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Characters 'The Simpsons' Killed Off, Ranked By How Much They'll Be Missed
Vote up the character deaths on The Simpsons that hit you the hardest.
Since it premiered in 1989 on Fox, The Simpsons has gone on to become one of the most popular TV series in history, and literally the longest-running scripted series of all time, with over 765 episodes and counting.
In that time, The Simpsons has covered nearly every subject imaginable, usually in a comedic way. For a comedy show, a surprisingly high number of characters have died over the years. To be sure, since it’s animated, the show can get away with an occasional death for humor or shock value - like when flying nanny Sherry Bobbins got sucked into that jet engine, or when supervillain Hank Scorpio’s goons execute James Bont. One-off characters like that won’t be appearing on this list. Instead, you’ll be voting on characters whose deaths were most impactful.
Here's a list of main or semi-regular Simpsons characters the show has killed off for a variety of reasons. Vote up the ones you miss the most.
- 1240 VOTES
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Bart’s desperately miserable teacher Mrs. Krabappel-Flanders was a longtime fan favorite, and Marcia Wallace won an Emmy in 1992 for portraying her. However, when Wallace passed away from cancer in 2013, the showrunners decided to retire the character rather than recast her. The Simpsons never explained how she died, but has indicated that it was once again Homer’s fault.
Mrs. Krabappel-Flanders’ final appearance comes in the 2014 episode “The Man Who Grew Too Much,” when Ned sees her in a dream. In 2021, The Simpsons gave the character a proper send-off by airing an episode in which Bart discovers her diary and learns that despite her cynical exterior she actually wanted him to succeed. The show used clips of previous lines by Wallace, cleared by her estate, to create a voiceover for the scene.
- 2164 VOTES
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Springfield jazz legend “Bleeding Gums” Murphy made a handful of appearances across The Simpsons’s first six seasons, often serving as Lisa’s musical mentor, until he met his untimely death in the episode “Round Springfield.” In it, Lisa discovers Bleeding Gums is in the hospital while she’s visiting Bart, who’s eaten a “jagged metal Krusty-O." Bleeding Gums helps Lisa prepare for her school musical recital but passes away of unspecified causes before he can hear how it went, which prompts Lisa to go on a mission to share his music with the town. “Round Springfield” is considered one of the show’s most emotional episodes from the early seasons. “The Simpsons” continued the story of the Murphy family in Season 33, when Lisa meets his son Monk, who’s deaf, then helps him secure royalties for his father’s music.
- 3137 VOTES
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On Mother’s Day 2008, The Simpsons gave fans a downer of an episode by killing off Homer’s mother, Mona, the free-spirited 1960’s radical who spent decades on the lam and thus didn’t have a relationship with her son. Voiced by Glenn Close, Mona made three visits to Springfield during The Simpsons run, all of which were given their own episodes. In the second of those, “My Mother, the Car Jacker” from 2003, the law finally catches up to Mona, and during her subsequent escape from prison she’s thought to have died when she commandeers a bus and drives it off a cliff. Her actual death five years later is a bit more prosaic, she simply dies while sitting in front of a fire. The episode explores her death’s impact on Homer, who gets the news just after deciding to reconcile with her. Homer is then tasked with scattering her ashes, which he of course screws up, accidentally dumping them into a missile launching system owned by Mr. Burns. It all works out in the end though, as the ashes prevent the missile from launching and depositing Springfield’s nuclear waste in the Amazon rainforest, thus giving Mona one last activist victory.
- 4153 VOTES
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The demise of Maude Flanders has more to do with behind-the-scenes Simpsons drama rather than storytelling, although it did happen for that reason, too. First, some background. For most of the series, most of the recurring characters have been voiced by a “core six” of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Obviously many other performers have lent their voices to the show, and one for the most prolific was Maggie Roswell, who voiced Reverend Lovejoy’a wife Helen, Lisa’s teacher Miss Hoover, Milhous’s mother Luann, and Maude Flanders, among others.
