The Simpsons’ Original Marge Design Would’ve Been The Show’s Weirdest Gag

The Simpsons characters have gone through various physical changes through the years, and their original design was very different to the final product. Some characters were even planned to have very weird physical features, and among those was Marge Simpson. Luckily, the idea wasn’t approved, saving the series from a very weird gag that wouldn’t have fit with the series at all. Created by Matt Groening, The Simpsons debuted in 1987 as a series of animated shows in The Tracey Ullman Show, and was developed into a half-hour primetime show three seasons later, making its official debut in 1989.

The Simpsons has since expanded to other media, most notably film and comic books, and is now the longest-running American scripted primetime TV series, with 31 seasons and a 32nd one already confirmed. The series follows the daily lives of the title family and other notable citizens of Springfield, but the Simpsons are always at the core of every story. The characters have been around for so long that they are a big part of pop culture now, and it’s hard to imagine them any differently.

Like with any other cartoon, The Simpsons went through many redesigns while in development, and all types of ideas for the main characters were considered, but there’s one that would have been too weird for the show, and would have hurt one of the most popular characters: Marge.

The Simpsons: Marge Originally Had Rabbit Ears Under Her Hair

Every Simpsons family member has physical traits and details that make them unique and easy to identify, and Marge’s most defining characteristic is her long, blue hair. Marge’s hair has been seen in a couple of different styles throughout the series, but they don’t last and it always goes back to its long beehive style. All that curly blue hair has nothing to hide (except its natural color, as it’s revealed at some point that she dyes it), but in Groening’s original plans, there was something under the hair that was too fantastic even for The Simpsons.

In The Simpsons Season 4 DVD commentary, Groening shared that he originally planned for Marge to be a character from his Life in Hell comic strip, and so would have had rabbit ears beneath her hair, which would have been revealed at the end of the series. Groening initially pitched an adaptation of his Life in Hell characters, but when he learned that that would require him to rescind publication rights, he decided to go with a different idea, and so The Simpsons was born. Still, he wanted these new characters to have some connection to the Life in Hell ones, and Marge was the chosen one. The idea was scrapped not only because it was found to be too fictitious even for The Simpsons, but because there would have been a lot of inconsistencies.

However, the idea was included in The Simpsons Arcade Game, and there are some situations in which the rabbit ears make an appearance: when a vacuum cleaner sucks her hair and when she gets electrocuted. This is one of those ideas fans are surely glad didn’t make it to The Simpsons, as it would have been a really weird reveal – and one that would have taken literally years to be shown, as the series shows no signs of ending soon.

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Adrienne Tyler
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Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

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