33 Years Ago Today, The Simpsons Aired TV’s Best April Fools’ Day Prank

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But while the episode itself might be fondly remembered by fans thanks to the fact that it’s got such an iconic Bart prank, the rest of the episode is totally forgotten. Funny enough, it was also The Simpsons‘ very first clip show in its history. 33 years ago today, on April 1, 1993, fans saw Homer opening an explosive can of beer. Marking one of the most memorable moments in the animated series’ very long history, it was hilariously just the package around a clip show made to fill out the demands of production at the time.

33 Years Ago Today, Bart Pranked Homer With an Explosive Can of Beer

Courtesy of 20th Television Animation

Season 4’s “So It’s Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show” aired on April 1, 1993, and was developed under now unique circumstances. It was crafted during a much different era of television where a primetime sitcom like it needed to fill a massive 20 plus episode order for each season. The common practice at the time for most TV shows was to fill one of these slots with a clip show, which was an episode that featured older clips from previous episodes rather than offering a new experience in order to buy some time until the next week.

This was something from the older era of television that hasn’t aged in the best way as there’s no real need for them anymore. Clip shows were necessary back then because older episodes in TV syndication weren’t as readily available as they are these days. Now you can just watch any episode of any show you want at any time, or you can even cut out the middle man and readily find any specific clip online within seconds. But a clip show was a great way for TV fans to revisit some of the show’s best jokes while also offering some additional relief for the production team within each season’s cycle.

That was the case for this episode as The Simpsons decided to finally have its own clip show in the fourth season. But thankfully, the package around it is done so well that fans remember it even all these decades later. Centering around April Fools’ Day, Homer and Bart begin pranking each other throughout the episode with Bart vowing to get revenge on his father with an even bigger prank. This leads to the iconic beer explosion that fans still bring up today.

Why The Simpsons Has April Fools’ Day Best TV Prank

Courtesy of 20th Television Animation

When Bart figures out that beer is Homer’s weakness, and sees Homer acknowledge that a shaken up beer would’ve made him look like a fool (“An April Fool, as it were”), he decides to use a paint shaking machine to shake up a can of beer. It gets to such a level of volatility that when Homer eventually does open the can (after Bart subliminally dropped hints for Homer by turning up the heat), it explodes in a cartoonish cloud of beer that even destroys the house. It’s one of the best scenes in the entire history of The Simpsons.

It’s one of those moments that sticks in your mind as a notable scene, and it turns out that it was so memorable that fans likely don’t even remember that the rest of the episode was a clip show (the first of a few more seen throughout the series’ run). It was ultimately just a plot device for Homer to go to the hospital, and used that as the frame work to go back and show clips about his many injuries, sad moments, and more from the the previous seasons. But it’s the ridiculous nature of that prank that makes it stick out.

It’s not the only animated series to have an iconic April Fools’ Day prank, but The Simpsons is really the only one with such a good prank that it overshadows everything else in the episode. And after 33 years of looking back on it, it’s still the best prank that has ever been aired on TV. It’s unlikely that even The Simpsons will be able to top such an idea.

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