Well I'm not sure such a topic is really worth creating, being that The Simpsons is a fictional show and all, but I've always had a few things that I've been able to notice that don't quite make sense... as in, it leaves you thinking "That's not very realistic", or things that you just find hard to believe could really happen. Or it could just be simple animator goofs, as in one frame there's a picture on the wall of Grampa Simpson, and in the next frame it's gone or replaced with a houseplant.

One thing for me that I always found a bit hard to believe was the episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", obviously a good episode especially for me, since it's based on the rise and fall of The Beatles, but certain things just didn't add up. First of all, a question that I believe Lisa asked, was what happened to all the money that Homer, Barney, Apu and Skinner made? And why aren't they ever noticed anymore? If they were such a phenomenon, you'd think that they would have had more of an impact than just rising to popularity and losing it all in one summer. People would recognize them on the streets, and there personal lives would be covered extensively by paparazzi.

Any thoughts/ideas or more mistakes to speculate about are welcome

Another example: in the episode #4F24 ("Lisa The Simpson" - ), Lisa worries about her intelligence and discovers that every member of the Simpsons family gets dumb eventually (later she discovers that only boys are predisposed to that, i.e. Bart and Homer). But that contradicts completely with another episode, #BABF22 ("HOMR"), where we see that Homer is very smart, only the crayon in his brain makes him so dumb.

And another animation goof in the attachment. It's from the #AABF03 "Lisa Gets An A". Look at Lisa's smile...

Take a look at Marge's shoulder. I've never seen things like this before - looks like a wrong line to me, that was removed afterwards (but not completely).

ALM
LOL, the second one looks even scary to me.
But impressive examples indeed. "I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!"

(this one is not by me, but from my Russian forum.) Remember Bart's birth. It wasn't planned, so Homer and Marge had to marry right after school when they discovered that Marge is pregnant. But right now Homer is 39 and Bart is 10, so when Bart was born, Homer was 29 (and Marge was 27)... a bit too old for finishing school!
In the "I Married Marge" episode, the one about Bart's birth, they both don't look like 27/29 either.

And another nice example I noticed by occasion today (see attachment, it's from AABF12 "Make Room For Lisa").
Milhouse's left foot overlaps the door

Wow... how could you notice that? O_o i had to look at the picture couple times and even then, without reading your description, i couldn't get it.
Do you play lot's of "Where's Waldo"s?

That moment is from Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore. But how in the world did you find that one, Gary? It looks like that for only 1 frame. Same goes for you, Dag

We must have some diehard Where's Waldo finders here on the board.

Even simpler here - one member has posted this screenshot in the "Guess the episode" topic on my forum. I couldn't guess the episode, but the animation goof has caught my eye. Glad you liked it though.

ALM
Hmm... I don't see anything wrong on this scene.
Maybe the face of the guy nearby Lisa, but we've seen even uglier faces in the early seasons.

Kasper's right. They chopped off Bart's head...

Oh I know, I didnt see it right away... but now... ewww!

ALM
I didn't notice it either, but after reading the replies and looking at it again, I burst out laughing... thanks for posting. Very disturbing but hilarious.

Poor Lisa. It looks like her arm is dislocated.

And yeah, she looks cute in the first pic.

Empethree
looks weird, but maybe it was half-intentional. on the first and the last moments, her right arm looks very much the same. maybe it was the same drawing cell, they just tried to re-use it for the same scene, but shifted a bit....anyway, just a thought. nice example.

I agree, she's looking quite weird here she eve nhas less hair spikes and her head is smaller than usual... oh well, i guess we can forgive this to the animators back then

Another moment I've noticed today, from the famous "Barting Over" episode.
For some reason the animators have painted half of Homer's shirt blue

Suusje
LOL, very interesting... I hadn't noticed that, you're very observant Also, Homer has hair in that scene... in the episode "And Maggie Makes Three" wasn't he shown tearing out the rest of his hair after he found out that Marge was pregnant with Lisa?

Homer's hair is something that you could discuss endlessly... there are many flashbacks where he does have hair, others where he doesn't... there's too many "goofs" in that area to count

Oh my god, this is brilliant! What a delicious slip-up. Gotta love hard-to-spot continuity errors. This grab has made my day. You win a fridge, Suusje :3

Oh, Great find @ Suusje! That takes an eye of a linx to spot indeed. Especially because as you said, one can't help but look solely at cute baby Lisa.

@Dag: That's a very difficult one to notice too, i had to rewatch that scene three or four times to freeze frame it correctly (but i'm still slow from the drinkies )! Great find!

Here I think Lisa has too biggerhead for my liking:

Maggiecute
Maybe that's because we don't see Lisa fully on the scene. But yeah, her head looks enormously big comparing to her neck/arms. The result of overstudying maybe?

