The Simpsons
The Principal and the Pauper
TV Flash files “The Principal and the Pauper” as hour 180 of 802 in the TV Flash guide — The Simpsons (1989–present) on Fox, season 9, episode 2, aired 1997-09-28, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S09E02: listed hour 180 of 802 in the The Simpsons guide, hour 2 of 25 in season 9. It aired 1997-09-28 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson” (S09E01). Next is “Lisa's Sax” (S09E03). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Principal Skinner is given a achievement award and in the middle of the ceremony a man who claims to be the real Seymour Skinner shows up.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Principal and the Pauper sit in the The Simpsons guide?
S09E02 is listed hour 180 of 802 — hour 2 of 25 in season 9, season 9 episode 2.
When did The Simpsons S09E02 air?
The Principal and the Pauper aired 1997-09-28 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start if I am not watching all 800 episodes?
Start with the 1989 Christmas premiere, then a handful of golden-age hours from seasons four through eight. Treat the rest as a library, not a novel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as a living joke encyclopedia, not a series you owe from pilot to present. The early years still teach how American satire learned to reset weekly; the later catalog is optional weather. You already speak Springfield. This is how the grammar got written.
The first image is a couch, and then it is not. The Simpsons treats the opening gag as a weekly contract: we will reset the living room, and we will still find a new joke about the country that owns it. Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989 after the Tracey Ullman shorts, and the half-hour that followed did not merely popularize adult animation. It installed a shared vocabulary. People who stopped watching still speak Springfield.
Filed against
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