10 Times The Simpsons Blatantly Trolled The Audience
The good, the bad, and the Sadgasm: Ranking the best and worst tricks The Simpsons played on us.
Since its inception, animated American family sitcom The Simpsons has been lauded as one of the greatest achievements in TV history.
Yes, okay, so only the first ten or so seasons of this long-running series constitute its much-contested Golden Age era. But said era gave us TV viewers so many extraordinary instalments from genius writers like Conan O’Brien, Mike Reiss, and the reclusive John Swartzwelder, that even in its thirty-first season the show retains much love from viewers for its transformative contribution to the medium’s landscape.
That said, like any good comedy The Simpsons isn’t above messing with its audience on occasion, with mixed results throughout its long history.
Some of these instances were misleading ad campaigns or promising plots which were ultimately derailed, whilst some were episodes so bizarre that the fans were left wondering what the writer’s room were smoking that week (they were eating rotisserie chicken, for the record).
Here are ten times that television’s first family pulled one over on its sizeable audience—for better or worse.
10. The Man Who Came To Be Dinner
A late season effort which boasts few defenders even amongst the most fervent members of the show’s huge audience, The Man Who Came to Be Dinner saw Homer and eventually the rest of the eponymous family abducted by aliens who want to eat them.
This was essentially the entire episode’s ill-considered plot, a turn more surreal and cartoony than fans had any interest in and one which made it hard to care about the fate of the show’s cast.
Too broad and silly for The Simpsons, the kindest guess is this one was made to troll long time viewers who expected something more believable or recognizably relatable than this Duck Dodgers-style adventure.