‘The Simpsons’ Earned a TV-MA Rating Over One Surprisingly Small Detail

Published Oct 4, 2026, 11:31 AM EDT

Rotten Tomatoes | Letterboxd | Metacritic

Carolyn Jenkins is a voracious consumer of film and television. She graduated from Long Island University with an MFA in Screenwriting and Producing where she learned the art of character, plot, and structure. The best teacher is absorbing media and she spends her time reading about different worlds from teen angst to the universe of Stephen King.

Sign in to your Collider account

Sunday’s “Diary of a Chimpy Kid” sends Bart and Lisa on a chimp-rescue mission that has Homer worried it will tear off his face and groin — yes, you read that right. But before its October 4 premiere on Fox, there was an older episode’s unexpected ratings controversy that tripped censors for the most bizarre and tiniest detail. Fox’s animated series The Simpsons has been on the air for so long that production has accomplished every conceivable milestone. However, in Season 26, an uncensored episode earned a TV-MA rating.

This sort of rating has been reserved in the past for shows like Game of Thrones, which contains an immeasurable amount of violence and sexual content on a good day. The Simpsons, for the most part, has always been a family program, but the episode “The Wreck of the Relationship” has one sequence where a character gives the middle finger. In a series that had earned so much goodwill over the years, this evidently put it over the edge into mature territory.

The Brief Gesture That Earned ‘The Simpsons’ a TV-MA Rating

In the episode, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) tries to get access to an R-rated movie, which is a teen sex comedy, a genre that has become less common. The film in The Simpsons is called Project: After Party, and features risqué content such as girls whose bathing suits are dissolved in acid and a large bong being lowered into a swimming pool, but what tripped the sensors was an old dominatrix who gives the middle finger to the camera.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Fandom Should You Join? Harry Potter · Lord of the Rings · Star Wars · Star Trek

Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you put on when you need cheering up, how deep you go into the things you love, what you argue about, what you keep on your shelf. Answer them and we will tell you where you belong. Four of the biggest fandoms on earth are taking new members, and they could not be more different from one another.

⚡Harry Potter(Wizarding World)

💍Lord of the Rings(Middle-earth)

⚔️Star Wars(A Galaxy Far Away)

🖖Star Trek(The Final Frontier)

FIND YOUR PEOPLE →

01

What do you put on when you need cheering up? Nobody is brave about this one.

AThe same thing I have watched a hundred times. BSomething long, slow and beautiful. CSomething big and loud with a great score. DOne clever episode of something hopeful.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

How deep do you go into something you love? There is no shallow end here, only different deep ends.

AI know every character and all the gossip. BI have read the appendices and studied the maps. CI have a ranked opinion on every instalment. DI want to know how the world actually works.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What do you and your friends actually argue about? Every fandom has one argument it has been having for years.

AWhich one of us is which type. BWhether the adaptation got it right. CWhether the new stuff ruined the old stuff. DWhether the right thing was actually done.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How do you feel about a room full of strangers? Every one of these comes with a very big room.

AGreat, and I will know everybody by the end. BFine, as long as they take it seriously. CBrilliant, especially if there is something to dress up for. DHappy, provided the conversation is interesting.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

Where would you rather spend a week? Pick on instinct rather than on budget.

AAn old castle somewhere rainy. BMountains, long walks, no phone signal. CA desert with an unbelievable night sky. DA city built around a university.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

What do you believe about people, mostly? All four of these stories have an answer, and they disagree.

AMost of them turn out better than expected. BThe smallest ones decide the biggest things. CAnybody can change, even very late on. DWe work it out if we keep talking.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What is actually on your shelf? Look over at it before you answer.

AEverything I owned when I was twelve. BHardbacks, in order, read more than once. CFigures, posters, and a few things still boxed. DBooks about how things work, plus a model or two.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What do you actually want from a story? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your fandom.

AA place I can go back to whenever I need it. BA world complete enough to get lost in. CSomething huge I can share with everybody. DAn idea that changes how I think.

REVEAL MY FANDOM →

Membership Confirmed Your Fandom Is…

Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you would be having within a week.

Harry Potter

You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting you.

• You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within about five minutes and has never stopped.
• This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every single person in your life would be.
• The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you do with things you love.
• The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the arguments are about to start all over again.

Lord of the Rings

You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.

• You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
• This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
• Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all, which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
• Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make that argument.

Star Wars

You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.

• You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
• Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly 1980 with no sign of resolution.
• The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
• You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good time.

Star Trek

You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.

• You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
• The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
• Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
• You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you will always find somebody willing to have it.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

From a series that is already satirical, this rating seems to be part of the joke, even if it wasn’t planned ahead of time. Even in the sequence, Homer (Dan Castellaneta) notices what his son is watching and exclaims, “Brief nudity!” The episode seems to comment on the fact that R-rated sex comedies are still fairly innocuous with no cause for concern. Even so, The Simpsons was tagged with a mature rating in one of the less offensive moments of the clip.

Disney Has Been Scaling Up Its Heavy Content

Fans could see the uncensored cut of the episode, which earned a mature rating, but as it is now streaming on Disney+, the offensive material was blurred out and does not have the same rating. Disney’s acquisition of Fox allowed for many unexpected things to air on the platform, but even when the streamer is in full control, it has still allowed more mature content.

One example of this was allowing the Netflix universe of Marvel shows to air on Disney+. Shows like Daredevil, The Punisher, and Jessica Jones were not only thematically mature but also contained heavy violence. Disney eventually allowed these shows on the platform in 2022, as long as viewers adjusted their settings. Now, however, shows are coming through that have the same amount of vigor.

Daredevil: Born Again is a continuation of the Netflix series and carries on the legacy of content aimed at more mature audiences. The first season of the show depicts the apparent murder of one of the main characters, as well as serial killers and the appearance of the brutal Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) himself. His 2026 special, The Punisher: One Last Kill, brought even more graphic violence to Disney+, making an animated middle finger seem tame by comparison. In retrospect, one middle finger doesn’t seem so bad. But the world of animation seems to have different rules, and as long as The Simpsons is on the air, it may have to abide by them.

Fans of the series can still see the censored version currently streaming on Disney+.

• 

  Homer Simpson / Abe Simpson / Barney Gumble / Krusty (voice)

• 

  Julie Kavner

  Marge Simpson / Patty Bouvier / Selma Bouvier (voice)

The satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield.