Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Maggie Simpson's naughty message

David Pescovitz at 2:19 pm Mon, Oct 18, 2010

— FEATURED —

THE LATEST

Guatemala: Nation's highest court throws out Ríos Montt genocide trial verdict and prison sentence

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

Book Review

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for human habitation

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle
  44K0N5Zmfo8 Tlyngpfbpxi Aaaaaaaaadq 4Sqldz W8Fa S1600 Maggielearnsinsults
See the blocks on the right. From last week's episode, "Money Bart." "Maggie Simpson learns a new word" (Thanks, bbmancini via Submitterator)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • Anonymous

    Well, maybe a stretch… But who knows… FUK (u) catches the eye, no need to spell it correctly to necessarily think of the word! And actually, a good way to avoid censorship

  • Lobster

    The real headline: someone is still watching The Simpsons.

  • Anonymous

    I can’t believe this isn’t obvious to you people. This is another broadshot in the ongoing war between Matt Groenig and Bob Uecker. FU UEKR.

    WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

  • Stay_Sane_Inside_Insanity

    @David Pescovitz

    “Maggie Simpson’s naughty message(?)”

    There. I fixed it for you. ^_^

  • V

    Eff Ewe See,
    Kay Ee Wye,
    Em Oh Ewe Ess Eeeee….

    • Eric the half a bee

      LOL@V.

  • Anonymous

    These are all the possible words in English. Man, those Simpson writers are hi-larious.

    KERF KURU FER FEU FUR KEF KUE REF RUE UKE EF ER RE

  • snakedart

    Cowardly to slip this in when the viewership long ago fell below measurable levels.

  • kridje

    Ok BoingBoing, I get it. I just read the moderation policy and I see why my comments were deleted… I said that I did not think this was a Boingworthy post. I did not mean to offend. Please accept my apology. My intentions were good.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      That’s why I haven’t sent the men in black to your house.

  • Anonymous

    The Anagram Server found over 100 anagrams. THAT CANNOT BE A COINCIDENCE, PEOPLE!

  • GIFtheory

    You’re all wrong. The naughty word is ZEF, but with the Z rotated 90 degrees. ZEF side!!

  • Donald Petersen

    I imagine this was as close as BS&P would let them get to something naughty.

    Text in the frame of a prime-time animated show is never random, sez I.

  • poolaka

    Yeah, this is about as legitimate as me seeing the patron saint, Christopher Hitchens, in my cheeseburger today.

    • Brainspore

      Next you’ll try to convince me that my Boggle set hasn’t been coming on to me lately.

  • Moondoggie

    You’re one funny fuker, you, Matt.

  • querent

    I caught this when it aired. Sending a link to all who called me dumb while we sat around the smoke-filled living room.

    vindicated by boing. a descent band name, that.

  • mellowknees

    Somehow, I see the effword about as much as I see “SEX” spelled out in the dust clouds in the Lion King, or boners in the background on the Little Mermaid box. It might have been on purpose, and it might not have been, but I guess it does prove one thing: humans will always look for something dirty if they think it’s even .05% there.

  • Hagrid

    Pareidolia. Possibly intentionally triggered by the animators.

  • JoshuaZ

    First thing I saw was “fuer” and thought it was a mispelling of fuhrer. Does that Godwin the thread?

  • Anonymous

    This is so fuk ing stupid! People really like to see a red things when they are yellow!

    You made me laught so much, conspirator subliminal naughty alien!

    The EU for European Union! OMG! Looooooooooool!

  • ImprovidentLackWit

    In a SPEAK-N-SPELL gag, Krusty’s voice spells a Yiddish sounding word… “S…H…I…I know there is a T in there somewhere….”

    Maybe the blocks were innocently placed, but…

  • Anonymous

    Dudes, how can anyone think the letters on the blocks are just random? There are at least 2 people who put it there and then there’re 10s more who actually check the cartoon before it goes on the air.

    Having said that, I wouldn’t say it’s a coincidence that there’s “FUK” and “FU”, and even “UMFKR”. Anyone with some experience on the drawing or animation business will tell you that you should watch out with letter combinations such as “MF”, “FU”, “FK”, “DK”, and others.

    Someone out there wanted to say at least FUCK YOU, and at the most HEY YOU MOTHER FUCKER. FUK U ER is also very VERY plausible.

  • quintellect

    Here’s where the stretched idea is not so stretchy:
    The animation for the simpson is done in South Korea (See Al Jean’s interview in NYT dated 11 Oct)
    IF it is the EU, IMF, NEF FUK U stretched idea, it could be a animator who is really up to date on how econ policy might be screwing his job\country up?

  • ahaley

    SSSSSSTTTTRRRRRREEEEETTTTTCCCCCHHHHHHH!

  • bezoared

    Fuk/Fur

    fuk fur

  • Anonymous

    Not a stretch. You don’t know how bored (and rebellious) animators get. I had a friend that tried to hide marijuana leaves in a game animation once. He got caught, but he said it was not infrequent for something like this to be missed by the leads and appear in the final draft.

  • fnc

    Neffukuer refers to a subspecies of the kwyjibo, and is thus a perfectly cromulent word.

  • Anonymous

    You fools!! It is an anagram for “Nuke Euro If Fume”

    Anti EU sentiment hidden in simpsons

  • Anonymous

    ‘U M FKR’ That’s all it’s saying – bottom left to right and ‘U FUKR’ – right top down.

    The E’s are decoy blocks.

    1, ON, 1

    Or…

    You Fuck, One on one you mother fucker.

    …Does this make me crazy???

