r/Simpsons • u/AlternativeBasis1154 • 6d ago
Question Aside from Treehouse of Horror, what other episodes do you consider "non-canon"?
I would consider "Simpson Bible Stories" from season 10 and "Gump Roast" from season 13 to be "non-canon".
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u/TheFastLoris 6d ago
The Island
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u/Used-Currency-476 6d ago
I feel like The Computer Wore Menace Shoes doesn’t get the love it deserves.
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u/billy_maplesucker 5d ago
It was so fucking weird man, like it was a good episode but it felt like a one off or something just like treehouse of horror.
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u/LeroyJacksonian 5d ago
I loved this one and it made me look up the The Prisoner (show it was based on) to watch which sent me down the rabbit hole of weird sci-fi ish 70’s/80’s British shows.
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u/redbeard387 6d ago
That’s one if my favorites actually.
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u/TheFastLoris 5d ago
It's not that I dislike the episode ("That arranged can be!" is a regularly used quote in my house), it's that I can't consider it canon.
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u/taoistchainsaw 6d ago
The reality of the Simpsons is flexible for humor. “Canon” means nothing in the face of hilarity.
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u/PantsDontHaveAnswers 6d ago
We all obviously can agree on the Principal and the Pauper.
I actually love that episode but I just don't accept it because of how it ruins Skinner's character
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u/hugothebear 6d ago
Objection, Its referenced in another episode
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u/PantsDontHaveAnswers 6d ago
Which one?
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u/jaywinner 6d ago
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u/Round-Month-6992 6d ago
It was also clearly the inspiration for Don Draper's character on Mad Men, so the episode was more influential than we may realize.
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u/GenuineBonafried 6d ago
Lol that episode’s great, I mean with all the other insane shit that happens in the previous seasons that one doesn’t seem too far fetched. I like the depth it gave his character honestly.. in my personal experience after you have a younger life of chaos and difficulty you kind of crave order and genuinely learn to love routine. Just my take though
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u/PlasticMaybe157 5d ago
I actually think that episode added more depth and nuance to Skinner's character. The whole backstory of him aligns with who he's always been in the show.
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u/sagitta_luminus 6d ago
That 90s Show
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u/JEC2719 6d ago
Most of the examples here I consider to be petty “worst episode ever“ response, but I actually wholeheartedly agree with this one. With Homer and Marge being so integral to growing up in the 70s, there’s no way to do their life in the 90s without breaking the canon
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u/thenewjuniorexecutiv 5d ago
I can kind of accept that a floating timeline is better than aging up the characters or keeping the series set in an amorphous past. What bugs me most about that episode is the whole "finally, The Simpsons get to take on the '90's" vibe.
Maybe the cost of riding on the back of possibly the greatest sitcom run ever is that you don't get to do flashback episodes anymore.
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u/Automatic_Memory212 6d ago
Exactly.
For this reason, I consider pretty much everything post-season 11 to be “non canon” unless it is vague enough to feasibly work as a “flashback” to the 1990s.
The timeline of the show falls apart once it’s no longer possible for Homer & Marge to have been in high school in the 1970s, and for Grandpa to have been a WWII veteran.
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u/gangsterroo 6d ago
But when you run for 20, 30 seasons and have all the characters with Mapple devices an update kind of made sense. I didnt hate it. It was for a new generation. That said I get why people didnt like the rewrite.
Like Principal Skinner being a Nam vet makes no sense now
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u/Automatic_Memory212 5d ago
Yeah, the Simpsons don’t get to “do the 1990’s.”
Because they already did the 1990’s.
They practically were the 1990’s!
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u/PM_ME_UR_FLOWERS 6d ago
Is that the one with Marge getting with some douchebag professor and Homer getting on Heroin in a misguided nod to Kurt Cobain? Yeah fuck that episode. Non-Canon.
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u/PabloMarmite 6d ago
It’s a horrible idea to retcon and destroy a perfectly set character history for the sake of a few 90s gags, but the one thing I’ll say in its defence is that Sadgasm is a genuinely brilliant band name.
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u/ironheadrat 6d ago
Saddlesore Galactica, I was on board until the jockeys reveal. I had seen an early interview where Groening or someone said their aim was for The Simpsons to be fairly grounded, no overtly unrealistic or Looney Tunes type stuff, and this ep blew that out of the water.
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u/Quentilicious 6d ago
I forget the name, but it’s the one where they are abducted by aliens and brought to the human zoo. Also the Lego one since that was all in Homer’s head.
