10 Simpsons Secrets You Never Knew
4. Moe Was Given His Last Name For A Reason
The Simpsons has always had a large amount of recurring characters that fill out the fictional town of Springfield. One of these beloved characters is Moe, the owner and bartender of Moe’s Tavern, where Homer often frequents.
Many fans won't know that for the longest time Moe did not have a last name. However, in the acclaimed two-part whodunnit episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns” - in which Mr. Burns is shot by an unknown assailant - it is revealed that his last name is actually Szyslak.
Groening later revealed that the writers gave Moe his last name to make him a suspect in Burns’s shooting, as any-one with the initials “M.S” was considered the possible culprit.
In fact, giving Moe his last name was such a random, last-minute thing that the writers essentially searched through the phone book and found the first random last name starting with S.