Editing Maude Flanders

{{For2|the ghost of Maude Flanders|Maude Flanders (ghost)}}
{{Quote|In many ways, Maude Flanders was a supporting character in our lives. She didn't grab our attention with memorable [[catchphrases]], or comical accents. But, whether you noticed her or not, Maude was always there ... and we thought she always would be.|[[Reverend Timothy Lovejoy]] at Maude's funeral|Alone Again, Natura-Diddily}}
{{Character
|name = Maude Flanders
|image = [[File:Maude Flanders.png]]
|gender = {{Female}}
|status = Deceased
|hair = Salmon
|job = Housewife
|relatives = '''Mother:''' Unnamed<br>'''Grandmother:''' [[Maude Flanders' grandmother|Unnamed]]<br>'''Sons:''' [[Rod Flanders|Rod]] and [[Todd Flanders|Todd]]<br>'''Husband:''' [[Ned Flanders|Ned]]
|appearance = "[[Dead Putting Society]]"
|reason = Death after falling from a stadium
|voiced by = [[Maggie Roswell]]<br>[[Marcia Mitzman Gaven]]
}}

'''Maude Flanders''' was the wife of [[Ned Flanders]], and the mother of [[Rod Flanders|Rod]] and [[Todd Flanders|Todd]]. Maude was a woman with many positive qualities: faith, chastity, charity. She also loved to draw, which was discovered when Ned found her sketch pad after her death.<ref name=IGTP>"[[I'm Goin' to Praiseland]]"</ref> 

Maude Flanders was a devout Christian who once attended a Bible camp to learn how to be more judgmental.<ref name=BoD>"[[Bart of Darkness]]"</ref>  Maude was often partnered with [[Helen Lovejoy]] as they protested against the "evils" in Springfield, and she campaigned strongly against ''[[The Itchy & Scratchy Show|Itchy and Scratchy]]'' with [[Marge]].<ref>"[[Itchy & Scratchy & Marge]]"</ref> Maude died after she was knocked off a grandstand at the [[Springfield Speedway]] in a tee-shirt cannon accident.<ref name=AAND>"[[Alone Again, Natura-Diddily]]"</ref>

== Biography ==
[[File:Maude Every Simpsons Ever.png|thumb|left|250px]]
[[File:Homer Leers - The War of the Simpsons.png|thumb|left|250px|Inebriated [[Homer]] leering at Maude's cleavage in "[[The War of the Simpsons]]".]]
Maude was a busy homemaker and a devoted wife and mother. She was also a tireless advocate for children in general, whose innocence, she felt, was often sullied by the "evils" of cartoon violence, liberal education and the insidious influences of popular culture.

Maude and [[Ned]] attended the weekend marriage counseling retreat, as they were working on fine-tuning some issues in their marriage. The main one, according to Ned, was that sometimes Maude would underline passages in Ned's Bible when she couldn't find her own.<ref name=TWOTS>"[[The War of the Simpsons]]"</ref>

Even though she spent much of her free time in prayer and reading the Bible, Maude was known to let her hair (and her neckline) down for the occasional dinner party at the home of her neighbors, [[Simpson family|the Simpsons]].<ref name=TWOTS/><ref>"[[A Milhouse Divided]]"</ref> Homer has repeatedly demonstrated his {{w|lust}} for Maude,<ref name=BoD/><ref name=TWOTS/><ref>"[[Dead Putting Society]]"</ref><ref>"[[Homer Loves Flanders]]"</ref><ref>"[[Das Bus]]"</ref><ref>"[[Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder]]"</ref><ref>"[[Treehouse of Horror XIII]]"</ref> even going so far as to convince himself that she also "has a thing for me" although he did acknowledge that she was good at hiding it "behind a mask of low-key hostility.<ref>[[Homer Loves Flanders]]</ref> [[Moe]] was also attracted to her.<ref name=AAND/> 

Maude held a deep love for ficus plants,<ref name=BoD/> unflavored ice cream<ref name=HSHDD>"[[Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily]]"</ref> and ''[[Newsweek]]'' magazine.<ref name=HSHDD/>

