10 Genius In-Jokes In The Simpsons
The most hilarious and cromulent Simpsons in-jokes in history.
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00:00 Whilst The Simpsons' fierce mainstream popularity went a few years ago, there is still no denying
00:06 the enormous impact that Matt Groening's legendary animation has had across the world.
00:12 The Simpsons has winked at the audience many, many times over the course of its 33 seasons
00:17 to date, drawing attention to its own creation and speaking to very specific portions of
00:22 its viewer base through brilliantly sly niche humour.
00:26 In-jokes work precisely because we as humans love to know something that others don't.
00:31 It makes us feel special and smart.
00:34 And The Simpsons has exploited that with great intelligence and humour.
00:38 And so, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with 10 Genius In-jokes
00:44 in The Simpsons.
00:45 Number 10.
00:46 Paul and Linda McCartney's Lentil Soup Recipe
00:49 The season 7 episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" is an all-time favourite amongst fans and
00:55 critics alike, and contains some memorable guest appearances from Paul and Linda McCartney
01:01 as themselves.
01:02 While talking to Lisa, Paul explains that he's so committed to animal rights that if
01:07 you play his song "Maybe I'm Amazed" backwards, you'll be able to hear the recipe for a really
01:12 ripping lentil soup.
01:14 This alone seems like a nod to the Beatles song "Revolution 9", which had alleged hidden
01:19 messages when played backwards.
01:22 But it's also a nod to the general satanic panic of the 1980s, where Christian groups
01:28 accused rock bands of hiding subliminal messages in their songs.
01:32 Yet the episode does one better during its closing credits sequence, which are in fact
01:36 set to "Maybe I'm Amazed".
01:39 Those few who bother to actually heed Paul's advice and play this modified version of the
01:43 song backwards would indeed hear McCartney reciting a recipe for lentil soup.
01:48 Even better, Paul can be heard saying "By the way, I'm alive" in reference to the urban
01:54 legend that he actually died in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike.
02:00 Number 9.
02:01 Flanders' new voice actor.
02:03 Season 10's "Homer to the Max" may not be a classic Simpsons episode, but it does contain
02:09 one of the series' low-key cleverest inside gags.
02:12 Early in the episode, Homer makes a crack about animated TV shows, saying "Networks
02:18 like animation because they don't have to pay the actors' squat."
02:21 A moment later, Ned Flanders appears at the window and spouts his single line of dialogue
02:25 for the entire episode.
02:27 Plus, they can replace them and no one can tell the diddly difference.
02:30 The cherry on top here is that this clearly isn't the work of regular Ned voice actor
02:36 Harry Shearer.
02:37 It's a different voice that is markedly, hilariously different.
02:41 Number 8.
02:42 Animators cutting corners.
02:44 Time Falls the Front sees Bart and Lisa write an episode of the Itchy & Scratchy show and
02:49 submit it under Grandpa Simpson's name, resulting in him being hired as a staff writer.
02:55 The entire episode is a brilliant, relentless slew of in-jokes about both the animation
03:01 industry and the Simpsons itself, and perhaps the standout gag occurs when Bart and Lisa
03:06 visit Itchy & Scratchy studios.
03:08 While being told around, Lisa mentions how expensive it must be to produce cartoons,
03:13 to which company head Roger Myers Jr replies, "Well, we cut corners.
03:18 Sometimes to save money, our animators will reuse the same backgrounds over and over and
03:23 over again."
03:24 And just at that moment, anyone paying even the faintest attention will surely notice
03:29 that the hallway they're walking down is itself recycled, featuring the same cleaning
03:34 lady in door on a loop.
03:36 It may not be subtle, but it is clever, and more importantly, very funny.
03:41 Number 7.
03:42 No Soap Radio Fan favourite season 4 episode "Homer, the
03:46 Heretic" features a gag you might have seen dozens of times and never really understood,
03:51 but laughed anyway.
03:52 While Homer is singing Tom Jones' Delilah in the shower, we linger briefly on a shower
03:57 radio bearing the label "No Soap Radio".
04:00 While the label seems to be a reference to the fact that the radio is waterproof, being
04:04 in the shower and all, it's actually a reference to the surreal practical joke known as "No
04:09 Soap Radio".
04:11 The prank involves telling a joke where the punchline has absolutely no relation to the
04:15 set up, with the joke teller and bystanders in on the joke, acting like it's hilarious
04:21 and ridiculing the recipient for failing to understand it.
04:25 At its core, No Soap Radio is an experiment on social norms, and particularly in the notion
04:31 of conformity, given the number of targets of the prank who will begin to laugh just
04:37 so that they don't appear stupid.
04:39 Even today, No Soap Radio isn't a widely known gag.
04:42 But before the internet in 1992, when this episode aired, you'd have to be a pretty clever
04:49 cookie to have caught on to it unprompted.
04:52 Number 6 - Seymour's Cameo
04:54 Much as many might not believe it, many Simpsons fans haven't seen Futurama, save for the crossover
05:00 episode "Simpsorama" which aired during the Simpsons' 26th season.
05:05 And while the episode as a whole is a fairly broad cross-pollination of Matt Groening's
05:09 two most beloved animated shows, there is one killer gag which left Futurama fans heartbroken
05:16 and everyone else none the wiser.
05:18 At one point in the episode we see Homer Simpson bend at Fry and Leela, crossing the street
05:22 to Panucci's Pizza, a Futurama staple that's somehow now in Springfield, and for a second
05:28 we focus on a small dog briefly waking up and falling back asleep.
05:33 Those who don't watch Futurama will be absolutely oblivious, but even the most casual fan won't
05:37 ever forget that dog.
