How This Became The Worst Episode Of The Simpsons 

Hardcore final line

Reggie Fills-Aime

You do an half talk some shit.

I guess that makes me head of the orphanage 😂

@@Rampala awnnn

yeah, and maybe sort of restructure it to show something like... bart hanging out with skinner, while lisa (and potentially also marge) are more worried about the school

Yeah, I think they could have launched the conflict by actually locating the real Skinner's remains and having him wrestle with whether everyone wants to accept the lie and the loss, or keep what they have. It could have been a beautiful and touching episode if they illustrated acceptance of him - that he wasn't Skinner, but he is THEIR Skinner.

@@Savariable I love the idea of the kids going to him saying they need him back, maybe after he leaves in shame when his scam is revealed by the return of the real Skinner's remains - Lisa giving a passionate speech about how much the school has gone to hell without him (with funny examples throughout the episode - maybe a food fight escalates to all out conflict with the cafeteria staff, and Willie goes all naked painted blue Braveheart?). Then Bart could make a point that who he actually is is way cooler than who he pretended to be - because he isn't a saint, he is a screwup who learned to be better. Plus if his mom could have a moment where she tells him she already lost one son, that she doesn't want to lose another, that would be really moving.

I agree I think the core of the episode is a decent idea. Revealing that Skinner used to be like Bart. I think Bart should have done something that made Skinner feel like he was making a difference. And the he slips back into his old delinquent ways. You could have Bart really liking this version and considering him a mentor in misbehavior. Only for Bart to realize how unhappy Skinner is, and for Bart to help him regain his faith in himself.

How about this. Skinner runs away from his parents at a young age because he was a horrible child and becomes a street punk in capital city. Everything plays out the same but in this version Armin Tamzaria is the name of the mentor and he's from Springfield. Everything plays out the same but in this version he dose actually give the bad news to his mentors family and in this moment Skinner sees his mother but can't bring himself to go up to her. Skinner returns to the war and decides to do better. He rises through the ranks and we see everything we saw in the previous episodes. By the end of his service he's high ranking officer, a decorated soldier and overall a better man. After he's honourably discharged he returns to his mother, he apologises for everything, shows that he became a solider just like his dad and is now a better person. Agnus forgives him, is proud of who he has become and what he has done but is then saddened by the fact that her husband never got to see this moment because Sheldon died in a parade float accident in 1979 but she knows he would also have been proud of the fact that his son followed in his footsteps. She is also still bitter at the fact that he abandoned them at a young age. After this Skinner decides to become a school teacher and then a principle as a way of honouring his mentor and to prevent kids from doing what he did at a young age. All this is told by Skinner to Bart after being sent to his office. Then the rest of the episode is about the mentor returning somehow and how he is so proud of his apprentice. Maybe the Simpsons could find him I don't know. What do you think?

Like everything after season 12

He specifically says that there are inarguably worse episodes in the intro, this episode just has more impact as being "the worst" because of how consistent the quality had normally been before it.

@@lanciferian and I'm saying I consider that not enough to call it the worst like it did like 5 times across the video and on the thumbnail

@@agustinberto6138 Fair enough, it's a click-baity title that's really just an excuse to write a video essay about an important episode. This channel does that a lot

@@lanciferian yeah I mean I get it, that's how the platform works (unfortunately). But I just wanted to express my opinion on how I valued this episode (not positive at all, but not deserving of the title of "the worst episode". "The worst episode of the classic Simpsons"? Sure

If cringe was a Simpsons episode. God that one was bad. Edit: I'm talking about the lady gaga one

"Up yours, children!" gets a hearty guffaw out of me every time. This episode still had charm, even if it was a sign of things to come.

