The ‘Simpsons’ Arcade Game Confirmed a Lost Piece of ‘Simpsons’ Canon
Marge Simpson may not be 100 percent human — time to go down the rabbit hole.
Most Simpsons fans know that, early on in the series, Matt Groening and his writers worked on a scrapped plotline in which Krusty the Clown would turn out to be Homer Simpson’s alter ego. Though the plan to reveal Homer as his son’s favorite TV clown never came to fruition, Homer and Krusty’s matching character models did make for one of the most iconic episodes ever in “Homie the Clown.” As the wise mobster once said, “I’m seeing double here — four Krustys!”
However, Homer wasn’t the only member of the Simpsons clan for whom Matt Groening planned a secret character arc that unfortunately fizzled out as the seasons went on and on and on. When designing Marge’s model, Groening envisioned that her signature blue Bouvier beehive would actually be a wig she wore to hide her extra long rabbit ears, a nod to Groening’s long-running comic strip, Life in Hell, which featured anthropomorphic rabbits falling into 4x4 hijinks. The Simpsons creator hoped to unveil Marge’s true genus by having her remove the wig in the final Simpsons episode, and, though Simpsons writers quickly phased out the idea, Groening did get to reveal the secret in the 1991 Simpsons arcade game, in which Marge’s elongated ears are fully visible during certain animations. Imagine that — a final episode of The Simpsons!
Groening named Marge after his own mother, Margaret Groening, and her hairstyle (or wigstyle) was based on the one worn by Elsa Lanchester in the 1935 horror film Bride of Frankenstein. However, the move to hide three foot-long rabbit ears underneath the outrageous updo was one that Groening's collaborators couldn’t abide — Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon was especially opposed to the plan.
Ultimately, making Marge wholly Homo sapiens was probably the correct call, as there aren’t many other animal-humanoid hybrids wandering around Springfield. Then again, we only ever see Bumblebee Man take off his costume the one time, and, even then, we didn't get a very good look. Maybe he’s hiding bunny ears, too.
