Crisis on Infinite Springfields

As of last night, The Simpsons has, by my count, three episodes devoted to a potential future in its 16 seasons. The first two glimpses are gained via mystical means while the most recent involved technology. Should these episodes should be considered imaginary, such as the Treehouse of Horror series, Simpsons Spin-off Showcase, Simpsons Bible Stories, Tall Tales, Tales from the Public Domain, and Margical History Tour? Or are they in fact canon, despite some contradictions? The show is known for ignoring continuity, since time passes and cultural references are made, and yet the children never age. It's also possible, given the nature of these visions of the future that they are possible futures, revealing alternate realities. Will The Simpsons need a Crisis to resolve these questions? Probably not. At the end of the day, the jokes outweigh the continuity of the show. Nevertheless, I thought it would make for an interesting article to explore these three futures.

Lisa's Wedding is a bittersweet tale of an 8-year-old girl who meets a fortune teller at a fair, and gets to see her family will be just as embarrassing to her in the year 2010. She falls in love with a classy British guy but when he refuses to wear cufflinks shaped like little pigs, to honor her father's only request, she realizes she needs to be with someone who can accept her family and calls off the wedding. In this future, Marge and Homer are still together, Bart works in demolition, Lisa has been away at school and though Maggie supposedly has a lovely voice, she is interrupted every time she's about to speak or sing. Milhouse is now Homer's boss, and bitter over Lisa getting married. The episode implies that Milhouse was her first. The episode aired in 1995 and Lisa was 8 at the time, so she would have been 23 in this future.

In the year 2000, Bart to the Future first aired. While sneaking around an Indian casino, Bart meets up with a Shaman who shows him a vision of the year 2030. Bart and Lisa are perpetually 10 and 8 years old respectively, and that hasn't changed in the year 2000. Therefore, they are 40 and 38 in the future portrayed, which makes Lisa the right age to be President of the United States, and Bart old enough to have lost his construction job from the previous vision of the future and now be a slacker musician sharing a shack with Ralph Wiggum. Homer and Marge are still together, and the doddering father leads his wife on a quest for Lincoln's gold, mostly as filler for the episode(pointed out in a clever in-joke). Milhouse is part of Lisa's cabinet and still has a crush on her, but she still has no interest in him.

Last night Future-Drama aired. Bart and Lisa accidentally wind up in Professor Frink's basement, but he's been expecting them, thanks to his new invention, a machine that shows the future. The show establishes a potential flaw in the device from the start, because he was also expecting Maggie. Frink's machine shows them their Senior year of high school, which sets the events of the episode prior to those of the previous two glimpses of the future. A year is not specified, but if it's 2005 in present day Springfield and the pair are still 10 and 8, it would be 8 years later when he's 18 and she's 16. This would set the episode in the year 2013, three year's after Lisa's Wedding in which they were already much older. Lisa has skipped a few grades which is why she is graduating with her brother. Marge and Homer are separated in this episode, and at one point she's dating Krusty the Clown, much to Homer's chagrin. To keep his high school girlfriend from leaving, Bart accepts a scholarship from Mr. Burns that was meant for his sister, but later relents. Homer and Marge reconcile. Other than the discrepancy in the years, it's entirely possible for the resolution of this episode's events to lead to those of Lisa's Wedding, since Lisa may have gone on to graduate school in England where she meets her fiancée. After throwing away his chance to go to college, it's likely Bart would go on to be a construction worker and then a slacker musician. But what of Milhouse? Everyone's favorite nerd has bulked up, and this musclebound small-ankled geek gets to take his true love to the prom. He nearly gets more than that when she's despondent about not going to college, but Bart swoops in at the last moment and stops her from “throwing her life away”. While the breakup scene between Lisa and Milhouse in Lisa's Wedding did not show Bart's involvement or a hulking Milhouse, it was seen from his memory so time may have changed things. He could have then dedicated himself to his work and become Homer's boss in Lisa's Wedding, and it could account for why he and Bart are no longer close friends in Bart to the Future--at the time I thought it odd that Ralph was Bart's roommate. Best of all though, is a cameo of Bender.

The Simpsons. Three possible futures seemingly conflicting, but things can be explained so long as no one minds fudging the dates. I think there's great potential here for a future future episode in which all possible divergent timelines are revealed to coexist separately, and versions of these characters from each reality somehow meet. In conclusion, this is how one watches a show like the Simpsons after spending far too many years reading comic books. Thank you, and see you in the future...