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How Old Would ‘The Simpsons’ Characters Be In Real Life? And How A ‘Simpsons’ Fan Trolled Director Mark Kirkland And Got Away With It

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 17:50 PST, Jun 8, 2016

The Simpsons, one of TVs most timeless animated sitcoms, has been running for quite a long time now. When the show made its initial start back in December of 1987, nobody knew that the show would run for 27 seasons and counting. While the show may be timeless, The Simpsons tries very hard to hide the real age of its characters, according to Joe.

Some clues in the show can be used to figure out the age of the cast, such as the way that Grandpa Simpson is a World War 2 veteran, which puts him in his 90s, and Seymour Skinner must be in his 60s, due to him being a Vietnam War veteran.

The main Simpsons cast and their ages make for a very interesting conversation piece, with each of their ages being revealed or teased in small ways. It is up to the fans to figure the ages out using small clues throughout the seasons. In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson’s age was finally revealed through his driver’s license information, which showed his birthday as May 12, 1956.

This information is confusing for fans of The Simpsons as Homer usually purports to be 36-years-old, but give his 1956 birth date, he would have turned 60 this year.

Marge’s age is a little trickier to ascertain. In flashbacks, Marge and Homer can be seen taking the same classes together. Going by the clues, they must be roughly the same age. In one particular episode in Season 1 of The Simpsons, the now-deceased Dr. Marvin Monroe receives a call from Marge on his radio show where he refers to being 34-years-old, which makes her 58-years-old this year.

Of course, the difficult aspect of figuring out Marge Simpson’s birthday is that her birthday has changed over the years. In Season 18, it was revealed she had the same birthday as Randy Quaid, October 1, but in a Season 23 episode, her birthday is revealed to Lisa through a calendar with the marked date of March 19.

Bart Simpson’s age reveals itself on The Simpsons in the third season. The episode flashes back to Marge and Homer watching Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back in the cinema, and shortly thereafter, Marge becomes pregnant with Bart. While Bart maintains the age and likeness of a 10-year-old child on The Simpsons, that particular Star Wars film was released in 1980, which would make Bart 35-years-old if he were real.

In the Season 3 episode “Stark Raving Dad,” Lisa turned eight-years-old. And given that, in The Simpsons timeline, Lisa and Bart were born two years apart, her being eight-years-old at the time does make sense. If Lisa were a real person, she would be 33-years-old.

Maggie’s age is the easiest to figure out. In the show, she’s 1-year-old as revealed in the Season 5 episode “Lady Bouvier’s Lover” when The Simpson family gathers to celebrate Maggie’s first birthday. If she were a real person, Maggie would be 27-years-old this year.

Fans of The Simpsons are some of the most observant and loyal among any TV show’s fanbase, taking note of every little detail. Some fans do like to have their fun at the expense of The Simpsons, though. According to Uproxx, a Simpsons fan trolled director Mark Kirkland by asking a question that came straight from the show.

“In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy’s skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.”

The question sounded like a genuine one from a rather fanatical yet observant fan, which what flew under the director’s radar is that the question was taken word for word from an episode of the show, the “Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show” episode from an earlier season of The Simpsons.

It is not clear whether Mark Kirkland took the question seriously or whether he was playing along with the joke.

“Itchy and Scratchy are crudely produced cartoons by a fictitious cartoon company within the Simpsons world. Glad you caught the error, you are very observant! Lisa and Bart didn’t seem to notice.”

Some fans speculate that he was trolling the fan back, while others assume that he took the question seriously because he wasn’t as familiar with all 500-plus episodes as extreme The Simpsons fans can be!

[Photo by meunierd/Shutterstock.com]

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