@@jackrotz2139 That's how I'd describe the show as a whole now. Tried watching the newest season a while back after not watching any of the new stuff for years and just wow, it was awful. The show has completely lost its identity. It's no longer the witty, subversive piece of comedy that made it legendary, it's not even a hollow shell of that. It's just a soulless husk, the characters have stopped being characters and are now just mouthpieces for whatever stupid trend the writers are chasing that week. They were just chasing trends even 10 years ago but it still felt like the Simpsons back then. Now it's a limp corpse being carelessly paraded around because it still makes money. It's not clever, not funny and feels completely like a slap in the face to what the show once was. Even at its worst Family Guy still feels like Family Guy, the stupid, goofy, irreverent nature is still there. The Simpsons feels like it doesn't even know what it is anymore. Or doesn't care as long as it makes money. Lastly Julie Kavner clearly cannot do Marge's voice anymore. I'm not criticizing her, that had to be rough for all these years but it's clear she can't do it anymore. Marge sounds awful, like she's actively ruining her vocal cords with every line. To me, when one of the irrereplacable core cast simply cannot do their role properly anymore without it actually sounding painful, that's the sign it's time to let it die with what little dignity it still has.

Basically almost anything Lisa related is terrible. She is an ungrateful spoiled brat who doesn't realize she's the child Homer and Marge invest the most time and money into. And then they add woke vegan narcissist on top of that. Lisa doesn't have any friends because the rest of the kids see through her holier than thou facade, so much that Lisa made a fake profile praising her in the Gaga episode, which several of the posts about her qualities were bald faced lies.

@@zeroattentiongaming820 "Even at its worst Family Guy still feels like Family Guy, the stupid, goofy, irreverent nature is still there. The Simpsons feels like it doesn't even know what it is anymore. Or doesn't care as long as it makes money." This is why I don't take seriously anyone who defends modern Simpsons by saying "At LeAsT iZ bEtTeR tHaN fAmIlY GUy..."

Seriously - I get what they're saying too. I guess I'm an apologist for Bill & Josh tho, I think they were probably the best showrunners (even if some of the Merkin stuff is more widely acclaimed)

Id love to hear it!

as they should

@Dabby Dom They defended themselves wonderfully. The episode is about the people who hate it. It is very strange that people feel so strongly about Principal Skinner.

That is the least of what they have to apologize for.

Yup and it came in like a wreckingball..... literally.

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 0

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 0000000000000000000

😀👌🇬🇧

Yeah, there are worse episodes then this one, like that one with the Elfs.

"My theory is.... Skinner likes dog food" "Oooo a fresh batch of America balls!"

@@Dan55888 ...and why is Grampa here?

@@MegaZzZeux because Jasper didn't want to come by himself!

This episode is the whipping boy whenever people want to talk about the decline of The Simpsons but it’s quotability proves the blame heaped upon it is undeserved. The Simpsons truly declined when it stopped being quotable and I’m not sure when that was. Season 9 was still pretty quotable - a barely noticeable decline from season 8. Season 10 was noticeably less quotable but still pretty good in retrospect.

I used to have that play as the boot up noise on my old windows 98 computer lol

Definitely a turning point but still not what ruined the show.

The worst episode was the lady gaga one

Yeah he's a bit unoriginal these days

i mean the entire family commits murder in a canon episode saddlesore galactica...which also canonizes elves in the simpsons universe

@@magicamadeye ugh that stupid jockey episode

There's also Fat Tony who died, then his cousin Fit Tony showed up who looks exactly like him, except fit. He takes his place as mob boss, started gaining weight and become fat, so everyone just calls him Fat Tony now and pretend like the original Fat Tony never died.

Lazy writing. Had the writers thought of it the way you did, this could've been a fantastic episode. Also, your version eliminates the "Seymour Skinner" character (real) who was so unlikeable in the episode, solving many problems in one stroke.

@@jasonbourneistreadstone The episode was great. The message is that the people who we’re told to trust are actually liars and hypocrites or imposters.

@@giantsr1eva The message wasn’t the problem with the episode. It was the fact they took a well-established character from the show and made him out to be a complete imposter only to retcon it in the end.

@@TheDragonman104 The episode is non-canon now, so I get why people were upset in the 90s. Shouldn’t the outrage have gone away since we found out that Mrs. Skinner really is Skinners mother?

