Thirty-something seasons deep, The Simpsons golden era is probably 20-something years old now, but that hasn’t stopped fans from theorizing and speculating on the meta commentary of the show. But not all of it is as deep as they think it is.
The Simpsons revels in its own irreverence, with the biting commentary of the series often being directed inwards. There’s been several episodes of the series which put animation and television itself under the microscope such as “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show” and “The Day the Violence Died”, and its the latter which has had a common myth debunked by its writer.
During the episode, Bart Simpson obtains an animation cell from The Itchy & Scratchy Show (which humorously ends up being barely an arm). When it is delivered to him, the postman suddenly switches skin tone in between frames, which had been pointed at by fans for years as an example of meta commentary on cheap or lazy animation. Turns out, at least according to writer Josh Weinstein, it was actually just an animation error.
No clever meta commentary, no meta joke, not even a set-up or a punchline as he remembers it. There’s a beautiful irony to this happening, although Weinstein was unable to completely confirm if the animator or showrunner had put this in intentionally.
Fans responded to this by asking plenty of other questions about potentials gags or references, and it’s ultimately led to new knowledge being released into the atmosphere, as well as revelations on the productions of the series as a whole. Despite being in its glory days, mistakes still happened.
Gaffes from other episodes of note included the “Larry twins” in one episode, which Weinstein assumes was just never picked up by any editor or showrunner before it aired. Or, perhaps, was left in as a joke.
And of course, we can all hope someone got fired for that blunder, to quite a very wise man. The entire 34-season run of The Simpsons is available to stream on Disney Plus.