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One of our favorite “Simpsons” characters, Ralph Wiggum is known for his weird one-liners and bizarre nonsequiturs, but one line that had the whole writers room laughing never actually made it to air. The son of Police Chief Wiggum and a classmate of Lisa Simpson at Springfield Elementary School, Ralph Wiggum is far from Springfield’s brightest resident. He is, however, a lovable character and innocent to a fault. Ralph’s extreme naivety has produced numerous hilarious moments throughout the 800-episode history of “The Simpsons,” whether he’s playing an endless game of Duck, Duck, Goose or calmly claiming, “Me fail English? That’s unpossible.”
But “Simpsons” writer Andrew Kreisberg, whose writing credits include the “Simpsons” episodes “Tales from the Public Domain” and “Barting Over,” revealed his own favorite Ralph line was cut from the final show for time. Kreisberg pitched the line early on in his time working on “The Simpsons,” when the writers had needed a throwaway line for Ralph.
“I pitched he should be dancing around holding his crotch when he says, ‘I have to go number three,'” Kreisberg said (per Buzzfeed). “It got a big laugh in the room and got in the script.” Although the line even made it into animation, the moment was ultimately cut from the broadcast version of the episode for time. “It didn’t matter to me because I got a lot of talented writers I admired to laugh,” Kreisberg described.
Many hilarious Simpsons moments landed on the cutting room floor
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Kreisberg’s “number three” line isn’t the only hilarious moment cut from “The Simpsons” involving Ralph Wiggum. Another such moment occurs in the Season 9 episode “This Little Wiggy,” in which Bart and Ralph break into an abandoned prison and reactivate the electric chair. When they later discover Mayor Quimby is visiting the prison and about to demonstrate the supposedly inactive chair, they turn to Lisa for help. But originally, Bart first turned to Homer. A deleted clip, which can be seen on YouTube, features Bart, Ralph, and Homer sitting on the couch, all looking vacant, before Bart quips, “There’s something wrong with this team we’ve put together.” On the episode’s DVD commentary, producer George Meyer called the line “one of my favorite jokes ever in the show.”
Other “Simpsons” comedy gems lost to the editing process include a scene from the episode “Homer the Great,” which sees Homer joining the secret society the Stonecutters. In the deleted scene, fellow Stonecutter Mr. Burns tells Homer to look out for “a little something extra” in his pay envelope — only for Homer to discover, with characteristically misplaced glee, that Burns was referring to a walnut.
One deleted line from Season 9’s “Girly Edition” shows that the producers at least have a sense of irony. While working on “Kidz Newz,” Milhouse is told by an executive that his movie review wasn’t bad, but he didn’t mention the name of the movie. Milhouse responds, “I cut it for time.”
