The Simpsons has been around for so long, the series can be used to mark the passage
of time. In fact, plenty of the show's current viewers were born after it debuted in 1989.
If you're one of these fans, check out the most popular episode from the year you were born.
The most popular episode of The Simpsons to air in 1989 was also the only one to
air that year. Of course, we're talking about "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire," the very
first full-length episode of what is now the longest-running show in primetime history.
It's a classic Simpsons tale about Homer bumbling through life in order to make his family happy
and it's packed with relatable moments, hilarious disappointments, and cutting satirical humor.
Early in the story, the Simpsons' Christmas celebration is put in serious jeopardy when power
plant owner Mr. Burns chooses fat executive raises over holiday bonuses for employees.
Homer doesn't tell Marge the bad news, because he thinks he can dip into a big
jar of money she has stashed in her hair. Unfortunately, Marge ends up using this
emergency fund on laser skin surgery for Bart after he gets a tattoo when her back is turned.
Forced to take on a second job for the holidays, Homer becomes a lackluster mall Santa. He only
ends up earning $13 and decides to bet it all at the dog track, where he promptly loses
everything. But, fear not, this first Simpsons episode has a happy ending. After the race,
the losing dog that Homer bet on jumps into his arms and Bart asks if they can keep him.
"He's a loser. He's pathetic. He's...a Simpson."
In 1990, The Simpsons was just about the hottest thing on television and Bart quickly became the
breakout star. So it's not surprising that he served as the centerpiece of the show's
second-season premiere, "Bart Gets an 'F'," which was also the most popular episode of the year.
Appropriately enough, this installment forces Bart to reckon with his immature decisions and
bad boy ways. After faking his way through a book report on Treasure Island, which he didn't bother
to read, and cheating off of Milhouse on a test, the school psychiatrist tells Homer and Marge that
it would be best for Bart to repeat the fourth grade. Dead set against it, Bart actually tries
to improve his marks, and gets class-brain Martin to tutor him in exchange for popularity lessons.
After forcing himself to study, Bart defies everyone's expectations and does well enough
on a history test to pass — though he just barely scores a D minus. Still,
it was enough to earn his test a coveted place on the fridge right next to one of Lisa's many A's.
Viewers can pick up clues from early episodes of The Simpsons that Homer and Marge are in their
late 30s, and met at Springfield High School. The 1991 flashback episode "The Way We Was"
provides a lot more detail by depicting the story of Homer and Marge's first days as a couple.
The idea of a Simpsons episode set in the 70s, featuring a young Homer and Marge,
was irresistible and "The Way We Was" ended up as the most-watched episode of 1991.
Back in 1974, high school senior Homer lands in detention yet again for smoking in the boys' room.
Studious Marge winds up there for the first time, because she burned a bra at a feminist rally.
When she walks into detention, it's love at first sight for Homer, and he immediately
wants to ask her to the prom. To get close to Marge, he hires her as his French tutor,
despite not actually taking that class. After an undeniable chemistry develops
between them — and she accepts his prom invite — he lets it slip that he lied about French class.
Feeling betrayed, Marge goes to the prom with handsy nerd Artie Ziff instead,
standing up a heartbroken Homer. At the end of an awful night for both of them,
Marge picks up Homer off the side of the road, and they share their first, fate-sealing kiss.
While "Lisa's First Word" prominently features Lisa as a baby, the real reason
this is the most-viewed episode of 1992 is that it was a huge milestone in the life of Maggie.
In the run-up to this episode's airing, Fox heavily hyped the fact that Hollywood legend
and Academy Award-winner Elizabeth Taylor would guest star as the voice of Maggie.
Towards the beginning of the story, the Simpsons' move into their home on Evergreen Terrace,
but that's just the first of many changes in store for the family. Bart is also forced to contend
with a creepy clown bed that Homer made because he needs to give up his crib for the newly born Lisa.
The new addition gets so much of his parents' attention that Bart starts acting out and
threatens to run away. But he's stopped in his tracks when Lisa says her first word:
"Bart." At the end of the episode, the action returns to the present, where Homer puts Maggie
to bed, telling her he's in no rush for her to speak because he doesn't want her to talk back.
