» Simpsons Continuity Issues Options

[Screamie]

This has bugged me for years:

1) In "Blood Feud," Marge says that Bart's favorite dinner is butterscotch chicken. In another episode she says that he's 'allergic to butterscotch and imitation butterscotch.'

2) In one episode (I can't remember which exactly) Flanders makes a punch from bourbon, rum, and Creme de cassis. That seems odd to me considering he (later) wigged out about once having blackberry schnapps.


Anything bug anyone else....?

[Eegah]

How about Marge having severe flying anxiety after no problems at all in Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington and maybe some others I'm forgetting?

[Videostar]

Just thought of one. In the episode where Mr. Burns sells the power plant, Smithers has no probelm being around the bees. However, in "22 Short Films About Springfield", he is allergic to bee stings.

[JTMacc99]

A wizard did it.

[Harrison Fjord]

How about the fact that Homer couldn't afford Christmas and had to settle for Santa's Little Helper, but was able to provide enough of a Christmas that when Bart burned down the tree there were lots of large gifts beneath it? And while he was supposedly working his final shift before going off to the track to find SLH, he also was sneaking around town stealing Funzos... and then snuck around town again to steal the rest of Christmas, so that while he and Garry Coleman were discussing the superficiality of Christmas he was also about to be lynched by a mob that completely ignored Moe's suicide attempt? And that all of this happened while Marge was supposedly disappointed in Bart for shoplifting and Lisa was becoming a Buddhist?

Continuity schmontinuity.

[screamapiller]

Lest we forget that Monty Burns' ability to drive a car changes from season to season...

[NotPatrick]

And Willie got hit in the back three times by an axe in the same episode and then next week he was around walking and talking again with no explanation.

I mean what do they take us for?

This post has been edited by NotPatrick: May 9, 2006 @ 5:12 pm.

[rack]

Treehouse of Horror episodes don't count. Outside of that, the show did once pretend to care about continuity -- now they openly mock the idea.

[tothemax]

the show did once pretend to care about continuity -- now they openly mock the idea.

I don't think TPTB ever cared about continuity. They use it when it's convinient and ignore when it's not.

[Joe Normal]

And they've been wearing the same clothes, day in and day out, for the past 16 years. Boy I sure hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

[JonM]

I think maintaining continuity, when the characters can't change too much over time, would be nearly impossible. Remember, Homer has annoyed almost everyone in Springfield at some time or another. He's gotten fired multiple times, left work multiple times etc. If the writers had to maintain continuity completely, it would eliminate a lot of good episodes.

Easy example- Nelson is only supposed to be a figurehead bully, as of the peace treaty he signed with Bart. Does that mean that every time we've seen him bully someone after that episode is a continuity problem?

Also, since we've had an episode this season which suggests that everything we've seen in the Simpsons took place over about a week, should we ignore that episode to maintain continuity (even though it was a great episode).

[rack]

Oh, I'll give all sorts of leeway for longevity, humour, or other reasons. But they don't even care about writing the characters consistently, and they take pleasure in mocking the fans who do.

[Odyssea]

Also, since we've had an episode this season which suggests that everything we've seen in the Simpsons took place over about a week, should we ignore that episode to maintain continuity (even though it was a great episode).

What episode was that?

[box lobster]

I don't think TPTB ever cared about continuity. They use it when it's convinient and ignore when it's not.

Agreed. The house and layout of the town changed many times in the show's first two seasons. Now the house has a more consistent layout. Flander's house, however, constantly switches between being to the left of the Simpson's house and the right. That's rarely, if ever, consistent.

[JTMacc99]

Really? I don't ever remember an episode where Flanders wouldn't have been on your left as you looked at the Simpson's front door.

Now I need to keep an eye out for it.