Worst 'Simpsons' Episodes Ever Made

The Simpsons is the longest-running cartoon show of all time, and is viewed as a slice of American pop culture. It’s the classic sitcom starring a hapless dad, a loving mom, and three kids. Everyone out there knows this show, and it’s even been spoofed by Rick and Morty.

Over the three decades that this show has been on air, it’s seen a lot of great episodes. We all love the episode where Maggie shot Mr. Burns. We also loved seeing Apu get married to Mandula, as well as the birth of the octuplets. Countless pop culture references were born from these shows.

However, no show is perfect. There were some pretty awful episodes thrown in the mix, too. Here are my personal picks of the worst Simpsons episodes ever made…

Rated by NoHomers as the worst of the worst Simpsons episodes of all time, it’s easy to see why this episode didn’t fare well with fans. It had Homer Simpson killing an alligator, having the family wade through Spring Break in Florida, and also had them dodging arrests left and right. At the end, the family was send to a lifetime of forced labor—but then they get freed after the stupid alligator shows up again.

I don’t know what Matt Groening was thinking with this one. The jokes were unfunny. The plot was so bizarre and terrible, fans actually asked Groening to make the episode non-canon after it aired.

It also didn’t age well. Since Spring Break was much more popular in the 90s, a lot of younger audiences now end up wondering how the hell college students could afford to party it up that way in the first place.

“Black-Eyed Please”

This was one of the more nonsensical and depressing episodes that the Simpsons had. Everyone in it was at their worst or was needlessly hurt. In this one, Lisa’s ideal teacher ends up hating her for no reason. Ned Flanders’s father likes Homer more than him, and Ned flies into a rage that ends with Homer getting a black eye.

Townspeople turning on Ned was ugly. Seeing Edna Krabappel depressed was depressing. This is supposed to be a sitcom, people! Is it any wonder it’s considered to be one of the worst Simpsons episodes out there?

“The Greatest Story Ever D’Ohed”

I want to limit this list to two travel-related episodes, primarily because I’m worried that the entire list would be nothing but episodes where some magical quirk happens and they end up traveling. This time, the deus ex machina was a trip to Jerusalem with Ned Flanders.

The gags were cyclical. Every single place they went, they desecrated. And then, just because the writing got so lazy, Homer Simpson ends up having a dehydration-caused dream that convinces him that he's the Messiah. He has a spiritual awakening of sorts, but only after Dr. Hibbert checks him out and diagnoses him with Jerusalem Syndrome.

Yep, Jerusalem Syndrome. They went there. If there was ever a time when I debated if The Simpsons should be canceled, it was when I watched this episode. Clearly, it's one of the worst Simpsons episodes out there—even in the already-shitty vacation-theme category.

"Smoke on the Daughter"

The main plot of this was so bad that it's hard not to mention it among the worst Simpsons episodes ever. The entire premise was that Lisa Simpson became a ballerina, and a fellow ballerina introduces her to smoking. If that sounds like an anti-smoking campaign video, it's because it basically was one.

Ugh.

It's very hard for a Simpsons fan such as myself to ever say this about an episode, but everything about this was so wrong that it's just totally grimy. This is partly due to the fact that Lisa makes up a Native American tribe called "Hitachi," and partly because, well...

Bart Simpson, as everyone knows, is 10 years old. After he gets awarded a driver's license after saving the town from a fire, he runs away and has a relationship with a 15-year-old girl named Darcy.

Think about that for a minute. A 10-year-old dating a 15-year-old. That's pretty bad, but it's made worse by the fact that Darcy reveals that she's pregnant. Bart agrees to marry Darcy, but their parents foil the attempt, because child marriage. The babies end up being "passed off" as Darcy's siblings to hide her sins.

Do you feel sick reading that? It's even worse watching it. If you are as disgusted by the entire writeup, you'll understand why this is one of the absolute worst Simpsons episodes ever aired. TheSimpsons died a bit after this episode.

You'd think that we'd see a lot of the worst episodes focus on Homer and Marge, but it's actually not the case. It seems like the bulk of the worst Simpsons episodes tend to have a focus on Bart and Lisa. Such is the case with "Lisa Goes Gaga."

Lady Gaga makes a cameo and tries to help Lisa become more popular in her elementary school. Lisa treats Lady Gaga like dirt, and the famous singer goes away. Somehow, Lisa finds her again and apologizes.

See the problem here? It's basically totally reliant on Lady Gaga, and Lisa Simpson acts like a jerk in it. That being said, if that's how Lisa reacts to someone trying to cheer her up, she probably deserves to be unpopular.

"Moe Goes from Rags to Riches"

This is one of the more ridiculous episodes to make this list, because it literally has Moe's bar rag narrate its life story. Oh, and apparently, it's actually a rag from a medieval tapestry that is made from "demon wool," so it can do that.

It's hard to say what made writers think it'd be okay to randomly add magic into a non-fantasy show. It's even hard to figure out what they were expecting to happen when fans viewed it. This episode was panned by viewers and critics alike, no surprise there.

"What to Expect When Bart's Expecting"

Bart, being a rebel, hates his art class with a passion. So, he goes to a voodoo queen who makes a doll of the art teacher. She quickly gets pregnant, despite the actual spell being for a stomach ache.

Ralph tells everyone that Bart's voodoo got the teacher pregnant. Word gets around that Bart's magic has baby-making powers and local criminal Fat Tony decides to kidnap him to make a racehorse breed.

Organized crime with harebrained schemes. Aside from being incredibly overdone, the whole plot was so poorly written that the episode is regularly called one of the worst Simpsons episodes of all time.

"The Boys of Bummer"

Of all the worst Simpsons episodes, this one has to be one of the most disturbing. The entire premise of the show is that the entire town starts to bully Bart because he lost a Little League game. Bart slowly descends into madness and depression...

And then, with the town's encouragement, Bart Simpson attempts suicide. This is not a joke. He actually tries to kill himself. While a lot of episodes of The Simpsons involved deaths of characters, seeing a little boy getting so badly bullied that he tried to off himself was just too much.

This episode is really cruel, and to a point, kind of ruins The Simpsons. You can't really like the show's characters after a debacle like this.