Discussion FunnyAneurysmMoment / TheSimpsons

I'm going to list all the examples I just cut and explain why I cut them.

• In "Burns, Baby Burns", the news shows a computer simulation of Homer walking out of the Aztec Theater and shot to death by the cops. It's a lot less funny thanks to that Aurora, Colorado theater shooting in July 2012.

Beyond happening around a movie theatre, there is no connection or correlation to the Aurora shooting.

• Homer talking to the space coyote (voiced by Johnny Cash) in the sky as he's wandering Springfield in search of his soulmate in "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer." The DVD commentary even pointed out that the scene can now be interpreted as Homer talking to Johnny Cash from heaven now that Cash is dead.
• In "Marge vs. the Monorail", after the titular monorail comes to a stop and everyone trapped hops off, Leonard Nimoy proudly states that "His work is done here." When Barney tries to call him out on it, he just chuckles, cryptically says "Didn't I?" and teleports away. This has a more somber tone after the actor's passing on February 27, 2015.
• Sam Simon's Treehouse of Horror credit is Sam "Sayonara" Simon in several episodes. While death is inevitable, Simon passed away in 2015 while the show is still running.
• This is actually averted and played straight in "Treehouse of Horror IX". For the aversion, Troy McClure was supposed to host Snake's execution, but the scene was redone with Ed McMahon. The episode aired after Hartman was murdered and the crew didn't want his last role to revolve around death, especially since Hartman's kids may be watching.

From the "Funny Aneurysm" Moment page: Note: since all actors and creators are mortal, if someone mentions death or plays a character who dies, and then die themselves, that's not a "Funny Aneurysm" Moment unless there's some connection to the circumstances of the death.

Those have no connection to their deaths whatsoever. Not an example.

• In "Brush with Greatness", Ringo Starr says that he'll take his time to answer every piece of fan mail that he didn't get to answer (including Marge's, which included a painted portrait of Starr). These days, this comes off as either confusing (for anyone who hasn't seen didn't watch the early episodes of The Simpsons in the 1990s and now are discovering them on reruns, DVD or the Internet) or depressing, as Starr announced in 2008 that he's not accepting fan mail anymore.
• "The Ned-liest Catch" ends with Marge and Homer telling the viewers to vote on Ned and Edna's fate, and Marge says if they're watching it on reruns or DVD, it's too late to vote. The DVD part became this when it was announced in 2015 that the final season on DVD would be season 17 (This is a season 22 episode, by the way).

Not an example. Not tragic. At best it's Unintentional Period Piece.

• In "Angry Dad: The Movie" from Season 22, Lisa says that she's seen all the Pixar films, "except for Cars", a reference to how the film was widely considered to be the studio's weakest film by the time the episode came out. Just a few months later, the sequel came out, immediately replacing its predecessor for that title by far for many people, becoming the first Pixar film ever to earn a "rotten" critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Not even close to an example. There is nothing tragic about someone not seeing a poorly received movie only for its sequel to be even worse received.

• In "Homer to the Max", a joke is made about Flanders (with an obviously different voice actor) commenting on how when it comes to animated programs, "you can replace the voices and no one can tell the diddly-ifference!" On May 13, 2015, Harry Shearer announced he was leaving the series. This also counts for the Family Guy crossover episode "The Simpsons Guy" since Shearer was the only member of the cast to not provide voices, although his characters show up. In July 2015, The Simpsons producers announced they struck a deal with Shearer, who will stay with the show.

Not tragic. Not an example. At best it's Life Imitates Art.

• The early episode "The Way We Was" showed how Homer met Marge; and the father of the Bouvier household is shown smoking a cigar and proclaiming that the meeting between the two "took years off his life." Years later in the episode "Puffless," this and other mentions of the character in this context are far less funny now that it's been revealed he died of lung cancer when Patty and Selma were young.

Not an example. At best this is Cerebus Retcon.

• In "The Princess Guide" there's a newspaper headline saying "Hurricane Consuela Stopped At U.S. Border." This is less funny considering Hurricane Patricia hit Mexico less than a year after the episode aired.

Not an example. The names are not similar nor is there any joke about the hurricane hitting Mexico, but rather US Customs and Immigration.

