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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. In fact,
00:10we already did just that, but one wasn't enough. So we've channeled our inner Springfielder to
00:15once again get down to the nitty gritty of Matt Groening's most famous creations to look at the
00:20show's most unassuming but important moments. I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and this is The Simpsons,
00:2510 more moments more important than you realized. 10. Homer owns the Denver Broncos
00:31In 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. It is a fanciful theory
00:41for sure, but if that crazy idea doesn't suit you, then how about this one involving an NFL franchise?
00:47In the much-praised Season 8 episode, You Only Move Twice, Homer receives a gift from his former boss,
00:52the megalomaniacal supervillain Hank Scorpio. After Homer inadvertently assisted Scorpio in his
00:57quest for world domination, the mega-rich nutjob decided to splash some cash and buy his former
01:02employee, the Denver Broncos. This comes after a conversation where Homer revealed to Scorpio
01:07that his dream was to one day own the Dallas Cowboys. Well, you've got to start somewhere,
01:11I suppose. Many Simpsons fans online then have suggested that this might be yet another source
01:16of income for the family. Owning a football team would rake in some serious coin, and the Broncos have
01:20only gotten better since You Only Move Twice was released, or at least so I'm told. So yeah,
01:25it kind of turns out Hank was a nice guy after all. Well, if you discount all of the people that
01:29he murdered in cold blood, but uh, who's counting? Number 9, The Olmec Head. In Season 2's Blood Feud,
01:35Bart saves Mr. Burns' life when it's discovered that the two share the same rare blood type. To thank
01:40the boy and his family for keeping him alive, Burns sends them the generous gift of a thank you card.
01:45There wasn't even a check inside. This escalates then to the point where the billionaire's
01:49about a fire homer when he realizes the error of his ways. To make up for a rubbish first present,
01:54he sends the Simpsons family a very unique offering. In fact, he bestows upon them a
01:59colossal Olmec Head, a large carving of a human head in the style of the Olmec people of ancient
02:04Mesoamerica. Whilst the family are initially baffled by the head, they do eventually accept it
02:08when Bart decides he likes it. Although, to be fair, he was happy with the crowbar used to open the
02:13crate in the first place. While you might have thought this was just a one and done affair, the head has
02:17appeared in 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,
02:25even if the head itself doesn't actually do anything.
02:28Number 8, Mary Spookler
02:30This episode of The Simpsons is kinda all over the place. Thankfully, it's called Apocalypse Cow,
02:35which is a name so great that it kinda makes up for all of its other shortcomings.
02:38In said episode, Bart ends up raising a baby cow, going mad in a field, then rescuing it from
02:43slaughter. He does this with the help of Mary Spookler, the most intelligent offspring of Cletus
02:47and Brandine. Although that's damning with faint praise of the highest order. There's a plot where
02:52Mary and Bart almost get married as well, but the episode remains mostly about the cow. This all
02:57changes though when Mary comes back into Bart's life five seasons later. In Moonshine River,
03:02another great title, Bart tries to convince Mary to be in a relationship with him after he figures
03:07that he's only got so many chances left at love. But wait, isn't Bart like 10? If he's got no chance at
03:12love, then I guess the rest of us are just screwed. Well, Mary herself turns up a few more times across
03:17the show, most notably in the episode Love is a Many Splintered Thing. Few could have expected
03:22though that Mary would appear in multiple episodes of the show when she first arrived, but hey,
03:26that's young love for you, I guess. Number 7, Homer Becomes Sterile
03:29The second and final appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb, so far anyway,
03:33comes in an episode called Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes? While this story ends with Herb patenting a
03:38baby translator in an attempt to rebuild his fortune, it starts with Homer getting some rather
03:42bad news about his swimmers. See, a medical examination reveals that years of working in
03:47close proximity to nuclear radiation has left Homer sterile. Now, Homer and Marge didn't plan
03:52to have any more kids anyway. Well, that was the case for 21 seasons, until the episode Adventures in
03:58Baby Getting came along. In this one, Marge reveals her hidden desire to have another child,
04:03only for Homer's sterility to be re-revealed. And we're not sure why, I mean, considering she'd known about it,
04:08for over two decades. Number 6, Maud at Lisa's Wedding
04:12When The Simpsons first did an episode set in the future, it was fine. It was cool to see older
04:17versions of our favourite characters and what the world of tomorrow looked like. Now, though,
04:21they've done this trope all the flame and time, and it gets really, really boring, because nobody
04:25cares about Bart's stupid kids. But the episode where we first get a glimpse of things to come
04:29is Lisa's Wedding from Season 6, when the middle Simpson kid comes across a fortune teller
04:34in the woods. Set in the long-distant future of 2010, we follow a grown-up Lisa and her ill-fated
04:40engagement as snobby Englishman, Hugh Parkfield. Guests at the doomed wedding include a wheelchair-bound
04:45Christy, a recently defrosted Mr. Burns, Ned and Maud Flanders, and, wait a second, Maud Flanders?
