YMMV / The Simpsons S 14 E 7 Special Edna

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• Harsher in Hindsight: Climatically, Seymour proposes to Edna in this episode. She leaves him at the altar the following season, making it clear that they never really fixed any of the issues that he attempted to smooth over by proposing.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: As he's endorsing Edna, Bart says that "she never gave up on me". In "Diary Queen", it's shown with reused dialogue from "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" that she always believed in Bart's inner goodness and potential.
  Edna: I have to stay here in Springfield because boys like Bart Simpson need me—sweet, misunderstood boys, who just need someone to recognize the basic goodness that's trapped inside them and is desperately trying to get out.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Ms. Krabappel asks "If I lost Seymour, who else is there?", this prompts Bart to think about various male Springfielders, including Moe and Comic Book Guy. "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" reveals that she dated Moe when she first moved to Springfield. That episode also shows that Moe paid for his romances by stealing Mayan gold coins from Snake, another man Bart thought of, who was an Adventure Archaeologist at the time and thus sparked Snake's Start of Darkness. And she broke off their relationship because she wanted to teach Bart. Edna would have a fling with Comic Book Guy in "My Big, Fat, Geek Wedding," after she and Seymour break up for good.
  • And of course, the various jabs at Disney, since they now own the show.
• Shallow Parody: Efcot Center is a very shallow knock on Epcot. Aside from the fact that Epcot is PART of Walt Disney World (the episode treats “Disney World” as an alternate name for Magic Kingdom), almost all the rides parodied in the episode are actually from the Tomorrowland section of Magic Kingdom/Disneyland, and the episode generally treats Efcot’s aesthetic as a gigantic version of the Carousel of Progress.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Martin asks if he can type his report, which ends up making it a requirement for the class. He gets beaten up for this. This episode premiered in 2003, and in The New '10s, many students would find it easier to type an essay than handwrite it.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Edna accepts Bart's "pity date" and goes with him to the movies. As sweet as the gesture was, it's a major violation of teacher etiquette as Edna should not have accepted the invitation to go out with her student, especially without the student's family, regardless of the activity or circumstances. Her hanging out with a ten-year old child late at night would have made her come off as questionable and shady to say the least.
  • When Homer and Bart go on the electric vehicle ride, which was sponsored by oil companies, the car meekly says it doesn't go very far or fast, and buying one "will make everyone think you're gay" and then the camera shows some animatronics, representing a crowd of stereotypical gay people chanting "one of us, one of us." Although this could be chalked up to the In-Universe oil companies wanting to capitalize on the insecurity of its predominantly male market share, it was also presented as an edgy joke by the show's creators, as jokingly calling someone "gay" or "lesbian" was only seen as a childish insult when the episode came out (2003), as opposed to trivializing homophobia like it would be twenty years later (2023).

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