@@giantsr1eva The thing is though the writing in The Simpsons has been very inconsistent throughout the show’s long run that the writers always say something that contradicts what happened in a previous episode.

For once I’d like to see someone analyze the decline of The Simpsons in terms of the jokes instead of plot and character. There’s a million video essays on this episode and they all pretty much say the same thing and they all ring hollow because this episode despite its ridiculousness and its contempt for the characters is still funny. The question is not “When did The Simpsons go off the deep end?” It’s “When did the Simpsons stop being funny?” “When did the jokes start inducing more groans than laughs?”

@@synthstatic9889 i just remembered what killed it for me was the Screamapillar. That and when every random new character was voiced by a celebrity and the character looked like the celebrity and looked a lot different than other simpsons characters. Like when Phoebe from friends voiced a girl in Lisas grade and looked nothing like other simpsons characters

@@Dan55888 Yes, I remember that episode being extremely unfunny. Someone should do an analysis on that and explain what made the jokes in that episode suck compared to earlier seasons, but that would be a painful video to make.

Idk if there were other bad episodes before it, but to me the Grunge episode is really where it felt like… This is not the simpsons.

@@SBCurley what happened in the grunge episode again? I dunno if I saw that one

Real talk

Sure it's stupid, but it's funny and interesting.

Same here, I do understand that it never being referenced was lazy and confusing

Here's what Harry Shearer said about it: "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." That pretty much sums it up.

@@HarryBuddhaPalm pretty bad take. The episode itself was funny and enjoyable, and there isn't really a plot throughout the seasons that it messed with

I don't know why this episode is hated so much. It still has classic Simpsons humor including the classic Billy and the Cloneasurus bit.

Send me the link to the LATAM dub of the episode i want to see it

@@rootfish2671 No, that bit is in the previous episode where Skinner gets fired.

Si no te reiste con "porque gaspar no queria venir solo" no tenes sentido del humor If you didn't laughed with the "gaspar joke" you have no sense of humor

Maybe because it is based on a Borges story?

YES! Yes! Finally someone else says this! I'm not alone!

Yet it was Bill and Josh who allowed this to happen and left Mike Scully to clean up the mess.

While Agnes Skinner faces no accountability for her abusive behavior whatsoever.

Don't they even retcon the Armin thing as well in later seasons by showing Skinner as a fetus in his mothers womb? They want him to be seen as a mommas boy so bad they took us all the way to his pre-natal state in the process. 😅

Yeah, that was one big reason why so many hated this episode - it ruined a good character. Skinner was such a great character, and now everyone who liked him was told that character doesn't exist.

"My theory is... Skinner likes dog food" "Oooo! A fresh batch of America balls!"

Yeah that was funny!

Just keep acting shocked, and walk slowly towards the cake.

All episode is funyy. This is great deep episode.

Did you not see the Ralph and Miss Hoover stuff at the beginning. I could not stop laughing after Lisa put her hand up. Miss Hoover: Do I have any volunteers? Lisa and Ralph put their hands up. Miss Hoover: Thank you Lisa. Ralph: No Miss Hoover I'm Ralph

that one was the worst imo. even worse than this episode. it was so uncomfortable to watch and just so, SO fucked up. a whole town drives a little 10 year old boy to attempt suicide. OVER BASEBALL. what the fuck.

The Lady Gaga episode was the worst in my opinion

@@skwisgarskwigelf7191 Yeah I heard that one was crap as well.

Not the episode they spend worshipping Elon Musk?

@@filmnobelpreis “Sign of taste”?

Exactly what I thought

Condensed Mad Men

Like Milhouse's parents getting back together it just seemed like a pointless 'back to status quo' move when the change actually opened things up more.

The writers definitely were just thinking on the spot on the episode.

Exactly. It would re-frame their relationship to where Skinner tries to do to Bart what his commanding officer did to him during the Vietnam War. You can also bring in aspects previously explored such as Bart having a potential future as a police officer. In that episode he became the hall monitor of the school and had a working relationship with Skinner (although it went a bit too far at some point). He has also proven to be quite the detective by foiling many of Sideshow Bob's schemes. Although in one case it went too far (Brother from Another series). Where Barts obsession proved to be wrong. I wish they kept Bart and Robert mending their relationship.

This episode is nothing in undermining the show. It's the culmination of literally hundreds of episodes that aren't a tenth as good as this one. In comparison to those this looks like Citizen Kane.

Gotta check my brain for crayons! I failed to realize at the time it was a parody of "Charly"!

Greoning doesn't consider it canon either, and though it has been referenced before it's been practically retconned out of canon.

By that logic, nothing after 1996 is Canon.

The problem it what it represents. This was probably the first time we see the writers disrespect tge auidence in a way that's never happened before. Which is a serious no no

Thank God that Steamed Hams brought him into a more positive light.

Well as of Boy Meets Curl, this is not canon since they made Skinner the real one again and all the flashback episodes showing young Skinner since such as one from a few years ago has indicated this.

@@devontehuntley6274 Flashbacks could just be adhering to a legal order I suppose. Judge did give Seymour's past, present, future, and mother to Armin under penalty of torture. Probably not the intent, but still being canon and people actively making sure their flashbacks match and the like is much funnier to me

@@neoman4426 Nah, it really doesn't work like that. They definitely forgot the Armin thing or just made it so that it was no longer the case because of the backlash, but I guess you can look at it like that if you want to get around those later flashbacks years down the line after Season 2O where Skinner is in utero in Agnes or a teen and living with Agnes which contradicts the whole switcheroo thing since he was an adult when that occurred. It seems like they went back to the Armin canon in the Lisa the Boy Scout episode this season where we see Skinner hanging out with the mom replacement who is actually Agnes and Agnes comments on wishing Skinner was her REAL son. They were both wearing disguises, but it seemed to imply she knew who he really was, but he DIDN'T know who she really was.

It’s gaslighting. This is why the whole “decanonize bad/unpopular story decisions“ doesn’t actually work. You can’t decanonize bad life decisions in reality. They made their bed, now they can fly in it!

It is still preferable to the flavorless, conformist gloop that wears the legacy of the show like a skin suit on Buffalo Bill in *The Silence of the Lambs.*

Exactly what I thought

Funny enough Ken Keeler who wrote this episode also wrote the treehouse of horror segment about Hugo, Bart's "evil" twin brother Homer and Marge had hidden in the attic. Pretty similar idea

Oh shut the fuck up. We have episodes like "Homer the Great" and "Homer's barbershop quartet" but those episodes get a pass? You're a fucking idiot

Similar if they had done it in a non-canon 'what if' episode like the 'Spin off Showcase'

You're hired.

Nice try, Keeler.

Same I also enjoyed it

Yeah, same. It's similar to how Kenny always dies in South Park; a parody of how no matter what happens in certain shows, everything always goes back to normal in the next episode.

i dont understand how is this the worst eithet i enjoyed it also

Says the guy with the racist username.

Brilliance

The truly tragic thing about this episode is the wasted potential. I've read about 10 genuinely good ideas for a story, much better than they managed.

In the Simpson nothing can really change so drastically beyond some characters dying or getting married/having kids, everything has to stay the same there can't be drastic changes so they got rid of the real Skinner just so we could continue to think of the false skinner as the real one and nothing had to change for the show or had to be acknowledged as canon about this episode

Bart having blackmail material on his principal could have opened up a whole New World of stories for the show.

The tyranny of the status quo is even more tyrannical when it comes to that marriage. How many times has Marge thrown Homer out? The same number of times she took him back. Thus, Homer has no incentive to change.

It's nuts because it's still on the air, so SOMEone is watching it. Theoretically tons of people. They wouldn't keep it if it weren't making them money. But I've never heard anyone talk about it. Where are you people?!

@@fauxbravo right? They basically don't exist. Or at least I thought so until only just recently I met someone who still watches it! It's mind blowing

@@fauxbravo That’s the reason the budget has been cut so much. They can’t lose anything from it.

