Twitter Users Ponder Things From 'The Simpsons' They Thought Were Real But That Turned Out To Be Jokes

By Petr Navovy | Social Media | December 13, 2022 |

By Petr Navovy | Social Media | December 13, 2022 |

I know I’ve only just done a Simpsons post, but when the material is this good you can’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Cheers to Kayleigh, for alerting me to the fact that Josh Weinstein—part of the writing partnership comprised of Weinstein and Bill Oakley who were key elements in some of the show’s finest moments—had tweeted this delicious prompt:

This brings up a delightful question: what joke in the Simpsons did you think was a real thing and only later realized was just a joke? Or vice versa? https://t.co/5YRuPUU73e

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

Much like so many other Simpsons prompts, that’s a real doozy. For someone like me who grew up watching the show religiously, and who—crucially—was not from the US, there were so many things I learned about the country by watching. The writers on The Simpsons had free rein to shape my perception of an entire culture, the end result of which was becoming a living embodiment of Weinstein’s tweet. There were so many responses that I had no idea were examples of made up nonsense, or vice versa! Like: Lee Carvallo isn’t a real golfer! My mind lies shattered in pieces on the floor.

Here, join me on this mind-bending journey, alongside Weinstein himself, who is very engaged on Twitter and who takes the time to respond to a lot of these prompts, before Twitter collapses under the neutron star pressures of a moron’s bruised ego:

Yeah, ha, in the script, we just said "written on a plain sheet of paper" or something like that.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

Yeah, Allan Sherman was very real and very hilarious. Camp Granada is not even his best song!

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

My friends and I were obsessed with "Rock Me, Amadeus" and coming up with extra bland parody versions of it, like "Thank you, Amadeus" and that's what led directly to the Dr.Zaius song.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

Thought the exact same thing until a year ago in another Simpsons joke thread!

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

No, we looked all those up and were kinda obsessive about it, the weirder sounding the better! Parge the lath!

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

Ha, a lot of believable names on the Simpsons are believable because they're based on real things, like this name was based on the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Troy McClure's name is based on two real actors, Doug McClure and Troy Donahue.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

Yes, was gonna say there really is an American Egg Board, definitely a real group of egg people that promotes egg consumption. In the 70's, we were bombarded with commercials from them for "the incredible edible egg®ï¸"

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

Even as a kid, when I saw "Love Is" in the newspaper, I thought it was creepy. Also, I recall, it wasn't in the comics section of the newspaper but some random section. Weird!

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

Pleased to have made that up with @thatbilloakley 👍

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

I didn't know that until after someone had pitched that line in the room and told us who he was. And I thought I knew my oldtimey actors.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

That is one of my favorite made-up names of all time on the Simpsons, specifically because it sounds both very real and very made up at the same time! I think Steve Tompkins pitched that one.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

Pleased to see these here - @thatbilloakley and I made these up. Sacrilicious! (Also listed in this thread.)

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

Yeah, it's a fantastic song, too!

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

I remember going to see my cousin in a highschool production of Guys and Dolls and waiting and waiting for them to sing the title song until it dawned on me

— Bang Bang Bart (@Cormac_McCafe) December 13, 2022

had a conversation with someone who told me they'd never seen Streetcar Named Desire because they hate musicals

— maura quint (possibly parody sometimes depending) (@behindyourback) December 12, 2022

My primary school teacher never forgave me for this one pic.twitter.com/rmE43kyTHn

— Angelique Lu (@Angelique_Lu) December 12, 2022

to this day, I still blow people's minds by telling them Winifred Beecher Howe isn't real. Many of us were fooled pic.twitter.com/VxiBHpxAU1

— nina matsumoto✨ (@spacecoyotl) December 12, 2022

This is one that keeps popping up in this thread that genuinely surprises me but when I think about it, it's not so surprising if you were born after or were just a kid when the movie came out.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

A bunch of us grew up in the 70's and saw a ton of Schoolhouse Rocks on Saturday morning TV. Schoolhouse Rocks had great songs and animation, totally worth checking out if you haven't seen them or all of the segments. So catchy, many of the songs are still in my head.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

Totally made up but believable (for Vaudeville) name. A Simpsons specialty!

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 12, 2022

Also, it's Hig Heisler. I ❤️ and use @FrinkiacApp all the time but it's one of the few things that's not accurate on there.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

This is one of my favorite things in this thread👍

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

I didn’t know that The King Biscuit Flower Hour was real.

— Simpsons Albums (@SimpsonsAlbums) December 13, 2022

I believed “there'll be no accusations, just friendly crustaceans” was a line in the actual Little Mermaid song for many, many years.

— Ben Lesnick (@banditloaf) December 13, 2022

when i was a kid i definitely thought the church becoming a business in "she of little faith" was a massive exaggeration for the plot, only to realize it's unfortunately extremely real

— sam smart (@uglyblender) December 12, 2022

Embarrassed to admit it but I thought for a very long time the second line of Devo's "Whip It" was actually 'Licorice Whip' pic.twitter.com/pUFRraW7Vy

— Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens (@CSMFHT) December 13, 2022

I thought saint Swithin's day was just some weird idea of a British holiday Bart made up

— Ryan's was a buffet chain in the midwest (@RyanSpaceBurger) December 12, 2022

Not The Simpsons but has ties to the show: The Critic.

I saw the bit about Orson Welles doing frozen peas commercial. My friend explained that he actually did those commercials back in the day. pic.twitter.com/cs0VHL9Hbv

— James (@Fs0c1ety04) December 12, 2022

I had no idea Ray Bolger was the Scarecrow til like 10 years ago. And the obscurity for Homer to use that name out of any celebrity probably made the line even funnier to me pic.twitter.com/sBq3WVkVWo

— Mitchell Clemons (@tweetingdouche) December 12, 2022

I assumed Starland Vocal Band was made up for years.

Nope. Someone actually named their band that. pic.twitter.com/DdLg1YgKK8

— Ian McD (@CheersIan) December 12, 2022

I recently learned the "pool-mobile" was based on a real thing pic.twitter.com/bPnxhF2FEg

— Cuckoo 4 contraband (@cuckoo__bananas) December 12, 2022

i wanted this to be real so bad pic.twitter.com/z1GfTMija5

— paul de revere (@pderevere) December 12, 2022

I never had to resort to buying Crazy but there were plenty of times I had read every single article in Mad and needed to buy Cracked to get my fix until the next Mad came out (had a subscription) Crazy seemed so bad even as a kid I didn't want it.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 13, 2022

I used to think this was the real Matt Groening pic.twitter.com/3WV1lR0OtW

— That Guy With A Game Boy Camera - Las-New (@ThatGuyWithAGa1) December 12, 2022

I was so certain that Paint Your Wagon was made-up that I didn't check until very recently pic.twitter.com/9p8CrhkvwX

— That Tall Guy Steven (@distantshores) December 13, 2022

Having never seen any of the Rocky films I just presumed that there was actually a Rocky VII: Adrian's Revenge

— Iain Jenkins (@Iain_Jenks) December 12, 2022

Who could have thought a golfer named so realistically wasn’t real? pic.twitter.com/gqY4SYPV91

— Sebastian Boyle (@sebastianboyle) December 12, 2022

I really thought Conan O’Brien wouldn’t let his guests dance 😂

— Katie Feet (@rinfeet) December 12, 2022