She was once seen on one of [[Mr. Burns]]' surveillance monitors eating an entire tub of ice cream.<ref>"[[Burns' Heir]]"</ref>

=== Death ===
Maude died after being knocked off a grandstand by a T-shirt cannon barrage at the [[Springfield Speedway]], an incident that was both precipitated and exacerbated by [[Homer Simpson]]. Homer loudly insisted that the T-shirt girls give him a shirt, to the point of taking off his own shirt and painting a target on himself with ketchup while he continued to taunt them. The girls responded by firing their cannons at him ''en masse''. However, Homer ducked out of the way at the last second (being distracted by a bobby pin) and the shirts hit Maude instead. Because she was in the back row, the impact knocked her off of the grandstand and she fell to her death. Homer later admitted to Ned that he had "provoked the lethal barrage of T-shirts" and also that he had parked in the ambulance zone, preventing any possibility of resuscitation.<ref name=AAND/>

Maude's [[In-show deaths|death]] was a crushing blow to Ned Flanders (as well as Todd and Rod), who, though used to some measure of hardship (their house getting destroyed <ref>"[[Hurricane Neddy]]"</ref> and car crashes among them), assumed that they would always be together.<ref name=AAND/>

At Maude's memorial service, Homer apparently fell in her grave, which Ned later mentioned.<ref>"[[Kill the Alligator and Run]]"</ref> [[Reverend Lovejoy]] eulogized her as follows: "In many ways, Maude Flanders was a supporting character in our lives. She didn't grab our attention with memorable [[catchphrases]], or comical accents. But, whether you noticed her or not, Maude was always there ... and we thought she always would be."<ref name=AAND/>

=== Praiseland ===
After Maude's death, the grieving Ned saw in her sketchbook a series of drawings that outlined a plan for a Christian-themed amusement park named "Praiseland". Realizing this park to be her final dream, Ned acquired the defunct amusement park "Storytime Village" from Colonel Antoine "Tex" O'Hara ("The Rich Texan") and, with the assistance of Homer and other townspeople, built and opened Praiseland. He memorialized Maude there with a statue of her, and placed on its base a plaque bearing the phrase "She taught us the joy of shame and the shame of joy." Praiseland sold Maude memorial items such as masks. Praiseland gained popularity among the residents of Springfield when they erroneously attributed to the statue of Maude the performance of miracles providing religious experiences. The religious experiences were actually hallucinations, caused by gas that was leaking from a gas line near the base of the statue. Feeling that profiting off the memory of his dead wife was wrong, and even more so after candles near the gas leak nearly caused an explosion, Ned closed down Praiseland.<ref name=IGTP/>

== The Simpsons: Tapped Out ==
{{TranscludeSection|The Simpsons: Tapped Out characters/Flanders Family|Maude}}