• Viewed today without context, "Trash of the Titans" seems like a satire about the Tea Party, as Homer goes around spewing angry rhetoric at a respected politician with little thought about how he'd do better if elected, and after being elected, messes up so horribly everyone in Springfield hates him. Ray Patterson's lines "Nobody wants to hear the nonsensical ravings of a loudmouthed malcontent!" and "the American people have never tolerated incompetence from its elected officials." hit harder than ever in light of how badly-received the Tea Party-dominated US Congress has been, receiving the lowest approval rating of all time in 2013. On the upside, the episode is more relevant now than it was back then. Back when "Trash of the Titans" first aired, the episode was disparaged as being the harbinger of all the problems later Simpsons episodes would have: Homer being a jerkass who doesn't get his comeuppance, Homer taking on yet another new job, good plots getting tossed aside for yet another Homer adventure (the department stores coming up with fake holidays just to make money), gratuitous celebrity cameos (the completely unnecessary U2 appearance), and nonsensical endings (the entire town moving away and leaving behind a landfill). It still carries that problem today, but, with everything that's happened between then and now centering on the U.S. government and the state of the environment, it plays out more like a latter-day episode that, for all its flaws, actually has relevant satire.

There are many places that are appropriate to discuss politics; TV Tropes isn't one of them. Patterson's lines are more a Take That! about politicians in general, while "Congress gets a bad rating" isn't comparable to "Man destroys town with garbage".

The second half of that wall of text describes Franchise Original Sin, but even then it isn't an example because there are earlier episodes demonstrating those exact problems, such as Marge Vs. The Monorail.

• In the episode "Brawl in the Family", the Republicans meet to talk about what to cut from the budget. Krusty mentions cutting PBS funding because "those lousy Muppets are taking up his airtime". It stopped being funny when Mitt Romney announced he would cut PBS's funding if elected President, and Big Bird appeared in an Obama ad (after news hit about his appearance on Saturday Night Live) attacking Romney for it. It's now Hilarious in Hindsight since Obama got re-elected.

Not an example. Aside from the politics issue I mentioned above, something is either a "Funny Aneurysm" Moment or Hilarious in Hindsight or neither, never both. The two are mutually exclusive.

• The climax of "Deep Space Homer", with fears of the shuttle burning up in reentry, is wince-worthy in light of how the Space Shuttle Columbia burned up in its reentry in 2003.

Not Played for Laughs. Not an example.

Some examples that are rather questionable.

• In the Season 10 episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" (which aired after the 1999 Super Bowl), Nelson asks if the postman has ever gone on a rampage and killed people. The postman remarks that the disgruntled mailman stereotype is a thing of the past. Skinner then replies, "I'm glad I work in an elementary school!". This episode premiered when the trend of kids going ballistic and opening fire at their schools was a hot topic, and with one of the most infamous school shootings of all — Columbine — taking place just a few months after it aired, the joke's darkness gets blacker and a lot more tasteless — and thanks to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012 (which has been reported as the worst school shooting since the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007), the joke is still in bad taste. And if you're British, it's an especially massive Too Soon or Dude, Not Funny! because of the Dunblane school massacre (in which a gunman entered a school and shot 16 children, one adult and then himself, which happened 3 years before the episode aired).

This was likely meant to be Crosses the Line Twice, since school shootings weren't unheard of at the time. Plus Dude, Not Funny! has since changed to In Universe Examples Only.

• There's that episode guest starring Mel Gibson (season 11's "Beyond Blunderdome"). He was complaining that people like him too much (even going as far to say he never gets pulled over by the cops), and ends up creating a movie so controversial that everyone hates him. Funny how life imitates art, no?

That belongs in Life Imitates Art.

• A gag in "The Monkey Suit" has Snake shooting people from atop the Kwik-E-Mart became much more grim in 2011, when a gunman opened fire and killed six people (and severely wounded Senator Gabrielle Giffords) outside of a Safeway store in Tucson, Arizona.
  • There was a similar gag to that on the season five episode "Homer the Vigilante," only it was Apu shooting a man who was trying to incite a riot and loot the Kwik-E-Mart. Back then, it was supposed to be a reference to what Korean store owners did during the L.A. Riots in 1992.

The scenario is "Gunman shoots people from the top of a convenience store", not "shooting occurs in vicinity of a convenience store".

• In "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace", Marge goes on Jeopardy!, but winds up with -$5200 before Final Jeopardy. In March 2015, one player wound up with -$6800 before being disqualified from Final Jeopardy (though adjusted into pre-2001 scoring, that player's -$6800 would be equal to -$3400, still making Marge the bigger loser).
• In "The Springfield Files" Bart's "scary" story of how incredibly expensive college would be by the time Maggie grows up stops being amusing since college education has gotten extremely expensive by The New '10s, causing much concern.

Not tragic. Not an example.

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But please use the correct namespace.