The Simpsons writer explains bizarre mistake in early episode

Former writer Josh Weinstein has been addressing fans questions on Twitter regarding early episodes of The Simpsons.

As well as being a writer on the long-running animation, Weinstein also served as co-showrunner alongside Bill Oakley throughout The Simpsons’ seventh and eighth seasons.

On Monday (2 January), he was asked about bizarre inconsistencies in early episodes of the show.

“Fun Simpsons discussion,” he replied. “People think we intentionally miscolored these shots as meta-joke about cruddy animation. We didn’t. They’re real mistakes and a great example of seeing extra jokes/references we didn’t intend.”

Weinstein was initially referring to the faded yellow colours of the characters in some scenes. In the same tweet, he invited fans of the show to ask about anything else they had spotted.

“Got any more examples/questions if something IS a reference?”

In one scene from season two, a fan spotted that the wrong voice is dubbed on the character Carl. Instead of Carl’s voice, we hear the voice of his co-worker Lenny.

“In this episode, Karl [sic] speaks but you hear Lenny’s voice? Was this a mistake or intentional?” asked the curious fan.

“Wow, that’s clearly just a mistake,” replied Weinstein.

“It’s an early episode (Brush With Greatness) I wonder if they caught it originally? Most likely not, cause it could’ve been fixed right up to final mix simply by redubbing Carl correctly. Maybe Lenny and Carl hadn’t appeared enough to notice?”

Weinstein later followed up regarding spotted mistakes in the thread: “Btw, we just wrote the episode w/the animation cel but David Mirkin was showrunner for it.

He continued: “There is a small but real chance he intentionally left the mistakes in as a meta-joke ‘cause he’s extra funny and I’m not remembering this 100% correctly. Doesn’t moot this discussion!”

Among all the questions from viewers, one fan asked: “Is there an example of a real mistake that you guys just went with and it became a permanent fixture?”

To this, Weinstein replied with an image of Moleman. “Yes, he’s called Moleman,” he joked.

Fans even sought answers on the conspiracy theories surrounding The Simpsons’ ability to predict the future.

The programme once displayed the figures “9/11” before the event occurred on a bus ticket. “Anytime conspiracy theories based on the belief that the show predicted the future,” wrote one fan with the image of the 9/11 reference.

Weinstein was quick to defuse the theory.

“I can tell you the unfortunate 9/11 one was strictly because 9 dollars seemed like the funniest low bus fare and we wanted the World Trade Center buildings in the ad because that’s where the story took place. Totally, totally a coincidence,” he wrote.