Even more tiny moments that changed the course of Springfield history.
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00:00 The Simpsons is a show so massive in every conceivable way that you could make an entire
00:04 list based on the tiny, seemingly insignificant details that helped shape its progress.
00:09 In fact, we already did just that, but one wasn't enough.
00:13 So we've channelled our inner Springfielder to once again get down to the nitty gritty
00:17 of Matt Groening's most famous creations to look at the show's most unassuming but
00:21 important moments.
00:23 I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and this is The Simpsons - 10 More Moments More Important
00:27 Than You Realised.
00:28 In our previous list on the topic, we discussed the idea that Homer is able to fund his family's
00:36 eccentric lifestyle through royalty checks from his days in the B-sharps.
00:40 It is a fanciful theory for sure, but if that crazy idea doesn't suit you, then how about
00:44 this one involving an NFL franchise?
00:47 In the much-praised season 8 episode "You Only Move Twice", Homer receives a gift
00:51 from his former boss, the megalomaniacal supervillain Hank Scorpio.
00:55 After Homer inadvertently assisted Scorpio in his quest for world domination, the mega-rich
00:59 nutjob decided to splash some cash and buy his former employee the Denver Broncos.
01:04 This comes after a conversation where Homer revealed to Scorpio that his dream was to
01:07 one day own the Dallas Cowboys.
01:09 Well, you've gotta start somewhere I suppose.
01:12 Many Simpsons fans online have suggested that this might be yet another source of income
01:16 for the family.
01:17 Owning a football team would rake in some serious coin, and the Broncos have only gotten
01:21 better since "You Only Move Twice" was released.
01:23 Or at least, so I'm told.
01:24 So yeah, it kinda turns out Hank was a nice guy after all.
01:27 Well, if you discount all the people he murdered in cold blood, but who's counting?
01:34 In season 2's "Blood Feud", Bart saves Mr Burns' life when it's discovered that
01:37 the two share the same rare blood type.
01:39 To thank the boy and his family for keeping him alive, Burns sends them the generous gift
01:43 of a "thank you" card.
01:45 There wasn't even a check inside!
01:47 This escalates to the point where the billionaire's about to fire Homer when he realises the error
01:51 of his ways.
01:52 To make up for a rubbish first present, he sends the Simpson family a very unique offering.
01:57 In fact, he bestows upon them a colossal Olmec head, a large carving of a human head in the
02:02 style of the Olmec people of ancient Mesoamerica.
02:05 Whilst the family are initially baffled by the head, they do eventually accept it when
02:08 Bart decides he likes it.
02:10 Although, to be fair, he was happy with the crowbar used to open the crate in the first
02:14 place.
02:15 While you might have thought this was just a one and done affair, the head has appeared
02:17 in the background of dozens of episodes over the show, most often in the family basement.
02:22 And seeing it in newer episodes is a nice reminder of the show's humble beginnings,
02:25 even if the head itself doesn't actually do anything.
02:30 This episode of The Simpsons is kinda all over the place.
02:33 Thankfully, it's called Apocalypse Cow, which is a name so great that it kinda makes
02:37 up for all of its other shortcomings.
02:38 In said episode, Bart ends up raising a baby cow, going mad in a field, then rescuing it
02:43 from slaughter.
02:44 He does this with the help of Mary Spookler, the most intelligent offspring of Cletus and
02:47 Brandine.
02:48 Although, that's damning with faint praise of the highest order.
02:51 There's a plot where Mary and Bart almost get married as well, but the episode remains
02:55 mostly about the cow.
02:56 This all changes when Mary comes back into Bart's life, five seasons later.
03:01 In Moonshine River, another great title, Bart tries to convince Mary to be in a relationship
03:05 with him, after he figures he's only got so many chances left at love.
03:09 But wait, isn't Bart like ten?
03:11 If he's got no chance at love, then I guess the rest of us are just screwed.
