Commandments broken by Simpsons characters

Cafe Society
1

I have no idea what made me think of this. I think it was when I was watching 24 and thinking about how many of the Ten Judeo-Christian Commandments Jack Bauer had broken. I figured only two, then thought about “How many commandments have Simpsons characters broken?” Or, which characters have broken which commandments? Let’s look. Feel free to add to the list, as this is off the top of my head:

*Denotes a commandment broken by a fictional character (in the Simpsons universe, that is)

I. I am the LORD thy God[…]Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God[…]

Catholics and Lutherans make those first two one, which makes sense, seeing as they’re pretty much the same.

Homer (not going to church by creating his own religion)
Most of Springfield (joining the Stonecutters)
Most of Springfield (joining the Movementarians)

III. Though shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain…

Homer (various occasions)

IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Homer (not going to church by creating his own religion)

V. Honour thy father and thy mother[…]

Bart (various occasions)

VI. Thou shalt not kill.

Bart (shot a bird)
Hank Scorpio and troops (various killings)
*McBain (various shootings)
*Scratchy (once killed Itchy)
*Itchy (countless occasions)

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Homer (Mindy Simmons)
Marge (Jacques)
Apu (the Squishee lady, in the most recent episode)

VIII. Thou shalt not steal
Homer (stole cable, ratted out by Lisa after learning this commandment)
Bart (stole a video game)
Snake (is a robber by trade)

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Bart (often lies)

X. Thou shalt not covet [thy neighbour’s wife or goods].

Homer (has been attracted to Maude, and has borrowed many of Flanders’ things without returning them)

2

I. I am the LORD thy God[…]Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Homer talking to the waffle on the ceiling, saying “Jesus, Allah, Buddah, i love you all!”
**V. Honour thy father and thy mother[…] **

Grampa in the home!
I’m sure there are millions more

3

**I. I am the LORD thy God[…]Thou shalt have no other gods before me. **

Lisa becoming a Buddhist.

**VI. Thou shalt not kill. **

I keep thinking of Homer killing everything in the episode “Time and Punishment”- the giant mosquito, the dinosaurs…lol.

4

I don’t think Homer and Marge actually did commit adultery in the cases of Mindy and Jacques. Sure, they contemplated it.

What about Smithers and Mrs. Crabapple?

Has any of the despicable things Mr. Burns done been a violation of a commandment?

I’m sure Krusty has broken several himself.

5

How about when Homer and Flanders got married in Las Vegas? Bigamy should count as adultery.

Twice, actually. :smiley:

6

Ya know what’s always struck me?

The show’s characters break ‘the rules’, and the rules come back around and bite the transgressor in the ass. With humor.

So, yeah, maybe those commandments got broke, but the person who broke them paid in the end. In his or her small, pea-brained way.

7

Fat Tony and Legs both testified falsely against Bart.

8

**I. I am the LORD thy God[…]Thou shalt have no other gods before me. **

Homer, while rolling down a steep hill on top of a ladder–" I’m not usually a religious man, but if you can hear me, SAVE ME, SUPERMAN!"

9

Call me a cynic but the OP sounded suspiciously like an attempt to remind us of the ten commandments, thinly veiled as a Simpsons thread.

Remember: Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god (Homer) in vain.

10

I. I am the LORD thy God[…]Thou shalt have no other gods befre me.

Apu, of course, Is a Hindu

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God[…]

Again APu has various ‘graven images’ around his house/work

III. Though shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain…

Just about everyone!

IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Flanders once -almost- didn’t go to church on sunday :slight_smile:
Apu doesn’t go to church!

V. Honour thy father and thy mother[…]

Bart
Homer
Lisa, occasionally
Apu - disobeys and lies to his mother about being married

VI. Thou shalt not kill.

PEDANT POINT: it is usually ‘Thou shalt not commit murder’ - important distinction!

Itchy is the most guilty here, but Snake must have killed someone once.
Apu nearly killed Homer with… was it out-of-date prawns?
Sideshow Bob - has he ever successfully killed someone?

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Homer, marge, Abe, Mr. Burns, Apu, Flanders have all come close to committing or have committed adultery - depends on your definition of adultery, really!

VIII. Thou shalt not steal
Homer, Bart, Snake, Lisa (stole phone-calls from school/home), mr burns (stole oil)

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Bart, Homer, Abe, Marge, Lisa, Sideshow Bob, Krusty, Apu… ell, just about everyone, really

X. Thou shalt not covet [thy neighbour’s wife or goods].

Homer - Maude
Mr. Burns - Marge
For some reason, Apu seems to turn up in almost all of my list… interesting…

11

But you can’t hold Apu accountable to the 10 Commandments, since he’s not a Christian. Apu would have to be held accountable to the standards of his religious faith. N’est-ce pas?

12

Well if you’re going to go that route, then you shouldn’t hold Christians to the Ten Commandments either.

But then we’d probably have to move this over to GD. :smiley:

13

Wow, it’s really interesting this thread was started. I just finished listening to the audio commentaries on The Simpsons Season 1 DVD collection.

On one of them Matt Groening (I think it was him, but I’m not sure because each episode has several of the creators talking over it) said one of the ways they thought of stories was to consider each of the Ten Commandments and imagine how they could be used with the characters.

He said this during the “Life In the Fast Lane” episode, when Jacques tempted Marge, and he also mentioned that’s how they came up with the episode where Homer stopped going to church.

14

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28. :smiley:

15

yeeesss… but the commandment is ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’, not ‘thou shalt not commit adultery in thy heart’

our simpsons are innocent in this case.

and to the op: do halloween episodes count?

16

Little Maggie has attempted to kill both Mr. Burns and Homer. I fear it’s only a matter of time…

17

Wasn’t there an episode which started with everyone’s ancestors at the base of Mt. Sinai, with Moses coming down with the commandments? Each character has some specific commandment that they break.

18

I sincerely state that this was not my case. I can assure you 100% that that was not I had in mind. I, in fact, actually did think all of the things that occured in the first paragraph of my OP. (For the record, I figured Jack Bauer killed and stole.) This is just supposed to be an entertaining thread.

Sincerely,
Ryan W. Mead, a.k.a. “mobo85”

It just goes to show you how interesting these things are when you look at them in a Biblical point of view.

The jury’s still out on the Apu matter. Although I do have another one for him-pretending to be American. This would break commandments #1 and #2 if Apu were Christian (replacing statue of Ganesh with a copy of Entertainment Weekly, and would also break #5 (definately not honoring his parents there).

19

I would have tried to forget about Homer and Maude Flanders…after all, Maude died tragically…:frowning:
Pity Ned, as a 60-year-old widower raising two kids alone…
A Simpsons book I saw in a local bookstore showed Maude as pretty…in any case I’m sure Ned mourns her loss deeply…I wouldn’t be too hard on Homer.
How many commandments did Chief Wiggum violate when the carneys tricked the Simpsons out of their house, and Wiggum refused to help because Homer didn’t bribe him? Worse still, Homer still had to pay Wiggum’s salary after the Simpsons themselves tricked the carneys into coming outside. It was Mrs. Wiggum, not Ned Flanders, who deserved to be widowed…:mad:

20

Principal Skinner lies by assuming the identity of Seymour Skinner when he’s really Armand Tanzerian and also in his various attempts to deceive Superintendent Chalmers, and depending on how one defines adultery he commits adultery with Mrs Krabappel. He stole as a JD and may have killed in Vietnam.

Mrs Krabappel commits adultery.

Comic Book Guy and Agnes Skinner commit adultery.

Comic Book Guy steals (all the bootleg tapes he owns in violation of copyright).