After he leaves the room, Maggie delivers the moment everyone was waiting for.
"Daddy"
It's no secret that Homer is a man of simple pleasures,
especially when it comes to alcohol. But in "Duffless," the most-popular episode of 1993,
Homer pays the price for his endless love of beer.
As the story begins, Homer sneaks out of work to take the Duff Brewery tour with Barney.
Naturally, they both have a few samples, rendering Barney physically unable to drive.
Homer, who didn't indulge as much as Barney, gets behind the wheel,
and is immediately busted by Chief Wiggum. Charged with drunk driving,
Homer is stripped of his license and forced to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
"My name is Homer and I'm just here because the court made me come."
"Homer, with our help you'll never touch a beer again."
Marge, worried about Homer's addictive behaviors, thinks giving up beer for a month might be a good
idea for him. He reluctantly agrees, and though it's extremely difficult, he eventually succeeds.
In the process, he saves $100 and loses so much weight that he no longer sweats while eating.
At the end of the month, Homer even resists his urge to down a few beers at the bar. Instead,
he goes on a romantic bike ride with Marge. Let's just hope he didn't end up taking her to Moe's.
The Simpsons' annual Halloween specials are a TV tradition that still endures to this day. In 1994,
the phenomenon reached critical mass as "Treehouse of Horror V,"
ranked as the most viewed episode of the year.
The episode starts with a parody of the horror classic The Shining, where Mr. Burns hires the
Simpsons to be the winter caretakers of his remote mountain lodge. But he makes sure to get rid of
all the beer and TV sets, sending Homer into a murderous rage. Then in "Time and Punishment,"
Homer tries to fix the family's toaster and accidentally turns it into a time-travel device.
After going back way too far and squishing a prehistoric insect,
Homer zaps his way through various bizarre timelines created by his actions, including a
Ned Flanders-ruled dystopia. The episode finishes out with "Nightmare Cafeteria." In this segment,
Principal Skinner helps Lunchlady Doris figure out new ways to serve the kids on a budget.
"Are you saying that you killed Jimbo, processed his carcass, and served him for lunch?"
"Hah!"
While the owner of Springfield's Nuclear Power Plant, Mr. Burns, is famously cruel, the 1995
episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 1" demonstrates just how low the wicked tycoon is willing to sink.
After oil is discovered under Springfield Elementary School,
bringing much-needed funds to the poorly-resourced institution, Burns steals the lucrative crude with
his "slant drilling" company. Not only does he destroy large parts of the town in the process,
including the Springfield Retirement Castle and Moe's Tavern, he creates a monopoly on energy,
forcing everyone in the region to get their power from Burns' sources.
By the end of the episode, Burns has been shot by an unknown assailant,
and is barely clinging to life while sprawled out on a sundial. Of course, this is only part one of
The Simpsons' most famous cliffhanger, which left the world wondering "who shot Mr. Burns?"
"Well, I couldn't possibly solve this mystery. Can you?"
"Yeah, I'll give it a shot."
Two years after earning some of its biggest Halloween ratings ever, another Simpsons'
fright-fest, "Treehouse of Horror VII," scared up enough viewers to rank as the top episode of 1996.
Some of the interest in this episode might have been influenced by that year's presidential race,
which was between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. The Simpsons, always a satirical show,
made fun of both candidates in this Halloween special by having recurring alien invaders Kang
and Kodos abduct the two men, take over their bodies, and run for president in their place.
As the aliens point out, the United States has a two-party system, so Americans have to vote
for one of them — and then wind up enslaved. In the anthology episode's other segments,
Lisa's tooth-in-a-Petri-dish experiment leads to a rapidly evolving society where she is worshiped
and, in the final story, the family confronts Hugo,
Bart's monstrous twin brother, who's been kept chained up in the Simpson's attic.
