Continuity

[Sheana_Molloy]

No, Skinner just walked quickly off.

Really, I don't see why people consider it a meta-reference like the guide book. The guide book is silly, but the 'Principal and the Pauper' bit is a ref to an actual episode that happened. It's a reference to something that happened in the past, though most people don't like that episode's events to be mentioned.

[c_nordlander]

Very good point, Sheana.

As I see it, though, any mention of Armin Tamzarian is *anathema* (no, not the witch girl) in Springfield, so... if you get away with naming him, that's probably a breach of continuity.

(And no, I for one didn't call it a meta-reference. I just compared it with the guide book joke on account of both being very blatant attempts to shock the audience. Oh well, I prefer that to trying to shock the audience with sex or mindless violence, but... meh.)

[Robbie]

Continuity is something that doesn't exist, at least not in any scientific or fiction form, in the Simpsons world. Maybe all this screwing with continuity is to confuse and agitate long term fans of the show, like Skinner being called Tamzarian even though fans think "The Principal and the Pauper" doesn't exist, or Grandpa's old farm suddenly being rebuilt after it got burnt down at the end of Grandpa vs Sexual Inadequacy. Or the Springfieldians taking all of the Simpsons' possessions at the end of "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace". Or Homer taking enough wounds in some episodes to KILL A MORTAL MAN! Where was I... Oh yeah, continuity is something us geeks try and wave in the face of Simpsons screenwriters, who are too out of it to notice...

[SirMustapha]

Well, Lisa herself said that cartoons don't need to be one hundred per cent real (*another Fernie walks past the window*); the problem is, where is the line that separates "cartooniness" to "ridiculousness"? I would admit that Homer being bitten by poisonous snakes and robots filled with venom is closer to the latter rather than to the former... but the question is more delicate than that.