Phaneron

25th Feb 2022

The Simpsons (1989)

You Only Move Twice - S8-E2

Question: I, like Marge, don't know much about football. Why is Homer disappointed to own the Denver Broncos team? I know his first choice was owning the Dallas Cowboys, but he seems to especially dislike the Broncos.

Answer: I don't think the writers had anything particular in mind when choosing the Denver Broncos to be the butt of the joke. But I wonder if it's meant to be a clue where Springfield is. But, while this episode did air late 1996 when the Broncos had a winning season, given the amount of time needed to produce the episode, it was written when the Broncos were a mediocre team at best. From '92-'95 they had a 32-32 record and never finished higher than 3rd in their division. And the Cowboys and Broncos are in separate conferences, so they're not particularly rivals. But as Phaneron points out, the Broncos ended up winning back-to-back Super Bowls in the following 2 season after this episode aired, so Homer is a very lucky guy.

Bishop73

Probably also worth mentioning that by the time this episode had aired, the Broncos had an 0-4 record in the Super Bowl, and to this day I believe they hold the record for most Super Bowl losses.

Phaneron

The Buffalo Bills also had an 0-4 record at the time of airing having lost 4 straight years.

ctown28

The Vikings are also 0-4 in the Super Bowl. The Patriots have 5 losses (although only had 1 at the time this episode aired).

Bishop73

True, and they would have been a funnier pick for Homer to end up owning, given that two consecutive of those four Super Bowl losses were to the Cowboys. Although Homer fantasizing about being John Elway in the episode Cape Feare makes his disdain for the Broncos rather funny.

Phaneron

3rd Nov 2003

The Simpsons (1989)

Barting Over - S14-E11

Corrected entry: When Lisa mocks Bart in French, she sings, "Vous ĂȘtes Baby Stinkbreath." However, "Vous ĂȘtes" is the formal construction. A person would not use this when speaking to his or her brother, especially when deliberately being disrespectful towards him. "Tu es," the informal form, would be more appropriate.

DavidK93

Correction: Lisa may still be learning, and it's an easy mistake to make.

Correction: She's 8 years old. A child making mistakes is not uncommon.

Ssiscool

She is shown to have superior intellect.

Even the smartest people make mistakes. Neil deGrasse Tyson said it wouldn't be possible for BB-8 in The Force Awakens to rove over sand and chalked it up to a visual effect, only for the filmmakers to prove to him that it was not a visual effect.

Phaneron

26th Apr 2020

The Simpsons (1989)

Oh, Brother, Where Are Thou? - S2-E15

Question: How exactly did the production of Homer's car bankrupt Herb? If Herb, as a highly successful car manufacturer, was spending so much money spoiling Marge and the kids that an $82,000 price tag for making a car was enough of a straw to break the camel's back, wouldn't he have gone bankrupt sooner than later anyway?

Phaneron

Answer: It wasn't the cost of one car, but that they'd produced thousands of Homer's ridiculous vehicles, which they'd marketed as a family car, but cost five times as much as a new car at the time. No one would buy them and the company went under.

Brian Katcher

Wasn't the car just a demo though? How would they have been able to produce thousands of cars in such a short amount of time?

Phaneron

Herb had given instructions to his team to build whatever Homer wants, thinking it would be a success. More than likely the plant produced the one seen while production continued on the rest. Herb had too much faith in Homer and his ideas.

Ssiscool

Big difference between a "demo" or prototype car compared to a launch car. The dealers must have stock available of the launch car so people can actually buy them straight away.

stiiggy

23rd Feb 2016

The Simpsons (1989)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Maybe he was allowed to participate due to good behavior. That's a possibility.

Rubbish. He is denied parole numerous times and shown to be a high risk prisoner.

Ssiscool

Good behavior or not, a prison wouldn't furlough an inmate just so they could participate in a snow day.

Phaneron

I'm not sure if it's been discussed here or listed as a mistake. Part of the problem with "The Simpsons" and the Sideshow Bob character is that time both moves forward and doesn't move. In "A Brother From Another Series," Krusty visits the prison and tells Bob he hasn't seen him in years because Bob had been in prison all those years for his crimes. Yet Bart and Lisa are still the same age and in the same grade. Bob is also let out of prison on a work-release program in the episode.

Bishop73

19th Jul 2019

The Simpsons (1989)

Bart vs. Australia - S6-E16

Character mistake: Burkina Faso is listed as being among the Southern Hemisphere locations Bart called when Homer is looking over the phone bill; since Burkina Faso is completely within the Northern Hemisphere, it would have made no sense for Bart to call there.

zendaddy621

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: It may not make sense, but Bart isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. In this same episode, he looked at his globe and thought Rand McNally was a country and was convinced by Lisa that the citizens there wear hats on their feet and that hamburgers eat people. Additionally, he could have just decided to prank call someone there if for no other reason than he thought the name of the country was funny.

Phaneron

Entirely possible, but since Bart had a globe right there to refer to, even someone with his limited geographical knowledge would have been able to tell that Burkina Faso is in the Northern hemisphere, unlike the other locations he did call as depicted in the montage (Antarctica, Argentina, unspecified South American nation, etc).

zendaddy621

Using his globe to determine which countries to call does not negate the possibility of him also calling a number in Burkina Faso for whatever reason suited him. It's ultimately a character decision and not a mistake.

Phaneron

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