Fox was responsible for more than a few hits that dominated pop culture in the 1990s,
but only one dared crossover with The Simpsons: The X-Files. Bringing FBI agents Fox Mulder
and Dana Scully to The Simpsons was, at its core, a publicity stunt, and it worked like
gangbusters: "The Springfield Files" was the most popular episode of 1997.
One night, a very drunk Homer walks home from Moe's Tavern and stumbles into the woods,
where he comes face to face with something completely unexplainable:
A wispy, glowing, big-eyed creature resembling popular depictions of aliens.
News of the encounter reaches Mulder and Scully,
and they journey to Springfield to investigate the mysterious sighting.
Eventually, it's not the X-Files duo that cracks the case,
but Lisa. She forces Smithers to come forward and explain that the presumed alien is actually
the elderly and decrepit Mr. Burns. It turns out that his weekly life-preserving
medical treatments leave him so confused and disoriented that he wanders around the woods.
The glow is simply a side effect from working around nuclear power for so long.
In "Bart Carny," the best-performing episode of 1998, The Simpsons explore
the sketchy world of traveling carnivals.
When the carnival comes to Springfield and the family decides to check it out, Bart gets himself
into trouble almost immediately. He hijacks a car that the carnival claims once belonged to
Adolf Hitler and smashes it into a tree. To pay for the damages, Bart and Homer become carnies.
Under the tutelage of father-son carnie duo Cooder and Spud, the Simpson guys learn all
about fixing games and bribing police. Although, Homer fails to properly pay off Chief Wiggum,
despite his many hints. This gets Cooder and Spud's game shut down,
which is also where they live. Taking pity on them, Homer invites them to stay with the family.
He soon learns that he shouldn't have trusted the two carnies. Before long,
they temporarily assume ownership of the house and won't let the Simpsons back in.
"You can't do this to me. What about the carnie code?
[mocking laughter]
In "Maximum Homerdrive," the most-watched episode of 1999, Homer is intrigued by a promotional stunt
at a steakhouse: Whoever can eat a 16-pound steak with all the trimmings gets it for free.
He then accepts a challenge from a long-haul truck driver named Red Barclay,
who bets Homer that he can finish the huge meal before he does. Red is the first to polish off
his steak, but in the process, he dies of what Dr. Hibbert diagnoses as "beef poisoning."
Homer, taking all the wrong lessons from this experience, decides there's only one thing to do:
complete Red's last delivery with Bart by his side. Of course,
he does this without knowing how to drive a big rig or understanding the culture of the road.
"He wants you to blow your horn."
"Oh."
"That little punk!"
It's a little surprising that it took until The Simpsons's 12th season for trickster Bart
to become a professional con artist. Fans were apparently eager to experience this
foregone conclusion firsthand, as "The Great Money Caper" was the top episode of 2000.
At the beginning of the story, a sturgeon falls from a space station and crashes into the
Simpsons' car. After that unexpected event, Bart and Homer decide to busk as a magic act so they
can earn enough money to fix the family car. The scheme doesn't go according to plan and the duo
only earns sixty cents. Homer quickly loses his patience with Bart and drives away without him.
When passersby take pity on the boy, he starts raking in the cash without having to do anything.
After Bart takes a taxi home and buys himself a steak dinner, both Simpson guys realize that they
could just grift people to earn money, no busking skills required. Naturally, it all goes bad and,
eventually, Homer and Bart get caught by an FBI agent. But even that is a ruse. The agent is,
in fact, an actor hired by Marge to teach Homer and Bart a lesson.
The 2001 episode "HOMR" attempts to explain why the Simpsons' dad has such a unique personality,
to put it kindly. Fans were so eager to learn how he got
to be so Homer-like that they made it the most-watched episode of the year.
After Homer gets a job as a medical test subject, doctors find a crayon lodged in his brain. It
turns out that when Homer was a child he shoved 16 of them up his nose. He thought that he had
sneezed them all out but one stubborn crayon stuck around for decades. After Homer has
it surgically removed, his unencumbered brain finally works correctly. In fact,
Homer suddenly becomes intelligent, cultured, and able to relate to brilliant Lisa for once.
