35 Years Ago, ‘The Simpsons’ Aired One of Its Most Famous Episodes (That You Can’t Watch Today)

· Vice

For Season 3 of The Simpsons, the show’s creators were able to snag one of their biggest guest stars ever: “King of Pop” Michael Jackson. In the 1991 episode “Stark Raving Dad,” Homer gets sent to a mental institution after wearing a pink T-shirt to work. His roommate at the institution is a man named Leon Kompowsky, who claims to be Jackson. The character in question was voiced by Jackson himself, under the pseudonym of John Jay Smith.

At one point, Simpsons co-creator James L. Brooks counted the episode as being among his all-time favorites. However, that all changed following the release of the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men alleged that they were molested by Jackson as children. Though previous accusations against Jackson didn’t have any effect on the episode’s availability, Brooks told The Wall Street Journal that he found the documentary both “convincing” and “heartbreaking.”

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The rest of the show’s production team agreed, and they quickly began the process of removing “Stark Raving Dad” from all platforms carrying The Simpsons.

The Michael Jackson Episode of ‘The Simpsons’ Is Still Missing From Streaming

“I’m against book burning of any kind. But this is our book, and we’re allowed to take out a chapter,” Brooks said in March 2019. In an interview with The Daily Beast from later that same month, showrunner Al Jean expressed his belief that Jackson used his appearance in “Stark Raving Dad” to groom young boys. From Jean’s perspective, “It wasn’t just a comedy to him, it was something that was used as a tool.” Although it didn’t make Jean happy to lose such a popular episode, he felt that getting rid of it was the appropriate choice under the circumstances. 

“Stark Raving Dad” remains unavailable on any official channels to this day. It’s even been left off some of the more recent home video releases. But at press time, Jean doesn’t seem to be having any second thoughts about the decision. When a Polygon article from earlier this year suggested that the episode was better than the new Jackson biopic, Michael, Jean responded on Twitter like so:

The post 35 Years Ago, ‘The Simpsons’ Aired One of Its Most Famous Episodes (That You Can’t Watch Today) appeared first on VICE.

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