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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.
01:269. 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
01:41You Spare Two Dimes? The episode marks the second appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb,
01:45who invents a device which can translate Baby Babble into articulate spoken English, allowing
01:50parents to respond directly to their children's needs. The product is unsurprisingly an instant
01:55hit and brings her great wealth once again, yet the device's existence has never been
02:00mentioned again, nor has it even appeared in Easter egg form in any episode. Presumably,
02:04the writers realised that the world-changing inevitability of such a device was just too
02:09challenging to deal with. Even so, for all intents and purposes, this hardware absolutely
02:13exists in the show's universe and would have fundamentally altered child-rearing around the globe.
02:188. 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,
02:40a newspaper revealed that he'd managed to seize America's East Coast. While this is obviously meant
02:45to be a throwaway gag, we've never canonically seen Scorpio since, nor has this plot thread ever
02:50been resolved either way. Despite abandoning his Globex HQ, Scorpio evidently still had the
02:56resources to take control of a major chunk of the US landmass, which is home to around 120 million
03:02people. Much like Herb's baby translator, the implications of Scorpio facing off against the
03:07US government are just too messy for the show to address in any major way, so fans are basically left
03:12to assume whatever they want. Maybe Scorpio still holds the East Coast, or perhaps the Army took it
03:17back. 7. 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 Gumbel'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
03:42on his shoulders, whose hands are covering Barney's face. This boy has never been seen in the show
03:47since, leaving eagle-eyed fans to speculate on whether Barney has a secret son who he later
03:52abandoned per his drinking problems. It's of course entirely possible this is the child of a relative
03:57or friend, but given that there's never been a mention of Barney having siblings, and he isn't
04:01exactly overflowing with friends who would willingly leave a kid with him, it could very well be his
04:06own son. Though Season 4's Selma's Choice revealed Barney to have fathered countless children through
04:12his regular donations to the local sperm bank, this seconds-long glimpse at a child implies Barney may
04:17have had, and sadly abandoned, his own child in the past.
04:216. Janie and Lisa are former best friends
04:24It's easy to forget that Lisa's best friend in the show's earlier seasons was Janie, who was steadily phased out
04:31as the series went on, to the extent that she's basically a background character these days. Though Janie
04:36and Lisa's friendship was hardly a flawless, conflict-free one, Janie memorably mocks Lisa for
04:41becoming a vegetarian. A concerted effort was made by the show's writers to downplay their interactions
04:47without ever offering an explanation as to why. Obviously, it's incredibly common for friends to
04:52naturally drift apart during their formative years, and Janie certainly wasn't ever a frontline fixture
04:57in even the show's earlier days, but it's still a little odd that their apparent rift was never
05:02categorically addressed on screen.
05:045. 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 ageing. 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
05:29mostly being frozen in time has also resulted in backstories being retconned and updated over the
05:34years 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
05:44Apu's nephew Jay, who appears as a child in season 4's Homer the Heretic, and then reappears as a young
05:50adult in season 27's Mucha Poo About Something. Selma Bouvier's adopted daughter, Ling, has also
05:56progressed from a baby to a toddler, which is especially amusing considering that Maggie Simpson
06:01has remained a baby for more than three decades. This is definitely one of those things that fans
06:05just need to roll with, though it is fun to consider the possible metaphysical explanation for some
06:10characters ageing while others don't.
06:134. Lisa is an Elon Musk fangirl
06:16In 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 timing,
06:42and 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.
07:17While 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,
07:27it doesn't feel like she's straight-up paid The Simpsons team to make an episode extolling her
07:31alleged virtues. Never forget!
07:32Number 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
07:53tragically retired in the late 1990s following the devastating murder of actor Hartman. And though
07:58the show has since recast some dead voice actors, in Hartman's case, the decision was made to usher
08:03McClure and Hutz out of Springfield. And due to the sudden nature of Hartman's death, the characters
08:08make totally unassuming exits from the show, with their absences remaining unexplained to this very
08:14day. While it is, of course, entirely possible that people like McClure and Hutz would simply move
08:19away to 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.
08:29Number 2. Milhouse's parents are cousins
08:32It 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, and even
08:43the shape of their faces. Well, the truth finally came out in Season 26's Let's Go Fly a Coot, which,
08:49while mercifully not revealing the pair to be siblings, confirmed that Kirk and Luanne Van Houten
08:54are indeed cousins, and Milhouse has a forked tongue as a result. Of course it happened to
08:59Milhouse, 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
09:09legal to marry your cousin. But the outright confirmation seemed like the show's writers
09:13finally throwing fans a bone, presumably with the hope that they would then shut up about
09:17it for good.
09:18Number 1. There's only one bridge out of Springfield
09:21Matt 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
09:32it exists in. Yet one of Springfield's most peculiar confirmed details is that the only road
09:37access out of the city is by way of a single bridge, Springfield Bridge, due to the overabundance
09:42of corruption 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
09:53of what happens when the wrong people are put in charge of a city's money, it's fascinating that
09:57tens of thousands of people rely on a single bridge to travel in and out of the city.
10:01Really though, you're better off just thinking of Springfield as a geographically fluid location
10:05that isn't tethered to a totally fixed design or topography.
10:08And that concludes our list. If you can think of anything that we missed, then do let us
10:13know in the comments below, and while you're there don't forget to like and subscribe and
10:16tap that notification bell. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be
10:20found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie
10:24with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.
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