Top 20 Amazing Small Details in The Simpsons

“Bart Star” & “Thirty Minutes over Tokyo”

Given how much love Homer Simpson has for both beer and sweets, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that he’s fond of a concoction that combines the two. Feeling low after Bart quits the football team he’s coaching, he goes to the Kwik-E-Mart for a pick-me-up. However, Apu informs him that this product is not on the market. Homer deals with this setback by purchasing the ingredients individually. However, in the following season, the cash-strapped family goes to a 33-cent store. Among the questionable merchandise for sale is SkittleBrau. Hey, for only 33 cents, we’d try it.

“Black Widower” & “Homer's Barbershop Quartet”

“The Simpsons” doesn’t have a whole lot in common with “Les Misérables.” But if you’re a fan of either Victor Hugo’s novel and/or its musical adaptation, you may have caught these references. The number 24601 pops up on the show multiple times. It’s assigned to the diabolical Sideshow Bob when he’s incarcerated. In another episode, Principal Skinner encounters his helmet from his experience as a prisoner of war, bearing the same number. So, what’s the connection? This is the same inmate number as that of tragic protagonist Jean Valjean. If there’s anyone who would appreciate this kind of highbrow reference, it’s Sideshow Bob.

“Homer’s Phobia”

The episode “Homer’s Phobia,” guest-starring John Waters, won multiple awards. And it’s easy to see why. It’s a great send-up of anti-gay attitudes and fearmongering, combined with classic “Simpsons” goodness. Homer, paranoid about Bart and how he expresses himself, starts to scrutinize his every action, including his wearing a Hawaiian shirt. When he asks Bart about where he got it, his response isn’t exactly reassuring. Why? Because while Bart meant it in the sense of finding it in his bedroom closet, Homer’s oversuspicious brain interprets the phrase in a much different context. And by the end of the episode, Bart has some questions.

“Thirty Minutes over Tokyo”

You don’t have to be familiar with cinema from around the world to appreciate “The Simpsons.” But it sure does help. In this episode, the family make their way to Japan, where chaos predictably ensues. Homer is initially pouting about the trip. So, Marge attempts to lift his spirits with a movie reference. If you’ve seen or even have a passing familiarity with this classic from Akira Kurosawa, you know it’s about the same story being told from four conflicting recollections. And Homer and Marge, it seems, have their own conflicting recollections about his enjoyment of that particular movie. Maybe he prefers “Seven Samurai”?

“Dumbbell Indemnity” & “The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons”

Bartender Moe Szyslak is, to put it mildly, unlucky in love. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try. In one episode, Homer references a woman that Moe apparently wed and was subsequently left by. Initially, this might just seem like a throwaway line, included to highlight just how lonely Moe is. But there’s actually a bit of foreshadowing. A few episodes earlier, Moe is shown reading a catalog, looking for a potential spouse. Then, some two decades later, the show revisited this topic in more depth for the episode “From Russia Without Love”.

“Radio Bart” & “Bart Gets an Elephant”

If we had to guess, we’d say that most people’s favorite part of Neapolitan ice cream is the chocolate. It’s definitely Homer’s favorite. In the third season, Homer goes to the freezer, craving one particular third. Unfortunately, his hopes are dashed, not once, but twice. Two seasons later, Bart is in the kitchen, eating Neapolitan ice cream straight from the carton. And sure enough, he’s leaving everything but the chocolate untouched. So, why were they bothering with buying the Neapolitan variety if nobody was eating the other two flavors? We may never know precisely why.

“Lisa the Vegetarian”

Getting music legends Paul and Linda McCartney to play themselves was a huge achievement for the show. But the Beatle’s involvement goes further than you might realize. In this episode, Lisa meets the pair, bonding over their shared vegetarian ways. Paul drops some knowledge about one of his most famous compositions. And sure enough, the song plays over the credits, with some distorted vocals in the mix. Play it backwards, and you’ll hear a lentil soup recipe from the legend himself. This might’ve not been part of the original studio version. But who says a perfect work can’t be improved upon?

Various

If you pay attention, you might notice that TV entertainer Krusty the Clown looks remarkably like Homer, just dressed up like a clown. Was this just a matter of the show not being creative in terms of character design? It’s actually originally something deeper. The reason why Homer and Krusty look so alike is that, initially, they were intended to be the same person. The idea was that Krusty would be Homer’s secret alter-ego, further complicating Bart’s adoration for the TV clown. The show soon made it clear Homer and Krusty were distinct characters. However, it’s still touched upon the remarkable visual similarity they have to each other.

Various

Like many animated figures, the characters on “The Simpsons” have four fingers on their hands. Well, most of them do. This holy figure, when depicted, is shown with five fingers on each hand, as well as the iconic yellow skin of countless other characters.Maybe divinity in “The Simpsons” affords you an extra digit? There are exceptions to this, however. For instance, in a Halloween special, Mayan gods are shown with four fingers. Truly, these kinds of complex questions are just too much for our mere mortal minds to handle.

“Treehouse of Horror VI”

By and large, the characters on “The Simpsons” aren’t the smartest. One exception is eccentric scientist Professor Frink, and even he has his share of blunders. In a then-cutting edge Halloween segment, Homer finds himself transported to the mysterious “third dimension,” which Frink explains. In one fleeting moment, a grouping of numbers and letters, known as “hexadecimal” letters appear behind Homer. To the layperson, this might appear to just be something science-y to fill a frame. But if you know anything about the encoding standard known as ASCII, it may have caught your eye. And sure enough, translated to ASCII, it reads “Frink rules!” And we wholeheartedly agree.

