Dan Castellaneta’s animated character Homer Simpson has officially put an end to his famous and 3-decade-long Simpsons gag of strangling his son Bart.
In recent years, the joke has been deemed by some viewers to be too insensitive, with one user reacting to the news on X by exclaiming that it “took them long enough”.
Attached to the user’s post included a clip of Castellaneta’s Homer Simpson confirming the new change.
While shaking another character’s hand, a man tells Homer that he has “quite a grip”, Homer then looks at his wife Marge (voiced by Julie Kavner) and says “See Marge, strangling the boy [Bart] has paid off – just kidding, I don’t do that anymore, times have changed.”
The strangling gag was originally introduced to the show as a satirical take on American families, however, some fans of the now 30-year-running animated series reckoned the gag was out of touch with modern times.
Homer Simpson hasn’t strangled his son Bart on-screen since sometime between 2019 and 2020 during its 31st season, this is the first time the show has confirmed the change though.
Simpsons Fans React To Homer Changing His Ways
Some fans of the show took to CoveredGeekly’s Instagram when posting the news to react to the confirmation that the creators intend not to use “child abuse” as a gag anymore.
See below for what people had to say.
Although many fans took to the web to express their agreeance with the show for getting rid of the long-running gag, not all were impressed with the change.
One user wrote, “Then I’ll still watch seasons 1 to 34 but now Simpsons has lost my interest. It has been for a while but this was the last straw”.
On the other side of the coin, another user reacted by saying “Why is everyone making sad comments about it, it was a sign of being abusive to your child guys [crying emoji]“.
It’s unclear if the show officially got rid of the joke due to fans asking for the change, or if the creators just felt it was time to modernise the dark abusive humour.
It’s safe to say the reaction has been mixed, however, as aforementioned – the strangling gag hasn’t been featured in a single episode for almost half a decade now, which means the decision to rid the joke had probably been made years prior to the announcement.
