Even more tiny moments that changed the course of Springfield history.
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00:00The Simpsons is a show so massive in every conceivable way that you could make an entire
00:04list based on the tiny, seemingly insignificant details that helped shape its progress. In fact,
00:10we already did just that, but one wasn't enough. So we've channeled our inner Springfielder to
00:15once again get down to the nitty gritty of Matt Groening's most famous creations to look at the
00:20show's most unassuming but important moments. I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and this is The Simpsons,
00:2510 more moments more important than you realized. 10. Homer owns the Denver Broncos
00:31In our previous list on the topic, we discussed the idea that Homer is able to fund his family's
00:36eccentric lifestyle through royalty checks from his days in the B-Sharps. It is a fanciful theory
00:41for sure, but if that crazy idea doesn't suit you, then how about this one involving an NFL franchise?
00:47In the much-praised Season 8 episode, You Only Move Twice, Homer receives a gift from his former boss,
00:52the megalomaniacal supervillain Hank Scorpio. After Homer inadvertently assisted Scorpio in his
00:57quest for world domination, the mega-rich nutjob decided to splash some cash and buy his former
01:02employee, the Denver Broncos. This comes after a conversation where Homer revealed to Scorpio
01:07that his dream was to one day own the Dallas Cowboys. Well, you've got to start somewhere,
01:11I suppose. Many Simpsons fans online then have suggested that this might be yet another source
01:16of income for the family. Owning a football team would rake in some serious coin, and the Broncos have
01:20only gotten better since You Only Move Twice was released, or at least so I'm told. So yeah,
01:25it kind of turns out Hank was a nice guy after all. Well, if you discount all of the people that
01:29he murdered in cold blood, but uh, who's counting? Number 9, The Olmec Head. In Season 2's Blood Feud,
01:35Bart saves Mr. Burns' life when it's discovered that the two share the same rare blood type. To thank the
01:40boy and his family for keeping him alive, Burns sends them the generous gift of a thank you card.
01:45There wasn't even a check inside. This escalates then to the point where the billionaire's
01:49about a fire homer when he realizes the error of his ways. To make up for a rubbish first present,
01:54he sends the Simpsons family a very unique offering. In fact, he bestows upon them a
01:59colossal Olmec Head, a large carving of a human head in the style of the Olmec people of ancient
02:04Mesoamerica. Whilst the family are initially baffled by the head, they do eventually accept it
02:08when Bart decides he likes it. Although, to be fair, he was happy with the crowbar used to open the
02:13crate in the first place. While you might have thought this was just a one and done affair, the head has
02:17appeared in the background of dozens of episodes over the show, most often in the family basement.
02:22And seeing it in newer episodes is a nice reminder of the show's humble beginnings,
02:25even if the head itself doesn't actually do anything.
02:28Number 8, Mary Spookler
02:30This episode of The Simpsons is kinda all over the place. Thankfully, it's called Apocalypse Cow,
02:35which is a name so great that it kinda makes up for all of its other shortcomings.
02:38In said episode, Bart ends up raising a baby cow, going mad in a field, then rescuing it from
02:43slaughter. He does this with the help of Mary Spookler, the most intelligent offspring of Cletus
02:47and Brandine. Although that's damning with faint praise of the highest order. There's a plot where
02:52Mary and Bart almost get married as well, but the episode remains mostly about the cow. This all
02:57changes though when Mary comes back into Bart's life five seasons later. In Moonshine River,
03:02another great title, Bart tries to convince Mary to be in a relationship with him after he figures
03:07that he's only got so many chances left at love. But wait, isn't Bart like 10? If he's got no chance at
03:12love, then I guess the rest of us are just screwed. Well, Mary herself turns up a few more times across
03:17the show, most notably in the episode Love is a Many Splintered Thing. Few could have expected
03:22though that Mary would appear in multiple episodes of the show when she first arrived, but hey,
03:26that's young love for you, I guess. Number 7, Homer Becomes Sterile
03:29The second and final appearance of Homer's half-brother Herb, so far anyway,
03:33comes in an episode called Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes? While this story ends with Herb patenting a
03:38baby translator in an attempt to rebuild his fortune, it starts with Homer getting some rather
03:42bad news about his swimmers. See, a medical examination reveals that years of working in
03:47close proximity to nuclear radiation has left Homer sterile. Now, Homer and Marge didn't plan
03:52to have any more kids anyway. Well, that was the case for 21 seasons, until the episode Adventures in
03:58Baby Getting came along. In this one, Marge reveals her hidden desire to have another child,
04:03only for Homer's sterility to be re-revealed. And we're not sure why, I mean, considering she'd known about it,
04:08for over two decades. Number 6, Maud at Lisa's Wedding
04:12When The Simpsons first did an episode set in the future, it was fine. It was cool to see older
04:17versions of our favourite characters and what the world of tomorrow looked like. Now, though,
04:21they've done this trope all the flame and time, and it gets really, really boring, because nobody
04:25cares about Bart's stupid kids. But the episode where we first get a glimpse of things to come
04:29is Lisa's Wedding from Season 6, when the middle Simpson kid comes across a fortune teller
04:34in the woods. Set in the long-distant future of 2010, we follow a grown-up Lisa and her ill-fated
04:40engagement as snobby Englishman, Hugh Parkfield. Guests at the doomed wedding include a wheelchair-bound
04:45Christy, a recently defrosted Mr. Burns, Ned and Maud Flanders, and, wait a second, Maud Flanders?
04:51The same Maud Flanders that would be killed off an episode first broadcast in the year 2000?
