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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.
00:2810. 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
00:52boss, the 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?
01:32Number 9, The Olmec Head
01:33In Season 2's Blood Feud, Bart saves Mr. Burns' life when it's discovered that the two share
01:38the same rare blood type. To thank the boy and his family for keeping him alive,
01:42Burns sends them the generous gift of a thank you card. There wasn't even a check inside.
01:47This escalates then to the point where the billionaire's about to fire Homer when he realizes the error of
01:52his ways. To 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 style
02:02of the Olmec people of ancient Mesoamerica. Whilst the family are initially baffled by the head,
02:07they do eventually accept it when Bart decides he likes it. Although, to be fair, he was happy with
02:12the crowbar used to open the crate in the first place. While you might have thought this was just a
02:16one and done affair, the head has appeared in the background of dozens of episodes over the show,
02:20most often in the family basement. And seeing it in newer episodes is a nice reminder of the
02:24show's humble beginnings, even if the head itself doesn't actually do anything.
02:28Number 8. Mary Spookler
02:30This episode of The Simpsons is kind of all over the place. Thankfully, it's called Apocalypse Cow,
02:35which is a name so great that it kind of 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
02:47Cletus and Brandine. Although, that's damning with faint praise of the highest order. There's
02:52a plot where Mary and Bart almost get married as well, but the episode remains mostly about the
02:56cow. This all changes though when Mary comes back into Bart's life five seasons later. In Moonshine
03:02River, another great title, Bart tries to convince Mary to be in a relationship with him after he
03:06figures that he's only got so many chances left at love. But wait, isn't Bart like 10? If he's got
03:11no chance at love, then I guess the rest of us are just screwed. Well, Mary herself turns up a few more
03:16times across the show, most notably in the episode Love is a Many Splintered Thing. Few could have
03:21expected though that Mary would appear in multiple episodes of the show when she first arrived, but
03:25hey, that's young love for you, I guess. 7. Homer Becomes Sterile
03:29The second and final appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb, so far anyway, comes in an
03:34episode called Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes? While this story ends with Herb patenting a baby
03:38translator in an attempt to rebuild his fortune, it starts with Homer getting some rather bad news
03:43about his swimmers. See, a medical examination reveals that years of working in close proximity
03:48to nuclear radiation has left Homer sterile. Now, Homer and Marge didn't plan to have any more kids
03:53anyway. Well, that was the case for 21 seasons, until the episode Adventures in Baby Getting came
03:59along. In this one, Marge reveals her hidden desire to have another child, only for Homer's
04:03sterility to be re-revealed. And we're not sure why, I mean, considering she'd known about it
04:08for over two decades. 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
05:00is talking a load of BS and has no idea what she's on about. But, of course, we'd only know
05:05that once Maud actually did bite the dust. Number 5, Marge's gambling problem. Every so often in
05:11The Simpsons, something will happen to a character that permanently affects their personality. This
05:15happens to Marge in Springfield, or How I Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling. Aside
05:20from having one of the longest episode names in the history of the show, it also shows Marge developing
05:24a gambling habit by spending too much time playing the slots. The ending of this episode is actually
05:29quite dark as well, as Marge's issues don't get resolved and she just has to live with them,
05:33a startlingly realistic approach to portraying addiction. Despite the bleakness of this ending,
05:38though, many fans just assumed that we would never hear about Marge's problems ever again, but
05:42oh boy, do we. Her issues with gambling come up time and time again, more often than not for comic
05:48effect. There's a joke about throwing vodka in Maggie's face after a game of Candyland that would
05:52be funny if it weren't so alarming, and Marge even goes full Danny Ocean and joins a team of card
05:57counters to help fix the church in Season 26. 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, displays the number
06:1124601. And of course, this is the same number that Jean Valjean is branded with in the musical
06:16Les Miserables. And yeah, yeah, we know it was a book first, but honestly, who has time to read
06:21all of that? Whilst this might just seem like the writers nodding to their favourite stage show,
06:25or I guess book, but I don't believe it, the comparisons between Skinner and Valjean run
06:29much deeper than just a number. For instance, after being released from prison, Valjean must assume
06:34a new identity in order to advance in society, and under his new name, he eventually becomes the
06:40respected mayor of a large town. Now, think about Seymour Skinner, real name Armin Tamzarian. He too
06:45took 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.
06:57Number 3, Lisa and Nelson
06:59Ralph Wiggum, Hugh Parkfield, Daniel Radcliffe's Edward Cullen parody, freaking Milhouse. When it
07:05comes to guys, Lisa Simpson is fresh out of luck. And all of this is without mentioning Nelson
07:10Muntz, with whom Lisa had a brief attraction to in the episode Lisa's Date with Destiny. Well,
07:15as it turns out, this romance was far from brief, as it has cropped up a bunch of different times
07:20over the show's subsequent episodes. In fact, Nelson is often shown displaying favoritism towards
07:24Lisa, leaving her out of his bullish actions, and he even goes to some pretty extreme lengths for him
07:29anyway to impress her, including reading some books. The idea of the pair ending up together
07:34actually came full circle in the Season 34 episode when Nelson met Lisa, which imagines the life of
07:39the two if they got together in adulthood. And this came a whole 26 years after she and Nelson
07:44first became an item. This love story has been one of the most enduring and surprising in the
07:49show's entire history. Maybe they'll pay it off fully one day, or maybe Nelson will leave Lisa at
07:54the altar to throw coleslaw at Skinner's house again, I don't know.
07:57Number 2, Homer in a Coma
07:59Now this one is purely speculative, but the theory really does hold some water. In an episode titled
08:04So It's Come to This, a Simpsons clip show, Bart decides to prank his old man by seriously shaking
08:08up 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 7 weeks
08:17and caused him to lose 5% of his brain. But did the coma do even more damage to our beloved patriarch
08:23than we thought? Well, a popular fan theory is that Homer never woke up at all, and that every
08:28episode after this one takes place in his head. And before you call everyone crazy, there is some
08:32serious evidence to back this up. Not only would this explain why the plots of the show get more
08:36outlandish over the years and why the timelines don't match up, but in the episode Homer the
08:40Heretic, God actually tells Homer that he'll die in 6 months. And the clip show aired almost exactly
08:476 months after Homer the Heretic, so are we reading too much into it? Probably. Is it compelling
08:52anyway? You bet your ass it is. Number 1, The First Door
08:56Homer's signature expression door became so popular that it even entered the Oxford English
09:01Dictionary in 2001. Whilst the phrase did exist long before The Simpsons came along,
09:05door was definitely popularized by Homer's voice actor. His delivery of the word is iconic,
09:10which 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 door
09:23that we know and love today. Little did anyone know at the time that a piece of television had just
09:28been 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. So, that's our list. I want to know what you guys think down
09:41in the comments below. Did 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? Let me know,
09:49and while you're down there, if you could, please give us a like, share, subscribe, and head over to
09:52whatculture.com for more lists and views like this every single day. Even if you don't, though,
09:55I've been Josh. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.
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