== Behind the Laughter ==
=== Post-mortem appearances ===
[[File:Maude and the Devil.png|thumb|right|250px|Maude and the Devil in "[[Treehouse of Horror XXII]]".]]
* At the start of "Treehouse of Horror XIII", originally broadcast November 3, 2002, [[Simpson family|The Simpsons]] and Ned Flanders held a seance and summon Maude's ghost, who proceeds to tell them three horror stories.
* The regular episode "[[Bart Has Two Mommies]]", which aired March 19, 2006 showed her looking down on her sons from heaven, saying "My little boys are growing up". Maggie Roswell voiced her, but was uncredited in the premiere airing. When it reaired, the credits were amended to include her name.
* Maude is also shown to be alive in Season 6 in the episode "[[Lisa's Wedding]]" which was set in the future after the Simpson children had grown up, but written before Season 11 when Maude was killed. However, it should be noted that this was a vision by a possibly illegitimate psychic, and [[Wikisimpsons:Non-canon|might not be considered canonical]].
* In "[[Kill Gil, Volumes I & II]]", aired on December 17, 2006 Maude appeared in the special Christmas themed opening sequence when the camera pans to The Simpsons house.
* Any time the full opening theme is played (Chalkboard through to Couch Gag) prior to the debut of the HD title sequence in season 20, she can still be seen in the quick fly-by leading to when Bart lands on top of Homer's car.
*She appeared in a flashback in the season 20 episode "[[Dangerous Curves]]".
*There is a house in the final level of ''[[The Simpsons Game]]'' with a huge sign with Maude's name, which may imply that she's literally "living with God".
*In "[[Treehouse of Horror XXII]]", Maude appears as the lover of the Devil, and says "Honey, come back to bed.". She is quite likely his wife, as she herself has a tail.
*In [[How I Wet Your Mother]] she appears in Homer's dream in a crowd full of Mothers who support drunk driving.
*In "[[Holidays of Future Passed]]" (a [[Wikisimpsons:Non-canon|non-canon]] episode set 30 years in the future), {{ap|Maude Flanders|ghost|Maude's ghost}} appears again. Ned appears to have gotten back together with her and blatantly ignores her insistence that there is no afterlife.
*A picture of her appears next to a picture of Edna in Ned's house at the end of [[The Man Who Grew Too Much]].
*An action figure of Maude was planned for series 17 of the [[World of Springfield]] toyline, however it was cancelled when the series came to an end. A picture of her was included as an accessory with Rod and Todd.

== Appearances ==
{{scroll|
*{{ep|Dead Putting Society}}
*{{ep|Itchy & Scratchy & Marge}}
*{{ep|Old Money}}
*{{ep|The War of the Simpsons}}
*{{ep|Blood Feud}}
*{{ep|When Flanders Failed}}
*{{ep|Bart of Darkness}}
*{{ep|Team Homer}}
*{{ep|Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy}}
*{{ep|Hurricane Neddy}}
*{{ep|Natural Born Kissers}}
*{{ep|Mom and Pop Art}}
*{{ep|Saddlesore Galactica}}
*{{ep|Alone Again, Natura-Diddily}}
*{{ep|I'm Goin' to Praiseland|(memorial seen)}}
*{{ep|Treehouse of Horror XIII}}
*{{ep|Bart Has Two Mommies}}
*{{ep|Kill Gil, Volumes I & II}}
*{{ep|Dangerous Curves|(flashback)}}
*{{ep|The Devil Wears Nada|(error)}}
*{{ep|Postcards from the Wedge|(flashback)}}
*{{ep|Homer the Father|(picture only)}}
*{{ep|The Ned-liest Catch|(mentioned)}}
*{{ep|Treehouse of Horror XXII}}
*{{ep|Holidays of Future Passed}}
*{{ep|How I Wet Your Mother|(dream)}}
*{{ep|Them, Robot|([[couch gag]])}}
*{{ep|The Man Who Grew Too Much|(Picture seen)}}
*{{ep|My Fare Lady|(opening sequence)}}
*{{spec|Do the Bartman}}
*{{bon|When Bongos Collide!}}
*{{bon|Fallen Flanders}}
*{{bon|Survival of the Fattest}}
*{{bon|Granddaddy-O!|(mentioned)}}
*{{TSG|(mentioned)}}
*{{game|The Simpsons Road Rage|(mentioned)}}
*{{game|The Simpsons Game|(name seen)}}
*{{game|The Simpsons: Tapped Out|(as a ghost)}}
*{{bk|Simpsons World the Ultimate Episode Guide: Seasons 1-20}}
*{{bk|Flanders' Book of Faith}}
}}


== References ==
{{Images|Maude}}
{{Reflist}}

{{Flanders family}}
{{Deceased characters}}
{{Simpsons characters}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flanders, Maude}}

[[Category:Adults]]
[[Category:Mothers]]
[[Category:Characters voiced by Maggie Roswell]]
[[Category:Characters voiced by Marcia Mitzman Gaven]]
[[Category:Recurring characters]]
[[Category:Characters introduced in season 2]]
[[Category:Christian characters]]
[[Category:Deceased characters]]