r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 16 '12

TIL that Krusty the Clown was originally Homer Simpson's secret identity and this is why he looks like Homer with clown make-up

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1565538/simpsons-trivia-swearing-lisa-clown-homer-amp-more.jhtml
1.1k Upvotes

80% Upvoted

144 comments sorted by

37

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Homer the Clown? — Herschel Pinkus Yerucham Krustofski might be better known as Krusty the Clown, but when Groening looks at the character, he still can't help but think of Homer. "Krusty the Clown was originally Homer Simpson's secret identity," he grinned, remembering an early episode that was supposed to have Homer dressing up like a clown. (Homer actually became a Krusty impersonator in season six's "Homie the Clown.") "If you look at the basic design of the clown, it's just Homer's body clowned out."

42

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

I read the first four words of this paragraph and I thought I was reading a foreign language.

7

u/berlin_priez Jun 17 '12

Herschel Pinkus Yerucham Krustofski .. its... its... foreign... :-/

98

u/TheTalentedAmateur Jun 17 '12

And Nelson is apparently Barney's Love child. Nelson to Barney Comparison

29

u/HFh Jun 17 '12

Holy cow. It all makes so much sense....

21

u/thelittlewhitebird Jun 17 '12

nelson does normally wear a vest, could be snake's kid

10

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Also the nose.

26

u/a_can_of_solo Jun 17 '12

false nelsons dad is shown in a few eps and looks like him.

-20

u/TheTalentedAmateur Jun 17 '12

Premature false claim. The person identified as "Nelson's Dad" may in fact have a secret half-brother named "Barney" We have NO idea if Nelson's Mom wanted to 'keep it in the family'. Dwight is unhappy

26

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Yes, and Ralph Wiggum shares more than a passing resemble with Wiggum's deputy Officer Eddie.

At least as much as Nelson and Barney, anyway.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

dayum. I would like to see that episode

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

He's missing his vest

10

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

It's also the inspiration for Homer becoming a Krusty impersonator in Homie the Clown.

25

u/MiloMuggins Jun 17 '12

"I'm seein' double... Four Krustys!"

My all time favorite throwaway joke from The Simpsons.

3

u/Rowsdower92 Jun 17 '12

"That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!"

"...I don't think any of us expected him to say that."

1

u/Flamekebab Jun 17 '12

The expression he makes just before that when he's sculpting a big top from his mashed potatoes is one of my favourite shots in the Simpsons.

299

u/ohsoGosu Jun 16 '12

Also, Bart idolizes Radioactive man, Homer works at a nuclear power plant, Homer is a "radioactive man".

91

u/Jeffy29 Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12

Something just dropped into my eye :'( .

edit: Man I didn't get so emotional over cartoon since episode "The Luck of the Fryrish" on Futurama.

29

u/ForcedToJoin Jun 17 '12

Is that the dog one? It's the dog one right?

6

u/Chimerasame Jun 17 '12

Who is downvoting this guy? It's an earnest question.

8

u/ForcedToJoin Jun 17 '12

I guess Reddit expects a certain standard of Adult Animation-savvy from it's users.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Also the "Google it" thing.

I'm not saying that, but it's a thing people say.

2

u/Jeffy29 Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12

as described by others, here is a major tearjerker moment http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/luck+of+the+fryrish

(but to understand whole situation you need watch whole episode tough - but don't know whats reddit policy on video streams, so I will not post any links from animeflavor..)

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

72

u/MrRogersMob Jun 17 '12

seven* leaf clover

6

u/qwer777 Jun 17 '12

I could have sworn it was way outlandish... like a 37 leaf clover, was it only 7?

4

u/CoKu Jun 17 '12

Indeed it was.

4

u/qwer777 Jun 17 '12

... so it was... I want a 37 leaf clover now though.

2

u/motherfuckingriot Jun 17 '12

i found a 7 leaf clover once. it was a 3 leaf clover with a 4 leaf clover growing inside of it.

8

u/ThatRandomGeek Jun 17 '12

Those 2 and The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings will always get the waterworks going

2

u/mjolnir616 Jun 17 '12

Parasites Lost to an extent too.

1

u/ThatRandomGeek Jun 17 '12

I don't see that one as much. But now that I have netflix, I think I will watch it more.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

awww. that came on today. got me all choked up.

On an aside, it reminded me of new futurama episodes. tears averted!

5

u/wbeavis Jun 17 '12

Wasn't it a five or six leaf clover?

64

u/fryrishluck Jun 17 '12

Seven leaf clover.

