Since its debut in 1989, The Simpsons has broadcast over 600 episodes, won more than
two dozen Emmys and a Peabody Award, and sold millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise.
It’s a pop culture juggernaut which means that there’s a small fortune of lore and
behind-the-scenes trivia out there about Springfield’s first family.
Pretty much the only adult Bart Simpson actually respects is kids’ TV show host Krusty the
Clown.
When Matt Groening and his writing staff were developing the show early on, however, someone
floated the concept that Krusty and Homer were actually going to be the same person.
As Groening told Entertainment Weekly:
"The original idea behind Krusty the Clown was that he was Homer in disguise, but Homer
still couldn’t get any respect from his son, who worshipped Krusty."
Unfortunately, it became too complicated a plot detail to work out once the show was
really getting off the ground, so the idea was abandoned but vestiges of the arc remain.
Krusty and Homer have an almost identical character design Krusty just has different
hair and clown paint, and they're both voiced by the same actor.
Later on, the sixth season episode "Homie the Clown" references the original idea, and
features Homer becoming a Krusty the Clown impersonator.
"Wow, I'm sorry I doubted you before, dad."
"If there has to be a bastardized version of Krusty, I'm glad it's you."
The Simpsons' rivalry with President George H.W. Bush goes back a lot further than the
neighborhood dispute which erupts in 1996’s "Two Bad Neighbors."
In a 1990 interview with People, then-First Lady Barbara Bush dismissed the show saying,
"It was the dumbest thing I had ever seen."
In response, the show's writers, under the guise of Marge Simpson, sent Mrs. Bush a letter
defending the show.
“Marge” wrote:
"I recently read your criticism of my family.
I was deeply hurt.
Heaven knows we're far from perfect and, if truth be known, maybe just a wee bit short
of normal; but as Dr. Seuss says, 'a person is a person.'"
Barbara apologized, but things didn’t end there.
Early in his 1992 re-election campaign, President Bush told the Convention of the National Religious
Broadcasters,
"We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families
a lot more like the Waltons, and a lot less like the Simpsons."
A subsequent episode of The Simpsons featured the family watching a clip of Bush’s speech.
"Hey, we're just like the Waltons.
We're praying for an end to the depression, too!"
In the Season Three episode "Stark Raving Dad," Homer is mistakenly sent to a psychiatric
institution, where he's befriended by a hulking, balding patient named Leon who identifies
himself as Michael Jackson.
He certainly had the voice of Michael Jackson because the real King of Pop lent his voice
to the character.
"Who are you?”
“I’m Michael Jackson of the Jacksons.”
“I’m Homer Simpson of the Simpsons."
In the credits, however, he was billed under the name "John Jay Smith."
So how did a relatively new TV series land the biggest pop star in the world?
Jackson simply phoned up and asked.
A fan of the show, Jackson at first wanted to play himself, but eventually went with
the writers when they conceived the character of Leon.
The Simpsons is one of the few successful, long-running TV shows to never have generated
a spinoff but it's not for a lack of trying.
In 1994, Matt Groening wrote a script for a new series that found Krusty the Clown getting
his own talk show and moving to Los Angeles.
But it wasn't going to be a cartoon Groening wanted it to be a live-action series, with
Krusty's voice actor Dan Castellaneta reprising his role in the flesh.
Eventually, Groening accepted it had to take the form an animated series instead, because
this whole thing was just too expensive to pull off in real life.
Unfortunately, the animated show never saw the light of day either, after negotiations
between Groening and Fox stalled… but creativity prevailed.
Groening's next project was a little show about Earth in the year 3000.
In late 1988, when The Simpsons was still just a feature on The Tracey Ullman Show,
producers made a deal with Butterfinger for a commercial featuring Bart Simpson.
The script called for Bart to compare lunches with a friend at school, so Simpsons staff
filed through a series of drawings that Groening had done for an ultimately unproduced NBC
Saturday morning cartoon set in a grade school.
The one they picked to use as Bart's foil was an especially nerdy-looking kid who remained
unnamed in the commercial.
He’d need a name, however, if he was to become part of The Simpsons proper.
"Is this the untimely end of Milhouse?
But Milhouse is my name!
But I thought I was the only one!
A pain that I know.all too well."
Why is he named Milhouse?
According to Groening,
"I named him Milhouse because I thought that was the most unfortunate name I could think
of for a kid."
"This is great!
And all I've done is enter my name!
Thrillhouse!"
The episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" parodied the once-common TV practice
of shows bringing in a cooler, younger, or out-of-this-world character to freshen things
up.
On The Simpsons, it's Bart's beloved Itchy & Scratchy cartoon which adds Poochie a sunglasses-wearing
"rappin' surfer" voiced by Homer.
Poochie ends up a total flop, with practically everyone but Homer seeing right through the
cheap ratings ploy The premise is paralleled in the Simpsons household, which suddenly
includes a never-before-seen, sunglasses-wearing dude named Roy, who at the end of the episode
moves out.
"Good news, everybody!
I'm moving into my own place with two sexy ladies!"
"Well, I guess this is goodbye, Roy."
Fox had recently tried to do the same thing to The Simpsons.
Before the eighth season began, Fox executives asked then-showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh
Weinstein to add a new, fresh face to The Simpsons family.
The writers gave them Roy and Poochie instead.
As for Poochie, well, he had the greatest send-off ever...
“I have to go now. My planet needs me.."