Even more tiny moments that changed the course of Springfield history.
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00:00The Simpsons is a show so massive in every conceivable way that you could make an entire
00:04list based on the tiny, seemingly insignificant details that helped shape its progress.
00:10In fact, we already did just that, but one wasn't enough.
00:13So we've channelled our inner Springfielder to once again get down to the nitty-gritty
00:17of Matt Groening's most famous creations, to look at the show's most unassuming but
00:22important moments.
00:23I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and this is The Simpsons' 10 More Moments More Important
00:27Than You Realised.
00:2910.
00:30Homer Owns The Denver Broncos
00:32In our previous list on the topic, we discussed the idea that Homer is able to fund his family's
00:36eccentric lifestyle through royalty checks from his days in the B-Sharps.
00:40It is a fanciful theory for sure, but if that crazy idea doesn't suit you, then how about
00:44this one involving an NFL franchise?
00:47In the much-praised Season 8 episode, You Only Move Twice, Homer receives a gift from
00:51his former boss, the megalomaniacal supervillain Hank Scorpio.
00:55After Homer inadvertently assisted Scorpio in his quest for world domination, the mega-rich
00:59nutjob decided to splash some cash and buy his former employee, the Denver Broncos.
01:04This comes after a conversation where Homer revealed to Scorpio that his dream was to
01:08one day own the Dallas Cowboys.
01:09Well, you've gotta start somewhere, I suppose.
01:12Many Simpsons fans online have suggested that this might be yet another source of income
01:16for the family.
01:17Owning a football team would rake in some serious coin, and the Broncos have only gotten
01:21better since You Only Move Twice was released, or at least so I'm told.
01:25So yeah, it kinda turns out Hank was a nice guy after all.
01:27Well, if you discount all the people he murdered in cold blood, but who's counting?
01:34In Season 2's Blood Feud, Bart saves Mr. Burns' life when it's discovered that
01:37the two share the same rare blood type.
01:40To thank the boy and his family for keeping him alive, Burns sends them the generous gift
01:44of a…
01:45Thank You Card.
01:46There wasn't even a check inside!
01:47This escalates to the point where the billionaire's about to fire Homer when he realises the error
01:52of his ways.
01:53To make up for a rubbish first present, he sends the Simpson family a very unique offering.
01:57In fact, he bestows upon them a colossal Olmec head, a large carving of a human head in the
02:02style of the Olmec people of ancient Mesoamerica.
02:05Whilst the family are initially baffled by the head, they do eventually accept it when
02:09Bart decides he likes it, although to be fair he was happy with the crowbar used to open
02:13the crate in the first place.
02:14While you might have thought this was just a one and done affair, the head has appeared
02:18in the background of dozens of episodes over the show, most often in the family basement.
02:22And seeing it in newer episodes is a nice reminder of the show's humble beginnings,
02:26even if the head itself doesn't actually do anything.
02:288.
02:29Mary Spookler
02:30This episode of The Simpsons is kinda all over the place.
02:33Thankfully, it's called Apocalypse Cow, which is a name so great that it kinda makes
02:37up for all of its other shortcomings.
02:39In said episode, Bart ends up raising a baby cow, going mad in a field, then rescuing it
02:43from slaughter.
02:44He does this with the help of Mary Spookler, the most intelligent offspring of Cletus and
02:48Brandine, although that's damning with faint praise of the highest order.
02:51There's a plot where Mary and Bart almost get married as well, but the episode remains
02:55mostly about the cow.
02:57This all changes when Mary comes back into Bart's life 5 seasons later.
03:01In Moonshine River, another great title, Bart tries to convince Mary to be in a relationship
03:05with him, after he figures he's only got so many chances left at love.
03:09But wait, isn't Bart like 10?
03:11If he's got no chance at love, then I guess the rest of us are just screwed.
03:15Well, Mary herself turns up a few more times across the show, most notably in the episode
03:19Love is a Many Splintered Thing.
03:21Who could've expected that Mary would appear in multiple episodes of the show when she
03:24first arrived, but hey, that's young love for you I guess.
03:30The second and final appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb, so far anyway, comes in
03:33an episode called Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?
03:36While this story ends with Herb patenting a baby translator in an attempt to rebuild
03:40his fortune, it starts with Homer getting some rather bad news about his swimmers.
03:44See, a medical examination reveals that years of working in close proximity to nuclear radiation
03:49has left Homer sterile.
03:51Now Homer and Marge didn't plan to have any more kids anyway.
03:53Well, that was the case for 21 seasons, until the episode Adventures in Baby Getting came
03:59along.
04:00In this one, Marge reveals her hidden desire to have another child, only for Homer's
04:03sterility to be re-revealed.
04:05And we're not sure why, considering she'd known about it for over two decades.
04:13When The Simpsons first did an episode set in the future, it was fine.
04:16It was cool to see older versions of our favourite characters, and what the world of tomorrow
04:19looked like.
04:21Although they've done this trope all the flame and time, and it gets really, really
04:24boring because nobody cares about Bart's stupid kids.
04:27But the episode where we first get a glimpse of things to come is Lisa's wedding from
04:30season 6, when the middle Simpson kid comes across a fortune teller in the woods.
04:35Set in the long distant future of 2010, we follow a grown up Lisa and her ill-fated engagement
04:40with snobby Englishman, Hugh Parkfield.
04:43Guests at the doomed wedding include a wheelchair-bound Krusty, a recently defrosted Mr Burns, Ned
04:48and Maud Flanders, and wait a second, Maud Flanders?
04:51The same Maud Flanders that would be killed off in episode 1st broadcast in the year 2000?
04:56How the hell can this be?
