Shows like The Simpsons, thanks to their long-running nature and flexible universes, have long been able to kill characters for a joke only to restore them promptly, such as Hans Moleman. However, the Fox show has had its fair share of genuine casualties. Characters like Bleeding Gums Murphy and Mona Simpson have passed away to further the story.
But one of the show's most impactful deaths happened for a different reason. The decision to kill Maude Flanders on The Simpsons wasn't entirely because of in-universe story. She was actually doomed because of a contract dispute with voice actress Maggie Roswell that was resolved too late to save the character.
In the first decade of The Simpsons, the late Maude Flanders was a relatively benign but consistent presence in the show. Maude was a patient and reserved counterpoint to the more abrasive Simpson family. She was a devout woman like her husband Ned, and most of the jokes made at her expense highlighted her sheltered and uptight nature. Maude's death came about in Season 11's "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily." While attending a stock car race, the Simpsons ended up sitting next to the Flanders family. After catching the attention of the various women shooting T-shirts into the crowd, Homer convinced them all to fire on him at once. But distracted momentarily by a coin, Homer ducked when the T-shirt cannons fired -- allowing the shirts to hit an unprepared Maude, who tumbled off the rear of the grandstands and fell to her death.
The rest of the episode focused on Ned dealing with the loss of his wife instead of exploring Maude herself. Ned's subsequent evolution into a far harsher figure remains Maude's single greatest impact on The Simpsons as a whole (and helped coin the term Flanderization for characters like Ralph Wiggum). Written and directed by series veterans Ian Maxtone-Graham and Jim Reardon, the episode's plot also carried an additional real-world element. Maggie Roswell -- the voice actress behind multiple characters on the show, including Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, Luann Van Houten and Miss Hoover -- found herself embroiled in a pay dispute with Fox around the show's tenth season.
While the core six cast members -- Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer -- successfully negotiated for higher wages, Roswell was unable to get Fox to meet her demands. The actress opted to quit the show afterward. While other actors were brought in to recast some of her parts, executive producer Mike Scully told TV Guide at the time that the surprise shift in the status quo opened up the possibility for new story avenues, including how the devout and innocent Ned would handle the pain of becoming a widower. This resulted in the show's creatives deciding to kill Maude off in the controversial episode.
Maude's death remains one of the few truly permanent ones in Simpsons history and one of the most impactful. The shadow of her loss still hangs over Ned's character -- especially since his romance with Edna Krabappel ended with Ned becoming a widower again. While Maude was never resurrected, she has reappeared in the series, in flashback episodes like Season 20's "Dangerous Curves" and as a gag character in various Treehouse of Horror specials. Roswell continues to play the character, as the actress was able to negotiate with Fox and return to The Simpsons in 2002. But for the sake of the show's continuity, Maude was left dead. It's surprising to consider just how much of an impact Maude's death ended up having on one of TV's longest-running shows -- especially because it happened due to a real-life conflict.