- 1 year ago
So THAT'S why Milhouse's parents look so similar.
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00:00As with most long-running animated series, The Simpsons writers have maintained a sensibly
00:04fluid and elastic approach to their ongoing continuity, whereby what happens in one episode
00:10won't necessarily be picked up in the next. But at the same time, sometimes an episode makes
00:15a declarational implication so fascinating that its absence in future episodes is totally
00:20bafflingly bizarre. But many fans never forget, and will routinely bring these details up at every
00:26possible opportunity. And so, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 10
00:31important details that are almost never mentioned in The Simpsons.
00:36Number 10. The Simpsons' Home Has a Rarely Seen Rumpus Room
00:41As much as even a casual Simpsons fan likely assumes they know The Simpsons' home like the
00:46back of their hand, it's easy to forget that there's an extra room in the house we rarely
00:50catch a glimpse of. Behind the garage and next to the kitchen is a rumpus room, a recreation room
00:55basically. It was first seen in the season 2 episode Itchy and Scratchy in Marge, and has
01:00appeared in a grand total of just 8 of The Simpsons episodes to date. The room's shockingly
01:04meagre showing throughout the show was eventually mocked in the season 25 episode White Christmas
01:09Blues, where Marge tells Homer, well there's a rec room off the kitchen, but sometimes it's
01:14there and sometimes it isn't. Our house is very odd that way. Nobody involved with the
01:18show has offered up notable comments on The Room or why it's been so fleetingly included
01:22throughout the series, which only makes its existence that much weirder.
01:26Number 9. Herb's Baby Translator Would Have Totally Changed The World
01:31While The Simpsons has a fairly loose approach to its own internal continuity, one of its most
01:36societally wide-reaching implications occurred in Season 3's classic episode Brother Can You
01:41Spare Two Dimes? The episode marks the second appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb, who invents
01:46a device which can translate Baby Babble into articulate spoken English, allowing parents to respond
01:51directly to their children's needs. The product is unsurprisingly an instant hit and brings her
01:56great wealth once again, yet the device's existence has never been mentioned again, nor has it even
02:01appeared in Easter egg form in any episode. Presumably, the writers realised that the world-changing
02:06inevitability of such a device was just too challenging to deal with. Even so, for all intents and purposes,
02:12this hardware absolutely exists in the show's universe and would have fundamentally altered child-rearing
02:17around the globe.
02:18Number 8. Hank Scorpio Seized Control Of The East Coast
02:22Few one-off Simpsons characters have made as much of an impact as the legendary Bond villain-esque
02:28megalomaniac Hank Scorpio, who appeared in Season 8's You Only Move Twice. The last time we physically
02:34saw Scorpio, he donned a flamethrower while fleeing the impending US Army, and at episode's end, a newspaper
02:40revealed that he'd managed to seize America's East Coast. While this is obviously meant to be a throwaway gag,
02:46we've never canonically seen Scorpio since, nor has this plot thread ever been resolved either way.
02:52Despite abandoning his Globex HQ, Scorpio evidently still had the resources to take control of a major
02:58chunk of the US landmass, which is home to around 120 million people. Much like Herb's baby translator,
03:05the implications of Scorpio facing off against the US government are just too messy for the show to
03:10address in any major way, so fans are basically left to assume whatever they want. Maybe Scorpio still
03:15holds the East Coast, or perhaps the army took it back.
03:187. Barney has a mystery relative we never see again
03:22The earliest episodes of The Simpsons include a lot of experiments and throwaway moments that
03:27ultimately weren't crystallized in the show's canon moving forward, with one involving the presence of
03:32a small child in Barney Gumball's life. Early on in the second season episode Principal Charming,
03:37keep a close eye on the line at the DMV, and you can see Barney standing in line with a young boy on his
03:43shoulders, whose hands are covering Barney's face. This boy has never been seen in the show since,
03:48leaving eagle-eyed fans to speculate on whether Barney has a secret son who he later abandoned,
03:53per his drinking problems. It's of course entirely possible this is the child of a relative or friend,
03:58but given that there's never been a mention of Barney having siblings, and he isn't exactly
04:02overflowing with friends who would willingly leave a kid with him, it could very well be his own son.
04:07Though season 4's Selma's Choice revealed Barney to have fathered countless children through his
04:12regular donations to the local sperm bank, this seconds-long glimpse at a child implies Barney
04:17may have had, and sadly abandoned, his own child in the past.
04:216. Janie and Lisa are Former Best Friends
04:25It's easy to forget that Lisa's best friend in the show's earlier seasons was Janie, who was steadily
04:30phased out as the series went on, to the extent that she's basically a background character these days.
04:36Though Janie and Lisa's friendship was hardly a flawless, conflict-free one, Janie memorably
04:41mocks Lisa for becoming a vegetarian. A concerted effort was made by the show's writers to downplay
04:46their interactions without ever offering an explanation as to why. Obviously, it's incredibly
04:51common for friends to naturally drift apart during their formative years, and Janie certainly wasn't
04:56ever a frontline fixture in even the show's earlier days, but it's still a little odd that their
05:00apparent rift was never categorically addressed on screen.
