In its 35-season run,The Simpsonshas made its fair share of mistakes. From thenow-retired stereotype of Apu(Hank Azaria) to the infamously homophobic episode “Homer’s Phobia,” the animated comedy has more than a few moments and elements that have aged poorly. Nevertheless, when Disney+ launched in 2019, the streaming platform still elected to make every episode of the show available on the new streaming site — except for one.
The longest-running scripted primetime television series,The Simpsonshas been airing since 1989. However, it only became a Disney property in March 2019, whenthe company bought 20th Century Foxand thus acquired its television division. Not long after, Disney announced that their forthcoming streaming site would include the show’s entire library of 500-plus episodes, much to the delight of lifelong fans. If they were planning to binge-watch the entire show, though, they would only get so far before noticinga conspicuous gap in the series' beloved canon.
The Simpsons
The satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield.
‘The Simpsons’ Season 3, Episode 1 Is Missing From Disney+
“Stark Raving Dad” is the first episode ofThe Simpsons' third season. Kicking off the season on July 05, 2025,it is a widely cherished entry from the show’s early years, an episode that fans will recognize, reference, and quote without mistake. Likewise, they will recognize when the episode is missing, as it isn’t on Disney’s streaming site for a very specific reason.
In the episode,Homer (Dan Castellaneta)finds his white shirt turned pink after it’s gone through the wash with Bart’s (Nancy Cartwright) red hat. To his own chagrin, Homer wears the pink shirt to work, where Mr. Burns (Harry Shearer) immediately labels him as a “free-thinking anarchist” and demands he take a psychiatric exam. Too lazy to fill out the exam himself, Homer has Bart do it for him. Bart, however, paints an inaccurately poor image of his father, so when the results come back,Homer is sent to a mental institution.
While the gendered stereotypes and exaggerated portrayals of mental health are executed with the expected levels of winking humor forThe Simpsons, it is neither of these elements that make “Stark Raving Dad” taboo. Instead, it isthe guest starwho plays Homer’s roommate in the mental hospitalthat has rendered the episode so controversial.
Predictions From ‘The Simpsons’ Can Actually Be Explained
There’s nothing particularly prognostic about the wacky events in Springfield.
When Homer arrives at the asylum, he is thrown in a room with a man who introduces himself asMichael Jackson. However, the character is not the famous singer, but a large white man who believes himself to be the King of Pop. His only real resemblance to Jackson comes in the form of his falsetto voice,which the real Michael Jackson provided in an uncredited cameo.
When the episode debuted in 1991,Michael Jackson was an esteemed celebrity. This makes it all the funnier when Homer doesn’t recognize the name and takes his roommate’s assumed identity for granted. Come 2019, however, Jackson’s posthumous reputation had shifted drastically, taking a stark turn for the worse just a few months before Disney+’s launch.
A 2019 Documentary Made Michael Jackson’s Already Ruined Reputation Even Worse
Michael Jackson faced numerous allegations of pedophilia during his lifetime, mostly throughout the mid-nineties and early-2000s. All of these cases were settled out of court, though Jackson’s reputation was forever tarnished due to the controversy. In January 2019,HBO released the documentaryLeaving Neverland, where main subjects Wade Robson and James Safechuck once more accused Jackson of sexually abusing them when they were child actors. Although the allegations had already caused his general demise in the public eye decades prior,Leaving Neverlandwas the cherry on top of Jackson’s already ruined reputation.
The documentary met immense acclaim, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary among other accolades. At the same time, the film also reintroduced the world to the dark side of Jackson’s life. While the Jackson estatecondemned the doc for supposed inaccuracies, as well as incongruities with the subjects' original testimonies under oath, many others became even more adverse to the singer’s music and celebrity status after seeing the film. Among Jackson’s new adversaries wasSimpsonsshowrunnerAl Jean,who told The Daily Beastthat Jackson could have used his “Stark Raving Dad” cameo to capture a younger generation and “groom boys.” Shortly thereafter,Simpsonsco-creatorJames L. Brooksannounced thatthe episode would be pulledfrom syndicated television, FXX’s “Simpsons World” on-demand site, and future DVD sales of Season 3. Evidently, the programmers at Disney followed suit, and when the show found its new streaming home on Disney+, “Stark Raving Dad” was nowhere to be found.
Disney’s rationale for excluding “Stark Raving Dad” from the streaming service is sound. After all, Disney+ is primarily targeted at children, andThe Simpsonsalready presses a few boundaries when it comes to age appropriateness. That being noted, it does seem like somewhat of a timely P.R. move to leave out “Stark Raving Dad” when one considers some of the other episodes still available on the site. As aforementioned,much of the earlySimpsonshas aged dubiously, and yet, all of the Apu episodes are featured on Disney+, as is “Homer’s Phobia.” Meanwhile, Jackson is far from the onlySimpsonscelebrity guest star to have garnered a controversial reputation since appearing on the show. Other episodes feature voices fromMel Gibson,Elon Musk, andRupert Murdoch, all portraying their now-contentious selves.
This is not even to mention the hoards ofproblematic content in Disney+’s library as a whole. Going all the way back to the 1920s, the Walt Disney Company has produced numerous shows, films, and shorts depicting racist stereotypes. Disney+ at least has the decency to leave out the worst of these, likeSong of the Southand Donald Duck’santi-Japanese World War II propaganda reels. However, the site still includes classics likeDumbo,Peter Pan,The Three Caballeros, andThe Lady and the Tramp, despite them containing offensive representations of Black, Native American, Latinx, and Asian people, respectively. Even more contemporary movies likePocahontasandAladdinhave aged dubiously through a lens of diversity and representation, and one could fill a book with the outdated gender roles depicted in practicallyevery Disney princess moviefromSnow WhitetoThe Little Mermaid. These are all available to stream, albeit with disclaimers noting that they were products of their time and may contain offensive content.