@@fauxbravo it’s like Nickelback. Everyone claims to hate Nickelback. But someone is buying these records.

Its Fox's Saturday Night Live.

I think it's the episode that split the audience into actual Simpsons fans and Sitcom fans. People who wanted a sitcom about characters who grow and learn lessons and have continuity hated it. people who liked the Simpsons, a show that had told you many times by now they 'reset' every week, liked it.

There are plenty of episodes that justified being two-parters, but they refused.

Oh please stfu. Homer the Great is an even more stupid subplot and somehow no one cares about that

20/20 hindsight comes into effect. I'm old enough to remember watching this at the time. It probably felt like a miss but there's also the fact that personal preferences could sway that for a lot of objectively good episodes. Lots of people didn't enjoy Lisa episodes for instance. We know now its the first sign of the greater overall issue that there are only so many ideas that work, and the right number of seasons before running out of those ideas is a lot closer to 9 than 34.

It’s because so many Lisa-centric episodes are so poorly written. She makes cringey takes on political issues, and rarely, if ever gets called out on them, and she is rarely held accountable for the truly despicable stuff she does a lot of the time. She actually put Bart’s life in danger with that Kidz Newz episode when she sent him out to the cardboard box where groundskeeper Willie was living and was out for revenge after having been fired. For that matter, Yeardley Smith is the least versatile of all the Simpsons cast members. She does no other voices, yet she still gets paid the same as the other principal cast members who do multiple voices because she’s on every week. Her other Fox sitcom, *Herman’s Head* has basically been forgotten at this point. That was a Disney production through Touchstone, coincidentally.

Yeah, it's actually a funny episode. I get why it's hated, because it signals that The Simpsons is turning from a brilliant animated sitcom into just another silly cartoon, but it's not nearly the worst episode, it has a lot of positive points.

I agree. Ive always felt it was really self-aware of the lack of permanence in that world

An episode can have flaws but still be super funny. I thought it was great

Me too. Actually it's one of my favorite episodes.

@@mankytoes As a stand-alone episode it is a great episode. But include the years of character development Skinner has had and it comes off as stupid. Which is a shame because it could've worked if you got rid of the fake identity aspect to it. Skinner having a shady past is something that adds to his relationship with Bart. Particularly since we have had episodes where they can have a healthy relationship.

And to me retrospectively it’s an analogue for the audience hearing this preposterous development and laughing “hahaha, wtf is this now”

“HOMR” was an Emmy winning episode and one of the best of newer seasons. Emotional, funny and clever, nothing compared to this ep

@@ChakadowGabe you spelled "overrated" wrong

​@@ChakadowGabeIt sucks.

What makes 1-2 not classic?

@@corgi42069 they weren't very funny but some people like the heart of the showback then.

@@corgi42069 they are good, and certainly have awesome episodes but it doesn't have the same charm or style of S3 to 8 which is the highest point of the simpsons

@@agustinberto6138 I mean they have to be included, right? Because they're the real classics. 3-8 wouldn't exist without them. Towers don't stand without a foundation, and all that.

@@corgi42069 yeah but it's almost watching a different show. Saying the classic seasons is more like saying the golden age of what we know and love as the Simpsons

And that’s why Joseph Campbell was a huckster, a con artist, and a grifter and why “the hero’s journey“ is bullshit. Even in the case of Star Wars, Disney turned it into the coward’s journey.

Because it was one of the earliest big stumbling blocks and that initial dissatisfaction sticks with people, but yeah from the outside looking in it just seems like a mediocre episode especially in comparison (as in there are many, many worst episodes)

@@edfreak9001 I would argue an episode like the Springfield Files or Burn Baby Burns are actually worse episodes and changed the whole tone of the show. To really make that argument about The Princial and the Pauper, I think you have to ignore season 8 completely

@@edfreak9001 I don't even get that opinion, where people consider this episode a "stumbling block." This is episode is consistently hilarious.

