I think it's a good time to get back to our roots, but with a twist. It may not be Saturday, but it's a good time for some Mature Musings.

I've talked once or twice about The Simpsons episode "Natural Born Kissers" a few times. In one of my previous encounters with the episode, I called it one of my favorite examples of nonsexualized female nudity.

Unfortunately, I have to rescind my praise. The nudity is very sexual, and I can prove it.

Recently, storyboards were leaked online for the episode, and they depict some scenes that were not in the finished product... and revealed one scene was not in it.

The scene with Homer and Marge and the garden ornaments was storyboarded just fine, but was originally supposed to start after the Police Dog sniffs Homer's underwear. This scene is kept in the finished episode, but the addition afterwards is removed: a small conversation between Homer and Marge where they bicker like an old married couple. I think the scene could and should have been kept in, because it demonstrates a good dynamic between Homer and Marge.

In the finished episode, the garden ornaments scene is set after a long stretch of Homer and Marge running through the streets, covering themselves in panic and embarrassment. Compared to other cartoons of its type, the episode is being indulgent in having the couple streak. Combine that with the fact that the storyboard for the scene involving Gil is the "censored" version, it leads me to believe the animators just couldn't resist drawing a naked woman.

Which is ironic, because the final capstone to Homer and Marge's failed escape in the stadium was originally not going to have them shown from the front when they give up. They were initially going to be shown from the rear, and both of their backsides would initially be in plain view. This was cut for one reason or another, probably because, as illustrated earlier, the animators thing female nudity is "inherently sexual."

In the end, the storyboards present a more comical scene, while the final product is definitively a sexual farce, if a farce at all. I don't have the complete storyboards for the scene, but I have enough to know what was kept and what was cut, and these cuts paint a bleak picture...