14 Things Fox Wants You To Forget About The Simpsons

12. The Principal And The Pauper

The Principal and the Pauper isn't necessarily the worst episode the show has ever aired - in the subsequent years, there have been a lot of stinkers - but it is perhaps the most hated amongst fans, and is typically pointed to as the one that started the show's decline.

The episode contains the startling revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a character on the show from the first season, and one with an established backstory, had been lying about his identity for almost all of his adult life, having stolen it from a friend in the army. The sudden change didn't go down well, the episode being considered stupid and the continuity twist angering viewers.

Since then, various comments have been made about the episode. While the showrunners of the time, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, have defended it, they've also commented it should be viewed as non-canonical.

Harry Shearer, who voiced Skinner, has been particularly vocal about his displeasure with the episode, saying: "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." Series creator Matt Groening, meanwhile, has called the episode a "mistake".

To move even further away from it, Season 21 episode Boy Meets Curl retcons it, confirming this Seymour Skinner is the birth son of Agnes.