The Five Times Marge Was Most Wrong on ‘The Simpsons’

Along with her oldest daughter, Marge Simpson has the dubious distinction of being the Simpson family’s voice of reason. But, much like Julie Kavner’s own pipes, sometimes that voice cracks.

In a family that has Homer as the breadwinner, it can be hard for Marge to steer the ship through safer waters than her husband hopes to sail. Marge is constantly asked to divert both Homer and Bart from dangerous paths that threaten to tear their family — and the entirety of Springfield — apart at the seams. As the most put-upon mother in the Simpsons universe, Marge deserves to be cut enough slack to fill a blue beehive when she makes the wrong call — even when that call results in Maggie crawling into a tiger pit.

The Simpsons subreddit recently discussed which Marge moments were the most misguided. Here are their top picks…

5 ‘Foilage’

Nothing turns a daughter into her mother faster than hearing that same mom insist that she’s saying “foliage” correctly. Lisa’s grumbling after Marge repeatedly fails to enunciate the autumn leaves’ splendor is exactly how we all feel when our parents say “nucular,” “ekscape” and “libary” in our presence.

4 Bulldozing the Burlesque House

In fairness to Marge, her demolition of the den of sin wasn’t completely intentional — she was trying to get the establishment torn down through more reasonable measures when her decidedly un-sexy song and dance knocked the bulldozer into gear. The moral panic over a bunch of dancers in panties was one of Marge’s most annoying finger-wags, but in the end, the Maison Derrière got the last laugh as they punished Marge by making her perform a puppet act to raise funds to compensate for the damage she did — Marge sure does love pulling everyone’s strings.

3 Letting Lisa Throw Away $12 Million

Usually, a mother telling her child to do what they think is right is good parenting, but there are about 12 million reasons why letting that sanctimonious animal lover Lisa throw away a fortune in “The Old Man and the Lisa” was spectacularly stupid. Even from an ethical perspective, Mr. Burns had already converted the recycling plant into a sea creature genocider for a fish stick company by the time he offered Lisa a cut of the proceeds, and handing that money right back to him basically ensured that it will go to far more evil means than whatever philanthropy Lisa could have engaged in with her share of the spoils. Oh well, the Simpsons will just have to scrounge up another $12,000.

2 Supporting the Casino Only to Become A Gambling Addict

One of the few times when the town could have used a little bit of Marge’s special nay-saying, she balked at the opportunity to oppose construction of Mr. Burns’ Casino in “$pringfield (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)” and quickly became one of the establishments biggest rubes. A lone quarter on the floor was all it took for the typically prudent and responsible Marge to devolve into a gambling addict, nearly leading to Maggie becoming jungle cat food.

1 Letting Lisa Think That Her Whole Future Is Shaped By Homer’s Genes

To be fair, Lisa also probably should have figured out that fathers only provide 50 percent of the genetic material in the baby-making recipe when she bemoaned her seemingly inevitable loss of intelligence due to the so-called “Simpsons Gene” in the Season Nine episode “Lisa the Simpson.” When Lisa worries that her paternal lineage will lead her to mediocrity, Marge has Homer round up all the women from his side of the family to prove that it’s just the dudes that are duds — instead of, maybe, talking to a single Bouvier? The Springfield DMV doesn’t run itself, you know.

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