05:39 That dog is Seymour, Fry's pet, who in one of the series' most heart-wrenching episodes,
05:44 "Jurassic Bark", is shown waiting faithfully for a missing Fry to return, ultimately dying
05:50 of old age before finding out that Fry fell into a cryo-tube.
05:54 Now this devastating revelation was admittedly retconned in the Futurama film "Bender's Big
05:59 Score", but to many fans it remains the series' emotional high point.
06:04 Seeing Seymour waking up and just barely missing Fry as he walks past was then like twisting
06:10 the knife in fans' aching hearts.
06:12 As a small bout of solace, this episode is at least accepted to be non-canon by many.
06:19 Number 5 - Sneeds Feed and Seed Season 11's EIEI-annoyed grunt boasts one
06:25 of the most infamous in-jokes in the show's history, so much so that it has become an
06:31 internet meme in recent years.
06:33 The iconic scene sees Homer pulling up to a convenience store called Sneeds Feed and
06:38 Seed, with lettering below it reading "Formerly Chucks".
06:42 This seems harmless and forgettable enough until you consider the very lewd implications
06:47 of the signage.
06:48 Given that "Sneed", "Feed" and "Seed" all rhyme, it can be inferred that Chuck's version
06:54 also rhymed, and if we're following the same lettering convention with each subsequent
06:59 word starting with F and S, well, you can guess what it might have said.
07:03 This all started as a rumour, but the episode's writer did eventually confirm it as genuine
07:10 on Twitter.
07:11 There's hiding a filthy joke in plain sight, and then there's burying one so ingeniously
07:16 deep that even most adults don't notice it.
07:19 4. Pixar's A113 Easter Egg A113 is one of the most iconic in-jokes in
07:27 animation history, used primarily by Disney and Pixar employees to immortalise the classroom
07:34 where they learned the craft of character animation.
07:36 A113 has, as a result, appeared in Easter Egg form in countless Disney-Pixar movies,
07:42 video games and TV shows, and this includes The Simpsons.
07:46 One of Pixar's most successful directors, Brad Bird, got the ball rolling by including
07:51 A113 as Krusty the Clown's prison number in "Krusty Gets Busted", and it also appeared
07:57 as mugshot and prison uniform numbers for Sideshow Bob in the episodes "Cape Fear"
08:02 and "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming".
08:04 Additionally, it was also visible as Bart's mugshot number in the music video for the
08:09 1990 hit song "Do the Bart Man".
08:12 Among the numerous Disney-Pixar personnel who cut their teeth working on The Simpsons,
08:18 including Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia director Rich Moore, there's been quite the connection
08:23 forged between the two properties.
08:25 3. Homer's Burnt Tongue Season 20's Father Knows Worst offers a wink-wink
08:31 gag that at once is extremely naughty, but is also designed to go sailing over kids'
08:36 heads, and also underlining Marge's endearing naivety.
08:40 While at the carnival, Homer burns his tongue after accidentally eating a flaming stick
08:46 and being tricked into drinking lighter fluid by Bart.
08:49 His tongue is put in a cast, at which point Dr Hibbert warns Marge "I'm afraid his tongue
08:54 will be in that cast for a few weeks.
08:56 It may put something of a cramp in your lovemaking."
08:59 The obvious implication that Homer won't be giving Marge any oral stimulation for a
09:03 few weeks is blissfully ignored by her, who replies "No it won't.
09:07 If he wants me to do something, he'll just write it down."
09:10 Even with the mention of lovemaking, this is a pretty G-rated, child-friendly joke on
09:15 the surface, but any adult watching will be cracking up at the strange sweetness of Marge's
09:22 response.
09:23 2. A Perfectly Cromulent Word Season 7's Lisa the Iconoclast opens with
09:29 Lisa's class watching a film about Springfield's founding father, Jebediah Springfield, who
09:34 utters the town's iconic motto "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."
09:39 At this point we cut to Mrs Krabappel and Miss Hoover with the former asking "embiggens?"
09:45 I'd never heard that word before moving to Springfield.
09:47 To which Hoover replies "I don't know why, it's a perfectly cromulent word."
09:52 Later in the episode, Principal Skinner also says of Homer's Town Crier audition, "He's
09:57 embiggened that role with his cromulent performance."
09:59 The joke here is of course that while "embiggens" is a word that was created by the show's writers'
10:05 room, so too was "cromulent" despite being used here as an adjective.
10:11 And yet, "cromulent" seems plausible enough that most viewers probably just assumed that
10:15 it was in fact a word and they just didn't know what it meant, as opposed to "embiggens"
10:20 whose meaning is implied through its context.
10:23 This is a perfect example of a snake-eating-its-own-tail joke, whilst also ingeniously toying around
10:30 with how we use and understand language.
10:33 1.
10:34 Brevity is wit
10:35 Some of the best jokes have layers of understanding, which allows people to interpret them on different
10:41 levels.
10:42 And that is absolutely the case with this killer gag in Season 3's Mr Lisa Goes to
10:47 Washington.
10:48 The episode includes the Reader's Digest parody magazine, Reading Digest, which holds
10:53 a children's essay writing contest that Lisa enters.
10:56 The welcome sign includes a quotation, "Brevity is wit", which is a clear contraction of Polonius'
11:03 iconic quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "Brevity is the soul of wit".
11:08 On the surface, this is a clever meta-joke about abbreviation, but if you were alive
11:12 in the 1980s and 1990s, then you might remember Reader's Digest as the very popular magazine
11:19 known for republishing articles from other magazines, but in highly condensed form.
11:25 And the Simpsons banner here is first and foremost a direct reference to that.
11:29 Quite literally, the soul of the Shakespeare quote has been omitted.
11:32 I mean, jokes don't get much cleverer and more multifaceted than that.
11:37 And that concludes our list.
11:39 If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below, and
11:42 while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:47 Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
11:51 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:52 I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real