While many of the gags featured in The Simpsons are fairly straightforward, some are so complex that they are still being debated decades after they initially aired. During the show’s heyday, The Simpsons was a critical darling. The so-called Golden Age of The Simpsons (roughly seasons 3–12) was so acclaimed that many cultural commentators and writers still cite this period as some of the medium’s best comedy writing. As Matt Zoller Seitz noted when writing about the series, at its best, The Simpsons was “ambitious, intimate, classical, experimental, hip, corny, and altogether free in its conviction.” Seemingly endless rewrites contributed to this well-earned reputation.
According to The Simpsons writers, scripts from this era often underwent over 30 sets of rewrites. WhileThe Simpsons season 34 repeated stories from this period, the Golden Age was celebrated for its endless invention and creativity. However, these rewrites and ambitious attempts to outdo the show’s previous efforts eventually caught up to the creators of The Simpsons. In recent years, The Simpsons writers have taken to Twitter to admit even they didn’t get every joke from the show’s Golden Age. Sometimes, writers conceded that they didn’t realize a gag had a double meaning while, in other cases, the writer had a joke in mind, but viewers went with another punchline.
10 Moe’s So-called “Car Hole”
In The Simpsons season 6, episode 23, “The Springfield Connection,” Marge briefly becomes a police officer. The Simpsons eventually explained why Marge doesn’t need to work but, in this outing’s ending, she leaves the force due to rampant corruption. During an illegal poker game, Homer references his garage and prompts some mockery from Moe. Moe calls out what he sees as Homer’s pretentious phrasing, only for Homer to ask what Moe calls a garage. For years, viewers insisted that Moe’s answer was the less pretentious “car hold.” However, via Twitter, voice actor Hank Azaria later confirmed the line is “car hole.”
9 Do Not Touch (Groundskeeper) Willie
In The Simpsons season 7, episode 6, “Treehouse of Horror VI,” Willie takes the place of Freddy Krueger in an inspired parody of the Nightmare On Elm Street series. In the original movies, Freddy is burned to death by an angry mob whereas, in The Simpsons spoof, Willie is burned by an exploding boiler. This boiler explodes because Homer misreads a sign on the thermostat saying “Do not touch—Willie” as “Do not touch Willie.” For many non-American viewers, Homer admitting that this was “good advice” sounded like an obvious reference to masturbation. Not so for Josh Weinstein, who wrote the joke and told Twitter that he intended for Homer to mean the groundskeeper.
8 Burns’ Antiquated Phone Etiquette
For many viewers, Mr. Burns answering the phone with a jaunty “Ahoy hoy” is just another example of the old man’s eccentricities. However, this gag is secretly an ingenious way of confirming just how old Burns is. “Ahoy hoy” is how inventor Alexander Graham Bell wanted telephone users to answer calls, meaning Burns has been around since at least Graham Bell’s lifetime. While later seasons of The Simpsons focused on Fat Tony instead, this gag proves just how great a villain Mr. Burns is for the long-running series.
7 A Perfectly Cromulent Gag
Many gags in The Simpsons, like the Willie joke above, have been subject to debate because fans and writers had different ideas about their interpretation. However, other gags have changed their meaning because of the cultural staying power that The Simpsons itself has. Take Miss Hoover claiming “Embiggen” is a “Cromulent” word. When The Simpsons season 7, episode 16, “Lisa the Iconoclast” aired in 1996, the joke was that “Cromulent” and “Embiggen” are both made-up words. However, in the years since, both have become actual neologisms. As such, for viewers in 2023, Miss Hoover is technically correct when she tells Krabappel that “Embiggen” is a “Perfectly cromulent word.”
6 Hank Scorpio’s Shoes
In The Simpsons season 8, episode 2, the charismatic supervillain Hank Scorpio asks Homer if he likes his moccasins. Hank then tosses the shoes away before Homer can answer, bids them farewell, and asks Homer “Ever seen a guy say goodbye to a shoe?” When Homer answers yes, this prompted a never-ending fan debate over whether Homer was referring to an earlier, unrelated incident or Scorpio talking to his shoes seconds earlier. According to voice actor Dan Castellaneta (who improvised the line), he assumed it was the former, but finds the latter just as funny.
5 Sneed’s Infamous Store
While the more controversial South Park can get away with some seriously strong obscenity, The Simpsons has always steered clear of outright filthy humor. When The Simpsons does indulge in blue humor, it is generally hidden behind double entendres. One instance of this can be seen in The Simpsons season 11, episode 5, “E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt),” where the family passes a general store named Sneed’s Feed and Seed (Formerly Chuck’s). For years, Internet forum posters wondered what this joke could possibly imply before The Simpsons writer Ian Maxtone-Graham finally confirmed that it is exactly what it sounds like via Twitter.
4 Ralph The Viking
In The Simpsons season 7, episode 5, “Lisa the Vegetarian,” Ralph is delighted by the prospect of sleep. He says the now-infamous line “Oh boy, sleep! That’s where I’m a Viking!” This led some fans to assume Ralph meant he was great at sleeping, making him a metaphorical Viking. Other viewers assumed Ralph literally meant that he is a Viking in his dreams. Interestingly, writer Josh Weinstein confirmed that the former explanation was his understanding of the line, but fellow writer Mike Scully said he thought that the latter joke was the intended punchline.
3 Flannery O’Connor Vs Homer Simpson
In The Simpsons season 5, episode 11, “Homer the Vigilante,” Homer becomes the head of a militia that causes more crime than it curbs. During this misadventure, he boasts about harassing a civilian, saying he warned him “Listen, buddy, your car was upside-down when we got here. And as for your grandmother, she shouldn’t have mouthed off like that.” On the surface, this joke seems straightforward. However, Medium writer Mark Dellandre noted that this is remarkably similar to the ending of Flannery O’Connor’s iconic short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” meaning Homer may have murdered an elderly woman in one of the darkest Simpsons jokes ever.
2 Homer’s Towel Conundrum
In The Simpsons season 5, episode 12, “Bart Gets Famous,” Homer answers the phone with the infamous line “You’ll have to speak up, I’m wearing a towel.” For some viewers, this seemed like it was an obvious non-sequitur. Homer simply said a line that was funny on the face of it because it was random and meaningless. However, other fans noted that people with longer hair often wrap their hair in a towel to dry, meaning they could reasonably need a caller to speak up because they are wearing a towel. The unanswered question, then, is whether Homer misunderstood why people say this, or if he is simply saying something bizarre.
1 Put It In H
In The Simpsons season 4, episode 9, “Mr. Plow,” Homer considers purchasing a car from Crazy Vaclav’s Place of Automobiles. This prompts a scene that spawned countless Simpsons memes as Vaclav urges Homer to “Put it in H” as he pilots a ludicrously small car. Like Marge’s hair in The Simpsons, this line spawned all manner of fan theories. One noted that, in the Cyrillic alphabet, the letter “H” would be the letter “N” (for Neutral). While Josh Weinstein noted that this was unintentional, the fact that the car’s markings are in Cyrillic and Crazy Vaclav speaks in an Eastern European accent means that this would make sense. Like many debated jokes from The Simpsons, this one works with both punchlines.
Sources: Twitter, Medium
