These are unproduced episodes of The Simpsons where full scripts were written but the episode was never produced. This page refers only to full scripts, and not subplots or jokes that were dropped from episodes. Mike Reiss claims only a small number of scripts haven't been produced because they are difficult to work on and thus are rarely completely thrown away.

All of these episodes are either mentioned by Mike Reiss in the "Stark Raving Dad" commentary or Bill Oakley in the "Ask Bill & Josh" question session they did at NoHomers.net in 2005.

Finished scripts[]

The Prince episode[]

A sequel to the episode "Stark Raving Dad" was planned where Leon Kompowsky returns and thinks he is the musician Prince.^[1] It was slated to air during the fifth season.^[2] According to Mike Reiss, it was written by some freelance writers and polished by Conan O'Brien,^[1] however, Bill Oakley says it was written by Conan O'Brien.

In the episode, Prince gets everyone in the town to "loosen up, become more flamboyant, everyone becomes more sexually open, they're dressing in paisley."

The script was sent to Prince, and he sent back a page of notes about what he was wearing in various scenes. The notes didn't correspond to the writer's script. As it turned out, Prince was talking about a completely different script. According to Reiss it was sent to him by someone,^[1] Oakley says a friend of Prince's wrote it^[2]; in an interview Matt Groening said Prince's chauffeur wrote it.^[3] In any case, Prince absolutely hated the "real" script from the Simpsons' writers, which he considered too derivative of the Michael Jackson episode. He demanded the amateur script be made instead, but the Simpsons writers didn't like it.^[1] Nevertheless, Prince loved the amateur script so much he had started writing original music for it and even offered to pay for the WGA minimum, but the writing staff refused to take any action on their end, permanently alienating Prince in the process.

The episode eventually fell through.^[1]

A few days after Prince's death in April 21, 2016, Al Jean posted on his Twitter parts of the episode's script.^[4][5]

"Thirtysimpsons"[]

"Thirtysimpsons" was made for Season 3^[2] and was a cross-over episode about the TV series Thirtysomething. Homer meets a group of Yuppies and hangs out with them. It was written by David Stern but "never seemed to work"^[1] and wasn't in the "style of the show"^[2] and wasn't produced.

A military school episode[]

A script written in the first few years of the show sees Bart sent to a military school. The script never worked and was thrown out. In Season 8, a similar episode called "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" was made where Bart goes to military school.^[1]

Pitched Ideas[]

• For the seventh season: "Greg Daniels pitched an episode about racism in Springfield. It never got past the planning stages because the topic was just too incendiary to be dealt with effectively."^[2]
• For season eight: "A hilarious and fully worked out story by George Meyer. I can't reveal the subject matter here, but we never went forward with it because of 1) legal ramifications and 2) the fact that at least a couple of people on the staff/cast would've felt personally attacked by the episode and we just didn't want to deal with the fallout."^[2] It has been speculated to be a spoof of Scientology.^[6]
• Oakley and Weinstein had an idea for an episode about Lisa "discovering the joys of campy things", to be entitled "Lisa and Camp". It was never produced and eventually became "Homer's Phobia".^[7]
• In February 2012, Oakley tweeted what he felt were the ten best episodes pitched but never produced: "Prince Comes to Springfield" by Conan O'Brien, "Lisa the Scientopteran" by George Meyer, "Homer's $1000 Suit" by Sam Simon, "Homer vs. Dr. Hibbert on the Issue of Race" by Greg Daniels, "Amusement Park" by Matt Groening, "Homer the Narcoleptic" by David X. Cohen, "Bart Gets 144 Jeeps" by Oakley & Josh Weinstein, "Homer Privately Tells Bart He Loves Him Best" by Ken Keeler and "Homer's Sexual Fantasy" by Dan Greaney.
• In February 2017, Weinsten tweeted a photo of a wall of unused ideas for episodes circa 1996: "Bart the Locksmith", "Marge the Cartoonist", "Wacky Races", "The Naked & The Ned", "Moe Gets Caller ID", "State Fair", "Homer Finds Marge's Old Love Letters", "Burns & Smithers Love Triangle", "New Speed Limit", "Science Class Robot Battle", "Fried Cake" and "Springfield Donates White House Christmas Tree". Of these scrapped episodes "Bart & Grampa Heist" was most likely redone as "Flying Hellfish", while Marge briefly becomes a comic illustrator in "Springfield Splendor".^[8]
• There's a myth of an episode named "Dead Bart". And “Moaning Lisa” replaced it. Season 1 Episode 6

Citations[]