After the core six negotiated for raises in 2000, Roswell attempted to do the same. When Fox refused, she quit - according to her version of events. Fox contended that the reason for her leaving was because she refused to commute to Los Angeles from her home in Denver. While the showrunners opted to recast Roswell’s other roles, Al Jean explained that he decided to kill off Maude to explore her death’s effect on Ned, Rod, and Todd. The show gave her a suitably silly death by having her get knocked off the bleachers at a stock car race by a t-shirt cannon barrage intended for Homer. Ned, meanwhile, became embittered but did eventually marry Ms. Krabappel - who also appears on this list. Poor Ned.
- 5117 VOTES
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Joe Mantegna’s mob boss character Anthony “Fat Tony” D’Amico first appeared in the Season 3 episode “Bart the Murderer,” and since then the underboss of Springfield’s mafia made several appearances, usually whenever the Simpson family dabbled in crime - one of the most memorable of those being the time when Marge enlisted them to muscle out the snack food competition to help her soft pretzel business.
Fat Tony meets his end in the 2010 episode “Donnie Fatso,” in which Homer is forced to infiltrate Fat Tony’s organization for the police. When Fat Tony eventually realizes Homer is a rat, the shock gives him a heart attack and kills him. However, for those who grew to love the character, all was not lost. In that same episode, Fat Tony’s cousin, a physically fit mobster nicknamed “Fit Tony,” arrives and takes over the crime family. The stress of the job causes him to overeat and become “Fit-Fat Tony,” identical to Fat Tony. Mantegna, who refused to allow anyone else to play Fat Tony, also voices Fit-Fat Tony.
- 684 VOTES
Snowball II
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Yes, even the Simpsons’ kinda beloved family cat has met its demise. Snowball II’s name is obviously ironic, since the cat is black, but Snowball II’s predecessor is indeed white, which is confirmed in the Season 2 episode “Bart Gets Hit by a Car.” Getting hit by cars is a running theme in the lives of the Simpsons’ cats. In the very first episode, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” the first Snowball has already met her demise when Mayor Quimby’s drunken brother Clovis hit her with his car, prompting Marge and Homer to replace her with Snowball II. Snowball the Second lasted 15 seasons until the 2004 episode “I (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot,” in which Bart throws his bike in front of Dr. Hibbert's car, hoping to get a new one. The distracted doctor agrees to replace it, then runs over the cat. A devastated Lisa loses two more cats in the episode until she gets Snowball V, who looks identical to Snowball II and remains with her today. The episode isn’t a favorite for fans who have grown attached to the Simpsons’ loyal, mellow feline, and some question why the show bothered with the story at all.
- 770 VOTES
Beatrice Simmons
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Beatrice, we hardly knew ye. She appeared in the seventh episode of Season 2, “Old Money,” and served as the catalyst for an episode that explores dating and loss in the senior citizen community - and it’s a classic example of an early Simpsons tearjerker episode.
In it, Grampa Simpson meets Beatrice at the Springfield Retirement Castle when their medicines get switched. They fall in love and start a relationship. But on Bea’s birthday, Homer unknowingly abducts Abe and forces him to attend the monthly family trip to “Discount Lion Safari.” Thinking Abe stood her up, Bea dies of a broken heart. Abe is furious with Homer until Bea’ ghost encourages him to reconcile. Then, Abe learns Bea has willed him a large sum of money, which he uses to renovate the Retirement Castle in her memory.
Bea is mentioned two more times in the series, once when her photo is seen and once when her tombstone is shown, and labeled (“Grampa’s Girlfriend”). Otherwise that’s the last we hear of her.
- 885 VOTES
Larry Dalrymple
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Longtime Simpsons fans can be forgiven for not recognizing the name of this character. He’s better known as “Larry the Barfly,” and he could often be seen in the background at Moe’s Tavern. In fact, despite appearing in many episodes, he only ever had two speaking lines. Even his own friends, Homer, Lenny, Carl, and Moe, admit they didn’t know anything about him.
