This article contains mentions of sexual assault and child abuse.
After 37 years on the air, it feels like The Simpsons has always been around and probably will continue to be until the end of time. With that much time on our screens, it isn’t surprising that the show has been so influential on pop culture. It also comes as no surprise that it’s had its ups and downs throughout the years.
The Simpsons is satire, which means it’s filled with humor in the form of visual gags, long-running jokes, or simple throwaway lines. However, after so many years, some of this humor hasn’t particularly aged well. In some cases, it’s become obsolete, while in others it’s proof that what was once funny in the ’90s is no longer amusing today. Some gags, though, have aged very poorly, making certain episodes much more awkward and painful to sit through.
The Sweatshop Intro
Season 22, Episode 3 “MoneyBART”
Possibly the most notorious couch gag from the opening of one of The Simpsons episodes ever was the sweatshop intro, created by the British graffiti artist Banksy. It opened, of course, with the Simpson family landing on their couch, then panned out to show this was actually just a photo hanging in an Asian sweatshop. The colors went from bright to muted, as exhausted animators drew cells and created merchandise for The Simpsons, while sitting amongst toxic waste and bones.
It was the first time an artist had been invited to storyboard the show, and it was controversial; at the time there were reports that the show was outsourcing much of its animation work to South Korea. The South Korean studio that had to animate it found the sequence offensive (via TIME), and time hasn’t made this visual gag any better. Between the racial stereotypes and the appearance of making fun of a serious issue like sweatshops, it’s just as much in poor taste now as it was then.
The Sexual Assault Prank Call
Season 13, Episode 1 “The Simpsons Guy”
Crossovers can be a lot of fun, and when The Simpsons and Family Guy teamed up to do one, fans expected to see some of the more crass Family Guy humor make its way into the episode. Indeed, it did, particularly when Bart and Stewie Griffin met. Stewie took a liking to Bart, and the two rambunctious characters were off to the races, causing trouble.
This led Bart to teach Stewie how to prank call Moe’s Tavern, one of the show’s long-running gags. However, Stewie really didn’t understand the assignment, and ended up yelling, “Your sister’s being raped!” before hanging up. Needless to say, jokes about sexual assault aren’t any funnier now than they were then (and this was hardly Family Guy‘s first time joking about the subject). Thankfully, even Bart seemed as unimpressed with Stewie as the rest of us.
This World Trade Center Joke
Season 9, Episode 1 “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson”
One joke that aged poorly fairly quickly came in the episode where Homer takes the family to New York City to retrieve his car after Barney illegally parked it by the World Trade Center. The Twin Towers were prominent in the episode, since the car was right there. At one point, while Homer dealt with the car and his hatred of New York, he had an exchange with a random New Yorker who said, “They stick all the jerks in Tower 1.”
The episode aired in 1997, but after 9/11, the joke acquired a bitter aftertaste. The entire episode was difficult for some to watch after that, and “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson” was banned for a few years before it was finally brought back for syndication. Some countries even cut that line out before the episode was re-aired.
Nelson Beats Up Milhouse Over A Love Letter
Season 8, Episode 7 “Lisa’s Date with Density”
Homophobic violence in the media (and in real life) in the 1990s was, unfortunately, all too common. The Simpsons played into that with this episode, in which Lisa developed a crush on bad-boy Nelson. At one point, she enlisted Milhouse’s help to pass a love note to Nelson during class. However, Nelson believed that the letter of affection came from Milhouse.
After that, there’s a scene cut to Milhouse being rolled out of the school on a stretcher, implying that Nelson had beaten him so badly that he required a hospital. Sure, this wasn’t the first or last time Nelson would beat Milhouse up, as it was par for their nerd/school bully relationship (and one fan theory posits that Nelson did so because he’s secretly gay). Still, the reason behind the violence in this particular altercation leaves a particularly bad taste in the mouth. It’s also difficult to believe that Lisa still had a crush on Nelson after that, but at least she learned by the end of the episode that it’s not so easy to change people.
Homer Strangling Bart
Multiple Episodes
One of the longest-running tropes on The Simpsons is Homer strangling Bart. At first, it’s easy to wave it off, because they’re cartoon characters, and some would argue it doesn’t matter at all. Cartoon violence is embedded into the show’s DNA on more than one level, after all, with Itchy and Scratchy engaging in it within canon. Despite that, Homer’s constant attacks on Bart represent child abuse, which is never funny, and the gag hasn’t aged well as times have changed.
In fact, the show has dialed back the strangling in recent years, with Homer even saying in season 35, episode 3, “McMansion & Wife,” that he didn’t strangle Bart anymore because “times have changed!” Many fans were glad to see the gag dropped (though others less so). However, Homer was back at it at the beginning of season 36, proving that things never really change in Springfield.
