Don't Change History

Fans of the program “The Simpsons” are aware that continuality within the show is somewhat loose. To fit a joke or a story point town locations may change or back stories will be added or changed within different episodes. One example is the age of Mr. Burns. Different episodes have had him be as young as eighty and as old as a thousand in order to fit a joke. But in spite of this loose continuality, there are some established facts that have remained consistent. They remain true throughout different seasons and help establish a sense of consistency in the Simpsons world. Bart and Lisa have always been in grades four and two, even though there are episodes that have shown them graduating. Which makes it disheartening that two episodes of the latest season of “The Simpsons” have tried to change two of the hard and true facts of this show. This post discusses these episodes and why they have overall hurt the show instead of improved it.

The first episode is “That 90’s Show”, which originally aired January 27th, 2008. In the episode a college degree of Marge’s is found and Marge explains how she obtained it. The episode flashes back to the 90’s, where Homer and Marge are happily dating. Marge goes off to college and begins to fall for one of her professors. After a huge fight she leaves Homer and begins to date her professor. In response Homer starts a grunge band that becomes hugely successful. After months of separation the two find their way back to each other and live happily ever after.

What makes this episode disturbing is how it changed the history of Homer and Marge’s courtship. Since the second season it’s been known that Marge and Homer met in the 70’s and married in the 80’s. This had held true for all of these years. Changing this is an insult to life long fans of the show. While I understand the intent of the episode (trying to be consistent in having the character’s ages remain the same after almost twenty years) it was unwise to change this piece of history. While the episode was weak on its own merit (two many 90’s references with an overall feeble plot), the change in continuality is what mostly makes it a downer.

The second episode is “Mona Leaves-a”, which originally aired May 11th, 2008. In this episode Homer’s mother Mona returns after previously been on the run for her radical protects. Although she wants to have a relationship with her son Homer angrily rebuffs her, fearful that she’ll just leave him again. But before he can apologize Mona passes away. Homer learns that her final wish was for her ashes to be spread on Mount Springfield at a specific time and date. Homer does this and learns that this was done to prevent a nuclear missile from being launched. After a madcap rescue inside the missile housing network Homer manages to re-spread his mother’s ashes in a more quiet ceremony.

Again, this episode in and of itself is at best subpar. It features Mona Simpson much too briefly and the third act ruins the overall sentiment of the episode. But my biggest problem with the episode was the changing of Mona Simpson. In previous episodes it was established that she was a very loving and caring mother who left her family after she was identified on her one and only protest act. Here it portrayed her as very cause happy and inattentive to young Homer. The episode re cast her as a caring mother to a parent who ignored her child. This is incredibly disrespectful to the character, who in spite of her brief appearances has become a favorite of both the fans and creators of the show.

Hopefully the next season of “The Simpsons” will stop trying to change established facts about the show. Most times changes are accepted for the purpose of a story or a joke. But there are some things that should just remain as is.