The Simpsons Lost Episode: Homer's Depression

Everyone from 1989 remembers the show “The Simpsons” right? It still airs new episodes today. But what if I told you that I encountered something dark with the series? I was online a few months ago trying to find episodes of The Simpsons, as I was a fan of the vintage episodes and never enjoyed the new episodes. My parents were at a wedding for the weekend and my boyfriend was upstairs studying for a test, I was given permission by my parents to be on the computer to study for an english test. So after going through websites loaded with viruses and advertisements, I found a website which had episodes, no viruses or ads. Okay it wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t as risky as most of the other websites.

I watched about 10 episodes of the show before I decided to get ready for bed. After going through my night time routine, I thought “Oh well, maybe one more episode won’t hurt.”After all, I was bored and willing to see anything.

On the last page there was an episode of The Simpsons entitled “Homer’s Depression”, which is weird, because there was no episode that goes by that title. The video was seven minutes and fifty six seconds. However, the description read: '' “Due to it’s controversy, we were forced to stop any future broadcasts of an unaired episode of The Simpsons which was meant to be a segment from the 2015 Treehouse of Horror special. This episode was not meant to be viewed as this is only a test. Watch at your own risk!”''

I was confused, because I’ve seen almost every episode of the show. Maybe this was a deleted scene from an episode or an episode that was scrapped and since it was online, this might be the only known footage of that episode. Therefore, I was thrilled and decided I would watch it. Big mistake!

The episode began with the usual intro, nothing too odd yet. But the first thing that didn’t seem right was that at the part where a couch gag takes place, the family didn’t even appear and when the logo appeared, it was blood red instead of yellow. This website was not messing around with me, there was definitely something wrong with this episode! After the intro, the episode started.

It began like a harmless episode with Homer sitting in his office at the Nuclear Powerplant working as usual. Suddenly, Mr. Burns, Homer’s Boss, says over the intercom that Homer needs to see him ASAP. The screen changes to a view of Homer and Mr. Burns talking in his office, but the only problem was that the lining of the audio and animation didn’t match up as well as the audio being screwed up. I’ll try my best to recreate it.

Mr. Burns: Simpson, I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go. It’s not because you’re a bad worker, it’s because of budget issues. Homer: I understand. Mr. Burns: No hard feelings? Homer: No hard feelings. Thanks for telling me.

Homer walks out of Mr. Burns’ office looking very sad with tears in his eyes. He fought the urge to cry and hid it with a frown. “Poor Homer” I thought.

This was when things started to seem out of place. It cuts to a scene at the house, Homer is sitting on the couch looking downward and slouched with a depressed look on his face. It stayed on Homer for an uncomfortable amount of time, I felt awkward as Homer barely moved. There was no audio, sounds, etc. Just dead silence. At first, I thought this was a mistake and the storyboard artist forgot to make Homer do something. Since this was an unaired episode, I didn’t expect it to be very well made.

After about 2 minutes of this, Homer sighs and begins to cry softly, just like someone had found out about a relative’s passing. I was getting creeped out, what happened to my favorite show? After about 30 seconds, Homer’s crying gets more miserable and filled with pain. This wasn’t cartoon crying, this was a more realistic sadness. The screen warps slightly and something flashed over the screen, but I couldn’t see it because it went by too fast.

Homer’s crying gets louder as the scene progresses. After about another minute of this, he stops crying and then looks at the screen with red eyes. I took a screenshot of it even though it was scaring me, but for some reason I carried on. Homer begins to cry again, but this time, it sounded less realistic and more cartoon style. The screen abruptly cuts to a view of Homer with a gun in his hand. “Please don’t do what I think you’re going to do!” I yelled. Homer puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Realistic blood and brain matter was splattered everywhere. After that, Marge walks in and screams at the view of Homer’s body and begins to cry intensely.

The episode ends with a view of Marge crying over Homer’s dead body before it cuts to black which stayed there for a few minutes. I was disappointed over this, “That was a waste of time!” I thought. During this, I swear I could’ve heard something like faint static but it was probably my mind playing a trick on me. Seconds later, I dropped my phone on the ground so I had to pick it up. But when I came back up, I felt my heart skip a beat.