Homer’s Stolen Academy Award
Season 7, Episode 12 “Team Homer”
The Simpsons has seemingly predicted the future several times over, but in this instance that prescience was nowhere to be seen, making this short visual gag unfortunate in hindsight. In “Team Homer,” Homer and his friends want to join a bowling league and receive funds from Mr. Burns to do so. Mr. Burns, of course, didn’t part with his money willingly, as he was in an ether fog. Once he discovers what’s happened, he insists on joining the team. When the team accidentally wins, he takes home the trophy for himself.
The poorly aged joke plays out when Homer laments to Marge that the team will never win, and that he built a trophy case for nothing. The trophy case comes into view, and an Academy Award with the name “Dr. Haing S. Ngor” is shown. (Ngor won the award for 1984’s The Killing Fields.) At the time, his name on the trophy was fine.
However, the episode originally aired in January 1996. Ngor was murdered in February 1996, making the joke seem in bad taste afterward, especially as producers were concerned that Homer having that same trophy in syndication would imply he had killed Ngor for it. So, before syndication, the name on the trophy was changed to Don Ameche.
Elementary School URL
Season 18, Episode 2 “You Only Move Twice”
This is one of the sillier outdated things from The Simpsons, one that became obsolete sooner than expected. Still, when it first aired in 1996, the joke worked. In this episode, the Simpson family moves to a new town after Homer takes a job with the delightful Hank Scorpio, a secret supervillain. When Bart and Lisa approach their new school, the sign outside reads “Cypress Creek Elementary School” and features a URL beneath the school’s name.
This obviously doesn’t work as humorously these days, as every school has a website. When “You Only Move Twice” aired, though, the idea of a school having a website was ridiculous and completely out of the ordinary, making the URL funny. This visual gag honestly might be the most dated in The Simpsons‘ collection.
Chief Wiggum’s Jared From Subway Halloween Costume (And His Unfortunate Description Of It)
Season 17, Episode 4 “Treehouse of Horror XVI”
“Treehouse of Horror XVI” is another instance where The Simpsons‘ supposed foresight would have come in handy, but alas. In the final segment of the show’s annual Halloween special, a witch curses Springfield, so everyone becomes whatever costume they’re wearing. Chief Wiggum was dressed as “Jared from Subway” and uttered the line, “I’m only a little overweight and sexually ambiguous!” which ended up being an extremely poor choice of words.
Though he’s rather notorious now, for those who aren’t aware, Jared Fogle was a Subway spokesperson for 15 years, whose whole deal was talking about how he lost weight eating the company’s sandwiches. In 2015, Fogle was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of child pornography and child sex tourism. This made Chief Wiggum’s description of being “sexually ambiguous” extremely uncomfortable in hindsight.
The Bartender Looks Like John Travolta
Season 6, Episode 4 “Itchy & Scratchy Land”
For those looking for The Simpsons joke that went badly the quickest, this one is the winner. Bart and Lisa convinced their parents to take them to the brand-new Itchy & Scratchy Land, which, in true Simpsons fashion, ended poorly when Homer and Bart got into trouble and were placed in a holding cell at the park. Before that, though, Homer and Marge visited Itchy’s ’70s Disco, where Marge noted that the bartender looked like John Travolta, to which the barkeep replied, “Yeah, looks like.”
To audiences today, this exchange isn’t amusing in the slightest. The bartender resembles Travolta? So, what? However, at the time, Travolta’s career was on the rocks, making the exchange a reference to a possible job change. However, the episode aired approximately a week before Pulp Fiction hit theaters and revitalized Travolta’s career, making the joke almost instantly obsolete.
The Onscreen Attack Of The Gator Baiter
Season 15, Episode 8 “Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens and Gays”
This parody of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, aired in 2004 and became yet another gag that became uncomfortable and extremely unfortunate. In this episode, Bart was watching a documentary featuring the Gator Baiter when a crocodile bit the host. Lisa switched the channel when that happened, and by the time it was changed back, the host had been dismembered and most likely killed.
Irwin died in 2006 due to being pierced in the chest by a short-tail stingray while filming for a documentary series called Ocean’s Deadliest. The tragic incident is believed to be the only stingray death caught on video, making The Simpsons Irwin parody featuring Gator Baiter’s probable death by crocodile a much poorer joke these days.
- Release Date
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December 17, 1989
- Network
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FOX
- Showrunner
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Al Jean
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Homer Simpson / Abe Simpson / Barney Gumble / Krusty (voice)
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Marge Simpson / Patty Bouvier / Selma Bouvier (voice)
