The adventures and hijinks of Springfield’s beloved Simpson family have been a perennial favorite for over 30 years now, offering viewers untold amounts of laughs and guffaws (even if the show began going downhill after Season 7). And for an animated sitcom that’s been around for so long, a lot of episodes have aged quite nicely (their cracks at Donald Trump and Woody Allen, for example, have certainly come into their own).
But some episodes and gags aren’t so lucky. Before diving in, it’s important to clarify what it means for an episode to have not “aged well”. The Simpsons was conceived and created in a vastly different socio-political culture than exists right now. In this sense, the way it tells jokes and frames its subject matter will be different from modern alternatives. Things change, and 30 years is a long time. The show shouldn’t be admonished for sometimes having dated views (if anything, the way the show utilizes stereotypes serves as a useful time-capsule), and so the focus shouldn’t be on the individual gags, and more along the lines of what the message of each episode is.
So, instead, this list focuses on episodes that have aged poorly for a variety of reasons…
Stark Raving Dad has not only aged badly, but perhaps also dangerously. An early-season favorite of many, the episode sees Homer befriend a beefy white man in a mental institution who claims to be the real Michael Jackson…and Homer believes him. He takes the faux-Michael home to 747 Evergreen Terrace, where he bonds with the rest of the family and even writes Lisa a birthday song, before revealing his real name is Leon Kompowsky and then is never seen again.
Voiced by the real Jackson himself, it’s perhaps obvious why the episode hasn’t stood the test of time. In the 2019 mini-series Finding Neverland, its alleged that Jackson sexually assaulted numerous children; seeing him act all chummy with Bart and Lisa in the episode no longer feels right. Not only that, Simpsons producer Al Jean believes that Jackson had actually used the episode itself to groom the boys for sexual abuse, making it perhaps the most dangerous episode of all time. As it currently stands, Stark Raving Dad is the only episode not available on Disney+.
If any episode has aged poorly the quickest, it’s No Good Read Goes Unpunished. Released in 2018, the majority of the episode is largely forgettable, featuring videogames and childhood books, but the ending offers a real kicker – it directly responds to the criticisms leveled at the show by the documentary, The Problem with Apu by Hari Kondabolu.
The documentary looks at the issues of representation caused by the character of Apu, and how he was (at the time) voiced by the white actor Hank Azaria. In the film, Whoopi Goldberg goes as far as the call the situation “brownface”. And what was The Simpsons’ response in this episode? With a framed photo of Apu in the foreground, Lisa says, “something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”. In a final twist of the knife, the characters go as far to say that they’ll address this controversy “later… if at all”… this racist choice of casting was clearly not a priority for The Simpsons staff. However, given the resurgence of race-related conversations following the murder of George Floyd, the show has very quickly backtracked and announced that Azaria will no longer be voicing the Indian character… that “if at all” did not age well “at all”.
Released in 1994, Homer Badman predicted the MeToo movement twenty years before the campaign had even gotten off the ground. In the episode, Homer stands accused of groping a grad student babysitter, after reaching to remove a gummy Venus de Milo off her rear end. This misunderstanding snowballs until Homer is relentlessly hounded by TV pundits and protesters for his supposed sexual harassment (as one protester’s sign aptly puts it, “YOU PINCH, WE LYNCH”).
Unfortunately, with Homer being innocent of any nefarious wrongdoing, the episode quickly becomes a loose defense of all men accused of groping women, innocent or not. TV shows and protesters who call out such gropers are framed as violent and aggressive (one of the interviewers is a literal bear, for example), and people upset by his supposed actions are seen as weak-willed (as one woman cries on a chat show, “I don’t know Homer Simpson, I never met Homer Simpson or had any contact with him, but… I’m sorry, I can’t go on.”). While there’s of course two sides to this argument in the real world – there are men each year who are falsely accused, like Homer – this episode just minimizes the pain and reality of women who are harassed whilst also saying “hey, not ALL guys…!”
If any episode suffers the most from the show’s 20-minute run time, it’s Much Apu About Nothing. In the episode, Mayor Quimby creates “Proposition 24”, which would force all illegal immigrants in Springfield to be deported, with Apu being one such example. After initially trying to obtain a false passport, Apu eventually decides to become a legal citizen through the proper channels instead. He passes a citizenship test and becomes a legal resident.
The difficulty comes in the episode trying to fit all the nuance of this heated issue into 20 minutes… and it just can’t. As a result, its presentation of immigration becomes hyperbolic and superficial –the Springfield residents are framed as going from belligerently racist to emphatically liberal and back again with such speed that their reasoning makes no sense. Moreover, the entire issue boils down to one message – seemingly just pass a citizenship test and it’ll be fine. With the issue of immigration only becoming more incendiary and complex in recent years, Much Apu About Nothing’s overt simplification has not aged well at all.
Here’s the thing: it’s great that this episode hasn’t aged well. As previously stated, The Simpsons works best when it acts as a time capsule for the beliefs of the moment, reflecting the commonly-held views of society from when each episode was made. Homer’s Phobia is a perfect example of this. After warming to the camp John (voiced by the legendary John Waters) at the mall, the Simpsons quickly strike up a firm friendship… until Homer discovers John is gay. Afraid Bart will also become homosexual if he continues to spend time with John, Homer brings his son on a whole host of ‘manly’ activities, like hunting.
First aired in 1997, the episode captures many of the then-beliefs surrounding being gay. It suggests that it’s something that could be taught or caught, that it makes them less of a ‘man’ – in other words, that it’s something to be wary and frightened of. Homer’s response to John very much makes him a man of his time, with his eventual begrudging acceptance of gays actually being quite progressive. So no, Homer’s treatment of John doesn’t stand up to modern standards, but that’s a good thing – it’s important to know how attitudes have changed, and Homer’s Phobia serves as a fantastic point of comparison.
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