  • Anonymous

    Again: I think the E blocks are decoys being the only blocks that appear three times in the three parts of the message. That bright letter U is the start of the message and it reads down, til you get to the purple K, at which point you shift your eyes to the other purple letter, O next to an N (ON) the letter I can also be seen as the Roman numeral for number ‘one’ and is the only block in ‘dominant’ red; the contrast colour to blue. Then the message reads as normal from bottom right to left beginning at the non decoy letter U, and ending on the letter R.

    - Fionnlagh

  • Anonymous

    The European Union would crush you .. easy.

  • MrJM

    Have I been spelling fucker wrong?

  • ocorrigan

    It’s obviously a commentary on late capitalism and supra-national governance structures in the age of global recession:

    “E.U., I.M.F., ONE FUKER”

  • Anonymous

    I got F BOB UECKER.

  • Anonymous

    I believe the animation for The Simpsons is done in Korea, so I think it’s very likely the appearance of FUK was coincidental, rather than a lame and puerile joke.

    • grimc

      The animation is, but the keyframing isn’t. And it’s the Simpsons. Everything else being equal, odds are it is a lame and puerile joke. That’s why I love the Simpsons.

  • Anonymous

    Fuck Youer? I’m confused.

    • Foothealth

      FUK UER is referring to a community of Urban Explorers at UER.CA where someone had posted Matt Groening’s house as an exploration site. After his house was posted, some vandals then went and did some damage to his property. Since then, Matt has been angry with UER and due to a cease and desist order, his property was removed from the website database.

  • Chris Furniss

    Either I’m missing something or that’s reaaaaaaally stretching it.

  • Anonymous

    Wish they wouldn’t misspell words like that, how are kids going to learn english.. or french

  • Anonymous

    How many U’s are in a set of blocks? And sorry, I first noticed the two EU blocks were different.

  • Anonymous

    I’m with Locke and Hurley– we should keep pressing the button

  • fhamilton

    I actually paused this on my TiVo when I was watching because it looked like such an obvious place to drop a gag in… I didn’t see anything then, and I think the “FKR” is kind of a stretch now. If I’m missing something, please clue me in.

  • Anonymous

    Read both stacks, from left to right, top to bottom. Sound it out, fast:

    OIM (=I’m)
    NEF (=gonna)
    FUK
    UER (=you)

  • Deidzoeb

    Can’t you see the blocks are lined up just like the twin towers? The block that just shows E/U is in position of WTC 7, and it’s some kind of statement against the European Union which I haven’t figured out yet.

    • Brainspore

      Oh, definitely part of the 9/11 conspiracy! Note how the “left” tower next to the EU is supported by two international organizations bent on controlling the world economy: the O.I.M (International Organization for Migration) and N.E.F (New Economics Foundation). The “right” tower is a thinly disguised threat: They will “Fuk U” up all the way to the “E.R.”

  • osmo

    its a long stretch I think. Its an F and a U? I can get “No Fur MF” from the blocks if that helps?

  • Craig Duffy

    What, you dont know what “onfuieueeumfkr” spells?

  • jerkzilla

    Those aren’t words.

  • MikeP

    Fuck you ER, perhaps?

    Seems a bit of a stretch, honestly.

  • Jack-Booted EULA

    Using only four blocks I see two prominent FU’s, a FUK, a FKR, and if corners are allowed, FUKR too. Speculate now as to the meaning of the not-like-the-others EU block.

  • oasisob1

    No, Maggie. It’s ‘Lemur’. ‘Lee-mur’.

  • tomwj

    I wondered if it was FU I E(hear) U(you) E(hear) U(you) E E M(Me) F K R. But I think its a stretch.

  • mdf

    I can get eu mfkr (you motherfucker) but I think it comes down to plausible deniability.

  • Anonymous

    Seriously, people.

    Top to bottom in the right column: F-U-K.

    Phonetically, that’s how a kid WOULD spell it, don’t you think?

  • Anonymous

    It spells “ttewftwnbr”

    obviously an acronym for “three through eight were flukes that will never be repeated”

    or is it:

    “whbasiofg” :
    “we have become a sad imitation of family guy”

  • Anonymous

    After reading the comments, I’m glad I am not the only one that was confused by this post.

  • David Pescovitz

    If you read down, it says “Fuk” and then the top letter in the next column is “U.” If that wasn’t on purpose, I’d eat my hat.

    • Anonymous

      Definitely too much to be a coincidence. The question is, why would there by a hidden message about Japan, let alone a place like Fukue?

    • Brainspore

      If that wasn’t on purpose, I’d eat my hat.

      Shorts, David. It’s “eat my shorts.”

    • Jonathan Badger

      No, no — *obviously*, it is “Fuer”, a misspelled version of “Fuhrer” — as the Salon review of the seemingly innocuous “Secretariat” showed, the entertainment industry is trying to send subliminal neo-Nazi propaganda at us.

  • Anonymous

    says

    “NO, F.U. EU, I.E EU MFKR”

    No, F*** You, European Union,
    i.e. European Union Mother F***er

  • TimmoWarner

    I just thought he was referring to the “FUK.”

  • Anonymous

    At a glance, I let my subconscious come up with ‘Ein Fuhrer’. Then upon closer examination I got ‘Monie Fuker’. With monie being a archaic word for money?

  • Drew

    I seriously doubt this is something the writers put in on purpose. There’s no joke, and it’s just not their style.

    Perhaps some animator could have slipped it in, but I think it’s more likely just random.

    • dw_funk

      You miss the fact that most of what the writers put in on purpose aren’t really jokes anymore, either.

  • kib

    “EUMFKR” is a perfectly cromulent word.

  • Art Carnage

    Reading each block left to right, and alternating the direction on each block, we get: EU NO IE which obviously refers to the European Union’s rejection of the Internet Explorer browser.

    Hey, it’s just a likely as whatever the heck the original author thought s/he saw.

  • Anonymous

    It’s obviously IE. Internet Explorer is very naughty.