‘Simpsons’ Writer Reveals That ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns?’ Nearly Had Multiple Region-Specific Endings

At one point during the making of the iconic two-part Simpsons episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns?,” the show’s writers considered giving viewers in the Eastern and Pacific time zones two different answers to the titular question — because if there’s anything the mid-1990s was missing, it was a pop-culture war between the East Coast and the West Coast.

In May 1995, The Simpsons closed out Season Six with a cliff-hanger finale episode that featured the entire town of Springfield turning on their oldest and most evil robber baron. In the first half of “Who Shot Mr. Burns?,” the victim steals an oil reserve literally out from under the elementary school before constructing a giant metal disc that blocks out the sun from shining on the town, dooming them to an even more desperate dependence on his power plant. 

With every main and side character on The Simpsons harboring a hatred of Burns and brandishing a firearm, the episode closes with the magnate suffering a gunshot wound in the artificial darkness, the identity of the assailant unknown.

In the four months between the first part of “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and the conclusion to the storyline at the start of The Simpsons Season Seven, fans pored over every frame of the first half searching for clues, Las Vegas set odds for the reveal and Fox held a hotline contest challenging the fans to call in with the answer to the mystery. However, as legendary Simpsons writer Josh Weinstein revealed on Twitter last week, in that interim planning period between the two parts of the episode, the writers almost pit Simpsons fans against each other by airing different answers to the riddle on opposite coasts:

While Matt Groening had already opted to go with Simpsons producer and writer David Mirkin’s suggestion to make Maggie the accidental culprit of the shooting by the time “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” Part One aired, the staff was largely kept in the dark about the answer to the mystery in an effort to prevent leaks from spoiling Part Two. As such, the staff pitched and animated several different endings that showed characters like Barney, Moe, Apu, Tito Puente and Santa’s Little Helper each pulling the trigger on Mr. Burns, all of which made it into the clip show “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular.”

However, Weinstein’s reveal that The Simpsons staff actually considered airing multiple different endings depending on the time zone in a sort of television take on the conclusion of Clue (Weinstein claimed in the replies that he doesn’t think the alternate endings idea was based on the film) adds another layer of intrigue to the show’s greatest mystery. In fact, it opens the door even further for the not insignificant contingency of the Simpsons fandom who don’t accept the official answer for “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and are still posting their alternate theories regarding the true identity of the gunman.

So, conspiracy nuts, rejoice — someone on the inside just acknowledged that there could have been a second shooter.