Was ‘The Simpsons’ Trolling Canon Purists With its Newest Episode?

After 36 years on the air, it’s pretty clear that The Simpsons’ canon makes about as much sense as a Soviet-era children’s cartoon.

Since time has no meaning in the world of Springfield, Simpsons characters never age, although the years still pass, bringing with them cultural and technological change. This means that characters’ backstories constantly shift, a something very apparent earlier this season when Marge and Lisa bonded over ‘90s nostalgia in “Thrifty Ways to Thieve Your Mother,” despite the fact that The Simpsons actually pre-dates the ‘90s.

Despite the frequent temporal wonkiness, fans still take issue with the show’s apparent plot holes, such as when Homer seemingly forgot that Marge came very close to having an affair with Jacques the bowling instructor in season 34’s “Pin Gal.”

Anyone still struggling to maintain a grasp on the chronology of this franchise likely finally gave up after this past Sunday’s episode, “Bad Boys… For Life?” which featured a number of canonical oddities that may or may not have been designed to mess with the heads of IRL Comic Book Guy-esque sticklers.

For one thing, Homer is apparently older than ever before? Throughout the course of the show, the Simpson family patriarch has been 34, 36, 38, 39 and even 40. But during this week’s extended flashback, Marge mentions that Homer is 38. The scene is set four years in the past, meaning that modern day Homer must be 42.

Then there’s a flashback within the flashback, in which we see Homer’s dad mooning over his estranged wife Mona. As we’ve mentioned before, Grampa’s backstory was completely upended last season after the episode “Shoddy Heat” revealed that Abe Simpson used to be a private detective in the 1980s, rather than a war hero in the 1940s.

But in “Bad Boys… For Life?” he has a black and white photo of himself and Mona in which he’s wearing an old-timey army uniform. Was it taken in the ‘70s? 

Not to mention the fact that Homer’s dog Bongo then shows up even though Homer had given him away years earlier.

Weirder still, when an adult Homer later takes a bite of a Ritalin-infused ice cream bar, he is suddenly able to organize all the details of his life, including “how to tie your shoes” and “Ned Flanders’ Amex number.” He then exclaims “I remember where I parked at Itchy & Scratchyland,” and recalls that he parked in the Poochie Lot, section 23.

Of course, Poochie was the proactive doggy character that Homer was hired to voice in season 8’s “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show.” So in this new Simpsons reality, Poochie already existed prior to Bart’s interest in Itchy & Scratchy? Was he still voiced by Homer? And since the character’s likeness was included in the theme park parking lot signage, does that mean that he was actually popular and didn’t die on the way back to his home planet?

Of course, there are no clear answers to any of these questions, and any attempts to try and pin down the definitive history of the Simpsons-verse is clearly a gateway to madness.

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