50 Interesting Facts about The Simpsons

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.

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

28. 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

34. 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."

35. The Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons has a real name, Jeffrey Albertson.

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from The Simpsons has a doctorate in computer science.

37. The middle name of Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons is ‘Mandela.’

38. The word 'Jebus' as used in the Simpsons is in fact an old name for Jerusalem, named after the tribe who had built it.

39. In The Simpsons when Barney shouts "We want Chilli Willi" to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he is actually calling for "Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers," who were a real pub-rock band from the early 1970s.

40. The Simpsons was nearly cancelled before its first episode. When the first episode came back, the animation was so appalling that the staff considered halting show production. 70% of the animation had to be redone before it could air.

The Simpsons was originally supposed to end in December 2011 with the series finale episode that eventually aired called "Holidays of Future Passed."

42. The aliens from The Simpsons, Kang and Kodos, have a surname: Johnson.

43. The made-up word from a 1996 Simpsons episode "embiggen" was officially added to the Merriam Webster Dictionary in early March of 2018.

44. The Simpsons episode "Itchy & Scratchy Land" was a response to Fox's attempt to stop the writers from making Itchy & Scratchy shorts after new censorship laws went into place. The network planned to cut the segments themselves but relented after the showrunner threatened to tell the media.

45. The Space Coyote from The Simpsons episode "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer" was voiced by Johnny Cash.

In The Simpsons, Cletus' wife Brandine Spuckler is also his sister.

47. Homer Simpson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for the episode 'Homer at the Bat.'

48. The Simpsons episode ‘Lisa Goes Gaga’ guest-starring Lady Gaga is the lowest rated episode in the show’s history.

49. The Simpsons in its early seasons were controversial, with parents and conservatives criticizing Bart Simpson as a poor role model for American children. First Lady Barbara Bush thought it was “the dumbest thing [she] had ever seen” for which Marge Simpson wrote a letter to her in response.

50. Waylon Smithers from The Simpsons was black at the beginning of the series, and, according to Matt Groening, this was a mistake and the producers didn't have the funds to fix it.