Well that's more of a continuity goof than an animation goof, and the show is chock full of them. Still, it's a clever find, i never noticed or thought about it

I'm not sure about the mirror and the reflections. But the shadows! They're awful! Look at this. As if Lisa's and Maggie's heads are bald from the sides and have it's spikes only on the "edges" of heads. Like mohawks. Not so good playing with shadows the animators demonstrate us here.

Heh, yeah, i must admit the movie looked WAY better in motion. as a still, the shadows are quite bad. THe reflection is also kind of wrong, like Dag said, but i don't thnk that's actually a "spoof", just animator's lazyness.

I second that!
I loved the animation of the Simpsons movie overall, but when you look closer, I guess there are lots of little things that they rushed or did rather simply...

Guess if they paid attention to every detail they'd never get the movie done   
Ah well,..these flaws are interesting to point out though

That would be Marge gets a Job.


Right anyone else want to be a hero?

Mal?fix
The same often happens with Lisa's necklace, when it becomes red. Either Marge and Lisa exchange is from time to time, or take wrong necklace at morning by mistake, or, what's more likely, the animators can't remember the proper colors for each character.

Your screenshot is interesting though... Marge's necklace is neither red not white on it, it's more like light-rosy.

oh, then this was wrong in the Simpsonspedia (german).
Anyway, I don't know where I read this since in the eps list it's correct...
meh.

uh and Dag, I didn't quite notice that, my display's bightness was so-to-say set minimum.

Indeed, the reason Some Enchanted Evening was pushed back to the end of Season 1 was because all 13 episodes were being animated at the same time, and when Some Enchanted Evening came back, they were horrified by how crappy it looked, James L. Brooks actually said that it was shit, and the show had to be delayed back to Christmas when Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire aired and Some Enchanted Evening had to be re-animated.

Many people consider the true first episode to be Bart the Genius and Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire to be a special. But I'm not one of them.

Hah, nice one Lascelle! This one much more supposed to be in the "cutest moments" thread. Adorable Lisa and her shoe.

Here's something that's always bothered me. Has anyone else noticed that in a few older episodes the animators draw Barts head looking like this? His eyes move to the side of his head but his overbite stays in the same place. I don't know if it should be considered a goof but it sure does look weird animated...

It was done a lot in the early years indeed, it was phased out at least by Season 3, looks like that one slipped through for Season 5.

I'd have to watch the commentary for 3 Men and a Comic Book again but I think it was Wes Archer's thing.

No, but I can.

MIKE REISS: Oh there's a twister.
JEFF MARTIN: Right.
REISS: Wes Archer especially liked to have the Simpsons' heads kind of twist in the middle. It certainly was very prominent in the shorts.
MATT GROENING: Right.
REISS: And was really being phased out, this may have been one of the last appearances, because by the time this thing aired, I remember people saying "What the hell happened to Bart's head!"
MARTIN: If you stop on that frame, it really looks weird.
GROENING: We made a rule that they couldn't do the twister more than once an act, then once a show. Then we finally got rid of it.

Memory? Hell no. I stop and played my DVD.

I knew where to look as I memorised it because I connect it to the Daniel Stern reference towards the Wonder Years.

Dont call me Gaz.

I am what most people call, a nerd.

Dunno if this has already been spotted and posted here, but I stumbled upon a very peculiar scarf wearing style while randomly hitting a pause button in the middle of an episode.
"Stick in in your throat, Ned! It's warmer this way";-)

I think they draw the scarf or other objects bigger than what they are for animation purposes.... my guess is that if they have an object move behind another, instead of drawing it differently each time they just move it beneath the other object (in this case, scarf and neddyned). So i think your "layer" explanation might be just about right!

Just noticed this one today, from "The Day the Violence Died."

O_o the image looks weird!  "without legs" almost phantasmagorical... X)

Rich Uncle Skeleton
Hmm... maybe Lisa's legs are just hidden behind Bart's body? Meh, no, they can't disappear completely. Scary moment but good find.
BTW, both Lisa and Bart also look very stretched horizontally, while other objects (phone, kitchen curtain) seem to be alright.

Um, did anyone see my previous post? Or is the site so corrupt only I can see it?

What?

Could you do a headless Maggie in Simpsons Fantasy?

No, like a zombie clone or something.
(Think Jenova)

Aww, come on! JENOVA!

What, doesn't he feel like adding stuff from Final Fantasy VII?

(from tonight's ep) If you're partial to Allison Taylor, good news: there's at least three of them in Springfield =P

If it was wanted, i wonder why didn't they go all the way with it, making *every* girl in the audience look like Allison
That would have rocked.