A fax machine malfunction in the 1990s accidentally changed the race of one of The Simpsons’ most recognizable characters – and millions of viewers had no idea they were watching the result of a transmission error, according to recently revealed production secrets.
When Smithers first appeared on screen, he had black skin and blue hair instead of his familiar yellow complexion. The cause? A smudged fax machine transmission that sent garbled animation notes from the U.S. production team to animators in Korea.
When Smithers first appeared on screen, he had black skin and blue hair instead of his familiar yellow complexion. The cause? A smudged fax machine transmission that sent garbled animation notes from the U.S. production team to animators in Korea.
When Fax Quality Shaped Pop Culture
The Simpsons production process relied heavily on fax machines to coordinate between American writers and Korean animation studios. Color specifications, character details, and scene instructions all traveled via fax transmission across the Pacific.
But fax quality in the early 1990s left much to be desired. When the color label for Smithers got smudged during transmission, Korean animators had to guess what the character was supposed to look like. They guessed wrong.
With no budget for expensive retakes, the episodes aired as animated. Smithers remained black with blue hair for several appearances before the production team could correct the error in later episodes.
The Technology Behind the Mistake
This wasn’t just any minor production hiccup – it revealed how dependent international animation had become on fax technology. Complex visual instructions had to be condensed into black-and-white fax transmissions, leaving room for exactly this kind of misinterpretation.
The incident eventually pushed The Simpsons production team to upgrade their communication systems. They invested in high-end color printers and became early adopters of internet-based animation delivery – partly to avoid future fax-related character modifications.
The Lasting Impact
What makes this story remarkable is how a simple transmission error became part of television history. Those early Smithers episodes are now collector’s items, and the fax mistake has become a piece of Simpsons trivia that fans still discuss decades later.
The error also highlights something often overlooked: how much of our entertainment relies on document transmission technology working correctly. When it doesn’t, the results can end up preserved in pop culture forever.
Today, streaming services mean millions of people can still watch those early episodes and see the direct result of 1990s fax technology doing exactly what it wasn’t supposed to do.