The Simpsons actually cares about continuity?

So, in the Simpsons season ender last year, Ned and Edna started dating. This led to a scene in which Ned, while hanging out with Homer at Moe's, runs into some of the men that Edna has slept with over the years, including Joey from Aerosmith. Remember their assignation?

First off, bravo for the callback 19 years later - that's quite the accomplishment. More importantly, though, I've got to say that the years have not treated the animated depiction of Joey very well-

That's what he's looking like these days! Which brings me to the eternal question - how, exactly, does time work in Springfield? Homer has aged five years over the course of the show (from 36 to 41), while his children remain the same age, but apparently this was just a narcissistic move by the writers, who didn't want to be older than Homer, at least for a relatively brief amount of time.

Strangely, the 20-year age jump of Joey's isn't the only reference to the extreme passage of time in the episode. Ned mentions in passing that his 'Leftorium' has been the anchor store of the 'sad mall' for ten years. Which means we're not only getting a reference to the Leftorium being built almost twenty years ago, but also to the fact that the 'Springfield Mall' that it resides in has essentially been made obsolete by the opening of the Heavenly Hills Mall back in season nine.

Of course, Lisa almost got married back in 2010, so what does time even mean any more?

Be Careful When Framing Your Shots

This isn't advice that's incredibly useful any more - the primacy of widescreen televisions has largely eliminated the need for panning and scanning. Still, it's interesting to see examples of a time when people didn't think too long or hard about what was going to show up in the frame when the conversion was made from widescreen to fullscreen.

Let's use Jason Goes to Hell as an illustrative example, shall we?

This is Jason tossing a hero aside like so much refuse. Note the distance between Jason and that bush to his left. Moments after this occurs, a heroine uses the bush as a springboard to jump onto Jason's back.

Introducing Jason Ritter’s Preposterous Facial Hair

This is Jason Ritter. You may be wondering about his preposterous facial hair.

In this scene we’ve just met the young man for the first time. He’s sneaked onto a plane, and is being pursued by men in suits. Presumably this means he’s been on the run for a while, and hasn’t had time to shave, hence the odd stubble.

Except here, in the very next scene, we learn that 11 days earlier he had the exact same stubble-goatee. That’s right, he didn’t think it was important to shave before asking his girlfriend’s father if it was cool for him to propose. Which means he’s extremely fond of this odd, stubbly look.

How fond? Well, let’s flash back even further than two weeks, to-

Five years earlier, when he first met his girlfriend.

This isn’t the show 24. All of these scenes aren’t happening just minutes apart. The funny thing is, had Jason just been clean-shaven we wouldn’t have ever noticed that he had the same haircut over the past five years. Even if it wasn't matted.

But they selected a preposterous bit of facial hair for him. And the rest is mediocre-TV history.