The Season 35 episode “Cremains of the Day” revolved around Larry’s death. Early in the episode, he simply keels over while doing his favorite thing: drinking beer at Moe’s. This prompts Homer to go on a road trip to scatter his ashes. Along the way they meet his mother Irma, who reveals more about him than they ever knew. All of this makes them re-appreciate their friendship - see? The Simpsons hasn’t stopped doing emotionally driven episodes after 35 years.
Fans were reportedly upset by the episode and expressed it on social media - one of the rare instances on this list when a popular Simpsons character died during the age of social media, allowing audience reactions to be recorded in real-time. But co-executive producer Tom Long defended the choice to kill off Larry, writing that “[We] really wanted to use Larry’s death as a way to show that even the most peripheral people in our lives have dignity and worth, and that we really shouldn’t take anyone for granted…To paraphrase Shakespeare, nothing became Larry’s life like the way he left it: drunk, lonely, and with a butt full of sapphires.”
- 980 VOTES
Frank Grimes
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This one had to make the list, because his death ad the end of his 1997 episode, “Homer’s Enemy,” is one of the most shocking in the show’s history (no pun intended). Grimes is everything Homer is not. Abandoned at the age of four, Grimes pulled himself up by his bootstraps until he got a job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, where he meets Homer. Astounded by Homer’s incompetence, and the people in Homer’s orbit who enable it, Grimes eventually tricks Homer into entering a science contest for children. But when Homer wins, and his colleagues cheer for him, a horrified Grimes essentially has an existential breakdown. It memorably ends with him approaching electrical wiring while mimicking Homer and shouting, “What’s this? ‘Extremely high voltage? Well I don’t need safety gloves, because I’m Homer Simpson!” He then touches them and fries himself.
It wasn’t the first time the show had dealt with death, obviously, but it hits hard while still being hilarious. Here’s how Josh Weinstein explained the episode:
We wanted to do an episode where the thinking was 'What if a real life, normal person had to enter Homer's universe and deal with him?' I know this episode is controversial and divisive, but I just love it. It really feels like what would happen if a real, somewhat humorless human had to deal with Homer. There was some talk [on NoHomers.net] about the ending—we just did that because it's really funny and shocking, we like the lesson of 'sometimes, you just can't win'—the whole Frank Grimes episode is a study in frustration and hence Homer has the last laugh and we wanted to show that in real life, being Homer Simpson could be really dangerous and life threatening, as Frank Grimes sadly learned.
- 1080 VOTES
Rabbi Krustofsky
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Various Simpsons episodes have been devoted to secondary characters not in the immediate Simpson family, like Krusty the Clown. Originally included in the show as a joke - that being, that Bart respects a TV clown who looks just like his father, while not respecting his own father - Krusty has proven a surprisingly rich fount of stories. We first meet his father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofski, in the 1991 episode “Like Father, Like Clown.” In it, Bart and Lisa learn that Hyman is disappointed with his son, whose real name is Herschel, and convince the two to reconcile. Comedian Jackie Mason voiced the role of Hyman and won an Emmy.
Since then, the rabbi made numerous appearances in Krusty-centric stories. He passed away suddenly in the 2014 premiere, “Clown in the Dumps,” in which Krusty visits him for to advice and to ask whether his father thinks he’s funny. (He still appeared on the show in various forms after that.) Fans were generally unimpressed with the episode. Al Jean had teased the episode by promising a death of a “major” character, and fans didn’t think the rabbi qualified.
- 1155 VOTES
Amber Simpson
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Remember that time when Homer got married? Not to Marge, but to the Las Vegas cocktail waitress and probable sex worker Amber? Well, he did, in the 1999 episode “Viva Ned Flanders,” in which Homer encourages his neighbor to live it up for once in his life by going to Vegas for a rager. Ned drunkenly winds up married to Amber’s coworker, Ginger. The two Springfielders manage to leave town, but Amber and Ginger return in the 2002 episode “Brawl in the Family,” when they show up in Springfield expecting to begin their lives with their technically legal husbands. This time, Marge comes up with a plan to trick a drunken Amber into marrying Grandpa, which prompts her and Ginger to return to Vegas. Amber finally meets her maker in the 2006 episode “Jazzy and the Pussycats,” dying of a drug overdose at an amusement park.
