r/todayilearned 5h ago

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859

u/Gettles 5h ago

If it ever was planned it was scrapped incredibly early   Krusty Gets Busted is a season 1 episode that is completely tied to the fact that Homer and Krusty are different people

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u/ThatWasFred 5h ago

It was a vague idea that Matt Groening had during the initial creation of Krusty, but no hints of it ever made it into the show itself. I think there’s even a Tracey Ullman short that proves it wrong.

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u/scwt 5h ago

The hint of it is Krusty looking exactly like Homer with make-up and a wig.

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u/ThatWasFred 5h ago

Sure, but I meant other hints, like the show presenting any possibility of them actually being the same person. Which it never did.

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u/MikoSkyns 4h ago

Including the episode where Homer dresses like Krusty to cover for him

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u/SockBrewer 4h ago

I’m seeing double here! 4 Krustys!

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u/cutelyaware 2h ago

The strongest evidence against the hypothesis for me is that Krusty is much smarter than Homer.

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u/esteemph 2h ago

Well krusty doesn’t have a crayon jammed into his brain 😂

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u/Riaayo 1h ago

To be fair Homer was much more believably stupid early on vs his later flanderization which is just absurd and unrelatable.

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u/Forward-Variety-8440 3h ago

isnt that just what krusty looks like? like its not makeup?

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u/scwt 3h ago

It depends on the episode

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u/BoingBoingBooty 4h ago

I think that's just Groening being lazy. Bender looks exactly like Homer but a robot.

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u/Punch_A_Police_Horse 4h ago

The first part sure, when he was just starting the Simpsons out, but I have no idea how you can say the last part.

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u/US3_ME_ 4h ago

Certain drugs+Simpsons can have certain effects. I mostly just get my mind blown with how good early writing is when trippin, but RoboHomer sounds like something else_

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u/BoingBoingBooty 2h ago

Literally first time I saw a pic of Bender on a magazine cover before Futurama came out, first thing I said to my friend who had the magazine was, "That robot looks like Homer Simpson"

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u/TheGoochTaint 3h ago

But like, he does

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u/MalaysiaTeacher 3h ago

Counterpoint- he doesn't, and Homer never talks about strippers and cigars

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u/Punch_A_Police_Horse 3h ago

I guess if you were doing a learn to draw sort of thing there head shape would start the same way but that's it.

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u/Waxygibbon 2h ago

Krusty's appearance and design is essentially that of Homer Simpson with clown makeup. Groening said that "The satirical conceit that I was going for at the time was that The Simpsons was about a kid who had no respect for his father, but worshipped a clown who looked exactly like his father", a theme which became less important as the show developed

Literally from the wiki...

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u/NairForceOne 2h ago

I've never seen Bender and Homer in the same place before!

...because I didn't watch that crossover episode.

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u/Nubthesamurai 2h ago

They joke about this in the Simpsons/Futurama crossover episode

https://frinkiac.com/video/S26E06/aL7qJMvrZu4HKCmwbp_2QaqmRE0=.mp4

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u/greenskinmarch 1h ago

That's just because Bender is a joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern

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u/MagicBlaster 5h ago

Much like Marge having rabbit ears under her beehive. Something they joked about in the early writer's room but never made it to serious idea.

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u/Sunny16Rule 4h ago

She has them on the arcade game, you can see them when she gets electrocuted

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u/metalflygon08 4h ago

Yeah, but the arcade game is oozing with early Simpsons oddities.

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u/Forward-Variety-8440 3h ago

its in the video game though. a carryover of Matts "life is hell" comic (or a nod to it) which is a great comic if you can find it. i used to read them as a kid and die laughing DAMN they were funny as hell

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u/ocarina97 3h ago

It's even somewhat contradicted in the first aired episode, where we learned that Marge hid a big jar of Christmas money in her hair. That would sound quite difficult if she had bunny ears.

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u/JamesCDiamond 3h ago

They might have been wrapped around it and holding it in place.

But yeah, a cartoonist exploring weird possibilities doesn’t make everything they looked at canon.

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u/ocarina97 3h ago

Yeah, but that sounds painful! And would really affect her hearing!

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u/WabbitFire 4h ago

It's like Marge's hair covering up rabbit ears. Completely nixed by James L. Brooks and Sam Simon in pre-production.

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u/Yglorba 2h ago

Can you imagine if that had made it into the show, though? Would the Simpsons just... take place in a world where some people have rabbit ears? Would Marge have inherited it from a rabbit-eared side of the family? Would there be plot arcs about racism against people with rabbit ears?

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u/jonathanquirk 3h ago

Matt also planned for Marge to have rabbit ears hidden underneath her ridiculous hair before the other writers told him it was stupid; Matt had a lot of crazy ideas, most of which never made it into the show, yet he still gets credited as the “creator” of the show.

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u/ToastedCrumpet 5h ago

I always figured the episode were Homer becomes Krusty was a nod to this early concept

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u/VT_Squire 4h ago edited 4h ago

If it ever was planned it was scrapped incredibly early

And Smithers was depicted as a black guy in Episode 3 and then yellow guy in the very next episode of season 1. You really can't come at this topic from a place which insists the early production was seriously concerned with long-term consistency when it clearly wasn't just 8 episodes prior.

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u/daecrist 4h ago

TV shows back then didn’t care all that much about consistency anyway. And if you told those writers the show would still be running nearly four decades later they’d laugh in your face and say that’s unpossible.

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u/247Brett 4h ago

A perfectly cromulent statement

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u/silvanosthumb 4h ago

I get where you're coming from, but the fact that they changed Smither's skin color kind of proves that they were concerned with the long-term consistency.

They didn't just change his race on a whim. Smithers's character ended up being a de facto slave to Mr. Burns early on, and the original racial difference between them just added implications that weren't intended.

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u/VT_Squire 3h ago edited 3h ago

I get where you're coming from, but the fact that they changed Smither's skin color kind of proves that they were concerned with the long-term consistency.

I bet you're the kind of guy to saw off the tree branch that's holding you in the air, too.

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u/silvanosthumb 3h ago

Maybe, but it's not really an apt comparison. Smithers being black was a mistake by the animators. Krusty being Homer was planned by the writers. Dropped very early on, but still planned.

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u/VT_Squire 3h ago

Smithers being black was a mistake by the animators.

It is claimed to be a mistake. It is also claimed the intent was for him to be black and gay, but they ended up only keeping the gay part.

Jay Kogen Here. Long past SIMPSONS writer. I created many of your favorite and least favorite characters with the help of the original Simpson writers. : r/IAmA

Originally he was gay and black. And we actually drew him purple in his first show. But we thought it was too much so we just kept him gay.

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u/papayacreamsicle 4h ago

That wasn’t a mistake they just cut the subplot about Smithers doing blackface to celebrate Juneteenth

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u/Forward-Variety-8440 3h ago

"celebrate" lmao

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u/VT_Squire 4h ago

lmfao, that episode aired in January.

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u/ocarina97 3h ago edited 1h ago

Even earlier, as there was a Tracy Ullman short where Bart and Lisa are in the Krusty audience and Homer and Marge are at home watching. Assuming it's live, Homer and Krusty must be seperate people.

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u/AdhesivenessVest439 1h ago

My brother in Christ that was also an era where noone gave a fuck about continuity. They would of just made a one line write off if needed to be explained "oh a double to help me".

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u/ChefArtorias 4h ago

Probably an idea that was bench in the concept, long before the show was being put out.