The Simpsons: 15 BEST Golden Age Episodes

In hindsight, the twist ending obviously wouldn't work in this day and age as the show is currently in its 33rd season, which yes, is unprecedented, but what would've been more so would be to kill off the leading character in only the second season of the longest running scripted television series of all time, but it nearly happened.

Or was there too much revenue to generate for them to end the series this quickly?

Whatever the case, this second season masterpiece of an episode is fairly light on laughs, but it more than makes up for the lack of humour through its substantially, universally understood storyline, in which Homer ingests a poisonous blowfish and is told he has 24 hours to live - and in those 24 hours, he chooses to live his life to the fullest.

The inundated nature of something as terrifying as impending death is something that no one wants to deal with, and most of us wouldn't know what to do when put in those shoes. But, in Homer Simpson's case, he writes a list of all the things he wants to do. Watching him attempt to cross everything off his list in a timely manner is as soul crushing as it is heartwarming.

It's honestly a unique experience like no other within the series, and it stands out not only for its ubiquitous subject matter, but in the way that it handles something as frightening as the complication of expiration.