Various

The main Simpsons family is so iconic, that even people who’ve never seen a whole episode can name the characters on sight. Most fans know that the Simpson family designs were no accident: the bright yellow was chosen on purpose so that it would catch viewers’ eyes while they flipped through channels, and their weird hairstyles were implemented so that the characters would be recognizable as silhouettes. However, many may not have realized that creator Matt Groening has forever left his artist’s mark directly on Homer’s face. That’s because his initials are formed by the “M” in Homer’s hair, and the “G” on his ear.

“Homer Badman”

“The Simpsons” loves to make use of scrolling jokes, lists that come-and-go in the blink of an eye: Perhaps the cleverest instance of this is in the episode when Homer finds himself the victim of an exploitative news cycle over a misunderstanding. After admitting their mistake, hard-hitting news show “Rock Bottom” publishes a number of retractions. It is insane the amount of jokes they can fit in 3 seconds, including “everyone on TV is better than you” and “If you are reading this, you have no life”. We hope that didn’t cause too many hurt feelings.

“Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie”

The show’s writers also love injecting their own little in-jokes that only pay off for observant long-time or repeat viewers. In the “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie” episode for instance, Lisa is waxing rhapsodic over how amazing the duo’s animated movie is. She says she’s surprised by its anonymously credited cameos from stars like Michael Jackson and Dustin Hoffman. Funnily enough, the two previous seasons of “The Simpsons” actually did include episodes with guest-starring roles by both these superstars, and both were uncredited at the time. But, in the words of Lisa, “you could tell it was them.”

“Duffless” & “Selma’s Choice”

Speaking of being rewarded for repeat viewing, it seems like nobody caught this joke at first, which took 3 episodes to set up. In the episode “Duffless,” old-timer Hans Moleman, the butt of a ridiculous number of jokes, speaks up about how alcohol has ruined his life, by declaring he is only 31 years old. This is of course played for laughs because it obviously cannot be true. However keen-eyed fans noticed a close-up of his driver’s licence in a previous episode, which lists his birth year as 1961. Now, maybe that was a DMV mistake. But considering these episodes first aired in 1993, the math adds up!

“The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”

And speaking of math, Fermat’s Last Theorem is a 17th century problem that befuddled mathematicians, who struggled for centuries to solve it. You may ask yourself “why am I getting a math lesson; I’m here for ‘The Simpsons’”. Well, that’s because grade-A buffoon Homer Simpson almost solved the hallowed enigma (which actually finally was figured out by a mathematician in the ‘90s). In the classic episode “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”, Homer struggles to invent something in order to leave his mark on the world. And it’s hilarious to see Homer’s random scribbles on his chalkboard are actually (almost, but not quite) the solution to a mysterious mathematical riddle.

Various

We all love a good recurring joke, and “The Simpsons” has the most subtle ones of all. Nobody expected the late great NFL coach Tom Landry to be immortalized on the hit show by way of his iconic fedora. First Tom Landry himself has a short cameo in season 7. A season later, Homer finds and purchases Tom Landry’s hat, which is somehow for sale. Since then, the famous memorabilia has shown up on the heads of the Simpsons clan in various sports-themed episodes. Even Marge puts it on when she was coaching a fantasy football league.

Various

“The Simpsons” is an iconic show, having become pop culture as much as it parodies and pays homage to it, with innumerable film, TV and music references in the show. But for most people, some of the program’s subtle imitations or recreations of famous pictures and moments in history can be quite elusive to catch. For example, the Simpsons clan fleeing Australia is lifted from the famous Vietnam war Fall of Saigon photos; while Lisa being sworn in as Miss Springfield is inspired by the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson after the JFK assassination. And let’s not forget Grampa Simpson being grumpy at Woodstock.

Various

Animation fans will probably already recognise this little Easter egg, as it appears in countless movies, including many Disney/Pixar properties. This is a favourite of many animators to hide in their work, as it is a reference to a classroom at the California Institute of Arts. Some “Simpsons” artists got their start there, and they choose to sprinkle these references in the show’s backgrounds. Therefore, you can see “A113” show up in an assortment of odd places, including license plates, mugshots, and prison IDs. We are almost certain that some of these have not even been noticed yet. Get looking!

Various

In the most notable blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment from the show, Maggie famously passes through the scanner at lightning speed in the opening credits, making it almost impossible to see what she rang up as. In the season 7 behind-the-scenes episode, they even poked fun at those fans who were trying to decipher the code, claiming the hidden message says “NRA4EVER”. The truth however is that Maggie rings up at $847.63. Apparently the reason for the number is that it was the expected monthly cost of raising a baby around the time the show premiered. Needless to say, that number has gone up considerably since.

Various

Austrian superhunk Rainier Wolfcastle would later become a regular character on “The Simpsons”, but when he first showed up in season 2, he was just action superstar McBain, showing up on movie and TV screens. Similar to “Itchy & Scratchy”, the writers used these clips to poke fun at pop culture and testosterone-fueled action movies, showing us random over-the-top and violent clips from “McBain”. But how random were they? What fans realized many years later is that if you string all these clips together, spread out through the show's first few seasons, you actually get a complete, coherent, and pretty violent, action film.