Trivia: When the cast appeared on "Inside the Actors' Studio," Hank Azaria stated that the voice of Moe was based on a bad impression of Al Pacino. Ironically, not only did Azaria and Pacino share a scene together in Michael Mann's Heat (1995), they also share the same birthday.
Trivia: Another gag that makes the location of Springfield more ambiguous. In one episode the superintendent of the Springfield school systems says "This school used to be the worst in the state of Missouri." Everyone gives him a shocked look, and then he adds "which was why it was moved brick by brick to its present location."
Trivia: Mayor Quimby is based on John F. Kennedy, who had a habit of having sexual relations with many women whilst in office.
Trivia: Matt Groening did all his animation in black and white and another animator was in charge of coloring. When she chose yellow, Matt said it worked and liked it (consequently when she chose purple for trees they rejected it.) The idea behind the yellow after that is so when you're flipping through the channels and come across yellow animated characters, you'll know right away it's The Simpsons.
Trivia: Ned's real name is Nedward.
Trivia: Hank Azaria, voice for many of the characters on the Simpsons, said in an interview with Conan O'Brien that most of his voices were just bad celebrity impressions. Moe Syzlak is Al Pacino, Louie the cop is Sylvester Stalone, and Comic Book Guy is someone he went to college with who had a personality much like comic book guys. With other characters who Azaria doesn't do are also celebrity impressions. For example, Mayor Quimby is JFK.
Trivia: In New Zealand when the show was being shown on the TV2 network, the Itchy & Scratchy cartoons over a period of time were continually edited to try and remove as much violent content from them as possible. However around 2000-2001 the network edited out every single Itchy & Scratchy cartoon making the cartoon almost non-existent in the show despite some of the cartoon's content not being as objectionable as the rest.
Trivia: If you watch older episodes versus newer ones, Homer's voice changes noticeably. Dan Castellaneta claims that doing the original voice became too taxing on his vocal cords, so he gradually morphed into talking in the voice we now recognize.
Trivia: Creator Matt Groening holds the world record for the most DVD commentaries by one person. In total he has done over 100 commentaries over the first five seasons on DVD. The only episodes from seasons 1-5 he has not commented on are "Call of the Simpsons", "The Telltale Head", "The Crepes of Wrath" (all season one), "Homer and Apu" and "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" (both season five).
Trivia: The Simpsons has a joke that has been run many times in different forms. They make a reference to the movie "Ben Hur", a movie about a Roman Gladiator. It has a famous chariot scene where one of his opponents has a chariot with spikes on the wheels. He uses it to cut up his opponents wheels and make them crash. This joke is frequently used in the show. It can be seen in the episode where they go to New York, where Bart makes a Soap Box racer, and many others.
Trivia: The show was to have spawned a live-action spinoff, "Krusty the Clown", starring Dan Castellanata. Matt Groening abandoned the project in order to concentrate on "Futurama".
Trivia: The Simpson family appeared in the Tracey Ullman Show as crudely drawn cartoons. Matt Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators and assumed they would clean the figures up during production, but instead the animators just re-traced Groening's drawings.
Trivia: One of the sliest jokes in the series' entire run is the name of talk-show host Opal's boyfriend, Straightman. Steadman Graham, the longtime beau of Oprah Winfrey (on whom Opal is based), is rumored to be gay.
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.
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