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This Fan Theory About The Simpsons Makes Sense

This Fan Theory About The Simpsons Makes Sense

Mind blown.

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

I love a good fan theory. I mainly like them because they're such obvious bullshit and you can pull them apart in about 11 seconds, most likely been created by someone who has an even more dire social life than me.

The Simpsons has been running for a mind blowing 27 years - it originally aired on 17 December 1989 - so a lot of fans have had a lot of time to come up with their own wild theories on the 'truth' behind a cartoon.

One guy on Reddit came up with a particularly interesting rationale, which I think is worth taking a look at.

So, remember way back when in October 1992, the episode 'Homer the Heretic' was first aired. It saw Homer deciding to boycott attending church, but the episode finished with a key scene that saw him talking to God.

Credit: Fox

Homer: God, I gotta ask you something. What's the meaning of life?
God: Homer, I can't tell you that.
Homer: C'mon!
God: You'll find out when you die.
Homer: I can't wait that long!
God: You can't wait six months?
Homer: No, tell me now!
God: Well, OK. The meaning of life is...

"You can't wait six months?" This is key, because six months later, in April 1993, the episode "So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show" was aired. In this, a prank goes very wrong, as Bart shakes up one of Homer's beer cans, only for it to blow up the house.

Homer seems alright after the incident. However, when he is in hospital, a vending machine falls on him and places him into a coma. He eventually wakes up by the end of the episode but the theorist believes this is too sudden a recovery; he goes from a coma to chocking Bart in seconds, and thinks something else is going on.

He states that Homer hasn't woken up from his coma and everything that has happened since is his imagination.

He writes: "This is why the characters don't age. Homer remembers Bart, Lisa, and Maggie as 10, eight, and one year olds, so they will always appear that way in his dreams. He is subconsciously aware of time passing, so his mind will often 'update' his memories so that the year they occurred matches up with the age he thinks he is (eg. 'That 90s Show' contradicting other flashback episodes)."

He also says that this explains why after this episode the plots got a lot more farfetched (which definitely isn't anything to do with the writers running out of ideas). Prior to that episode being aired, the storylines had followed more 'realistic' themes, such as Lisa falling in love with her teacher, Bart cheating on an IQ test and Homer trying to pack in drinking, the theorist believes.


However, post-coma the episodes have plots such as Homer joining NASA, Mr Burns capturing the Loch Ness monster and the episode where Bart and Homer discover the secret land of the jockeys. He also believes this explains the amount of celebrities the family have met.

The theory is summed up by stating that it all shows the meaning of Homer's life: to entertain.

There is another reason for all this stuff, that the show is a cartoon, but where's the fun in that?

Featured image credit: Fox

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: fan theory, the simpsons