What I saw was one of the most disturbing pictures I’ve ever seen that will haunt me as long as I write this...Something unexplainable.....which made me want to vomit and cry at the same time.

The screen cuts to a picture of Homer from the Treehouse of Horror segment “MMM…Homer” (You know, the one where he gets addicted to cannibalizing himself) cutting his arm off with a saw using his mouth, this was disturbing because that segment wasn’t released until 2017 and this episode was from 2015. But what made it even more disturbing was that Homer had black eyes with red pupils staring directly at me. The blood covering his shirt and the background was everywhere, oh god! I don’t want to remember it! The audio being played in the background is a distorted version of The Simpsons theme being played in reverse which gets louder and louder up until the point where it got so bad that I had to turn the volume down. The picture zooms into his face for 20 seconds during which I took another screenshot of it. The image thankfully cuts to black with a piece of text that said “You’re next!”, ending the episode.

I tried as hard as I could to resist the urge to vomit, but gave in quickly. I ran to the bathroom to do just that. What the actual hell was this? Was this a nightmare? A sick joke? I began to cry after viewing that upsetting picture. I tried to get my boyfriend to watch it, but it wouldn’t play. No matter how many times I tried to get it to play, it didn’t play! At first he didn’t believe me and said that I fell asleep in front of the computer and dreamed it. But after showing him the screenshots that I took, he freaked out and offered to let me lay with him in his bed for the night. He hugged and comforted me in bed as I quietly cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, I tried to find the episode, but it wasn’t there.

I’ve had several questions going through my brain: What was going through Matt Groening’s (The creator of The Simpsons) mind while he was making this?

Why did he make this?

Did he think twice about airing it by mistake?

But there was one question that I still didn’t understand,

How the hell were the creators of the show able to get away with writing such a screwed up, demented episode?

The next morning I emailed Matt Groening about the episode and he replied:

“Dear Alyssa,

I just wanted to say I’m very sorry that you had to see this disturbing episode. I don’t know what was going on through my mind when I made it. You see, the episode ‘Homer’s Depression’ was going to be a Treehouse of Horror segment where Homer gets laid off his job and goes into a depression and attempting suicide. But we scrapped it due to it’s violent nature. I’ll let you in on a little secret.

There was a gay man who worked on our show named Rico Smith. Rico was usually a nice guy at first, but he was very awkward. One day he and his boyfriend Joe, lost their 5 year old son in a car accident. Unfortunately, we had to lay him off since he missed too many days of work. His parents, unable to cope with it, got divorced afterwards. Both of them, bankrupt and unable to find new jobs, were forced into a poor part of town living in an apartment with no rent. Rico supported himself by becoming a painter and began selling paintings to other citizens of the town. Years after that, Joe, Rico’s boyfriend and his last sense of hope and support, cheated on him with another gay guy and in his sadness and hurt, Rico sent us morbid episode ideas such as Homer shooting himself. That's when we decided that enough is enough and we had to do something as soon as possible. We reported it to the cops and when they arrived to Rico's apartment, he killed himself after sending it to the studio.

Then the guy who views the episodes accidentally aired it and the day after it aired, he realized his mistake and banned it from any future broadcasts. Fortunately, he was only given a warning for his behavior. He made it up by burying the tape in a forest near the studio. The only theory I can think of is that someone found the tape, watched it, recorded it and put it online for the whole world to see.

But still, that was a very stupid thing of me to do. I’m so sorry Alyssa, I really am from the bottom of my heart.

Kind Regards,

Matt Groening”

It’s now been 4 days and I’m having very bad nightmares and depression, I talked to my parents and my counselor and they said I was stressed out. Even though he apologized, I still don’t trust him. I can’t watch a normal episode of The Simpsons without seeing that disturbing image of Homer covered in blood staring into my soul. Man, it will be stuck in my mind for good.

If you see any episode of The Simpsons entitled “Homer’s Depression”, do not watch it! For all that is holy, please don’t watch it. Unless you’re brave enough to do so, please contact me!

Thank you for taking your time to read this and have a good day.