The Simpsons’ most controversial character death happened 26 years ago

The Simpsons has gained a reputation in recent years for killing its characters, but it wasn’t always this way.

In the show’s earliest years, the Grim Reaper rarely, if ever, made a trip to Springfield.

Oh, sure,characters would occasionally pop their clogs, like Grandpa Simpson’s girlfriend, Bea Simmons, and who could forget Marvin Monroe’s death (besides everyone)?

Recently, however, the show’s staff have gone crazier than Homer with ‘no beer and no TV’, killing off characters almost every season.

In the last few seasons, long-running characters like Larry the Barfly, Fat Tony and Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky have all been bumped off.

They even killed Mrs Glick twice!

Still, this trend arguably began back in the Season 11 episode Alone Again, Natura-Diddily which might feature the most controversial death in the show’s now 36-year history.

The episode (which premiered 26 years ago today in 2000) in question is notorious in Simpson circles for featuring the death of Maude Flanders, the wife of Ned, Homer and Marge’s ultra-religious neighbour.

How does Maude die? Well, while watching NASCAR, she’s knocked from the stands after being hit by a barrage of t-shirts fired by cheerleaders and dies in the fall.

It’s a surprisingly cruel death in a show that typically plays violence for laughs, but it’s not the manner of Maude’s death that makes it so controversial; it’s the circumstances that led up to it.

You see, behind the scenes, Maggie Roswell, who voiced Maude, had been trying to get a raise.

Maggie had spent the last five years or so commuting from her home in Denver to Los Angeles to record lines, and the flights were becoming more and more expensive.

She eventually grew tired of spending all this money, so she asked for a reported $2,000 dollar an episode raise. Fox refused, so she quit.

‘They offered me a $150 raise,’ she told The Denver Post. ‘I mean, that’s lint in Fox’s pocket. But Fox wanted to prove a point, I guess. I was flying myself back and forth from Denver to L.A. It was exhausting.

‘I was part of the backbone of The Simpsons, and I don’t think the money I asked for was exorbitant. I wasn’t asking for what other cast members make. I was just trying to recoup all the costs I had in travel. If they’d flown me in, I’d still be working.’

The move ultimately proved controversial with fans. While critics at the time gave the episode mixed reviews, its notoriety only grew in the years that followed.

When reviewing the season 11 DVDs, Colin Jacobson wrote that the decision to kill Maude off following Roswell’s departure was ‘harsh and cynical’.

Randall King, meanwhile, said in his season 11 review that ‘killing Maude was a sin’.

Fanning the flames of fan outrage was executive producer Mike Scully, who later admitted Maude’s death was an attempt to drum up ratings.

Even now, 26 years on from Maude’s death, there’s still a bitterness around the character’s death

On the Simpsons fan forum ‘No Homers’, user PrincipalSinner wrote that Maude’s death felt especially unnecessary.

‘The reason why they decided to kill her off was honestly stupid. The actress wasn’t being paid enough, so they decided to kill Maude? Honestly, keeping her as a background character or changing a voice actor would have been efficient,’ he wrote.

‘I felt like when Maude died, is when the Simpsons started to go downhill, IMO.’

Dogmagril, meanwhile, went one step further and claimed killing Maude was an ‘act of petty retribution’.

Still, it’s clear Maggie doesn’t feel any bitterness.

In 2002, she returned to The Simpsons after Fox agreed she could record her lines at home. And, while they didn’t revive Maude, the character has made cameos as a ghost a surprising amount of times.

So I guess all’s well that ends (Ros)well.

The Simpsons can be streamed now on Disney Plus.

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