30 Years Ago Today, The Simpsons Changed Fans’ Lives With an Infamous Contest

30 years ago today, The Simpsons came back from one of the series’ biggest cliffhangers ever and with it ended up with a rather infamous contest result fans still remember all these years later. The Simpsons is gearing up to return for a new season later this month, and has been taking on all sorts of formats and experiments over the decades. The show has done hour long episodes, special two parters exploring alternate universes, streaming exclusives that show new looks at the future and more. But The Simpsons really started to open itself up to this kind of event programming with its very first two parter.

The Simpsons‘ very first major event came at the end of Season 6 with “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” The first half of this two-parter saw Mr. Burns shot with a mysterious assailant, and a special contest launched that Summer where fans got to take a guess over who was the one that shot him. The answer was finally revealed thirty years ago today with the premiere of “Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two,” and over the years fans have learned that no one really had a fair shot of winning its contest in the first place.

Who Shot Mr. Burns? Launched a Very Weird Contest

Inspired by the famous Dallas event, “Who Shot J.R.?” that had fans guessing about a mysterious assailant for weeks before it was finally revealed, “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” was a special event that wrapped up The Simpsons Season 6. The finale saw Mr. Burns at his most cartoonishly evil in the series to that point. Not only did he steal the oil that Springfield Elementary had tapped into first, he eventually blocked out the Sun. This was on top of several other smaller worries that really pushed the people of the town too far.

The final moments of that first part saw Mr. Burns being shot by an unseen assailant, and fans had to wait over the course of the Summer to find out who did it before the answer was finally revealed with the premiere of Season 7 on September 17, 1995. It was an event episode that had a real impact on the fandom too as there was a huge contest launched over the Summer where fans could give their guesses as to who was the one that actually did it. With multiple suspects, there really was a significant mystery at hand.

As part of this contest, viewers were supposed to call a special number or make their guesses on a specific website, and ultimately the winner was supposed to be rewarded by being animated in the series at a future point. But infamously, that never came to pass. As explained by those involved in the years that followed, the contest never really worked as straight forward as fans had expected. Not only was it revealed that no one had guessed correctly that Maggie was the one that shot Mr. Burns from those that had entered the contest, but the pool of potential winners was smaller than expected.

What Happened With This Mr. Burns Contest?

The collect call hotline that was ultimately used had a lot of smaller hassles that narrowed down the pool of entrants even further. Not only did fans who initially attempted to solve the mystery had to be called back later, but then those who were called back during the premiere of the second part had to be available to answer the phone. And those who were called back did not seem to guess the answer correctly, and ultimately the one who won the contest didn’t even answer the show apparently.

It was just a mess of a situation that The Simpsons fans never really forgot about. It’s not the only notable contest that the franchise had over the years like being able to live in a recreation of the house itself and more, but this is one of those events that looking back on three decades later is just funny in retrospect. Now fans can see the clues laid in that finale that Maggie indeed was the one that shot Mr. Burns, and the show made fun of all those theories in the years that followed.

“Who Shot Mr. Burns?” sparked a new kind of event for The Simpsons that proved that the series could experiment in fun ways with its finales. We’d see it return in the years that followed with a special contest where fans decided whether or not Ned and Edna would confirm their romantic relationship and much more, but this was one of the few times where fans actually were involved with the long running animated series. As the series continues, maybe there should be another attempt at such a wide spanning contest again someday.

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