They even go to the library together. However, after a few ups and downs, Homer realizes that
he was much happier when he was less intelligent. Luckily, Moe is more than willing to hammer the
crayon back into his brain and restore Homer's previous level of intelligence.
"Extended warranty? How can I lose?"
"Perfect."
"Large Marge" from 2002 is absolutely packed with silly sight gags, which helped it become the most
popular episode of the year. For example, when Lisa wins a bet with Homer and gets to
choose their Daddy-Daughter Day activity, she has them build houses for Domiciles for the
Destitute. They work alongside ex-presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and Jimmy Carter,
who engage in Three Stooges-esque physical comedy and violent slapstick.
Later, at the worksite, Homer demonstrates to a couple women how Marge birthed Bart — only for
her to drive by and think that he is flirtatiously flexing his muscles for them. Worried that Homer
is losing his passion for her, Marge decides to get liposuction. Unfortunately, the surgeons mix
up their patients and provide the episode with its central plotline and its most obvious sight gag.
"What on earth have you done? My maguppies became bazongas!"
In 2003's "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can,"
two big events simultaneously pass through the greater Springfield area:
A championship spelling competition and a mania for Krusty Burger's Ribwich.
Of course, Homer gets addicted to the Ribwich, a sandwich whose meat source is couched in secrecy.
He joins a group of "Ribheads" who travel around to different Krusty Burger locations
according to the sandwich's rolled-out release schedule. Homer's new adventure
in gluttony comes to an abrupt end when Krusty announces that the Ribwich will be discontinued,
as the animal from which it's derived has suddenly gone extinct.
Meanwhile, Lisa quickly rises through the ranks of competitive spelling. In a surprise twist,
writer George Plimpton asks Lisa to throw the finals to a more popular and marketable competitor
named Alex. If she goes along with the plan, she'll receive a full college scholarship and
a "George Plimpton Hot Plate." Lisa, of course, sticks to her high morals and announces during
the competition that she was asked to throw the contest. She then defiantly continues to compete.
Sadly, she then misspells her word and knocks herself out of the finals.
Still, her family is incredibly proud of Lisa and her second place finish.
"You're the number one speller in this car or in
that car or in that car or...don't look at that car."
Building fighting-robots is an ongoing pastime for thousands of people,
but in the early 2000s, the pursuit enjoyed a mainstream moment with shows like BattleBots.
The Simpsons tapped into this fad in 2004, and it paid off. The robot-themed story "I,
(Annoyed Grunt)-Bot," , was the most popular episode of the year.
After Homer does a terrible job of assembling Bart's new bicycle,
he decides to make it up to him by constructing a battle-bot to compete on the TV show Robot Rumble.
Homer's not the most talented engineer, however, and resorts to crafting a glorified robot costume.
He places himself inside, then goes on television and suffers through many
violent beatdowns until Bart finally discovers what his dad has been up to.
But this doesn't stop Homer. He continues to fight until the truth finally pops out.
"That robot has given birth to a man."
In 2005, Fox had the rights to the Super Bowl,
and gave The Simpsons the honor of airing a special episode right after the big game.
That installment, "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass," seems like it was custom made to retain
as many sports fans as possible. And it clearly worked, since it was the year's most watched show.
When a video of Homer doing a victory dance after winning a carnival game goes viral,
several prominent athletes hire him to choreograph their own celebratory dances.
LeBron James, Yao Ming, Michelle Kwan, Warren Sapp, and Tom Brady
all put in a request, and are all voiced by their real-world selves.
Homer's dances grow into such a cultural phenomenon that he wins a plum gig
organizing the Super Bowl halftime show. He recruits Ned Flanders to help him out,
seeing as how his pious neighbor has been making a name for himself by producing violent biblical
films. For the big halftime show, Homer and Ned re-create the story of Noah's Ark for millions of
football-loving fans. Of course, the reaction of the viewing public was pretty predictable.
"All over America today, viewers were outraged by the Super Bowl Halftime
Show's blatant display of religion and decency."
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