The Simpsons killed off a character for a one-off gag years ago, but this might prove a problem for season 34, episode 13. The Simpsons doesn’t care about keeping its canon clear. Over the years, the goofy comedy series has repeatedly mocked its own inconsistencies and plot holes and, with over 700 episodes aired and an anarchic, goofy tone, it is easy to see why The Simpsons doesn’t prioritize consistency and clarity when it comes to the show’s canon.
However, The Simpsons does occasionally make some concessions to viewers who worry about such things. While The Simpsons season 34 broke many rules of the show’s usual writing style in its first few episodes alone, the series also regularly brings back minor characters, draws on established plot lines, and generally anticipates that viewers will have some level of remedial familiarity with the existing canon of The Simpsons. This can be a major problem at times, as evidenced by the title of The Simpsons season 34, episode 13, “The Many Saints of Springfield,” whose plot line is likely to run into a forgotten continuity issue thanks to one joke from over ten years ago.
The Simpsons Killed Off Fat Tony Years Ago
In The Simpsons season 22, episode 9, “Donnie Fatso,” the show killed off Fat Tony and replaced him with his cousin, Fit Tony, who soon became identical to Fat Tony in a silly one-off joke. The Sopranos antihero Tony Soprano, and “The Many Saints of Springfield” sounds like the equivalent story for Fat Tony, or possibly Fit Tony.
If, as the title implies, “The Many Saints of Springfield” tells the story of Fat Tony’s early years, will it be the original Fat Tony’s story or his replacement Fit Tony’s youth that the episode will flesh out? The answer is almost impossible to tell. It has been over a decade since Fit Tony replaced Fat Tony, meaning he is embedded in The Simpsons canon. However, the version of Fat Tony from the Golden Age era of The Simpsons is the original iteration of the character and, since the canon of The Simpsons is endlessly elastic, there is nothing to stop him from narrating the action of “The Many Saints of Springfield” despite his death.
The Many Saints of Springfield Highlights A Fat Tony Problem
Like Armin Tanzarian, Fit Tony presents something of a problem for viewers of The Simpsons who are trying to work out the show’s canon. The original Fat Tony is dead in The Simpsons as of the events of “Donnie Fatso,” but the story of The Simpsons is not one linear plot. The fact that Marge and Homer have canonically attended high school in their teens during both the mid-70s and the late 90s makes it clear that The Simpsons changes its story constantly. This makes it impossible to tell which episodes feature Fat Tony and which feature Fit Tony as The Simpsons breaks all manner of TV rules,
Fat Tony’s Story Proves A Modern Simpsons Issue
For viewers to work out which plots feature Fit Tony and which feature Fat Tony, The Simpsons would need to make it clear what order the episodes take place in. The creators of The Simpsons can never do this since the events of some episodes directly contradict the plots of others. In three different episodes, Sideshow Bob fell victim to three different fates, forgiving Bart in one outing, wasting his life seeking revenge on Bart in another, and, bizarrely, ending up stabbed to death on the floor of Moe’s bar in a macabre background gag of another outing. The massive disparity between Sideshow Bob’s various fates makes it clear that The Simpsons character's futures are subject to revision in each new episode.
How The Simpsons Season 34 Can Fix This Issue
If “The Many Saints of Springfield” were to address the fact that Fit Tony and Fat Tony both exist in a meta gag, this would be enough to paper over the plot hole. The Simpsons has never claimed to be consistent when it comes to characters and plots, and simply itting this with a meta-reference to the events of “Donnie Fatso” would be enough to make the inconsistency more palatable. That being said, the sprawling world of The Simpsons means there is a good chance that even the creators have forgotten that Fat Tony was killed and replaced ten years ago, making this gag an unlikely addition to the outing.