1959: The Simpsons
| The Simpsons |
 Title text: In-universe, Bart Simpson and Harry Potter were the same age in 1990. Bart is perpetually 10 years old because of a spell put on his town by someone trying to keep him from getting his Hogwarts letter. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a SIMPSON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
The Simpsons started with a Christmas episode in 1989, with the rest of the first season airing in 1990. Since Bart is always 10, this puts him as having been born in 1979 or 1980. While none of the characters age, it has now been on the air long enough that Bart and Lisa would have reached Homer and Marge's original age by now if they had aged normally.
The title text further relates this to Harry Potter, providing an explanation for why nobody has aged. In the Harry Potter universe, Harry was likewise born in 1980, making the events/school years of the Harry Potter books span 1991 to 1997. This makes the implication that Bart would have been accepted to Hogwarts, causing major enough issues that it was decided this needed to be prevented, so it says they were stopped from aging. However, Hogwarts is established as serving the U.K. Presumably, as an American, Bart would be sent to a magic school in America instead (which would likely also affect the age he goes, most likely taking place after elementary school).
Transcript
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
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Provided an explanation, feels short but I really cant think of any more to say! :) As a Simpsons fan / Harry Potter fan / night owl who's reading this "fresh off the presses", as it were, I felt obligated, LOL! I can't think of any reason / explanation why Bart being born the same year as Harry Potter means he'd automatically be in the HP universe, or automatically magical and accepted to Hogwarts (especially seeing as, as an American, presumably he'd go to some American magic school instead). Going to workup the transcript now. NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:49, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
Provided the transcript. Even figured out how to do the gray text, LOL! NiceGuy1 (talk) 07:25, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
The U.S.A school is Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Andcoz (talk) 08:09, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- Ah, yes, thank you. I knew there must be something, though I figured on several, scattered over the continent, not just one. The only extra material I've seen (i.e. beyond the original 7 books and original 8 movies) are the two little Comic Relief books, nothing really from Pottermore. Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts movie are still on my to-do list. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
The modern seasons have 22 episodes, they're currently in season 29. The episodes are usually longer than 20 minutes. That means that there about 9 days of Simpsons so far, little enough to not completely disprove the timeline. If just two episodes on average depict one day, it's reasonable that the characters stay the same age, they would just have an extremely busy year. Yes, many episodes depict multiple days, but nobody said that one episode has to start after the previous one ended. And the other ones could fit more into one day. So Randall's spell theory could be right, but doesn't have to. Fabian42 (talk) 08:22, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
- except that the timing of the setting changes. For example: In the early episodes there wasn't any modern technologies, later episodes focus on wether or not Bart is old enough to have a simple cell phone, in more recent ones he has a smartphone and it is no big deal. Other example: Real people making appereance in the series reflect the age of the real people. Not only age, but also job, etc. E.g. in many episodes you can see who is US-President. Lupo (talk) 19:08, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Kinda funny he posted this in the wake of the whole Ted Cruz saying all the Simpsons except Lisa are Republicans. -Sensorfire (talk) 14:11, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
It doesn't actually make me feel that old because I remember the Simpsons on the Tracey Ullman Show, which ended in 1990. (And I cannot believe that Tracey Ullman isn't mentioned already.) 198.41.238.70 00:10, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Not related to the Simpsons or Harry Potter, but what the Simpsons underwent was Comic Book Time where the characters, even after a span of years, they will always be as the same age as where they started from. Comics like Foxtrot and Garfield are the best examples of that, since they are still the same age where they debuted from. -- Xkcdreader52 (talk) 04:12, 24 February 2018 (please sign your comments with ~~~~) ((~Boeing-787lover 04:13, 24 February 2018 (UTC)))
- Actually, between comic strips and cartoons, the ONLY exception I can think of, where characters actually age, is the Canadian comic For Better Or Worse, which focuses on parenting, and over the decades the 2 kids from the early strips slowly turned into adults by the end (including a third kid being born during the strip becoming a teenager by the end). Helps that the whole family - except the baby born - were based on the author's real-life family. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- The author of "For Better or For Worse" was very clear that by the time the kids were adults, the characters were her own invention, in careers different than her own kids, in her last retrospecive books. But being inspired by raising 2 actual, growing children did contribute to why Mike and Elizabeth grew up. Other characters, like the grandparents, also had different lives than her characters 162.158.75.118 (talk) 20:59, 27 March 2018 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Pretty sure the transcript is done already, can someone's check? It looks ok to me but I'm not sure if it's finished. Herobrine (talk) 10:45, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm 85% sure this is a reference to Simpson's Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox, which is unrelated to the Simpsons family. The way the table was constructed and highlighted is a giveaway. 162.158.90.120 12:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
- I think so too. Compare this to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#Kidney_stone_treatment, https://mathspp.com/blog/til/030, https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/stor-i-student-sites/katie-howgate/2021/04/16/which-treatment-would-you-prefer-simpsons-paradox/, and http://jse.amstat.org/v21n1/schneiter.pdf. Solomon (talk) 00:42, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
The hover over text is also similar to various theories about why Ash in Pokemon does not age. The theory is typically Ash stays 10 years old because in the first episode he sees Ho-Oh who magically blessed him with eternal happiness and not aging. -- Hawthorne (talk) 19:39, 24 February 2018 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- But that doesn't explain all the other characters. Team rocket is the same age. Etc. Keybounce (talk) 03:14, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
The "Homer watching the moon landings" YouTube link no longer works. The account has been closed. The URL should be removed from the article. 172.69.43.243 (talk) 13:56, 18 April 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- I googled a bit and found the full scene only with German dub, however I found a short excerpt depicting the key part of the scene relevant for teh comic. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 12:12, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
