10 TV Hoaxes That Fooled Everyone
4. Smithers Was Originally Supposed To Be Black - The Simpsons
It's still commonly stated today that The Simpsons' Mr. Smithers was originally supposed to be one of the series' few Black characters, seemingly exemplified by the fact that Smithers' skin has a darker colour in his debut appearance in the show's third-ever episode, "Homer's Odyssey."
This seems like a reasonable enough assumption, and one largely transmuted into fact by the public, despite the fact that it's not remotely true.
Smithers' darker skin in his first appearance was actually the fault of colour stylist Gyorgyi Peluce, who animated the character with the incorrect skin colour. This was corrected for all future episodes.
Simpsons animator David Silverman later stated that Smithers was always intended to be "Mr Burns' white sycophant," and the writing staff generally felt that making Smithers a "Black subservient character" wasn't a good idea.
Silverman ultimately excused Smithers' changing pigmentation as a fading tan from a recent holiday in the Caribbean.
Making a character of Smithers' position and overwhelming passivity Black would open the show up to even more controversy than it's faced in recent years, so it was most certainly a smart change.