05:035. Characters Age at Totally Different Rates
05:08One of the show's most discussed aspects by fans, yet one that's rarely directly addressed in the show
05:13itself for somewhat self-evident reasons, is the character's general lack of aging. The overwhelming
05:19majority of The Simpsons characters simply haven't aged in some 33 seasons, no matter that the passage of
05:25time is regularly marked in various ways, such as characters having birthdays. The characters mostly
05:30being frozen in time has also resulted in backstories being retconned and updated over
05:34the years to reflect time's passage, though there are a few instances where supporting characters have
05:39indeed grown up, while everyone else remain to the same age. The most notable example is surely Apu's
05:44nephew, Jay, who appears as a child in season 4's Homer the Heretic, and then reappears as a young adult
05:50in season 27's Mucha-Poo About Something. Selma Bouvier's adopted daughter, Ling, has also progressed from
05:57a baby to a toddler, which is especially amusing considering that Maggie Simpson has remained a baby
06:02for more than three decades. This is definitely one of those things that fans just need to roll with,
06:07though it is fun to consider the possible metaphysical explanation for some characters aging while others
06:12don't. 4. Lisa is an Elon Musk fangirl
06:17In terms of Simpsons episodes that have aged like milk left out in the sun on a scorching hot day,
06:22they don't get much worse than 2015's The Musk Who Fell to Earth. The episode revolves around
06:27entrepreneur Elon Musk, who pays a visit to Springfield and spends a lot of time with The
06:32Simpsons, yet the episode largely consists of the writers cosying up to Musk and effectively
06:36lionising him as a ne'er-do-wrong super genius. It doesn't help that Musk has little comedic
06:42timing and what passes for a storyline goes nowhere interesting. But its most egregious sin?
06:47Turning Lisa into an acolyte in the cult of Musk. Lisa refers to Musk as possibly the greatest living
06:53inventor, and while the man's industrial achievements aren't to be sniffed at, Lisa's uncritical
06:58brow-nosing of a figure who has increasingly shown himself to be problematic isn't a great look.
07:03Granted, the episode was released at the peak of Musk's fandom, before the tide of public opinion
07:08began to turn against him. Yet, considering the state of Musk's personal reputation these days,
07:12the show's writer's room would probably rather you forget Lisa ever blindly championed him.
07:16While fans have criticised the Lady Gaga-centric episode Lisa Goes Gaga for its own celebrity
07:22worship, at least in Gaga's case she's a seemingly harmless public figure. Furthermore, it doesn't
07:27feel like she straight up paid The Simpsons team to make an episode extolling her alleged virtues.
07:32Never forget! 3. The Disappearance of Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz
07:37Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz are undeniably two of the most popular and entertaining supporting
07:43characters from The Simpsons' first decade on the air. A washed-up actor and shyster lawyer,
07:48respectively, both voiced terrifically by the late, great Phil Hartman. Both characters were tragically
07:53retired in the late 1990s following the devastating murder of actor Hartman, and though the show has
07:59since recast some dead voice actors, in Hartman's case, the decision was made to usher McClure and
08:04Hutz out of Springfield. And due to the sudden nature of Hartman's death, the characters make
08:08totally unassuming exits from the show, with their absences remaining unexplained to this very day.
08:14While it is, of course, entirely possible that people like McClure and Hutz would simply move away
08:19to pursue opportunities elsewhere, especially if McClure's career ticked upwards or Hutz got disbarred,
08:25it's certainly odd that their departures were never mentioned in even a cursory fashion.
08:292. Milhouse's parents are cousins
08:33It was long speculated by fans that something odd was up with Milhouse's parents, given the frankly
08:38worrying physical resemblance they bear to one another in terms of hair colour, glasses,
08:43and even the shape of their faces. Well, the truth finally came out in Season 26's Let's Go Fly a Coot,
08:49which, while mercifully not revealing the pair to be siblings, confirmed that Kirk and Luanne Van
08:53Houghton are indeed cousins, and Milhouse has a forked tongue as a result. Of course it happened
08:59to Milhouse, of all people. There have admittedly been several wink-wink references to this possibility
09:04throughout the show, such as Luanne mentioning that she's from Shelbyville, where it is indeed legal to
09:09marry your cousin. But the outright confirmation seemed like the show's writers finally throwing
09:14fans a phone, presumably with the hope that they would then shut up about it for good.
09:171. There's only one bridge out of Springfield
09:22Matt Groening and company have been relatively careful to not reveal too much concrete information
09:27about Springfield's geography, namely its precise place in the US and especially the state it exists
09:33in. Yet one of Springfield's most peculiar confirmed details is that the only road access
09:37out of the city is by way of a single bridge, Springfield Bridge, due to the overabundance of
09:42corruption in the city's operational infrastructure. The bridge was even destroyed by a comet in Season
09:476's Bart's Comet, though soon enough rebuilt. While this is all obviously intended as a satire
09:52of what happens when the wrong people are put in charge of a city's money, it's fascinating that tens
09:57of thousands of people rely on a single bridge to travel in and out of the city. Really though,
10:02you're better off just thinking of Springfield as a geographically fluid location that isn't tethered
10:06to a totally fixed design or topography. And that concludes our list. If you can think of
10:11anything that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below, and while you're there don't
10:14forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell. Also head over to Twitter
10:19and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie
10:23Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.
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