The Snowiest Episodes of The Simpsons
The Simpsons, Fox, 1989.
A cozy non-holiday Simpsons playlist for when the outside world gets cancelled.
Winter episodes of The Simpsons tend to sneak up on you. They aren’t usually about holidays or big seasonal events so much as what happens when the temperature drops and everyone is forced a little closer together than they’d like. Snowstorms, icy roads, frozen rivers, and cabin fever create the perfect conditions for Springfield’s worst instincts and softest moments to show up at the same time.
These are the Simpsons stories for when you’re inside, the weather is doing something dramatic outside, and the couch starts to feel like the safest place in the world.
The Playlist
The Simpsons, Fox, 1989.
Bart Gets an F
Season 2, Episode 1
A snow day saves Bart from a looming history test, turning Springfield into a winter wonderland just as his academic life hits rock bottom. While everyone else is outside building snowmen and sledding, Bart is stuck indoors desperately trying to cram facts about colonial America into his brain. It’s one of the rare times Bart’s chaos gives way to something quietly sincere, with snow piling up outside like extra pressure on his conscience.
Homer the Heretic
Season 4, Episode 3
A bitterly cold Sunday convinces Homer that church is simply not worth leaving the house for, especially when the couch, the TV, and a pile of greasy food are all within arm’s reach. While Marge and the kids battle frozen doors and broken furnaces across town, Homer spends a blissful winter day discovering what faith looks like when it involves waffles and daytime television.
Mr. Plow
Season 4, Episode 9
Snow turns Springfield’s driveways into a gold rush, and Homer, armed with a plow and a terrible jingle, decides he’s found his calling. What starts as a civic service quickly becomes a petty, commercialized rivalry when Barney launches a competing plow empire. Snow blankets the town, but it also exposes every fragile ego underneath it, piling up into grudges, ads, and increasingly ridiculous stunts.
The Simpsons, Fox, 1989.
Mountain of Madness
Season 8, Episode 12
A routine fire drill sends the nuclear plant employees to a snowy mountain for what Mr. Burns calls a “team-building exercise” and everyone else quickly realizes is a firing squad with mittens. It’s a race to the cabin, and the last one left loses their job. But the corporate competition slowly dissolves into cabin fever, paranoia, and two men blaming each other for the weather itself.
Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind
Season 19, Episode 9
Homer wakes up in the snow with an entire day missing, and the cold seems to have scrambled his memory along with it. As bits of the previous night start to drift back, Springfield becomes a maze of half-remembered moments and very confused conversations. Winter isn’t just in the background here, it turns the whole town a little fuzzy, like everyone is thinking through a layer of frost.
Rednecks and Broomsticks
Season 21, Episode 7
A winter road trip goes off the rails and strands the Simpsons in a frozen pocket of rural Springfield, where moonshine, hillbillies, and witchcraft all somehow coexist. While Homer gets swept into a snow-soaked backwoods drinking culture, Lisa drifts toward a coven of teenage Wiccans who seem far more reasonable than anyone else she’s met.
The Simpsons, Fox, 1989.
O Brother, Where Bart Thou?
Season 21, Episode 8
A blizzard traps the Simpsons inside, leaving everyone bored, restless, and a little too aware of each other’s existence. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, Bart starts fixating on the idea that his life would be better if he had a brother to share the cabin fever with.
Gal of Constant Sorrow
Season 27, Episode 14
A frozen river and a broken sled send the Simpsons sliding into someone else’s slightly chaotic winter, where good intentions have a habit of going off course. The episode bounces between small kindnesses and small mistakes. By the time the ice starts to melt, things haven’t been perfectly fixed, but they have been smoothed over in that familiar, gently ridiculous way the show does best.
Gone Boy
Season 29, Episode 9
When Bart vanishes into a snowy patch of forest, Springfield launches a wildly inefficient search that involves panic, bad assumptions, and very little actual tracking. The winter woods turn into a low-budget mystery movie, complete with hidden bunkers, nervous parents, and a town that cannot stop jumping to conclusions. Even lost in the cold, the episode keeps finding ways to be funny about how terrible everyone is at handling a crisis.
The Simpsons, Fox, 1989.
Pixelated and Afraid
Season 33, Episode 12
A romantic getaway slides off an icy road and strands Homer and Marge in the snowy wilderness with nothing but each other, a few household scraps, and a rapidly failing sense of dignity. What begins as a sitcom disaster quickly turns into a scrappy, slightly feral love story, complete with improvised clothes, campfires, and the constant threat of something growling just off-screen.
These episodes work best when the weather is doing something dramatic outside and you’re doing nothing at all inside. Winter in Springfield makes everything a little more ridiculous and a little more honest at the same time. If you’re snowed in, you’re in good company.