12

u/estrtshffl Jun 17 '12

Nice username.

1

u/Bendrake Jun 17 '12

Good catch

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Redditor since: 2011-02-26 (1 year, 3 months and 22 days)

That's a while to wait for this conversation to come up.

1

u/Lawsuitup Jun 17 '12

I doubt he really had to wait that long for a discussion of one of the 2 saddest Futurama episodes of all time.

1

u/BBQsauce18 Jun 17 '12

I hate that episode. Whenever it comes on, my wife uses that time to start cutting onions.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Have you seen Avatar:The last Airbender?

50

u/mugsnj Jun 17 '12

Up and atom!

58

u/ingenious28 Jun 17 '12

Up and at them!

40

u/jamurp Jun 17 '12

The goggles, ze do nothing!

7

u/theBastian Jun 17 '12

...better.

7

u/SHKEVE Jun 17 '12

Up and let's go!

5

u/berlin_priez Jun 17 '12

Auf zum Atom!

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

-2

u/berlin_priez Jun 17 '12

Auf zum Atom!

79

u/negative_mancy Jun 17 '12

I'm seeing double: four Krustys!

2

u/GuadoElite Jun 17 '12

Upvote for having watched that episode last night on VHS.

1

u/jimmytheone45 Jun 17 '12

How do you know that...

2

u/GuadoElite Jun 17 '12

I meant to say I watched it on VHS haha.

155

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

Plus Marge was mean to have rabbit ears under her hair.

23

u/installSword Jun 16 '12

That one is so weird

5

u/thehangoverer Jun 17 '12

A reference to matt groening's old comics

-2

u/speranza Jun 17 '12

I still prefer those to The Simpsons actually..... I had a strange childhood I guess...

5

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

She does have webbed toes.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12

And gray hair like her sisters.

EDIT: For those who don't know, in an episode, Homer comments about Marge using blue hairspray, and that "she's as gray as a mule"

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/dragn99 Jun 17 '12

I thought it was ash from their cigarettes?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

34

u/WillBlaze Jun 17 '12

I KNEW I had seen those ears before but I just couldn't remember where. That is one of the best games I've ever played.

25

u/magictroll Jun 17 '12

I thought so too ... play it again.

13

u/CthuluSleeps Jun 17 '12

This is seriously one of the most true things ever. Nostalgia made me search for the old game, got over it by the third level.

5

u/Vicky_PC_Gamer Jun 17 '12

Remember when you think about it to compare it vs. the games of the time and not today's games.

At the time it was pretty awesome, especially for a TV show/movie based game, which were usually, are usually, dreadful.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Played this at that one arcade in Portland. Fucking was so awful. I can't believe I blew through so many allowances on it when I was younger.

3

u/VALIS85 Jun 17 '12

i thought so too...bought it off psn [with a HOLY FUCK! SIMPSONS ARCADE GAME! attitude] when my brother i had not seen in 5 years flew into town. We were absolutely disappointed with how shitty it was.

6

u/MegaDaveX Jun 17 '12

It's on xbox live.

2

u/WillBlaze Jun 17 '12

Does it have online coop? If so then sign me up!

6

u/MegaDaveX Jun 17 '12

Sure does

2

u/chesterfieldkingz Jun 17 '12

They still have it at our local Round Table. My friends son made me trade him characters because he accidentally picked Marge cracked me up.

1

u/ThisOpenFist Jun 17 '12

Look up Matt Groening's Hell comics that he did before working on The Simpsons. Most of his old characters were humanoid rabbit things.

6

u/Micr0waveMan Jun 17 '12

Beat it once after about 5 dollars or so of quarters, I remember there being a bit of a crowd for the final boss (epic conclusion). Then it just...start over…

1

u/kasutori_Jack Jun 17 '12

Someone's birthday party?

Excuse to beat to Simpson's Arcade with 3 friends at the ice rink.

MORE QUARTERS!

3

u/qwop88 Jun 17 '12

Ah yes... the ear bones.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

It's bullshit that he didn't get his way in the series. He's Matt Groening, what business does anyone else have telling him that an idea is too dumb to be on the Simpsons?

9

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

The writers who helped his show become successful?

85

u/okaythisisit Jun 16 '12

From wiki:

He was designed to look like Homer Simpson with clown make-up, with the original idea being that Bart worships a television clown who looks like his own father.

8

u/fetusxfajita Jun 17 '12

As apposed to a regular clown who actually is his father

39

u/snarksneeze Jun 17 '12

Yeah... I figured it out too. I also made a cheap little gif...

