Secret behind Who shot Mr. Burns?
Original culprit was very, very different
There h av e been some great mysteries in our time: Who was Jack the Ripper? Did Amelia Earhart really disappear i nto t he Bermuda Triangle? Where the hell is Jimmy Hoffa? And, of course, who shot Mr. Burns???
If we recall the Season 6 two- part Simpsons episode dating back to 1995, a spoof on Dallas’s Who shot J. R.? cliffhanger, we learn by the end the incidental shooter is one Maggie Simpson.
But over the weekend, f ormer Simpsons writer Josh Weinstein revealed the ending of the iconic episode actually took on many variations. In fact, Maggie being the ultimate culprit was a late-in-the-game decision.
The summary of the episode pitch f r om t he June 1994 stor y conference, tweeted by Weinstein, opens, “This is very rough. The story has to basically be about Mr. Burns making six mortal enemies. Obviously Homer, maybe Bart, and possibly other major characters like Apu, Barney, etc. Perhaps he fires Smithers.”
The idea began with Burns potentially buying a “block of downtown area” only to demolish i t and “build some crazy Burns new thing.”
Later, the idea was envisioned as a parody of “it’s a dream” sequences, taking inspiration from Twin Peaks where the culprit is actually someone you’ve never even seen, “a drifter who just recently arrived into town.”
It came down to choosing “a character we’re willing to sacrifice,” like Barney, who the writers theorized could’ve been driven insane while spending his days at Moe’s, or Selma, after having a secret affair with Burns, or even Patty, after finding out he was two-timing the sisters.
Eventually, Weinstein said, the pitch doubled in size with more ideas from other writers suggesting Maggie, with the intention of dropping clues throughout the two- parter for viewers to pick up on — in other words, everything that made Who Shot Mr. Burns? such a legendary piece of television.