According to The Simpsons episode history, Bart was born in 1981. That would make him 36, Lisa 34, and Maggie 28.
So, is Springfield frozen in time at 1991? How does that happen? Some Twilight Zone time bubble, like when that 1840’s wagon train guy ran over the hill to get his kid penicillin?
Well he’s got a while to go before he grows up.
Ginger Meggs, who was first drawn in 1921 is now aged 95.
In 1991, Bart was born in 1981. In 2001 he was born in 1991 and in 2016 he was born in 2006.
I don’t see the problem.
When the show started, I noticed that, based on how old he was in flashbacks, Homer was about my age (28). The show has been on and stuck in time so long that if Homer was still the same age, he could be my son!
I think they’ve set his age so he’s a bit older now.
They really should let the characters age, even if it is at a reduced rate. I enjoy the “future” episodes.
IIRC, Homer is officially 39 (the age I used for the calculation in the story I posted above). (Meaning they were out of high school for a decade when they had Bart, not right out of high school as stated in some early episodes.)
We’ve been watching the early episodes lately and the time warp effect is really noticeable.
In S03E02, Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, the family takes a VIP tour of the White House, encountering Barbara Bush in the bathtub. Yet no Simpson has a problem meeting other Presidents/First Ladies, e.g., Michelle Obama in S21E15, Stealing First Base. (And that was 6 years ago. Most TV shows don’t even last 6 years.)
Also noticeable are the guest stars on the show that have been dead for many years. E.g., George Harrison (2 appearances) died 15 years ago.
The one that always gets me: Homer is shown as a teenager listening to music during the Apollo 11 moon landing. He is later shown as a toddler at Woodstock. One month later.
Funny wins out over continuity.
No, that sounds about right for “right out of high school”. Remember, this is Homer Simpson we’re talking about.
Y’know, technically speaking, Bart Simpson is old enough to be a grandfather…
I’d always thought that in basically comic material, “elastic time / time-freezing” was a quite often used and accepted convention. A British instance, involves a huge series of books of short stories on a theme with slight similarities to The Simpsons: Richmal Crompton’s Willam books. The hero William Brown – naughty-schoolboy son of respectable English suburbanites – and his several friends / “partners in crime”, remain at the age of ten or eleven, throughout the period approx. 1923 – 1963 (complete with its associated turbulent historical events) over which the author wrote the series. William’s family stay similarly “frozen” at their ages as at the start of the series.
It’s not just comics - Ed McBain’s *87th Precinct *detective novels were published over the course of almost 50 years, each book set in the year it was written, and yet in that entire time the main characters barely aged.
Most shockingly, Dagwood is now the world’s oldest human. He attributes his longevity to frequent napping.
I meant “William”, of course – as per a few words further on in my post.
OP, check out the L.I.S.A., the List of Inquiries and Substantive Answers:
[QUOTE=L.I.S.A.]
How come the characters don’t age?
The general reason given by the producers is that the nature of the series might change dramatically otherwise. One of the things that plagues long-running sitcoms is that child actors inevitably grow up and become too old for the characters they play. Often the cuteness and precociousness of those child characters is then lost.
As long as The Simpsons has the freedom to keep its characters the same age forever, it will take advantage of its ability to do that.
[/quote]
It sounds a lot like Marvel comics’ timeline. When did the Fantastic Four’s rocket go up? Ten years ago. Everything else is relative to that.
“We’re buying new shoes. You two are way overdue for a growth spurt.” - Marge to her kids about 20 years ago.
There was a 2008 episode where Marge and Homer’s romance was retold with them as '90s college-age hipsters, instead of in the canonical 1980ish high-school setting. Homer becomes the front man in a grunge band called Sadgasm after Marge dumps him, for instance, and he sings “Margerine” to the tune of “Glycerine.” This was also when Lisa lampshaded the fact that the story always presented them as getting pregnant in high school, yet they’re in their late 30s with a ten-year-old. Many fans erupted that this was a line that retconning should not have crossed.
He is. In the Simpson universe, that’s what a 36 YO looks like.
Some have commented that many of Bart and Lisa’s recent storylines would make much more sense with them as teenagers or at least late-middle-schoolers (Bart’s increasing number of love interests, for example) than eight- and ten-year-olds, so why NOT age them up a bit?
That’s also the reason for Cousin Oliver syndrome…adding ostensibly “cute” new kids to a sitcom when the old ones start growing.
But in the Simpsons’ case, as I said above, some believe that this is actually starting to hinder what they can do with their storylines.
I’m not a big Simpsons, or television, fan: usually only see either, when visiting relatives with tastes different in this way, from mine. I seem to recall from one such occasion a couple of years ago, a Simpsons episode where Homer is in the process of being conscripted to go and fight in Vietnam. Perhaps this is misunderstanding or mis-remembering on my part; but it would seem that some contributing to this thread would say re this matter – “why not?”.
I don’t think Homer was in Vietnam. He joined the army in G.I. (Annoyed Grunt), and the naval reserve in Simpson Tide, but both of those are set in the present, and I think Homer’s only military experience. Vietnam is part of Skinner’s backstory. And I think it remains so, despite aging him more, just like WWII stays in Grandpa’s backstory.