04:51The same Maud Flanders that would be killed off an episode first broadcast in the year 2000?
04:55How the hell can this be? Well, Maud's appearance in this episode proves that the Fortune Terror is
05:00talking a load of BS and has no idea what she's on about. But, of course, we'd only know that once
05:05Maud actually did bite the dust. 5. Marge's Gambling Problem
05:09Every so often in The Simpsons, something will happen to a character that permanently
05:13affects their personality. This happens to Marge in Springfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying
05:18and Love Legalized Gambling. Aside from having one of the longest episode names in the history of the
05:23show, it also shows 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 get resolved and
05:32she just has to live with them, a startlingly realistic approach to portraying addiction.
05:37Despite the bleakness of this ending though, many fans just assumed that we would never hear about
05:41Marge's problems ever again, but oh boy, do we. Her issues with gambling come up time and time again,
05:46more often than not for comic effect. There's a joke about throwing vodka in Maggie's face after a
05:50game of Candyland that would be funny if it weren't so alarming, and Marge even goes full Danny Ocean
05:55and joins a team of card counters to help fix the church in season 26.
06:00Number 4. Principal Skinner's Prison Number
06:02Now this one is actually kind of really clever. It's a well-known joke that Principal Skinner's
06:07old Vietnam prisoner helmet, as shown in the episode Homer's Barbershop Quartet,
06:11displays the number 24601. And of course, this is the same number that Jean Valjean is branded with
06:16in the musical Les Miserables. And yeah, yeah, we know it was a book first, but honestly,
06:20who has time to read all of that? Whilst this might just seem like the writers nodding to their
06:24favourite stage show, or I guess book, but I don't believe it, the comparisons between Skinner and
06:29Valjean run much deeper than just a number. For instance, after being released from prison,
06:33Valjean must assume a new identity in order to advance in society, and under his new name,
06:39he eventually becomes the respected mayor of a large town. Now think about Seymour Skinner,
06:43real name Armin Tamzarian. He too took on a new name and used it to achieve a position of influence
06:48in the community, and 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.
06:57Number 3. Lisa and Nelson
06:59Ralph Wiggum, Hugh Parkfield, Daniel Radcliffe's Edward Cullen parody,
07:04freaking Milhouse. When it comes to guys, Lisa Simpson is fresh out of luck. And all of this is
07:09without mentioning Nelson Munts, with whom Lisa had a brief attraction to in the episode
07:13Lisa's Date with Destiny. Well, as it turns out, this romance was far from brief, as it has cropped up
07:19a bunch of different times over the show's subsequent episodes. In fact, Nelson is often shown
07:23displaying favoritism towards Lisa, leaving her out of his bullish actions, and he even goes to some
07:28pretty extreme lengths for him anyway, to impress her, including reading some books. The idea of
07:33the pair ending up together actually came full circle in the season 34 episode when Nelson met
07:38Lisa, which imagines the life of the two if they got together in adulthood. And this came a whole 26
07:43years after she and Nelson first became an item. This love story has been one of the most enduring and
07:48surprising in the show's entire history. Maybe they'll pay it off fully one day, or maybe Nelson
07:53will leave Lisa at the altar to throw coleslaw at Skinner's house again, I don't know.
07:57Number 2, Homer in a coma. Now this one is purely speculative, but the theory really does hold some
08:02water. In an episode titled So It's Come to This, a Simpsons clip show, Bart decides to prank his old
08:07man by seriously shaking up a can of beer. However, Bart did such a good job that when Homer opened the can,
08:13it exploded with the force of a neutron bomb. This left Homer in a vegetative state for seven weeks and
08:18lose 5% of his brain. But 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 in that every episode after this
08:29one takes place in his head. And before you call everyone crazy, there is some serious evidence
08:33to back this up. Not only would this explain why the plots of the show get more outlandish over the
08:37years and why the timelines don't match up, but in the episode Homer the Heretic, God actually tells
08:42Homer that he'll die in six months. And the clip show aired almost exactly six months
08:48after Homer the Heretic. So, are we reading too much into it? Probably. Is it compelling anyway?
08:53You bet your ass it is. Number one, the first door. Homer's signature expression door became so popular
08:59that it even entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001. Whilst the phrase did exist long before
09:04The Simpsons came along, door was definitely popularized by Homer's voice actor. His delivery of
09:09the word is iconic, which makes it all the more impressive that he actually came up with it all on his own.
09:14As is now a folklore whilst recording for The Simpsons when it was just a shot on the Tracy
09:18Ullman show, it was one innocent line marked annoyed grunt that eventually became the iconic
09:23doll that we know and love today. Little did anyone know at the time that a piece of television had
09:28just been made by this weird improvisation, but the saying and the show are now so synonymous with
09:33each other that 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. I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below. Did you ever think
09:42more about these important Simpsons moments and are there any other unassuming ones that had huge
09:47effects that I missed off here? Let me know and while you're down there, if you could please give
09:50us a like, share, subscribe and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this
09:54every single day. Even if you don't though, I've been Josh. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.
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