The Simpsons season 36 brought back the show’s controversial “Homer Strangles Bart” gag

While The Simpsons Season 36, episode 1 may break a lot of the rules of the show, the outing also found time to bring back one of the oldest and most controversial jokes. The Simpsons is constantly changing its own canon. While The Simpsons Season 37 could give the show a more consistent, serialized plot line, the season 26 premiere “Bart’s Birthday” reveling in just how messy and unclear the show’s canon is with a string of increasingly bold meta jokes. The entire episode was presented as an in-universe series finale for The SimpsonsWritten by the AI ​​software “Hack GPT.”

boss and former Simpsons Writer Conan O’Brien introduced the episode’s story, in which Bart finally turned 11. At least, that was what happened in the episode. However, as the finale continued, her events became more and more absurd. Moe sold his inn, Principal Skinner announced he was leaving town, and Mr. Burns died, unexpectedly leaving his fortune to the powers that be. As if Mr. Burns’ death in The Simpsons Season 36 Episode 1 wasn’t enough to clue viewers in, the ending of the episode made it absolutely clear that The Simpsons would not age normally from now on.

The Simpsons brings back the “Homer Strangles Bart” gag to fit the episode’s AI premise

Homer strangling Bart reset the show’s reality

In the finale in the universe, Bart struggled with the chaotic, but paradoxically orderly events that surrounded him. Everyone’s individual character arc seemed to suddenly come to an abrupt end to facilitate the show’s final show and set up potential spinoffs, something that stressed out Bart when he realized that blowing out his birthday candles would permanently trap him in this new reality. instead, Bart rebels by tricking Homer into strangling himAnd this ugly, awkward moment jumbled so badly with the finale’s AI-generated schmaltz that it caused Hack GPT to short-circuit. It was an ingenious callback to a real-life controversy from 2023.

The many wild twists of The Simpsons Season 36 Episode 1 was undone when Homer choked Bart, and there’s a good reason that this gag facilitated the show’s return to its status quo. The classic gag of Homer choking Bart caused controversy in 2023, eventually prompting a defensive response from series producer James L. Brooks. An episode of the 35th season jokingly implied that the show had retired the problematic gag since, as Homer put it, “Times have changed.” However, “Bart’s Birthday” brought back the gag to prove it The Simpsons Season 36 is not a soulless, AI-generated series.

What The Simpsons Writers Said About Homer Strangling Bart (And What It Tells Us About Future Seasons)

The Simpsons Season 36 still stands by its deeply flawed characters

Since the story of the episode was an AI-generated finale with schmaltzy endings and unlikely twists, it made sense that Homer returning to his usual horrible parents was what brought the show back to its imperfect reality. The Simpsons Improved on South ParkAI commentary by implying the technology can only produce predictable, risk-averse and soulless creative work. In contrast, the controversial gag of Homer choking Bart was the kind of problematic joke only human writers could come up with. how so The Simpsons The season 36 premiere used this divisive joke to prove the show isn’t perfect, but at least it’s not machine-generated.

Source: Term