The Simpsons is a Long Runner, and its fans have all sorts of different opinions as to which episodes should "count" and which shouldn't. For the most part, though, there's a dividing line somewhere around Season 8, 9, or 10 (no one can really agree), after which everything seems to go downhill, and perhaps another point at which it officially became a Franchise Zombie. One thing that's objectively true is that after Season 8, Matt Groening stopped being so involved in the show; he started working on Futurama and took much of the writing talent with him. The later showrunners ran The Simpsons differently, and many fans weren't enamored with it; Mike Scully (seasons 9-12) relied much more on Vulgar Humor, hoping to compete with the then-new South Park, and Al Jean (season 13 onward) was full of politics, dated pop-culture references, and odd asides, hoping to compete with the then-new Family Guy.
But one thing The Simpsons always knew is that people will complain about things no matter what they do, so occasionally they make an episode that they're pretty sure the fans won't like and then refuse to mention it again — except when referencing things they're not allowed to talk about. There are a few specific examples of this:
- "The Principal and the Pauper", in which Principal Skinner — who had been a recurring character for eight seasons — was actually a fraud named Armin Tamzarian. The episode was nearly universally reviled, and the writers seemed to anticipate this reaction, as the characters have the same reaction In-Universe — they decide they prefer the fake Skinner, run the real one out of town, and agree never to mention it again. Several subsequent episodes have made self-effacing Take That! jokes and Discontinuity Nods to the preposterousness of the plot.
- "Viva Ned Flanders", which depicts Flanders as being 60 years old, which conflicted with earlier episodes showing him to be the child of beatniks. They went back to the beatnik thing because it made more sense in the timeline — until the show became such a Long Runner that it didn't anymore.
- "Saddlesore Galactica" has something of a Broken Base, but it is a pisstake against the show's own decline, and what the writers saw as an overreliance on Recycled Scripts and Flanderization. Some fans disown it, because they either didn't think the show was that bad, or because they don't think hanging a lampshade on the problem is going to fix it.
- "The Italian Bob", featuring Sideshow Bob's Italian wife and son. They've never been seen or mentioned again after "Funeral for a Fiend".
- "That '90s Show", in which Homer and Marge are depicted in Flashback as having met in The '90s. Fans thought it was totally nonsensical — even though the series operates on Comic-Book Time, the earlier seasons were enough of an Unintentional Period Piece that it was very jarring for the show to flashback to an era in which it was clearly set. The reaction was so visceral that later seasons made it Canon Discontinuity, showing Homer and Marge as having gotten together in the 1970s and 1980s like earlier episodes.
One common thread is the continuity of the show. Many fans like the Negative Continuity and won't accept anything that drastically changes it. They don't consider any episodes with permanent character deaths as canon, including "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" (Maude)note ,The Man Who Grew Too Much" (Edna Krabappel)note .
Even many fans whom count the deaths of the above characters as canon, often disregard the the deaths of Snowball II in "I (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot" and Fat Tony in "Donnie Fatso", particularly as both episodes ended with the character getting a Backup Twin identical in every single way and the cast agreeing to never speak of these events ever again. Snowball II's death even referenced Skinner being Armin Tanzarian in The Principal and the Pauper", implying the death was outright non-canon.
Some also don't consider new relationships canon, like Ned Flanders and Edna Krabappel, or Comic Book Guy getting married to a Japanese woman (which had additional connotations people didn't like).
And there are a few other episodes that fans have declared non-canon for other reasons:
- "Lisa the Vegetarian" — not necessarily because it's bad, as most viewers think it's genuinely funny, but because it precipitated Lisa's eventual Flanderization into a Soapbox Sadie. Chalk this one up to Franchise Original Sin, as it's a rare early episode that "doesn't count". It also broke the Status Quo Is God and actually inserted something of a continuity, which didn't sit too well with many fans, but that was actually because Paul McCartney agreed to guest-star only on the condition that if Lisa became a vegetarian, she had to stay one for the rest of the show's run.
- All episodes featuring Mona Simpson after her first appearance in "Mother Simpson", as it has a very powerful Tear Jerker ending, and fans feel that her later appearances diminish its impact.
- "Homer vs. Dignity", which crosses the line into Vulgar Humor. It's considered the epitome of Mike Scully's failure to grasp that The Simpsons isn't about that kind of humor, and in particular the "panda rape" scene left a bad taste in many viewers' mouths.
- "Bart-Mangled Banner", which was so heavy-handedly anti-Republican that even viewers who agreed with its message found it unfitting with the show's style.
- "Million Dollar Abie", in which the abuse heaped on Abe Simpson got so extreme that it stopped being funny. Same thing for "The Boys of Bummer", this time on Bart.
- "Lisa Goes Gaga", for the obscene amount of screentime dedicated to celebrity guest star Lady Gaga (only Mel Gibson in "Beyond Blunderdome" is comparable). That combined with the episode's absurdity makes it resemble a crossover Crack Fic.
- "Little Orphan Millie", in which Milhouse's parents get back together, when fans thought that their divorce was good Character Development for Milhouse. It's a bit of a Broken Base, though, with people who didn't care for the divorce to begin with or thought it was good character development for Kirk; TheRealJims, for instance, warmed up to the episode, thinking that divorced Kirk fared a lot better than sober Barney.
- "Adventures in Baby-Getting", which reveals that Homer donated his sperm in the past, and now he has a massive number of offspring, all over the world, raised by different women. It throws Bart, Lisa, and Maggie hard into Uniqueness Decay. It also throws up a nonsensical line in Homer declaring he never wanted to be a father, which not only would make his donation to a sperm bank particularly stupid, but also contradicts his clear enjoyment of being a father in the "classic" seasons.
- "Gorgeous Grampa", in which (a) Marge hopes Grampa is gay so she can look more progressive (which fans saw as an offensive caricature), (b) we see an extended Storage Wars parody (one of those references the fans hate so much), and (c) Burns is presented as Abraham's fan, when prior continuity establishes that they're mortal enemies and have been since World War II.
- "Kill the Alligator and Run", for being a Random Events Plot with sheer absurdity that, unlike "Saddlesore Galactica", isn't played for satire. The ending where the titular alligator, Captain Jack, turned out to be alive the whole time didn't help matters. Word of God was that there was supposed to be a scene where Captain Jack is lying in state at the Capitol, and they were forced to delete it for time; Mike Scully admitted this was a terrible idea because doing so created a massive Plot Hole.
- "On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister", where Lisa takes a massive Jerkass Ball and gets a restraining order against Bart for humiliating her only to use it to bully and torture him relentlessly as payback. And she's portrayed as being entirely in the right for doing so, because it's okay for her to do it for some reason and not Bart, and she also never faces any repercussions for her actions whatsoever.