03:14 Well, Mary herself turns up a few more times across the show, most notably in the episode
03:19 Love is a Many Splintered Thing.
03:21 Who could've expected that Mary would appear in multiple episodes of the show when she
03:24 first arrived, but hey, that's young love for you I guess.
03:29 The second and final appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb, so far anyway, comes in
03:33 an episode called Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?
03:36 While this story ends with Herb patenting a baby translator in an attempt to rebuild
03:40 his fortune, it starts with Homer getting some rather bad news about his swimmers.
03:44 See, a medical examination reveals that years of working in close proximity to nuclear radiation
03:49 has left Homer sterile.
03:50 Now Homer and Marge didn't plan to have any more kids anyway.
03:53 Well, that was the case for 21 seasons, until the episode Adventures in Baby-Getting came
03:59 along.
04:00 In this one, Marge reveals her hidden desire to have another child, only for Homer's
04:03 sterility to be re-revealed.
04:05 And we're not sure why, considering she'd known about it for over two decades.
04:12 When The Simpsons first did an episode set in the future, it was fine.
04:15 It was cool to see older versions of our favourite characters, and what the world of tomorrow
04:19 looked like.
04:20 Although they've done this trope all the flamin' time, and it gets really, really
04:24 boring because nobody cares about Bart's stupid kids.
04:27 But the episode where we first get a glimpse of things to come is Lisa's wedding from
04:30 season 6, when the middle Simpson kid comes across a fortune teller in the woods.
04:35 Set in the long distant future of 2010, we follow a grown up Lisa and her ill-fated engagement
04:40 with snobby Englishman Hugh Parkfield.
04:43 Guests at the doomed wedding include a wheelchair-bound Kristy, a recently defrosted Mr Burns, Ned
04:48 and Maud Flanders and… wait a second, Maud Flanders?
04:51 The same Maud Flanders that would be killed off in episode 1st broadcast in the year 2000?
04:55 How the hell can this be?
04:57 Well Maud's appearance in this episode proves that the fortune teller is talking a load
05:01 of BS and has no idea what she's on about.
05:03 But of course, we'd only know that once Maud actually did bite the dust.
05:07 5.
05:08 Marge's gambling problem
05:10 Every so often in The Simpsons, something will happen to a character that permanently
05:13 affects their personality.
05:15 This happens to Marge in Springfield, or How I Let It Stop Worrying in Love Legalised Gambling.
05:20 Aside from having one of the longest episode names in the history of the show, it also
05:23 shows Marge developing a gambling habit by spending too much time playing the slots.
05:27 The ending of this episode is actually quite dark as well, as Marge's issues don't
05:31 get resolved and she just has to live with them, a startlingly realistic approach to
05:35 portraying addiction.
05:37 Despite the bleakness of this ending though, many fans just assumed we would never hear
05:40 about Marge's problems ever again, but oh boy do we.
05:44 Her issues with gambling come up time and time again, more often than not for comic
05:47 effect.
05:48 There's a joke about throwing vodka in Maggie's face after a game of Candyland
05:51 that would be funny if it weren't so alarming, and Marge even goes full Danny Ocean and joins
05:56 a team of card counters to help fix the church in Season 26.
06:00 4.
06:01 Principal Skinner's prison number
06:03 This one is actually really clever.
06:05 It's a well-known joke that Principal Skinner's old Vietnam prisoner helmet, as shown in the
06:09 episode "Holmer's Barbershop Quartet", displays the number 24601.
06:12 And of course, this is the same number that Jean Valjean is branded with in the musical
06:16 Les Miserables.
06:17 And yeah, we know it was a book first, but honestly, who has time to read all of that?
06:22 Whilst this might just seem like the writers nodding to their favourite stage show, or
06:25 I guess book, but I don't believe it, the comparisons between Skinner and Valjean run
06:29 much deeper than just a number.
06:31 For instance, after being released from prison, Valjean must assume a new identity in order
06:35 to advance in society, and under his new name, he eventually becomes the respected mayor
06:40 of a large town.
