Wait, Are Homer And Marge Millennials? ‘The Simpsons’ Showrunner Explains Recent Timeline Controversy

Is The Simpsons doing the time warp again?

The FOX animated sitcom, which returned for its 37th season on September 28, kicked off with an episode titled “Thrifty Ways to Thieve Your Mother,” which sees Lisa “welcomed into the schools super-elite fashion club” after she begins wearing her mother Marge’s “‘vintage’ clothes from the 90’s.”

“But as they run out of retro looks, the funky fashionistas become obsessed with getting more…by hook or by crook,” the episode’s description adds.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the show’s latest episode also mentioning a Dawson’s Creek-like series called “Keagan’s Pond” that Marge said she would watch as a teenager, implying that she was a teen in the ’90s.

The Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman told EW that ultimately he is “am not worried about messing with the timeline” of the series.

“I feel like story and character should come first, and the cinematic universe rules of a show that has none should come in a distant second,” he argued.

Selman teased his “creative process” as “I don’t give an eff.”

“The options are: we don’t do flashback shows ever and we don’t mention the past ever, which creatively handcuffs us, or we are playful and silly, which is the DNA of the show, and we have fun with whatever generation the show is airing in,” he explained.

That certainly does not discount any other different flashbacks that have taken place, as Selman described The Simpsons as “just a silly little show.”

“So I like it all. Everything happened and didn’t happen with the same level of historical veracity,” he noted to EW.

While Selman noted that “part of telling stories is people remembering things from their youth, their childhood,” he welcomes observant fans to “have fun” and “pick at” the show’s changing timelines. He even highlighted that a fan-favorite joke that further supports his take on being able to take creative liberties with the show’s timeline.

“Everyone’s favorite joke from Season 4 is ‘Cartoons don’t have to be 100 percent realistic.’ And then another Homer walks by the window,” he said.

He also made the point that “if the show only took place in the present with a kind of vague 1970s-high-school Homer-and-Marge backstory that seems increasingly impossible — that would be much worse for telling good stories.”

DECIDER contributor Johnny Loftus raved about the show’s latest installment in DECIDER’s The Simpsons Season 37 review, lauding The Simpsons as “wholesome, reliable, and lightly subversive in the way the Springfield universe mirrors our own.” Fans of the franchise are also in for an upcoming Simpsons Movie sequel, which is slated to hit theaters on July 23, 2027.

New episodes of The Simpsons air at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.