04:55How the hell can this be? Well, Maud's appearance in this episode proves that the Fortune Terror is
05:00talking a load of BS and has no idea what she's on about. But, of course, we'd only know that once
05:05Maud actually did bite the dust. 5. Marge's Gambling Problem
05:09Every so often in The Simpsons, something will happen to a character that permanently
05:13affects their personality. This happens to Marge in Springfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying
05:18and Love Legalized Gambling. Aside from having one of the longest episode names in the history of the
05:23show, it also shows Marge developing a gambling habit by spending too much time playing the slots.
05:27The ending of this episode is actually quite dark as well, as Marge's issues don't get resolved and
05:32she just has to live with them, a startlingly realistic approach to portraying addiction.
05:37Despite the bleakness of this ending though, many fans just assumed that we would never hear about
05:41Marge's problems ever again, but oh boy, do we. Her issues with gambling come up time and time again,
05:46more often than not for comic effect. There's a joke about throwing vodka in Maggie's face after a
05:50game of Candyland that would be funny if it weren't so alarming, and Marge even goes full Danny Ocean
05:55and joins a team of card counters to help fix the church in Season 26.
06:00Number 4. Principal Skinner's Prison Number
06:02Now this one is actually kinda really clever. It's a well-known joke that Principal Skinner's
06:07old Vietnam prisoner helmet, as shown in the episode Homer's Barbershop Quartet, displays the
06:11number 24601. And of course, this is the same number that Jean Valjean is branded with in the
06:16musical Les Miserables. And yeah, yeah, we know it was a book first, but honestly, who has time to read
06:21all of that? Whilst this might just seem like the writers nodding to their favourite stage show,
06:25or I guess book, but I don't believe it, the comparisons between Skinner and Valjean run
06:29much deeper than just a number. For instance, after being released from prison, Valjean must assume
06:34a new identity in order to advance in society, and under his new name, he eventually becomes the
06:40respected mayor of a large town. Now, think about Seymour Skinner, real name Armin Tamzarian. He too
06:45took on a new name and used it to achieve a position of influence in the community, and like his
06:50literary counterpart, his world also crumbles when his secret is found out. Clues about Skinner's
06:55deception were there all along, and we just never saw them. Number 3, Lisa and Nelson
06:59Ralph Wiggum, Hugh Parkfield, Daniel Radcliffe's Edward Cullen parody, freaking Milhouse. When it
07:05comes to guys, Lisa Simpson is fresh out of luck. And all of this is without mentioning Nelson
07:10Muntz, with whom Lisa had a brief attraction to in the episode Lisa's Date with Destiny. Well,
07:15as it turns out, this romance was far from brief, as it has cropped up a bunch of different
07:19times over the show's subsequent episodes. In fact, Nelson is often shown displaying favoritism
07:24towards Lisa, leaving her out of his bullish actions, and he even goes to some pretty extreme
07:28lengths for him anyway to impress her, including reading some books. The idea of the pair ending
07:34up together actually came full circle in the Season 34 episode when Nelson met Lisa, which
07:38imagines the life of the two if they got together in adulthood. And this came a whole 26 years
07:43after she and Nelson first became an item. This love story has been one of the most enduring
07:48and surprising in the show's entire history. Maybe they'll pay it off fully one day, or
07:52maybe Nelson will leave Lisa at the altar to throw coleslaw at Skinner's house again,
07:56I dunno.
07:572. Homer in a coma
07:59Now this one is purely speculative, but the theory really does hold some water. In an episode
08:03titled So It's Come to This, a Simpsons Clip Show, Bart decides to prank his old man by
08:07seriously shaking up a can of beer. However, Bart did such a good job that when Homer opened the
08:12can, it exploded with the force of a neutron bomb. This left Homer in a vegetative state for
08:177 weeks and caused him to lose 5% of his brain. But did the coma do even more damage to our
08:22beloved patriarch than we thought? Well, a popular fan theory is that Homer never woke
08:26up at all in that every episode after this one takes place in his head. And before you
08:31call everyone crazy, there is some serious evidence to back this up. Not only would this
08:35explain why the plots of the show get more outlandish over the years and why the timelines
08:38don't match up, but in the episode Homer the Heretic, God actually tells Homer that he'll
08:43die in 6 months. And the clip show aired almost exactly 6 months after Homer the Heretic. So,
08:50are we reading too much into it? Probably. Is it compelling anyway? You bet your ass it is.
08:54Number 1. The First Door
08:56Homer's signature expression, door, became so popular that it even entered the Oxford English
09:01Dictionary in 2001. Whilst the phrase did exist long before The Simpsons came along,
09:05door was definitely popularized by Homer's voice actor. His delivery of the word is iconic,
09:10which makes it all the more impressive that he actually came up with it all on his own.
09:14As is now a folklore whilst recording for The Simpsons when it was just a shot on the Tracy
09:18Ullman show, it was one innocent line marked annoyed grunt that eventually became the iconic
09:23door that we know and love today. Little did anyone know at the time that a piece of television
09:28had just been made by this weird improvisation, but the saying and the show are now so synonymous
09:32with each other that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't immediately associate
09:36the sound with Springfield's most famous resident. So that's our list. I want to know what you guys
09:40think down in the comments below. Did you ever think more about these important Simpsons moments
09:44and are there any other unassuming ones that had huge effects that I missed off here? Let me know
09:49and while you're down there, if you could, please give us a like, share, subscribe and head over to
09:52whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day. Even if you don't though,
09:55I've been Josh. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.