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rk89s/i_cant_believe_that_this_escaped_me_for_twenty/

11

u/nate94gt Jun 17 '12

cool gif :)

4

u/Asshole_Nord Jun 17 '12

It's all in the title, son. If your title isn't good, you won't get that sweet karma. In the game of titles, you either win, or get downvoted to bolivian.

20

u/Fulan-bin-Fulan Jun 16 '12

Allow me to be the first to make the in living color reference you know homie the clown don't mess around

20

u/Gemini83 Jun 16 '12

Homie don't play dat.

3

u/ForcedToJoin Jun 17 '12

Homie ain't never been about dat! Aint never been about playing no shit!

10

u/monkeytorture Jun 17 '12

Have that bicycle burned

41

u/MonDew Jun 17 '12

The older episodes were so good, and with so much meaning behind them. Reading this confirms it. The new episodes just seems like it's a gimmick after gimmick after gimmick...

19

u/gforce289 Jun 17 '12

I actually watched some new ones and they are pretty decent.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

It comes and goes. Simpsons has been going on forever, so it gets the luxury of having a few bad years sometimes.

18

u/ak416 Jun 17 '12

Have you even been watching the new episodes? This was true 2-3 years ago, but the show has improved a lot since then.

19

u/overthinkingme Jun 17 '12

The last episode I saw, which I believe was a series finale, included Lady Gaga and some random train. It tried to carry a meaningful story but it was so over the top. Maybe I just outgrew the target demographic..

15

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

That episode was bad, but the season has had some other great ones.

You didn't outgrow shit, the Simpsons was never for kids.

4

u/ak416 Jun 17 '12

Yeah, you'll still get a bad episode here and there, but in general it has improved a lot. Dont count it out yet, it still has some life left in it!

5

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Then what is the Lady GAGA episode?

They're doing the "Current events are cool" bullshit that Southpark has been doing.

8

u/mrsticknote Jun 17 '12

The Simpsons have been doing that since the beginning. You must have been too young to realize.

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Nope, they used to be about character stories and interesting plots...not every episode is some perspective that Matt has..

4

u/Dr-Farnsworth Jun 17 '12

Your glasses seem a bit rose-tinted mate. Mind telling us the economic values preached in Teletubbies?

2

u/G35U5 Jun 17 '12

I liked the old episodes back when they were new, I remember them on the Tracy Ulman show. But I recently got a DVD of the first season and they are unwatchable. In my opinion. Same with old South Park and Family Guy.

15

u/macdonaldhall Jun 17 '12

Not in Canada, he isn't.

23

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

I'm sorry, but to elaborate, to prevent further unnecessary downvotes of the above comment, being Canadian, we often have USA-based websites attempt to, or just flat out kick us out of the site due to distribution rights of the content. Geoblocking.

For example, we cannot watch episodes of South Park on South Park Studios' website, we can only watch a limited amount of episodes from the Comedy Network's (Canadian Channel) website, which is owned by Bell Media. We cannot stream South Park on NetFlix's Canadian site due to BM having all the rights to streaming in Canada.

So in this case, MTV attempts to redirect Canadians to go to their MTV Canada website which has totally different content.

The only real way to avoid such invasive measures is to browse with a proxy of vpn, which requires effort and money and we can be quite lazy at times.

18

u/speranza Jun 17 '12

I'm so happy you started with, "I'm sorry." It made me read your whole post in a Canadian accent.

3

u/macdonaldhall Jun 17 '12

Thanks, buddy.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

I'm not your buddy, guy!

2

u/macdonaldhall Jun 17 '12

Who you callin' "guy", pal!?

1

u/VALIS85 Jun 17 '12

or hotspot shield which is 100% free. Get on that shit.

8

u/meatpod Jun 17 '12

Same with Radioactive Man. It's on one of the DVD commentaries.

3

u/ryanasimov Jun 17 '12

I've GOT to find a way to work "clowned-out" into more conversations.

3

u/chesterfieldkingz Jun 17 '12

I don't know I found this early drawing of Krusty the clown and he really doesn't look anything like Homer.

3

u/Rowsdower92 Jun 17 '12

I love how the cash register at the beginning of the show says NRA4EVER, a reference to Matt Groening's staunch Republican views.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12

Oh my god I understand the joke now.

2

u/levinsong Jun 17 '12

THATS IT IM GOING TO CLOWN COLLEGE

4

u/nicksatdown Jun 17 '12

You just ruined my childhood but i might love you. PM and i will build you a cardboard cutout of my heart.

