Fans know that the Simpsons’ approach to time is almost as fluid as its grip on space; hence—to pick an example based on nothing except how much it irritates us—Homer and Marge’s history as young lovers in both the 1970s and the 1990s. (Grr.) Normally, the show plays things loose with exact dates, but an eagle-eyed fan spotted at least one instance when it got specific: a shot of Homer’s driver’s license in season four’s “Duffless.” While the license is coy about Springfield’s location—the state abbreviation being the strictly imaginary NT—it spells out Homer’s date of birth, including the year, with perfect clarity:
So, hey: Happy 61st birthday, Homer. We have to hand it to you: You look amazingly good for your age, lifestyle, and the truly staggering amount of injuries you’ve suffered over the decades. On the other hand, 61 years—instead of the perpetual 38 or 40 the show normally claims—does at least seem like a more reasonable time span to contain Mr. Simpsons’s various accomplishments and careers: astronaut, plow operator, sugar bootlegger, regular bootlegger, and a billion more, not to mention his Grammy-winning time with The B Sharps and his world-famous tenure in Sadgasm, both of which apparently happened, not that we’re still mad about it 10 years after “That ’90s Show” established it as fact.