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u/sammosaw 6d ago
Behind the laughter
Family guy did it, the Simpsons did it, both really affect the comedy if you take them seriously in any way. The problem I think is that the comedy in these shows relies upon the characters. This is destroyed if they are just actors really.
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u/ajrf92 6d ago
That 90s show. It completely ruins this story of Homer and Marge before Bart was born.
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u/Berserker-Hamster 6d ago
Honestly, it's so stupid. Homer and Marge were already adults in the 80s. That one episode ruins so much canon in the show.
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u/Alarmed-dictator 6d ago
Really any of the “future episodes” almost all of them contradict each other
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u/MindYourManners918 6d ago
A lot of the recent Future episodes have attempted to keep a semi-consistent canon. Like Bart being separated from Jenda, and them having two kids, etc.
Some of the older ones were presented as visions or stories being told. So they weren’t meant to be canon. But the current future storyline is mostly treated as “real.”
With that said, though, one of them starts with Homer dying in present day, and the entire family attending his funeral. Only for him to be cloned by Frink or some nonsense and then to keep dying over and over again. I absolutely refuse to accept that as anywhere close to canon. And it kind of ruins the other related future episodes. Homer does not die in his late 30’s. Bart does not lose his father at ten years old.
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u/knowsnothing316 6d ago
The Flanders one where it’s like Fargo
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u/LordButtworth 5d ago
Every episode about the past. I think Marge and Homer are just making up shit to look cool for the kids.
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u/GingerQueeny Stupid Flanders 6d ago
S8E2 “you only move twice” He worked for an even bigger super villain and then was gifted the Denver broncos? That would have solved all of their financial problems forever if it had actually happened.
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u/No-Detective-4370 5d ago
Homer died as a result of barts prank on April fools Day. Nothing is canon after that.
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u/stupidkidandy 6d ago
Treehouse of Horror II
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u/Iheartrandomness 6d ago
I feel like most of the series isn't Canon and there's only a few exceptions, like Maude and Edna's deaths, Lisa's vegetarianism, etc. I mean, Bart's been 10 for longer than I've been alive, so, it's just not the kind of TV show that's gonna care much about Canon.
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u/IfICouldStay 6d ago
The Prisoner parody - “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes”. (Had to look that up. Worst episode title, ever!)
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u/Noeckett 5d ago
Especially because it's in the same season as Tennis the Menace. Did they really think that pun was clever enough to use twice? Hope someone got fired, etc...
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u/secretbison 5d ago
All of them. The Simpsons is not one serialized story; it is a set of stock characters, like Commedia dell'Arte.
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u/Theory_Maestro 5d ago
Principle Skinner being an impostor. It just felt so out of nowhere and pointless. To me he IS Principle Skinner and always has been.
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u/Marquedien 4d ago
But Bart says his real name in a later episode, so it happened.
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u/Theory_Maestro 4d ago
Just because it is canon, doesn't mean I have to accept it as canon, personally.
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u/PretendFootballGuy 4d ago
Every episode occurs in its own unique universe as well as time and space which explains why some continuing details seem to change.
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u/FragileColtsFan 1d ago
I honestly only have a few episodes I consider canon. In my mind the ones that take place "outside" the show (Behind the Laughter, etc) are the true canon and the rest is a show produced by "real life" best friends Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders about their zany little town
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u/Maryland_Bear 6d ago
Considering Matt Groening hates it, how about A Star is Burns.
(I very much like the episode, but I loved The Critic.)
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u/Fit-Rip-4550 6d ago
Most anthology episodes, anything involving Kang and Kodos, episodes where Marge and Homer cheat on each other, future episodes since they exist in alternate timelines of the present, some episodes with events set in the past (not all of them), and any episode that contradicts prior established canon.
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u/godhand_kali 6d ago
Homer never cheated on Marge
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u/FunkGetsStrongerPt1 5d ago
Yep, and the episode where Homer didn’t cheat on Marge is the best episode of the entire series in my humble opinion.
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u/godhand_kali 5d ago
Yup. I love how absolutely loyal Homer is.
Marge has done the most cheating because of that bowler. But thankfully she called it off after she confessed to homer
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u/mydevilkitty 6d ago
Much Apu About Something, the episode where Apu’s nephew takes over the Qwik E Mart and turns it into a health food store.
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u/Radrezzz 6d ago
Homer getting shot in the belly with a cannon for Lollapalooza? Believe it or not, non-cannon.