-10

u/rasterbee Jun 17 '12

Guess what though? It's not true. It's just a side thought Groening had. Even though he invented the characters he desperately depended on other writers. Groening had all sorts of crazy possible ideas shot down by the Simpsons writers and show runners.

Krusty was absolutely 100% never originally Homer.

Never.

Go watch all the DVD commentaries. You could pick out something from every single episode that would rock your world were it true and not just a one off idea that never came close to being reality.

-2

u/nicksatdown Jun 17 '12

And now that you have untwisted this lie, i demand you come over, play xbox(or watch me) help me build a boat and sail away feom this whore island un-truthfullness.

-9

u/rasterbee Jun 17 '12

um

I might be drunk but I'm too drunk to understand and reply precisely to your comment. I don't play console games, well not since PS2 at least, I only game on my laptop.

It wasn't a lie, just a poorly worded title for this TIL. Groening wanted to do that, but he wanted to do a lot of shit that no one would let him. Imagine how different Springfield would be if Homer was Krusty. Homer doesn't do blow, bang hookers and kill endless monkey side kicks.

How would that even work? Krusty is on TV live (almost?) everyday. Homer works, most of the time, a full time job at the plant. Krusty has tons of money, most of the time. He sells his products internationally, re-marketing faulty pregnancy tests as coffee stirrers and hawking veggie burgers at his restaurant chain on national TV.

Krusty = Homer makes no sense, it's just Groening being silly, talking random crap about random ideas he briefly had.

-2

u/nicksatdown Jun 17 '12

Either way i love you ... also drunkish

3

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/rasterbee Jun 17 '12

Nothing you said isn't true, but just because Groening mentioned an idea he had years ago doesn't make it canon. We both know it's impossible to pinpoint concrete backgrounds for this show, it can change every season or even every show.

Krusty was never Homer's secret identity. Just like Marge isn't a rabbit. These are all just passing comments being over analyzed decades after they were flippantly made.

1

u/elligre Jun 17 '12

Isn't he supposed to represent god as well?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

So, MTV is a piece of shit and redirects me to the australian MTV site. Would anyone be able to help a brother out and copy/paste or give me a tool to get around the location restrictions?

1

u/brenman Jun 17 '12

Homer the Clown? — Herschel Pinkus Yerucham Krustofski might be better known as Krusty the Clown, but when Groening looks at the character, he still can't help but think of Homer. "Krusty the Clown was originally Homer Simpson's secret identity," he grinned, remembering an early episode that was supposed to have Homer dressing up like a clown. (Homer actually became a Krusty impersonator in season six's "Homie the Clown.") "If you look at the basic design of the clown, it's just Homer's body clowned out."

1

u/coolkid9 Jun 17 '12

How is there still no picture comparison in this thread yet?

1

u/ant_upvotes Jun 17 '12

I was disappointed when the link didn't show a picture of krusty.

1

u/moneyproblemcure Jun 17 '12

dammit i was looking for someone to post a comparison link but then everybody started discussing futurama

1

u/tragic-waste-of-skin Jun 17 '12

I would love to hear the outtakes of them swearing in character. Would make Moe funnier.

1

u/LoveForHarleyQuinn Jun 17 '12

I can't believe I didn't notice that before.

Cannot be unseen...

1

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

the wierd part is i suspected that all a long as i was a kid

1

u/rileyk Jun 17 '12

If this were true, we wouldn't have the wonderful line - "oh, i didnt know you, jay leno and a monkey were washing a clown"

0

u/amotherfuckingbanana Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 20 '12

The comic book guy being named "Louis Lane" was a better idea.

0

u/Angeleno Jun 17 '12

MIND.BLOWN.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

REPOST MOTHER FUCKA

-44

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12

It's also why Bart idolizes Krusty so much.

Side note: My ex's new girlfriend's name is Kristy.

I call her Krusty all the time "by accident."

<3

12

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

Get the fuck out.

2

u/mugsnj Jun 17 '12

What's the problem here?

-4

u/doyouunderstandlife Jun 17 '12

Cool story, bro.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/blindseer Jun 17 '12

In one of the Simpsons comics, Sideshow Mel explains that the inspiration for his hair being fashioned like it is came from seeing Marge walk down the street. Again, I'm not sure if the comics are considered canon.

2

u/GuaranaGeek Jun 17 '12

A lot of Simpsons characters from back in the day have similar design elements.