@@travistotle apparently people were legitimately angry at the "oh it's NOT WHO YOU THINK HE IS" twist at the time

It's a fine episode, people on the internet are just a hivemind.

When Fox started advertising it as “the show that put the fun in dysfunctional,” I knew the golden years were over. Real dysfunctional families aren’t funny, they’re toxic. The older I get, the more I realize that shows like this don’t hold a mirror up to society, but a projector.

I can't wait to see the episode where Homer's name is Bart, Maggie doesn't exist, and the name of the town is Sprongfield. After all, there's no such thing as continuity.

@@angrynapolean3820 ok

@@qiqqo Are you so developmentally disabled that you don't understand my point and how what you said is the big R word?

@@angrynapolean3820 yes

I'm still shocked they had Lisa call him by his "real" name there. You'd think they'd have just tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug and never bring it up again, like this episode had intended to, considering how much backlash it got, wouldn't you?

@@zeroattentiongaming820 that’s the entire point of Lisa bringing it up, it’s a meta joke about bad endings that end with “let’s forget all this ever happened”.

@@zeroattentiongaming820 And that is the last time we will ever see that reference as by Boy Meets Curl, they showed Skinner in the womb of Agnes and episodes afterwards reinforced the fact they were real mother and son. Quite a shame too because now this episode looks so off.

I bailed out on that show when they fired Sal. After that, every other character should have ended up in a gulag.

That sense of a common culture no longer exists.

I see what you mean but every Simpsons episode resets at the end. Very little was canon then, and even less now

@@odeleon24 Yeah, the only thing I remember as consistently canon is Burns getting shot by Maggie.

If you’re watching the Simpsons for the canon then the joke was on you. It wasn’t insulting to the audience; it was quite the opposite. They know that we know about the “status quo” of sitcoms. Well maybe you don’t.

Then, why can’t they do that with the death of Maude Flanders? There was no reason to kill her off, and it just established a pattern of all of Ned’s wives dying in universe, and, in the case of Marcia Wallace, in real life. There is your story: Ned being afraid to fall in love again because he’s afraid that the woman he falls in love with will die yet again. They should do an episode about the day before Maude died. Why did they choose to go to that car show? Did they know the Simpsons were also going to be there beforehand? If anything, the biggest problem with the show over the last two decades or more is that the main characters have become the least interesting characters out of so many to choose from.

Other sitcoms changed the status quo all the time by that point. More likely, the writers stopped watching TV in the 1970s and assumed nothing changed since then.

This is why there will always be nostalgia for pre-Simpsons America.

yeah it was but it set very clear rule from this episode to further reasons: none of this matter. you watched episode that had no content. its like filler episode on anime. you never know which episode is going to have actual progression on plot or not. the episode that you watched that felt like its going to have long term effects into future simpsons episodes? it was just a dream. like the apocalyptic episode in family guy where stewie turns into octopus thingy and clevand&quacmire are combined.

I thought about that myself until I listened to the DVD commentary, and the creators said they were doing it in earnest. By threatening torture if anybody brings this up, it sends the message that the only way to uphold the preset status quo is through totalitarianism.

You might be referring to Entertain the Elk's video

@@rockoorbe2002 I just checked that one out, I had not seen it before, and I wasn't even subbed to it. I probably saw someone else's video on it, calling out similar issues with it.

@@Punmaster9001 well, to be fair, this episode is a bone of contention among RU-vidrs. It is THAT controversial

@@rockoorbe2002 Yeah, that's why this video seemed like a repeat to me. I might find it again one day, and youtube does like to (seemingly) randomly have videos from years ago popup on my front page, and the one I'm thinking of could show itself that way

You misspelled “Futurama.“

According to the Voice Actor. The Staff have since pretended that episode never happened.

They deconstructed the whole concept of the status quo itself, and showed how it is a tool to enforce totalitarianism.

The fact that the *real* Skinner didn't do that for her himself is the whole reason Agnes got rid of him. She wants a completely submissive simpering weakling for a son.