Your Simpsons Moment of Zen

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Homer Simpson.

As a toddler, I sat on the living room carpet, with one hand in a box of crackers, and most of my attention on the TV.  It was the episode where Lisa was born, and took place before they bought the classic “Simpsons” house.

A few years and a different living room later, I was watching a Millhouse centric episode when I heard the news that my best friend’s house had been broken into.  As a preteen, I re-watched the *NSYNC episode so many times that my VHS tape could no longer successfully auto track.  I was stuck with this wide, bouncing line across the top of the screen, and glorious, animated distortion on the bottom.

Whether it was intentional or not, over the years I got a lot of important information from the show.  Don’t steal (your mom will be upset), don’t get a tattoo (your mom will be upset, and you’ll ruin Christmas), and don’t lie (your mom will be upset, you’ll ruin Christmas, and the entire town will turn against your family)*.

The first gay person I ever saw on TV was animated, full of kitsch, and in the Simpsons kitchen.  And, even though I was terrified of the X-Files theme song when I was a kid, I loved the episode with Mulder and Scully.  I have distinct memories of counting my Halloween candy with various Treehouse of Horror episodes as background noise.  And, throughout the years, I’ve retained enough pop culture trivia from the show to be moderately successful in any kind of 90s/00s-centric trivia board game.

Which brings me to:  Your Simpsons Moment of Zen.  Every Sunday night at 8:00 PM, I will post a Simpsons moment for us all to enjoy before we trundle off into a new week.  The first Simpsons episode aired in April 1987 — I was born in June.  That’s 25 (almost 26!) years, over 500 episodes, and a whole shit-ton of memories.

* Yes, I have recently watched all of the holiday themed episodes on Comedy Network reruns.