powers in "New Kid On The Block" and ends up dressing like Hugh Hefner. And again when he visits the actual Hugh Hefner in "Krusty Gets Kancelled".
Buccaneer Broadcaster: In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken".
Buffy Speak: In "Homer the Smithers", after Mr. Burns gives a series of tasks to Homer:
Homer: Um, can you repeat the part of the stuff where you said all about the... things? Uh... the things?
Bullet Catch: In the pilot episode of "Police Cops", Detective Homer Simpson catches a bullet with his fingers and throws it back at the bad guy who shot at him in the first place.
Bullet Dancing: Parodied in "Burns' Heir", in a flashback where Mr. Burns recalls performing this trick with a single shot pistol - firing, manually loading a bullet and powder into the muzzle, cocking the hammer, and firing again while the victim dances obligingly.
Bullet Hole Spelling: The Itchy and Scratchy cartoon shown in the episode "Bart The Murderer" has Itchy writing "THE END" in bullets using a Tommy gun.
The Bully:
- Nelson, Jimbo, Kearny and Dolph are the classic bullying foes for Bart.
- There's also Francine Rhenquist in "Bye Bye Nerdie". The Francine example is an interesting case, as it reveals that she's a bully because she has an adverse reaction to the sweat that emanates from nerds. It was shown that it also affects Nelson (Lisa demonstrates by swabbing nerd sweat on boxer Dreaderick Tatum and Nelson compulsively begins beating him).
Bully Hunter: Bart pulls the trope off in "Bart the General" when he and the entire class bombard Nelson and his gang with balloons until they surrender... literally, as in sign a treaty.
Bumbling Dad: Homer is quite possibly the most famous example in all of fiction. He's an alcoholic, utterly moronic and occasionally abusive Jerkass, but he genuinely does mean well. Usually.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Ralph Wiggum, perhaps the most thoroughly and consistently moronic character in the whole show, shows a remarkable acting talent in the School Play biopic of George Washington. On the other hand, this was an early episode before his idiocy underwent Flanderization.
- Ralph was once set up to run for president as a joke candidate. After becoming an In-Universe Ensemble Dark Horse, he becomes a brilliant candidate. His campaign ad has the narrator state he doesn't need to know words like 'curiosity' and 'tough' because he is those words, and the ad ends with Ralph sitting on the statue of Abe Lincoln's statue, saying "I'm Ralph Wiggum, and I've been a good boy!" Despite being so popular, the episode ended after this line, and Ralph, naturally, did not make it into office.
Burning the Flag:
- In a Flash Forward episode Homer & Bart greet Lisa's British fiance by running the UK flag up their flagpole.
  Bart: Here they come! Raise the flag!
  [Homer does so; it sparks as it touches something electrical]
  Marge: Oh, Lisa!
  Homer: Yo, Hugh! Here's a little bit of US hospitality: Whaddaya think of that?
  [unbeknownst to Homer the flag is now on fire. Hugh gasps]
  Lisa: Dad!
  Homer: Aah!
  [he and Bart pull it down and stomp on it]
  Marge: Now throw compost on it! [they do so]
  Homer: Whew! [hands the flag to Hugh] Er, enjoy.
  Hugh: Oh...[a tear forms] it's still warm.
- "An Amendment to Be", a "campy '70s throwback for Gen Xers", deals with flag burning, and how it would be unconstitutional to outlaw it. Then the amendment gets ratified, and other, wilder bills get passed.
  There's a lot of flag-burners
  Who have got too much freedom
  I want to make it legal
  For policemen to beat'em.
  'Cause there's limits to our liberties
  At least I hope and pray that there are
  'Cause those liberal freaks go too far.
- In the episode "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" Nelson writes a superpatriotic essay for a contest, for which this is his theme.
  Nelson: So burn that flag if you must! But before you do, you'd better burn a few other things! You'd better burn your shirt and your pants! Be sure to burn your TV and car! Oh yeah, and don't forget to burn your house! Because none of those things would exist without six white stripes, seven red stripes, and a helluva lot of stars!!
Busby Berkeley Number: There are no lyrics, but in "Bart of Darkness", the swimmers perform a choreographed routine, part of which is shot from above and features a visual very similar to what's on the trope page.
Business Trip Adultery: In "The Last Temptation of Homer", Homer and Mindy are asked to represent Springfield at an energy convention in Capital City. They receive a fully funded night in a hotel and a romantic dinner. When they return to the room, Homer harbours guilt about their relationship, expressing his devout love for Marge. Mindy understands, and they share a kiss. We see Homer and Marge together in the same hotel room sometime later, happy together and confident in their marriage.
But Not Too Challenging:
- It's a recurring thing with Lisa, as she is often frustrated with how little intellectual challenges she has in Springfield Elementary School, but any time she has less than straight A's, she doesn't take it well.
- The episode "King of the Hill" plays with this trope. When Homer finds out his Sherpa guides have been physically carrying him up the mountain he fires them, but he also disregards their comment that if he's so determined to do it the "right" way, he should backtrack the climbing they've already done and go back up all by himself.
Butt-Monkey: Quite a few, actually: Hans Moleman, Milhouse, Milhouse's dad after he got divorced, Grampa Simpson, Sideshow Mel, Gil, Homer, Bart (sometimes; see episodes "Bart's Girlfriend," "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace," "The Boys of Bummer," and "The Telltale Head")
By "No", I Mean "Yes": From "The Springfield Files":
Leonard Nimoy: I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean, false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer, is no.

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