Edna Krabappel

Edna Krabappel is a fictional character in the television show The Simpsons. She was the fourth grade teacher of Bart Simpson and his classmates. In the 23rd season, it is shown that she was married to Ned Flanders, who lost his first wife Maude in season 11.

Marcia Wallace was the voice actor for Edna Krabappel. When Wallace died in 2013, Krabappel was not in many episodes after that.

She is a fourth grade teacher at Springfield Elementary School. She does not like her job as a teacher. In the episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", it is shown that she liked to teach and help others. However, the school's bad quality and Bart Simpson made her annoyed to be at the school.^[1]

Edna smokes a lot, even inside the school. In the episode "Grade School Confidential", she gets in an intimate relationship with the school's principal, Seymour Skinner. They use Bart to give messages to each other when he is in classrooms. Bart gets angry and tells all of the students about the relationship. Skinner and Edna get fired by Superintendent Chalmers, but they get their jobs back at the end of the episode.^[2] In the episode "Bart Gets a 'Z'", she gets fired because she was drunk at the school. She gets her job back at the end of the episode because the substitute teacher also gets drunk.^[3] In the episode "The Ned-Liest Catch", she gets suspended and put in a reassignment center for hurting Bart. Bart tries to get her out, but Edna falls from a ladder. Ned Flanders stops her from falling.^[4]

Edna's first husband cheated on her. She told Nelzon Muntz about it by saying he "chased something small and fluffy down the rabbit hole".^[5] This is a metaphor for having an affair. In the episode "Flaming Moe's", she tries to seduce Joey Kramer and Homer Simpson.^[6] The episode "Bart the Lover" has Bart pretending to be a man that loves Edna.^[7]

In "Grade School Confidential", her relationship with Skinner almost made them married.^[2] However, in "My Big Fat Geek Wedding", Skinner does not want to marry Edna. This made Edna sad and their relationship became unstable.^[8] In "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", it is shown that she liked Moe Szyslak before she was a teacher. When she first met Bart Simpson, Moe stopped the relationship.^[1]

In "The Ned-Liest Catch", Ned and Edna started dating. The end of the episode asked fans if Ned and Edna should be in a relationship.^[4] Most of the fans answered yes.^[9] The episode also showed that Edna dated many other people before.^[4] In "Ned 'n Edna's Blend Agenda", Ned and Edna got married, but not in public.^[10] After Edna's voice actor Wallace died, Edna is shown to have died in the show.^[11][12] The episode "Left Behind" has Ned become a teacher so he can think of Edna more.^[13]

Krabappel's family name (last name) was named after the fruit "crabapple". This is a reference to the character Miss Crabtree from Our Gang.^[14]

Marcia Wallace won an Emmy Award (for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance) in 1992 for being the voice actor of Edna.^[15] Tilda Swinton said that she made her hair look like Edna's in the movie Burn After Reading.^[16]

Marcia Wallace died on October 25, 2013.^[17][18] The people who worked on the show said that they knew that she was ill.^[19] Al Jean (the show's showrunner) was very sad when he learned that Marcia Wallace died. He said that the show will retire her character.^[20] This means that she will not usually be in episodes anymore. In "Four Regrettings and a Funeral", the episode's chalkboard gag says "We'll really miss you Mrs. K".^[21]