The Simpsons
Better Off Ned
TV Flash files “Better Off Ned” as hour 678 of 802 in the TV Flash guide — The Simpsons (1989–present) on Fox, season 31, episode 16, aired 2020-03-15, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S31E16: listed hour 678 of 802 in the The Simpsons guide, hour 16 of 22 in season 31. It aired 2020-03-15 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Screenless” (S31E15). Next is “Highway to Well” (S31E17). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Bart bonds with Ned Flanders, which leaves Homer jealous, so he retaliates by mentoring Nelson Muntz. Then, a heroic act by Homer makes Bart look up to him again.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Better Off Ned sit in the The Simpsons guide?
S31E16 is listed hour 678 of 802 — hour 16 of 22 in season 31, season 31 episode 16.
When did The Simpsons S31E16 air?
Better Off Ned aired 2020-03-15 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
- Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson
Dan Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson — the yellow everyman who turned “D’oh!” into a global punctuation mark. Decades of The Simpsons mean his throat is half of American cartoon history. TV Flash tips the doughnut to the man behind the…
- Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson
Julie Kavner’s Marge Simpson is the blue-hair patience of Fox’s yellow family — a reference language still adding pages while the country litigates whether the golden age is over. Not a sitcom you finish. On TV Flash she is the…
- Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson
Nancy Cartwright’s Bart Simpson is Springfield’s weekly reset in a kid’s voice — the prank as American satire’s engine since Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989. The Simpsons is a joke encyclopedia still adding pages; she is…
- Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson
Yeardley Smith’s Lisa Simpson is The Simpsons as a living joke encyclopedia — Fox’s yellow family still adding pages while the country litigates whether the golden age is over. On TV Flash she is Springfield grammar: the saxophone, the…
- Hank Azaria as Moe / Chief Wiggum
Hank Azaria voices Moe and Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons — Springfield as a living joke encyclopedia, bar and badge as two dialects in Fox's yellow reference language. TV Flash files him as the show's vocal furniture: the early years still…
- Harry Shearer as Mr. Burns / Ned Flanders
Harry Shearer is Springfield in stereo: Mr. Burns’s death-rattle capital and Ned Flanders’s neighborly hymn, often in the same half-hour. The Simpsons installed a shared vocabulary for American satire; his voices are two of its most…