The Simpsons

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Question: Which episodes feature the "Howling Dog" (usually used on outside shots of buildings)?

The Way We Was - S2-E12

Question: In this episode, there is a song playing on the record player that starts off with someone singing "Don't be a baby, lady - just be a lady, baby" and then suddenly the classic 70's song "The Hustle" plays. The Hustle never had this intro in the real song that I'm aware of. My question is - was there ACTUALLY a version of "The Hustle" that included that start with those words or was it just made up for this episode on the show?

Homer's Enemy - S8-E23

Question: When Frank Grimes is shown on the news, where is he receiving his degree? He appears to be outside of a house, but he says later that he lives between two bowling alleys.

Answer: The news crew might have wanted to film him outside, on a nearby street, instead of going to his apartment. It looks more cheerful.

Answer: There's no telling. Possibly his parents' house. Possibly a house he sold when he moved to Springfield and he had to downgrade when his promised high-paying job went to a dog.

Brian Katcher

His parents abandoned him.

Good point. Then his own house, wherever he lived before Springfield.

Brian Katcher

You Only Move Twice - S8-E2

Question: After Smithers rejects the job offer from Globex, the associates speak to the "next most senior" employee at the plant - Homer. If I remember correctly, isn't Carl a supervisor over Homer?

Answer: "Next most senior" means Homer has worked at the plant longer than Carl, despite Carl's position as supervisor. Carl was simply promoted over employees that had been there longer (which isn't uncommon in the workplace).

Bishop73

It often happens because a more senior employee is not ideal, but they do just enough acceptable work that management will keep them around. Management doesn't want the hassle of the hiring process, and they might want to avoid unemployment pay or a possible lawsuit.

Tree House of Horror V - S6-E6

Question: Homer travels back in time and causes changes by what he does in the past, like stepping on a bug. I once saw a movie with the same basic plot: some people travel back in time and are told to be careful not to disturb anything, but when they return to their time everything has changed. In the end they discover it was because they stepped on a butterfly. Does anyone know the name of this movie?

Answer: I'm not sure if this is the one you're thinking of, but an episode of "Ray Bradbury Theatre," called "A Sound of Thunder," dealt with a similar matter: a group of hunters travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs, only to find things have changed when they get back because someone stepped on a butterfly.

Xofer

Answer: He means the TV dinner turned off during a lighting storm, as if it were an actual TV. Awful, awful joke.

Brother From Another Series - S8-E16

Question: In this episode, Sideshow Bob seems to no longer want to kill Bart (shown by his happiness at seeing him near the dam, and later on, saving his life, as well as Lisa's). But in episodes after this e.g. "Funeral for a Fiend" and "The Great Louse Detective", Bob suddenly wants to kill Bart again. What caused him to change his mind after this episode? It can't be because he thinks Bart is responsible for sending him back to jail because in this episode when Bob and Cecil get arrested, Lisa defends Bob and says he had nothing to do with it, and Lou even backs her up by saying that Cecil confessed to the whole thing.

Heather Benton

Chosen answer: While Sideshow Bob does rescue Bart, he never is truly over his hatred of him. At the end of "Brother From Another Series", Cecil is actually able to trick Bob into swearing revenge on Bart, which is why Bob is sent to prison despite being innocent of trying to blow up the dam, and Bart is once again his nemesis. Although time rarely passes in the show (i.e. Bart stays 10 for the most part), it's not until season 12 when Sideshow Bob appears next, and it's clear he's been in prison the whole time, with plenty of time to rebuild his anger and hatred over Bart (and Krusty).

Bishop73

Chosen answer: Uncle Al probably likes his nephew a lot. Wendy's hamburgers were named after the owner's daughter, so why not name a bowling alley after your nephew?

Captain Defenestrator

Show generally

Question: Why do the characters in this show, and other animated shows, always wear the same clothes and have just a few different outfits (ex: Marge's regular green dress and her Sunday dress)? Wouldn't most fans be able to recognize the characters even if they did wear different clothes in each episode?

Answer: They do this to make it easier to draw the thousands of cells they need to make a cartoon.

pross79

Lisa's First Word - S4-E10

Question: During this episode we see Bart stay with Flanders while Marge is in labour with Lisa. However Rod and Todd seem to be the same age here that they are in normal episodes. Lisa even babysits them in some episodes despite them obviously being at least 4 or 5 years older than her. Compared to Bart and Lisa, how old are they supposed to be?

