Marge lives! Here are 3 other ‘Simpsons' characters that returned from the grave — and 3 who stayed dead

Yahoo

4 hours ago

You can't keep a good Simpsons matriarch down... or up in heaven for that matter.
The Simpsons recently ended its 36th season on Fox with a flash-forward episode revealing that Marge Simpson (voiced by Julie Kavner) has gone to her great reward — in this case an afterlife where she's married to Ringo Starr. Far from being thrilled for her eternal soul, fans freaked out about Marge's future fate. And their fury forced executive producer, Matt Selman, to go on the record reminding everyone that death is an elastic concept in the show's animated universe.
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"The Simpsons doesn't even have canon," Selman told Variety on Thursday. "Since the The Simpsons future episodes are all speculative fantasies, they're all different every time. Marge will probably never be dead ever again. The only place Marge is dead is in one future episode that aired six weeks ago."
As longtime viewers know, Springfield is regularly littered in corpses after every "Treehouse of Horror" installment, only to see those characters walking around again in non-zombie form immediately afterwards. And like Selman said, trips to the future don't come with permanent death sentences. Even in the present day, some characters have seemingly shuffled off their mortal coil only to return without missing a beat.
But there have also been several instances where Springfield's Grim Reaper has refused to allow characters a return trip. Here are three Simpsons that have famously stayed dead — and three that have followed in Marge's sainted footsteps back to the land of the living.
Larry Dalrymple
Nearly one year before Marge's supposed death, the series really did kill off Moe's Tavern regular Larry the Barfly. And he died like he lived — quietly over a pint of beer. "We really wanted to use Larry's death as a way to show that even the most peripheral people in our lives have dignity and worth, and that we really shouldn't take anyone for granted,' co-executive producer Tim Long told Variety after the episode aired.
Maude Flanders
Ned's better half was knocked over a Springfield Speedway railing by a T-shirt cannon way back in Season 11. And even though she's popped back up in the frame from time to time in the decades since, her sudden passing has stayed canon.
Edna Krabappel
Springfield Elementary's best teacher was retired from the cast following the 2013 death of Marcia Wallace, who won an Outstanding Voice-Over Performance Emmy award alongside five of her costars in 1992. The Season 32 episode "Diary Queen" officially closed the book on the character, using archival recordings featuring Wallace to craft her exit. That's par for the course for how the creative team has handled real-life passings. Two of Phil Hartman's notable characters — Z-list actor Troy McClure and fly-by-night lawyer Lionel Hutz — were benched after his 1998 death.
Dr. Nick Riviera
Despite being apparently crushed to a pulp during the course of The Simpsons Movie, the not-at-all-reputable doctor is still selling his snake oil treatments to Springfield residents. He does seem to know the cure for death, though...
Fat Tony
The Joe Mantegna-voiced mob boss suffered a heart attack in Season 22's "Donnie Fatso," seemingly leaving the town free of crime. But his place was quickly taken by his in-shape cousin "Fit Tony," also voiced by the Criminal Minds star. In the years since, though, Fit Tony lost all that muscle tone and morphed back into Fat Tony as if the latter never left.
Moe Szyslak
Following a close encounter with Lady Gaga in the Season 23 finale "Lisa Goes Gaga," the surly bartender ends up beneath the wheels of a train. But the lights are back on again at Moe's in Season 24, indicating that any fatal injuries he sustained were just mere flesh wounds.
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