06:41 Now think about Seymour Skinner, real name Armin Tamzarian.
06:45 He too took on a new name and used it to achieve a position of influence in the community,
06:49 and like his literary counterpart, his world also crumbles when his secret is found out.
06:54 Clues about Skinner's deception were there all along, and we just never saw them.
06:57 3.
06:58 Lisa and Nelson
06:59 Ralph Wiggum, Hugh Parkfield, Daniel Radcliffe's Edward Cullen parody, freakin' Milhouse.
07:05 When it comes to guys, Lisa Simpson is fresh out of luck.
07:08 And all of this is without mentioning Nelson Muntz, with whom Lisa had a brief attraction
07:12 to in the episode "Lisa's Date With Destiny".
07:15 Well as it turns out, this romance was far from brief, as it has cropped up a bunch of
07:19 different times over the show's subsequent episodes.
07:21 In fact, Nelson is often shown displaying favouritism towards Lisa, leaving her out
07:25 of his bullish actions, and he even goes to some pretty extreme lengths for him anyway
07:29 to impress her, including reading some books.
07:32 The idea of the pair ending up together actually came full circle in the Season 34 episode
07:37 "When Nelson Met Lisa", which imagines the life of the two if they got together in
07:40 adulthood.
07:41 And this came a whole 26 years after she and Nelson first became an item.
07:46 This love story has been one of the most enduring and surprising in the show's entire history.
07:50 Maybe they'll pay it off fully one day, or maybe Nelson will leave Lisa at the altar
07:54 to throw coleslaw at Skinner's house again, I dunno.
07:57 2.
07:58 Homer in a coma
07:59 This one is purely speculative, but the theory really does hold some water.
08:03 In an episode titled "So It's Come To This" - a Simpsons Clip Show - Bart decides
08:06 to prank his old man by seriously shaking up a can of beer.
08:09 However, Bart did such a good job that when Homer opened the can, it exploded with the
08:13 force of a neutron bomb.
08:15 This left Homer in a vegetative state for 7 weeks and caused him to lose 5% of his brain.
08:20 But did the coma do even more damage to our beloved patriarch than we thought?
08:24 Well a popular fan theory is that Homer never woke up at all, and that every episode after
08:28 this one takes place in his head.
08:30 And before you call everyone crazy, there is some serious evidence to back this up.
08:34 Not only would this explain why the plots of the show get more outlandish over the years
08:37 and why the timelines don't match up, but in the episode "Homer the Heretic", God
08:41 actually tells Homer that he'll die in 6 months.
08:44 And the clip show aired almost exactly 6 months after Homer the Heretic, so are we reading
08:50 too much into it?
08:51 Probably.
08:52 Is it compelling anyway?
08:53 You bet your arse it is.
08:54 1.
08:55 The First Door
08:56 Homer's signature expression "door" became so popular that it even entered the
09:00 Oxford English Dictionary in 2001.
09:02 Whilst the phrase did exist long before The Simpsons came along, "door" was definitely
09:06 popularised by Homer's voice actor.
09:08 His delivery of the word is iconic, which makes it all the more impressive that he actually
09:12 came up with it all on his own.
09:14 As is now folklore, whilst recording for The Simpsons when it was just a short on the Tracey
09:18 Ullman show, it was one innocent line marked "annoyed grunt" that eventually became
09:22 the iconic door that we know and love today.
09:25 Little did anyone know at the time that a piece of television had just been made by
09:29 this weird improvisation, but the saying and the show are now so synonymous with each other
09:33 that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't immediately associate the sound
09:36 with Springfield's most famous resident.
09:39 So that's our list, let us know what you think down in the comments below.
09:41 Did you ever think more about these important Simpsons moments, and are there any other
09:45 unassuming ones that had huge effects that I missed off here?
09:48 Let me know and while you're down there if you could please give us a like, share,
09:51 subscribe and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single
09:54 day.
09:55 I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.