Weird Things You Never Knew About The Simpsons

The Simpsons is far more than a mere television show: It's a cultural institution. The series has been around for three decades, which probably explains why the four-fingered, buggy eyed, yellow-skinned denizens of Springfield have become just as recognizable as Mickey Mouse and the McDonald's logo. These days, it's easy to forget that The Simpsons didn't pop into existence fully formed. Along the way, there were a number of bizarre developments and changes in direction.

In real life, yellow skin is no laughing matter. Jaundice can be a sign of scary ailments, and considering both the widespread pollution in Springfield Lake and the town's close proximity to a corrupt nuclear power plant, it's hard not to get concerned about whatever bizarre medical ailment might be slowly killing the population, in addition to leaving them all with mutated appearances.

While we might never know if the Simpsons suffer from a strange disease, the real-life reason Matt Groening decided to paint his characters yellow is far more benign. In an interview with the BBC, Groening credited the yellow coloration to a sample that one of the animators showed him, and claims he decided to stick with the color simply because it would make the show stand out when viewers were flipping through the channels. As Mental Floss points out, yellow is a color that "pops" against blue backgrounds like the sky. (Spongebob Squarepants pops against the blue ocean much the same way.)

The Springfield family's bizarre features led to one particularly surreal scene, seen above, where Homer is horrified by a vision of his kids as "horrible freaks with pink skin, no overbites, and five fingers on each hand."

Centuries from now, The Simpsons might be best remembered as a "Who's Who" of contemporary celebrities, with countless movie stars, musicians, writers, and athletes playing animated versions of themselves. However, when legendary Beatles veteran Sir Paul McCartney was approached to appear on the show, he and his wife Linda required that the writers make one solemn vow: The character of Lisa Simpson had to adopt a vegetarian diet, and she had to stay true to it.

According to the Huffington Post, this unique request was because the McCartneys were vegetarians themselves. It's hard to say no to a former Beatle, so the writers went along, and in the episode "Lisa the Vegetarian," the most socially conscious Simpson was converted by an animated version of the McCartney couple. Voice actor Hank Azaria claims that the writers have sometimes considered having Lisa cheat on her diet, but so far, they've stayed true to their promise and arguably helped bring vegetarianism to the mainstream. Clever, Paul. Clever.

It's worth noting that despite the flak Lisa sometimes receives, she's actually Matt Groening's favorite character. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Groening explains, "I always carry in my heart that she is going to grow up and escape Springfield for a better life."

For years, a creepy urban legend has floated around the internet relating to the supposedly "lost" episode of The Simpsons. According to Comic Book Resources, the story goes that the production team went to great lengths to hide the existence of this episode, due to the fact that it depicts Bart Simpson gorily dying in a plane accident. This tragedy rips apart the Simpsons family, leading to extended crying sequences, as well as frequent depictions of Bart's rotting corpse, which apparently becomes more realistically drawn the longer he's dead. Since these rumors first surfaced, there have been occasional scraps of video and images which claim to be taken from the last episode.

If you think this sounds too weird to be true, you're right. The infamous "Dead Bart" episode is nothing but an internet legend created by the Creepy Pasta wiki just to rake in those sweet, sweet clicks. So yeah, it's basically like the spooky campfire stories you told as a kid, but with a digital twist where someone else makes money. That's fine, though: "Dead Bart" doesn't sound like the most enjoyable half-hour of television.

In the midst of the long run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, an internet meme emerged claiming that back in 2000, The Simpsons had accurately predicted billionaire Donald Trump's unexpected rise to presidential candidate, including such eerie details as Trump's ride on his escalator and even the style of his campaign logo. According to Snopes, the images in this meme actually originate from a 2015 clip, which simply adapted events (like the escalator ride) that had already occurred in real life. So yeah, not so prescient.

The one grain of truth in this whole thing is that The Simpsons did predict the rise (and controversy) of President Trump, albeit in far less detail. In the 2000 episode "Bart to the Future," Bart has a vision of a future where Lisa Simpson becomes president of the United States and casually mentions having inherited a huge budget crisis from "President Trump."(In real life, Trump had been talking about running for president for at least a year, at that point.) When Trump went on to win the 2016 election, the famous opening credits of The Simpsons reflected this by having Bart write "being right sucks" on the blackboard, according to the Washington Post.

Ned Flanders, the neat and tidy next-door neighbor, has always been positioned as Homer Simpson's opposite number. Whereas Homer is lazy and bad-mannered with poor hygiene and somewhat flexible morals, Ned is a devoted Christian with a seemingly perfect family life, a pleasant demeanor, and a kind, cheerful attitude. 

The two aren't quite equal counterparts, though. While Homer is generally presented as being in his late 30s to early 40s, Ned is secretly a lot older. In the episode "Viva Ned Flanders," the religious do-gooder reveals that he's actually 60 years old, much to the shock of Springfield's other residents. Ned's secret has nothing to do with plastic surgery, magic powers, or holy water: He claims that he has just follows the "Three Cs," which he describes as "clean living, chewing thoroughly, and a daily dose of vitamin church." He also claims that he never splurges or gives in to temptation, not even to eat ice cream, a declaration which earns the scorn of his fellow Springfield townies, and which leads Homer to suggest that Ned hasn't lived a day in his life. Maybe if The Simpsons stays on the air for another 20 years, he'll finally earn a couple more gray hairs.

The Simpsons has been around a long time, and if it lives any longer, Bart might need to start getting sword fighting lessons from the immortal Highlander star, Duncan Macleod. Still, there have been a couple times where the show approached the finish line, only to keep rolling forward. The most notable of these was in 2011, according to The Verge, when the sorta/kinda finale episode "Holidays of Future Passed" closed out the characters with a bittersweet look into the future, with Marge and Homer as grandparents.

Probably every writer who has ever worked on The Simpsons has debated series finale ideas, but current Simpsons showrunner Al Jean discussed one possibility on Twitter back in 2014: His notion is to end the show by depicting the Simpson family going to the same Christmas pageant that's shown at the beginning of the first episode, thus rendering the entire series a "continuous loop." Eternal return, much? Nietzsche would be proud.

However, the actual finale of The Simpsons might not occur for another century, so there's no guarantee that we'll see this idea come to fruition.