It looks like Homer Simpson has turned a new leaf: The Simpsons have apparently done away with the long-running gag in which its patriarch would strangle his son Bart.
In a recent Season 35 episode titled “McMansion & Wife,” Homer and Marge go next door to visit their new neighbor Thayer, greeting him with a handshake: “Whoa, that’s quite a grip,” Thayer remarks.
“See, Marge? Strangling the boy paid off,” Homer brags, before turning back to Thayer. “Just kidding, I don’t do that anymore. Times have changed.”
While some longtime Simpsons fans expressed some disappointment in Homer’s change of character, it seems like a good majority of them found some solace in the retirement of the strangle. “I knew my man Homer was gonna learn,” one Twitter user remarked, while another adding: “Took him 36 years.”
See a clip of the episode in question below.
Earlier this year, The Simpsons as renewed through its 36th season. The show’s team has made a few tweaks over its three-decade run in order to keep up with the aforementioned changing times — notably, in 2020, Hank Azaria confirmed he’d no longer be voicing Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian character who’s been critiqued as a caricature of South Asian stereotypes.
I just found out that, after over 30 years, The Simpsons has finally retired their long-running gag of Homer strangling Bart.
Took them long enough lmao pic.twitter.com/JuHyNu1eiK
— Simon A. (Baby Lamb Creations) (@BabyLamb5) November 2, 2023
