The Simpsons

The Surface

Homer's grunt, improvised by Dan Castellaneta as a clipped version of a Laurel and Hardy noise. It is in the Oxford English Dictionary. Scripts only ever write it as "annoyed grunt".

The Surface

Matt Groening's colourists wanted characters recognisable at a glance while channel-surfing. The rule was broken deliberately for characters who are already a specific colour, which is why Krusty is yellow and Carl is not.

The Surface

Springfield's beer of choice, and the reason a real Duff has been litigated over on three continents by breweries who tried to sell it.

• Merch

The Surface

A variable-length opening sequence used since 1989 partly as a running joke and partly as a timing tool — a long gag pads a short episode.

• Behind the Scenes

The Surface

Springfield's state is a deliberate blank, kept unresolved for decades so every viewer could claim it. Groening eventually said he had Oregon in mind, which settled nothing.

Everyone Knows This

A 1990 novelty single that went to number one in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand while never being released as a US single.

• Merch

Everyone Knows This

A ninety-second sketch from "22 Short Films About Springfield" that became one of the internet's most remixed pieces of video, decades after it aired to no particular reaction.

• Fan Lore

Everyone Knows This

The annual non-canon Halloween anthology, running since 1990, and the only place the show is allowed to kill people and keep them dead.

Everyone Knows This

A throwaway gag from the 2007 film that outlived most of the film. The tune is "Spider-Man" from the 1967 cartoon, relicensed for the joke.

Everyone Knows This

The endless genre of "The Simpsons predicted X" posts, most of which rely on cropped screenshots or on the show having produced 750-plus episodes of guesses.

• Prediction
• Myth

Deeper Cuts

"The Principal and the Pauper" revealed Seymour Skinner as an impostor who stole a dead man's identity. Fans revolted, the show retconned it away inside the same episode, and writers still defend it.

• Fan Lore

Deeper Cuts

A 1997 episode built entirely from fake spin-off pilots, including Chief Wiggum P.I. Routinely voted the worst episode of the classic era by the same fans who quote it constantly.

• Fan Lore

Deeper Cuts

Recorded as a quick follow-up to "The Simpsons Sing the Blues", then shelved. It finally crawled out in November 1998, roughly six years late, to reviews that were not kind.

• Merch

Deeper Cuts

Matt Groening had his name removed from "A Star Is Burns" over the crossover with The Critic, which he saw as using his show to advertise another. It is the only episode without him.

• Behind the Scenes

Deeper Cuts

"Bart to the Future" (2000) has President Lisa inheriting a budget crunch from President Trump. The writer later described it as a warning rather than a forecast.

• Prediction

Off the Air

The Michael Jackson episode, pulled from streaming, syndication and box sets in 2019 after Leaving Neverland. The producers removed it rather than edit it.

• Banned

Off the Air

"Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" has never aired in Japan, largely over a sumo sequence involving the Emperor being thrown into a bin.

• Banned
• International

Off the Air

Rio's tourist board threatened legal action over "Blame It on Lisa" and its rats, kidnappings and monkeys. James L. Brooks apologised on behalf of the show.

• Banned
• International

Off the Air

In 2008 Venezuela's broadcast regulator ruled the show unsuitable for children and sanctioned the station airing it. The slot was filled with Baywatch Hawaii.

• Banned
• International

Off the Air

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" spends much of its runtime at the World Trade Center. It quietly left syndication in 2001 and came back edited years later.

• Banned

Behind the Curtain

"Some Enchanted Evening" was produced first and animated so badly it was nearly the end of the series. It was junked, largely reanimated, and aired last in season one.

• Behind the Scenes

Behind the Curtain

Forty-eight crude one-minute shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show between 1987 and 1989, with different voices, different proportions and a meaner Homer.

• Behind the Scenes

Behind the Curtain

Michael Jackson voiced the speaking parts under a pseudonym but was not allowed to sing on the show. Impersonator Kipp Lennon sang instead — with Jackson in the room, enjoying it.

• Behind the Scenes
• Myth

Behind the Curtain

Bryan Loren wrote and produced "Do the Bartman" and has spent thirty years telling people Michael Jackson did not write it, against a rumour that refuses to die.

• Myth
• Behind the Scenes

Behind the Curtain

When a Bolivian network moved the show out of its morning slot, protests followed until it was restored. The producers publicly thanked the crowds.

• International
• Fan Lore

The Abyss

The best-known Simpsons creepypasta: a supposed lost episode in which Bart dies, framed as a tape a fan was shown at a studio. Entirely fictional, endlessly reposted.

• Myth
• Lost Media
• Fan Lore

The Abyss

The production code the Dead Bart legend attached itself to, now with its own sequels, wikis and "REAL" variants written by people who never read the original.

• Myth
• Fan Lore

The Abyss

Archivists have chased a Japanese dub of the banned Tokyo episode for years. Its existence remains unconfirmed, which is exactly the kind of thing that keeps people looking.

• Lost Media
• International

The Abyss

The scrapped first cut of "Some Enchanted Evening" was thought gone. Roughly five minutes of it surfaced online decades later, wrong-looking in a way that is hard to unsee.

• Lost Media
• Behind the Scenes

The Abyss

Dan Greaney, who wrote the 2000 episode with President Trump in it, has been reported as launching his own presidential bid — the joke closing a loop nobody asked it to close.

• Prediction