‘The Simpsons’ Lied to Us About Australian Toilets

While nobody should be looking to cartoon TV shows — the same medium behind the suggestion that a sea sponge could wear slacks — for scientific accuracy, we demand more from The Simpsons. After all, the show has been on for decades at this point, and has been a reliable source of information on topics ranging from nuclear energy to the lives of former presidents.

But for those fans who grew up with The Simpsons, it may be downright shocking to learn that one of its key geoscientific lessons was total bullshit.

In Season Six’s “Bart vs. Australia,” Lisa informs her brother that, due to the Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of the Earth, all toilets located below the equator flush clockwise. This prompts Bart to check on her theory with a hugely expensive collect call down under, which then sparks an international incident. 

While Lisa’s claim is ultimately proven to be correct in the show, her theory is less scientifically sound here in the real, non-animated world. As one plumbing blog pointed out, the Coriolis effect is “misrepresented in the episode,” adding that “what Lisa says is based on fact, but not actually factual.” That’s because cyclones and hurricanes do rotate clockwise in the Southern hemisphere, but this only happens “over distances where the spin of the Earth makes a difference when you head North or South.” And a toilet is “simply not big enough to make a difference.” 

Presumably, this also means that Australia’s U.S. embassy does not have a special machine to correct the direction of each flush to the “American way.”

A lot of us believed the flushing myth to be true purely because of The Simpsons. Should we feel stupid? Absolutely not!

For one thing, despite the fact that it’s a cartoon in which aliens exist and time has no meaning, a lot of groups have placed great importance on the information presented in The Simpsons over the years. When the show first started, the nuclear power industry appealed to the writers to stop poking fun of nuclear plants. And, of course, the pro-Monorail crowd has blamed the show for its negative impacts on their favorite mode of transportation.

And we especially shouldn’t feel dumb because the Coriolis drain theory is, according to Snopes, “one of the most prominent scientific myths.” It’s appeared everywhere from textbooks to Michael Palin’s travel series Pole to Pole, which aired three years before “Bart vs. Australia,” and uncritically presented footage of a “Coriolis Tourist Trap” scam. 

Maybe we should be learning about the world from sources other than The Simpsons and former Monty Python members.