38 Crazy Facts You Don’t Know About the Simpsons

In the Trash of the Titans episode, Homer Simpson's idea to fill a mine with other cities' garbage dissuaded a small Canadian town with the exact same idea.

2. Maude Flanders (from The Simpsons) was killed in the Season 11 episode titled, "Alone again, Natura-Diddily". The reason she was killed off was due to a dispute between Fox and Maggie Roswell (the voice of Maude Flanders) about a pay rise. Fox refused, and Maggie quit, so Maude was killed off.

3. The Couch Gag in The Simpsons intro developed into a clever way to adjust the show's runtime as needed.

4. The inspiration for the episode "Bart Sells His Soul" came from an experience Greg Daniels had in high school when he convinced a bully to sell him his soul and scared him into buying it back. He did it again until he realized the only person who ever profited on souls was Satan.

5. All characters in The Simpsons have four fingers except for God who has five fingers.

Upon first seeing The Simpsons character Hans Moleman, show creator Matt Groening claimed he was so shriveled and unrealistic that he resembled a "mole man". According to Groening, many viewers were offended by Moleman's look. He was made a recurring character in order to annoy these people.

7. Moe from The Simpsons was only given the surname Szyslak so that he would have the initials M.S., and hence be a suspect in the Burns shooting.

8. In the first Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, Marge warns parents of the content of the episode advising them to put their children to bed. The warning was put in as a sincere effort to warn young viewers, as the producers felt it was somewhat scary.

9. The Simpsons are yellow because Matt Groening thought it would be a perfect way to catch the attention of people flicking through their channels looking for something to watch.

10. The Simpsons released an album in 1990 and the lead single "Do the Bartman" was a worldwide hit. It was co-produced by Michael Jackson, who also provided background vocals and was a huge fan of the show. Following his death, FOX played the video before an episode as a tribute to Michael.

In two episodes of the first season of The Simpsons, Lou the cop was colored yellow. It wasn’t till Season 2 that they kept him black.

12. Milhouse Van Houten is allergic to honey, wheat, dairy, non-dairy, mistletoe, holly, the red part of candy canes, and to his own tears.

13. The Simpsons episode “22 Short Films About Springfield” was a backdoor pilot for a proposed series. 'Tales from Springfield' would have told three different short stories per week, focusing on secondary characters and telling stories about the Simpsons family members’ past or future.

14. Mr. Burns' telephone greeting in The Simpsons, 'Ah-Hoy!' was actually how Alexander Graham Bell thought people should answer the telephone when he invented it.

15. Simpsons characters Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson both possess master's degrees in nuclear physics.

Homer Simpson’s conversations with his own brain were often introduced because it filled time and was easy for animators to work on. Homer's conversations with his brain were used several times during the 4th season, but were later phased out after producers “used every possible permutation.”

17. On The Simpsons episode where Bart, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph become a boy band, Justin Timberlake was reluctant to say “Word” since he swore it was something he would never say, so as a joke the editing team reused the one take where he said “Word” after nearly every line.

18. If you disregard the floating timeline in The Simpsons, Mr. Burns is 128 years old (as of 2020) being born in 1892.

19. The Simpsons' "Bart prank calls Moe's Tavern" is a reference to two guys who used to prank call a bar in Jersey City and became famous for the recordings.

20. Lisa Simpson remains a vegetarian as a promise from the show's staff to Paul McCartney.

Bart Simpson's first name was chosen because it was an anagram of the word 'Brat'. His full name is Bartholomew Jojo Simpson.

22. The Simpsons' Ned Flanders was a real hell-raiser as a kid. Befuddled, his parents put young Ned in a University of Minnesota treatment which involved eight months of continuous spanking. The treatment worked so well that it rendered Flanders unable to express any anger at all.

23. The Simpsons episode where Bart gets an elephant was based on a real Price is Right incident in 1956.

24. Mayor Quimby's full name in ‘The Simpsons’ is Joseph Fitzgerald O'Malley Fitzpatrick O'Donnell The Edge "Joe" Quimby.

25. Milhouse Van Houten from The Simpsons was named after Richard Milhous Nixon because it was the most "unfortunate name Matt Groening could think of for a kid."