04:57Well, Maud's appearance in this episode proves that the fortune teller is talking
05:01a load of BS and has no idea what she's on about.
05:04But of course, we'd only know that once Maud actually did bite the dust.
05:10Every so often in The Simpsons, something will happen to a character that permanently
05:13affects their personality.
05:15This happens to Marge in Springfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying in Love Legalized
05:19Gambling.
05:20Aside from having one of the longest episode names in the history of the show, it also
05:23shows Marge developing a gambling habit by spending too much time playing the slots.
05:27The ending of this episode is actually quite dark as well, as Marge's issues don't
05:31get resolved and she just has to live with them, a startlingly realistic approach to
05:36portraying addiction.
05:37Despite the bleakness of this ending though, many fans just assumed that we would never
05:40hear about Marge's problems ever again, but oh boy do we.
05:44Her issues with gambling come up time and time again, more often than not for comic
05:48effect.
05:49There's a joke about throwing vodka in Maggie's face after a game of Candyland
05:51that would be funny if it weren't so alarming, and Marge even goes full Danny Ocean and joins
05:56a team of card counters to help fix the church in Season 26.
06:004.
06:01Principal Skinner's Prison Number
06:03This one is actually really clever.
06:05It's a well-known joke that Principal Skinner's old Vietnam Prisoner helmet, as shown in the
06:09episode Homer's Barbershop Quartet, displays the number 24601.
06:13And of course, this is the same number that Jean Valjean is branded with in the musical
06:16Les Miserables.
06:17And yeah yeah, we know it was a book first, but honestly, who has time to read all of
06:22that?
06:23Whilst this might just seem like the writers nodding to their favourite stage show, or
06:26I guess book, but I don't believe it, the comparisons between Skinner and Valjean run
06:30much deeper than just a number.
06:31For instance, after being released from prison, Valjean must assume a new identity in order
06:36to advance in society, and under his new name, he eventually becomes the respected mayor
06:41of a large town.
06:42Now think about Seymour Skinner, real name Armin Tamzarian.
06:45He too took on a new name and used it to achieve a position of influence in the community,
06:49and like his literary counterpart, his world also crumbles when his secret is found out.
06:54Clues about Skinner's deception were there all along, and we just never saw them.
06:583.
06:59Lisa and Nelson
07:00Ralph Wiggum, Hugh Parkfield, Daniel Radcliffe's Edward Cullen parody, freakin' Milhouse.
07:05When it comes to guys, Lisa Simpson is fresh out of luck.
07:08And all of this is without mentioning Nelson Muntz, with whom Lisa had a brief attraction
07:13to in the episode Lisa's Date With Destiny.
07:15Well as it turns out, this romance was far from brief, as it has cropped up a bunch of
07:19different times over the show's subsequent episodes.
07:21In fact, Nelson is often shown displaying favouritism towards Lisa, leaving her out
07:25of his bullish actions, and he even goes to some pretty extreme lengths for him anyway
07:30to impress her, including reading some books.
07:33The idea of the pair ending up together actually came full circle in the Season 34 episode
07:37When Nelson Met Lisa, which imagines the life of the two if they got together in adulthood.
07:42And this came a whole 26 years after she and Nelson first became an item.
07:46This love story has been one of the most enduring and surprising in the show's entire history.
07:51Maybe they'll pay it off fully one day, or maybe Nelson will leave Lisa at the altar
07:54to throw coleslaw at Skinner's house again, I don't know.
07:572.
07:58Homer in a Coma
07:59This one is purely speculative, but the theory really does hold some water.
08:03In an episode titled So It's Come To This, a Simpsons Clip Show, Bart decides to prank
08:07his old man by seriously shaking up a can of beer.
08:10However, Bart did such a good job that when Homer opened the can, it exploded with the
08:14force of a neutron bomb.
08:15This left Homer in a vegetative state for 7 weeks and caused him to lose 5% of his brain.
08:20But did the coma do even more damage to our beloved patriarch than we thought?
08:24Well a popular fan theory is that Homer never woke up at all, and that every episode after
08:28this one takes place in his head.
08:30And before you call everyone crazy, there is some serious evidence to back this up.
08:34Not only would this explain why the plots of the show get more outlandish over the years
08:38and why the timelines don't match up, but in the episode Homer the Heretic, God actually
08:42tells Homer that he'll die in 6 months.
08:45And the clip show aired almost exactly 6 months after Homer the Heretic, so are we reading
08:50too much into it?
08:51Probably.
08:52Is it compelling anyway?
08:53You bet your arse it is.
08:551.
08:56The First Door
08:57Homer's signature expression Door became so popular that it even entered the Oxford
09:00English Dictionary in 2001.
09:03Whilst the phrase did exist long before The Simpsons came along, Door was definitely popularised
09:07by Homer's voice actor.
09:09His delivery of the word is iconic, which makes it all the more impressive that he actually
09:12came up with it all on his own.
09:14As is now folklore, whilst recording for The Simpsons when it was just a short on the Tracey
09:18Ullman show, it was one innocent line marked Annoyed Grunt that eventually became the iconic
09:23Door that we know and love today.
09:25Little did anyone know at the time that a piece of television had just been made by
09:29this weird improvisation, but the saying and the show are now so synonymous with each other
09:33that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't immediately associate the sound
09:37with Springfield's most famous resident.
09:39So that's our list!
09:40Let us know what you guys think down in the comments below.
09:42Did you ever think more about these important Simpsons moments?
09:45And are there any other unassuming ones that had huge effects that I missed off here?
09:49Let me know and while you're down there if you could please give us a like, share,
09:51subscribe and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single
09:54day.
09:55Until next time, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.