The Simpsons: 10 Hidden Jokes Everybody Missed
4. Seymour Skinner Is Really Jean Valjean (Homers Barbershop Quartet/The Principal and The Pauper)
Everyone knows the story of Principal Seymour Skinner; he's a bit of a push-over, he's a Vietnam vet, and he's a pretty lousy principal. As it turns out, Seymour Skinner is actually the Simpsons' equivalent of Jean Valjean from Les Miserables.
The seeds are planted in the episode 'Homer's Barbershop Quartet' when Skinner finds his old POW helmet and it is revealed that his prisoner number is 24601. As it so happens, Skinner's prisoner's number is the same as Jean Valjean's prisoner number but the payoff of the joke comes during a later episode, 'The Principal and the Pauper'.
Skinner's true identity is revealed in that episode: he was in fact a former lowlife who stole the real Seymour Skinner's identity before working his way up to a respectable position in society. Skinner's identity-stealing backstory is very similar to Jean Valjean's story; Valjean was a criminal who took on a new identity and became a wealthy person of considerable influence before eventually dying after reuniting with his long-lost daughter.
Okay, so Skinner isn't dead and he doesn't have a long-lost daughter. Maybe everyone's favourite whimsical principal still has some elements of his backstory that's yet to be told?