A Eulogy To Edna

On the 26th of October, the world learned of the sad passing of actor Marcia Wallace. Frequently appearing on stage and screen through the ’60s, she scored her first decent role on The Bob Newhart Show playing a receptionist. Wallace drew praise for her bold, verbose character choices, with writer Nell Scovell saying of her, “In the ’70s, Marcia Wallace made it cool for women to be funny.” But the role she will always be remembered for is her award winning, childhood shaping vocal work as school teacher Edna Krabappel, on The Simpsons.

Edna Krabappel: teacher, friend, cynic, drunk, and pin-up girl for hopeless romantics everywhere. Once drawn on the periphery as the catcher of spit balls or kitsch catch-phrases, (“Eat my shorts” awkwardly comes to mind), you came to represent the best of The Simpsons. You sit among the great depressive cult characters: the Eeyore to their Winnie the Pooh, the Niles to their Nanny Fine. You graced the truest years of the show and evolved into a character that, if not for the black outline around your frazzled bouffant, could easily have strut onto the set of any real world sitcom, and even real life.

From making babies in janitors closets and almost marrying Moe, to actually marrying Flanders and inadvertently having a love affair with Bart, you wore your heavy heart under your eyes like a mark of pride. Each exhale of your cigarette came accompanied with a hollowed sigh which only made your victories, few as they were, all the more sweeter.

Do you remember the time you took the drum-sticks off Aerosmith’s drummer, and refused to give them back?

Or what about performing a balloon-popping burlesque routine of ‘Fever’, to a hall filled with children and parents?

You certainly weren’t shy about showing off your “gozonkers” as Krusty might put it, but on week days, underneath that pale lemon blouse and green sweater, was genuine love for your students. In fact it was only your burning desire to break through to one Bart Simpson that you called off your marriage to Moe Szyslak — the irony.

And in the 1991 episode ‘Bart Gets An F’, we saw your warmth shine through, hearing out the impassioned speech of the demon student and allowing him to pass the fourth grade. What a moment that would have been, it must feel like you’d taught him for decades.

Edna, you stood for all of us failures. The dreamers who aim so high and fall so low. Where Futurama‘s Leela brings us the reality family drama and loneliness, she fails to bring home your sarcastic, masterful one-liners. And while Lois Griffin can slap on a leather outfit and beat Peter senseless, only you give us a genuine glimpse of the desperation that got you there in the first place.

You were the whole package, Edna.

You deserved a lover. You deserved your “Woodrow”, even if he was just the grand imaginings of a ten-year-old boy. And perhaps your new relationship with Ned was going to be that. Perhaps this time you would avoid the cruel back-hand of the many men who hurt you — but now, perhaps in the saddest twist of all, Ned has lost his second wife.

We’ll never forget you, Mrs K. Thanks for being one of the first characters to show us ’90s kids that sometimes life is shit house. That we’re not the only ones who might fail at love, our jobs or our exercise plans, and sometimes all at once.

Whenever the wind whistles through the leaves, we’ll think… Edna.

Now let us hear that laugh one more time. Sing it, baby!

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Brendan Maclean is a Sydney-based musician, actor, writer and ex-triple j radio presenter.