The Simpsons: 11 Most Paused Moments
3. The Cost Of Maggie
The opening sequence of The Simpsons features many beloved jokes. There’s the couch gag, the melody Lisa plays on her sax and Bart writing on the blackboard - all of which vary on each episode. And then there are the jokes which stay consistently the same – Homer misplacing radioactive material, Bart landing his skateboard on Homer’s car and Maggie being successfully scanned through at the cash register. But some wondered what the scanner actually reads as the baby is put through it.
If you pause at a very exact moment, the original scanner says ‘847.63’. Matt Groening confirmed this was the average cost of raising a child in 1989, which is when the show first started. In more modern episodes, it has been adjusted for inflation, giving a new reading.
The writers actually touched upon the famous cash register joke in the episode “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular”, the scanner was verified to actually read NRA4EVER as it’s “just one of the hundreds of right wing messages inserted into every show by creator Matt Groening”.
Some fans genuinely believed this confirmation but it was no more than just a gag.