David Cooper

0418 - Mona Simpson

Added 2025-02-20 09:00:01 +0000 UTC

The first appearance of Homer's mother is not as iconic as you would hope.

I've chosen to draw her in the style most people will remember her, from season 7's "Mother Simpson", but she has another brief appearance before that, in season 6's "Grandpa vs Sexual Inadequacy":

Her face is obscured here because at this point she is a slight mystery to the audience. Her future in the show was not intended as some big reveal, but she is kept at arm's length and barely mentioned, especially in comparison to Homer's father, who has remained a major character throughout. The writers clearly saw this as a well worth mining (you mine wells, right?) and she is introduced properly in a major way the very next season:

If you're subscribed to a Simpsons-research Patreon then you probably know the story from here: Mona Simpson is a fugitive on the run from the law, as this episode outlines. Her most memorable appearance is this episode, although she appears a few more times - she fakes her death in season 15's "My Mother the Carjacker" and dies for real-real in season 19's "Mona Leaves-a". Even after this, she appears more in flashbacks and dream sequences - Glenn Close reprises the role in 7 more episodes after this. Mona actually has more speaking appearances after her canonical death than before it!

I suspect if the crew knew that Glenn Close, a very respectable and award-nominated actor, would be so open to returning to this role so often, then they might not have killed her off so "quickly" (The Simpsons is the only show where season 19 can be described as "somewhere in the middle"). But it's a choice they made, and now they're forced to stick with it. Death can be oddly permanent in this zany cartoon, when they want it to be.

Oh, also, she appears randomly in a crowd scene in season 16's "A Star Is Torn". This is clearly an animation error, but it does not contradict her death so we will let it slide.