32 years ago today, The Simpsons broke its own rules with a classic episode that took fans by surprise and with it launched a joke that’s still being highly referenced to this day. The Simpsons is no stranger to breaking its rules as with the long running series currently in the midst of Season 37 of its run, it’s had many opportunities over the decades to shake up its world in all sorts of ways. This has included not only references to the outside world, but references to the fact it was a cartoon too for the sake of hammering home a hilarious joke.
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One of the biggest early on examples of this saw The Simpsons break the fourth wall that not only acknowledged it was a cartoon, but one that acknowledged that the show was going to choose to not be “100% realistic” whenever it meant it could be even funnier than before. 32 years ago today, on November 18, 1993 with FOX, The Simpsons Season 5 episode “Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood” openly tore through the fourth wall and ended up being an iconic episode in the process. Not to mention everything else around it being a certified classic by now.
The Simpsons Revealed Cartoons Don’t Have to Make Sense
“Boy-Scoutz ‘n the Hood,” written by the late Dan McGrath, already started out as a rather fantastical episode. It sees Bart and Milhouse stumble on 20 dollars, and go on a bender than ends with Bart finding out he’s signed up for the Junior Campers (the show’s version of the Boy Scouts organization). It’s at the tail end of a musical sequence where the two of them sing about how they lived in a “hell of a town,” and it’s the same episode where not long before Homer trips on a peanut to lose those 20 dollars.
But the real shake up comes after Bart signs up for the Junior Campers, and he and Lisa are watching The Itchy & Scratchy Show. He mentions how the type of knot wasn’t appropriate for the occasion, to which Lisa then explains “Cartoons don’t have to be 100% realistic.” To put the button on the gag, a full clone of Homer hums right along the outside window while there’s a Homer who’s sitting right behind them. It’s a hilarious break of the fourth wall, and won’t be the last time that The Simpsons references the fact that it’s a cartoon in the decades to come.
Why This Episode Changes Everything
The Simpsons was far from a grounded animated series, but that’s something that really started to take shape after the first couple of seasons. The series started out as a more grounded affair where characters and their dynamics were at the center of the jokes, but as the show progressed it started to introduce more fantastical premises and ideas. Take this episode for example, it starts with Homer looking for a peanut and ends with a stranded Homer sniffing out a Krusty Burger built on an oil rig.
But even with all of that said, though this joke broke the fourth wall it didn’t break the series. It was just a fun joke within the tone of the episode where the core focus was on the strained relationship between Homer and Bart at this time. It was a joke that not only has been referenced many times by fans over the years, but was one that made it clear just how flexible this animated series would actually be in the long run. Something that’s still been made clear all these years later.
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