‘The Simpsons’ Honors This Character’s Bizarre Medical Trend

The Simpsons isn’t exactly the most medically accurate series on television, as evidenced by the fact that several characters have inexplicably died and come back to life. And we’re pretty sure that Mr. Burns’ “Three Stooges Syndrome” isn’t really a thing.

But at least the show is calling attention to one of its longest-running medical oddities.

As fans frequently point out, Lenny Leonard, Homer’s pal and Carl’s bestie, has suffered a shocking number of eye-related injuries. The running gag has been going since at least back in Season 10; Lenny and Moe get springs stuck in their eyeballs thanks to Homer’s “party nuts” prank in “The Old Man and the ‘C’ Student.”

Then in Season 12’s “Homer vs. Dignity,” Lenny is the victim of Homer’s pudding-based assault. “My eye, I’m not supposed to get pudding in it!” he cries.

Lenny also gets jigsaw puzzle pieces, soap and fish guts in his eye. And, during a demonstration of OmniGogs safety goggles, we learn that he suffered a horrific eye affliction thanks to a newspaper’s elastic band. 

And when Lenny landed a small role in the horror movie The Re-Deadening (as seen in Season 15’s “The Ziff Who Came to Dinner”) his death scene involves buttons being sewn to his eyes. While it’s just a movie, Lenny tells Homer that the buttons were held in place with “hot wax.”

But at least the town of Springfield notices Lenny’s unnatural propensity for ocular accidents, and is honoring him accordingly. 

The most recent episode of the show, “Guess Who’s Coming to Skinner,” begins with Springfield Elementary’s disappointing field trip to the Waterpark, which turns out to be the misleadingly named Henry L. Waterpark Mansion and Museum. After Bart leads a class riot in a room housing a snow globe collection, one of the hurled globes flies directly into Principal Skinner’s eye. 

Skinner then has to get “five eyeball surgeries” and “two lid grafts,” and apparently he now has rods but “no cones.” We see Skinner exiting the Eye Trauma Center with a bandage wrapped around his head – fittingly, it’s the “Lenny Leonard Wing.”

It’s a nice way to pay off a decade’s worth of jokes about Lenny’s eye. And, given how the nuclear plant doesn’t seem to offer the best health insurance, it’s entirely possible that these frequent injuries are the reason that Lenny is basically destitute.