strikeand

Chosen answer: This extensive discussion of Rod and Todd's ages appears in the website simpsons.wikia.com: "There is also some controversy as to which of the two is the elder. In "Dead Putting Society" the commentator at the golf tournament states that Todd is 10. In Homer Badman, one of the corrections that the TV-magazine show Rock Bottom makes is to their claim that "the older Flanders boy is Todd, not Rod" (although this could have been included purely to stir up fans). Later, in Bart Sells His Soul, the Flanders family eat out for Rod's "big ten-oh", suggesting the two are of similar age (however, the present time in at least one other Simpsons episode has been set two years before that of others, as shown by All's Fair in Oven War). However, in "My Sister, My Sitter" Lisa, when babysitting Rod and Todd, tells a story about a robot named Todd who "had a brother named Rod, who was two space years older than him". Todd responds by saying, "I don't like this story!" As Rod is shown to be quite a bit bigger and taller than Todd, the claim that Todd is the older brother is disputed. Rod and Todd were both born before Lisa (who is eight), Todd appearing a younger age than Bart (who is 10) in the episode "Lisa's First Word" (when Bart was entering "the terrible twos"). Despite these discrepancies, the Simpsons official website states that "Todd is the youngest and most impressionable member of the happy Flanders clan". This seems to trump any inconsistency concerning age seen in the episodes. On the other hand, the character profile for Rod Flanders in the book "The Simpsons: A Complete Guide To Our Favorite Family" describes him as the "youngest of the Springfield Flanders.", but they have made some mistakes in that book. Another possible reason for the variation is that, in the DVD commentaries for show, the writers have stated that they are never sure which Flanders sibling is Rod and which one is Todd and are often forced to check character models to be sure. According to the commentary, early show writers used two different mnemonics to identify the taller brother; first that Todd started with T and was Taller, or that Rod was long like a rod and hence taller."

Michael Albert

Chosen answer: Roman Polanski has been a fugitive from the US Government since 1978 after fleeing to France to avoid a rape conviction. Marge probably told Homer this and he decided to punish "his little Roman Polanski" for the real one's crimes.

Captain Defenestrator

Show generally

Question: I remember an episode where Moe picked up a hitchhiker in his car, then asked the man if he had seen some movie. When the man said no, Moe told him something like "Then this will all be new to you" and then drove down a scary-looking road. Does anyone know what part of what movie he was referring to?

Answer: He's referring to Misery, a book/film where a writer gets injured and then kidnapped by a rather overzealous fan.

Gary O'Reilly

Show generally

Question: In the showcase episode, where Troy McClure shows deleted scenes and the alternate endings for Who Shot Mr. Burns. Were these really alternates and deleted scenes, or just made up for this episode?

Answer: They probably never intended for anyone other than Maggie to shoot Mr Burns, but by having the animators animate all the different characters shooting him, it meant that they couldn't spill the beans before the episode was shown. Other than Maggie, the only other real possibility would have been Waylon Smithers, because they didn't just animate him shooting Mr Burns, they animated the whole scene (including Mr Burns revealing who it was in the hospital). By doing two endings, it meant that the people working on the show wouldn't be able to leak the ending. It is not uncommon for this to happen - it happened with season one of 24 which is why there are two different endings on the DVD.

Sam Johnson

Answer: Willy referred to an encounter he believed he had with actual aliens, while Wiggum thought he was referring to the arcade game.

Answer: The joke is that Willie was so addicted to Space Invaders that he believed it was reality: every time he played, he was actually defending the Earth from dangerous aliens. It's a surprise to him that it was actually a game.

Phoenix

Answer: According to Al Jean, the producers haven't decided yet but they have some ideas.

Phaneron

There was an episode in which Ned went to Springfield elementary as a substitute but left. Bart convinced him to come back. Then in S30s finale, "crystal blue haired persuasion", Flanders show Marge a test that Bart got in "his" class, suggesting he is the new teacher. However, Simpsons wiki fandom shows that it a is a temporary job.

Answer: Yes, and Barney is an ignorant drunk. It's a joke.

Answer: The idea probably being they're in the oil business, or at least in the pocket of Big Oil. There's been a long time conspiracy that oil companies killed the electric vehicle, so they could keep making money off gasoline.

Bishop73

Simpsons Spin-off Showcase - S8-E24

Question: Lisa refuses to appear in the variety comedy show. However, she does relatively "flashy" things in a few other episodes - i.e. participating in a beauty pageant. So I think it's odd that she disagrees with a comedy show. Is there a joke that I am missing?

Answer: Back in 1976, when "The Brady Bunch" cast reunited for "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" spinoff, Jan (Eve Plumb) declined to join the cast. She stated as her reason that she didn't want to be perpetually known as Jan Brady. She was replaced with actress Geri Reischl. The third segment of this Simpson's episode, titled, "The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour," was a parody of that show - with its questionably bad jokes and cheesy musical numbers. It also parodied the replacement of one of the children with an alternate cast member.

Michael Albert

Answer: Because Halloween episodes are not considered part of the Simpsons' series continuity (not that the writers care much about series continuity to start with). I'm surprised that you singled out this particular Halloween episode. Remember the nuclear holocaust, aliens enslaving humanity, or Homer's head becoming a donut? None of them had any lasting effect on the Simpsons' universe either.

J I Cohen

You Only Move Twice - S8-E2

Question: When the Simpsons are walking down the street and stop outside the sport store Bart says something like "Wow, a baseball made entirely of secretariat" Not sure of the spelling but what's secretariat?

troy fox

Chosen answer: A famous race horse.

J I Cohen

More mistakes in The Simpsons

Homer's brain: It's simple, just use reverse psychology.
Homer: Reverse psychology? That sounds too complicated.
Homer's brain: Alright, don't use reverse psychology.
Homer: Alright, I will!

More quotes from The Simpsons
The Simpsons trivia picture

Trivia: Maggie scans as $847.63 in the supermarket at the beginning (not NRA4EVER, as Troy Maclure asserts in 3F31 "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular), the price it costs to feed and care for the average American baby every month.

More trivia for The Simpsons

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