D’oh!
36 seasons later, “The Simpsons” has finally explained a puzzling mystery about its lead character.
During Sunday’s episode of the animated show, it was finally revealed how Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta) has managed to keep his job despite being a poor employee.
Since the series’ debut in 1989, Homer has never been fired from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant owned by Mr. Burns — even after his many errors on the job.
In the latest episode, titled “Shoddy Heat,” it’s explained that Homer’s dad, Abe Simpson (also Castellaneta), made a deal to ensure his son never ended up unemployed.
Flashbacks show Abe worked as a private investigator. After his partner, Billy O’Donnell, goes missing, Mr. Burns ominously tells Abe that Billy took a “one-way ticket to paradise.”
Mr. Burns then promises Abe that he’ll give Homer a lifelong job at the power plant in exchange that Abe ends the investigation into Billy’s disappearance.
Showrunner AI Jean teased the big reveal about Homer on X (formerly Twitter) days before the episode aired.
“This Sunday a new @TheSimpsons will solve a mystery that has puzzled (me at least) since the beginning of the show…” Jean, 63, wrote.
Viewers had a positive response towards the big reveal, sharing their reactions on X.
“Kudos to the new episode for revealing the answer to the question, ‘How come Homer never got fired from his job despite all the mistakes he made?’ in the most surprising & weirdly wholesome fashion possible,” one fan wrote.
“Wow, so that’s why Homer has never been fired from his job no matter how much he’s screwed up,” another person said.
“The Simpsons” returned for Season 36 last month and quickly got the internet abuzz, because the show dubbed the episode its “series finale” — leaving viewers confused.
But the show later revealed that the entire storyline of the episode was generated by artificial intelligence.
Showrunner Matt Selman told People how the idea for that tricky episode came to be.
“I was in New Zealand and then the writer’s strike ended, so I started immediately working on the show again in New Zealand a year ago,” he explained. “And part of that was doing press for Season 35, which was about to start. And the question you always get doing press is what would you do for a last episode of the show?”
“I always felt like there was no good answer to that question because the show was never meant to end,” he added. “It was meant to go on forever. It was meant to make fun of the idea of last episodes and everything we do, every episode is both a first and a last episode of the show.”
“The Simpsons” airs Sundays on Fox at 8 p.m. ET .