Having previously shown there’s a spark of decency in The Simpsons by announcing Edna Krabappel’s forthcoming retirement, the show’s producers will twice more honor the memory of the late Marcia Wallace this Sunday, November 3. Those who’d rather not sell out the future of The Simpsons will see a tribute card dedicating the show’s latest episode, “4 Regrettings And A Funeral,” to Wallace. For those who take the Seymour Skinner-esque position that The Simpsons has no future (prove them wrong show—prove them wrong…), Fox will re-broadcast “Bart The Lover,” a third-season episode that shed Bart Simpsons’ classroom nemesis in a newly sympathetic light—and won the actress a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. Of course, this is all irrelevant to anyone who already paid personal homage to Edna Krabappel-Flanders by re-watching her brief and torrid love affair with an imagined man who bears the face of hockey legend Gordie Howe and first name of our nation’s 28th president. If that’s the case, might The A.V. Club suggest copying our immediate reaction to the news of Wallace’s death: Pop in that one Bob Newhart Show where Carol falls in love with the older doctor who removes her tattoo. Either way, you’ll give the actress one final, well-deserved “Ha!”
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