“Does either of you know what ‘incontinent’ means?” – Lisa Simpson
“Lisa, don’t spoil our fun.” – Homer Simpson
Like everything else on the internet, list articles range in quality from very good to very poor to stolen/half-assed. This list of “Ten Of The Most Underrated Simpsons Characters” falls somewhere between very poor and half-assed. Right in the introduction we know we’re in for a bumpy ride:
when a huge Simpson fan such as I (one who has primarily enjoyed and/or thoroughly enjoyed even the lamer, lesser seasons and really dug the movie)
That is not a good sign. The list itself has one major problem and two minor ones. (Bear in mind that this thing doesn’t say it’s a top ten list, only that it’s a list of ten, so the numbers are used for identification rather than rank.) The first minor problem is that I don’t think they ran the spell check, “gigiantic”, “softwear”, really? These aren’t even homophones, these are words that as I type this have little red squiggly lines underneath them.
The second minor problem is that while each character is accompanied by a quote the quoting is, shall we say, half-assed. And I’m not even talking about my usual nitpicky disdain for quote accuracy (on a quick skim they look okay, though I noticed a few things off). Eddie is #9 and the only quote is “He’s right, Chief”. That’s it. No “Damn longhairs never learn”, no “Shakes? You don’t know what you’re getting”, no “Eggplant, Xerxes, Criminy, Overbite, Narwhale”. Otto is #6 and the only quote from him is when he’s telling the scary story to Lisa in “The Otto Show”. No “If you need proof of my identity I wrote my name on my underwear . . . oh wait, these aren’t mine”, no “Damn thing never goes over, does it?”, no “Cherry party, Bart. Any chicks over eight?”. Several of the others are almost as thin.
Which brings us to the major problem: Ralph Wiggum is on this list. How in the name of jumping Jebus is Ralph Wiggum an “underrated” character? You can argue about whether or not he’s overused in Zombie Simpsons, you can argue about whether or not he’s funny anymore, but you cannot argue that he’s underused or underrated. He’s everywhere! After Homer and Bart he’s basically the poster boy for the show these days. Ralph episodes cause fanboys to spasm in joy, his every utterance is repeated ad nauseum (often by people who barely quote any other character). Ralph Wiggum is easily the most popular secondary character in the entire show and unless this list wants to promote him into the Simpson family itself it is impossible for Ralph to be underrated.
(via Springfield Springfield’s Twitter feed)
Dead Homer Society 
5 responses to “Everyone Loves Ralph Wiggum”
“Which brings us to the major problem: Ralph Wiggum is on this list. How in the name of jumping Jebus is Ralph Wiggum an “underrated” character? You can argue about whether or not he’s overused in Zombie Simpsons, you can argue about whether or not he’s funny anymore, but you cannot argue that he’s underused or underrated. He’s everywhere! After Homer and Bart he’s basically the poster boy for the show these days. Ralph episodes cause fanboys to spasm in joy, his every utterance is repeated ad nauseum (often by people who barely quote any other character). Ralph Wiggum is easily the most popular secondary character in the entire show and unless this list wants to promote him into the Simpson family itself it is impossible for Ralph to be underrated.”
You would indeed have to be severely hepped up on goofballs to imagine that Ralph Wiggum is, by any stretch of the imagination, an “underrated” character. I mean, just a glance on Wikipedia yields the following:
“The creator of the show, Matt Groening, has cited Ralph as his favorite character. He generally remains one of the more popular and often quoted secondary characters in the show…He’s a particular favorite character to feature on lots of media and merchandise related to the show…Ralph’s popularity as a character has even spread so far that the comedy band The Bloodhound Gang made a song called “Ralph Wiggum,” dedicated to the character and composed solely of some of his most famous quotes for lyrics…Matt Groening has stated that whenever someone asks who writes specific characters (a common misconception about the writing process), writers will most likely take credit for writing for Ralph.”
I’m almost surprised the guy who wrote the list didn’t cite Monty Burns as an “underrated character”…
“Underrated characters” lists like these always cite characters that aren’t really underrated, get lots of screen time and are generally fairly popular. Like threads of “unpopular opinions” on various forums, they won’t cite anything genuinely surprising. Eddie is probably the most unlikely character on that list, and people who insist Ralph is underrated are just looking for an excuse to say “My cat’s breath smells like catfood” and “Super Nintendo Chalmers” for probably the nine-hundredth time this week. Characters that really are underrated never crop up on these lists because nobody but me remembers they’re there. Characters like Mr. Largo, or Dr. Pryor. Or Joey-Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo.
I don’t really have a problem with some of those choices (Groundskeeper Willie and Frink aren’t too bad) but how the heck can anyone think Ralph is underrated? Also, why isn’t Lovejoy on that list? Now there’s a character who is really underrated.
Ralph used to be funny; now he’s now just “hilariously random” humor.
Every time they roll him out, it’s just the same tired formula.
>Say something random.
>Have him look funny.
If ever Ralph Wiggum learns about this he’ll probably say, “Me fail ratings? That’s unpossible!” :)