Obscure simpsons jokes

Spacedog

You know those subtle jokes in the simpsons. You can watch an episode a hundred times and still not get them.

One of my faves was the one about Jebbadigh being a pirate, with the teachers talking about the word 'en-biggens'

"is that actually a word?"
"oh yes it's a perfectly crepulant word" (or something to that effect)

'crepulant', Gods of comedy back in the day

also all the movie reference jokes, you never get until you see films like citizen kane, it's a beautiful life etc.

post your most obscure simpsons bits!

sceptre

Cromulent wasn't it? Funnily enough I've seen it used quite a bit in the last few years, always in an ironic or sarcastic sense

Spacedog

Ah Cromulent it was! , hehe deadly one

Bri

Maybe not strictly what your on about but:

If anyone's been on "It's A Small World" in either Disneyland US or Paris you'll find yourself thinking of every line from the Duffworld episode where Lisa drinks the water.
I know the joke isn't that disguised, but I only stumbled across the kiddy ride at the end of a long day in Disneyland a few weeks ago and I couldn't share it with any of my mates who just got on the ride and thought it was just headwrecking!

Had to share it with someone!

JBoyle4eva

The episodde where the kids are aginst the adults who are aginst the elderly.

This bit was sung in a song iun that episode;

Homer: Yeah, your only here because Marge forget her pills!
marge looks extremely embarrassed

segadreamcast

Bri wrote:

Maybe not strictly what your on about but:

If anyone's been on "It's A Small World" in either Disneyland US or Paris you'll find yourself thinking of every line from the Duffworld episode where Lisa drinks the water.
I know the joke isn't that disguised, but I only stumbled across the kiddy ride at the end of a long day in Disneyland a few weeks ago and I couldn't share it with any of my mates who just got on the ride and thought it was just headwrecking!

Had to share it with someone!

Oh me oh my yes...isn't it creepy?

Blisterman

When I saw pulp fiction for the first time, I couldn't stop laughing, thinking of the simpsons copy.

Spacedog

yeah, I only saw The Shining after I'd seen the simpsons version a hundred times.

Bri

Spacedog wrote:

yeah, I only saw The Shining after I'd seen the simpsons version a hundred times.

Oh man that's so funny. One night I watched the simpsons and then the film came on. Amazing how funny you can be with a few mates doing voice-overs.

I'd never seen Thelma and Louise till last year - prefer the simpsons take tbh.

Blisterman

The Political Episodes are a lot funnier now that I know more about politics, like "Grover Cleaveland spanked me on two non consecutive ocassions"

flogen

I saw Citizen Kane after the simpsons bobo episode, and I loved all the links. (that and The Union Forever by The White Stripes)...

flogen

giftgrub

theres a great one where stephen hawking is in springfield

he tells the citizens to love and respect eachother regardless of how smart they are ( or something like that )

all of a sudden from the crowd Homer shouts "Larry Flynt is right!"

i swear a little pee came out.

mycroft

I saw Citizen Kane after the simpsons bobo episode, and I loved all the links.

Citzen kane is referenced in so many episodes it would be entirely pausible to make a simpsons version of citizen kane*



*possible, but very stupid

pork99

JBoyle4eva wrote:

The episodde where the kids are aginst the adults who are aginst the elderly.

This bit was sung in a song iun that episode;

Homer: Yeah, your only here because Marge forget her pills!
marge looks extremely embarrassed

If you want to get obscure that song is a parody of a song called "Kids" from the 1960 musical "Bye Bye Birdie"

http://www.fact-index.com/b/by/bye_bye_birdie.html

Original lyrics:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/byebyebirdie/kids.htm

well as they say in that episode;

"Let's post it on the internet! No, we have to put it somewhere where people's opinions matter."

But one of my favourite obscure movie references is the one where Homer is shopping for a fall-out shelter and theres a small nuclear bomb in the shop; it was built in the 1950s to use against beatniks. Homer has a fantasy where he's flying a B-52 to drop it on beatniks and ends up riding it down a la Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove.

(Dr Strangelove - the sort of thoughtful subversive film which just doesn't get made nowadays: http://ruthlessreviews.com/movies/d/drstrangelove.html )

smoke.me.a.kipper

pork99 wrote:

But one of my favourite obscure movie references is the one where Homer is shopping for a fall-out shelter and theres a small nuclear bomb in the shop; it was built in the 1950s to use against beatniks. Homer has a fantasy where he's flying a B-52 to drop it on beatniks and ends up riding it down a la Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove.

when i saw dr. strangelove, all i could think of was homer riding the bomb! i was nearly in tears laughing.

pork99

http://www.mad.dusnet.de/pics/strangelove1.jpg

ixoy

I'd hardly count the Dr. Strangelove bomb-ride as an obscure reference - it's pretty iconic! There's still loads though that leave me scratching my head - such as when Bart, after annoying the family, vanishes and is heard running around inside the walls and Marge, annoyed, bangs the walls with a broom saying "He's in the walls again!"... What's that from?
My favourite movie parody/reference has to come from when 'Family Guy' took on Willlie Wonka's Chocolate Factory. I actually had tears from laughing. Now FG is king of the obscure reference....

pork99

ixoy wrote:

My favourite movie parody/reference has to come from when 'Family Guy' took on Willlie Wonka's Chocolate Factory. I actually had tears from laughing. Now FG is king of the obscure reference....

It's true - one feature of the Simpson's decline in latter years is the diminishing number of film and other such references in it.

pork99

ixoy wrote:

I'd hardly count the Dr. Strangelove bomb-ride as an obscure reference - it's pretty iconic!

It's familiar to me but as most people on these boards are under 30 I wonder how many people who watch the Simpsons and post here would recognise it? Like smoke-me-a-kipper who saw it referenced on the Simpsons before seeing the original - in which case it's not "there's the Simpsons referencing Dr Strangelove" but "there's Dr Strangelove referencing the Simpsons"

mwnger

The episode where Homer gives up beer - the sub-plot was Lisa's experiment to discover "if her brother was dumber than a hamster". She conditions him against cupcakes by electrifying them. Towards the end Marge asks Bart to get some cupcakes and the shot where he's reaching up to grab two of them is directly lifted from A Clockwork Orange when Alex is trying to grab that bird's tits during the demonstration for the politicians. The cupcakes even have cherries on top to mirror the nipples! I had seen that episode at least 30times before the penny dropped with that gag! Its one of the reasons why I still watch old Simpsons - you might pick up on an obscure joke you never noticed before.
Particularly jokes about U.S. politics. One example was: "the U.S.S Walter Mondale, it's a laundry ship..." Never knew who that was up till recently. Certainly summed up his personality!

crowbar

i like the bit where the teachers are on strike and bart makes a casual remark at one of the teachers. the remark is whispered through the line of teachers and the last teacher says to krebapple "skinner said the teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher". krebapple says "well we'll show him, especially for that 'purple monkey dishwasher' remark" ...

Spacedog

I was watching the one with the bear patrol today. right after the 'bear attack' the townspeople burst into Quimby's office. I just notised, he's tipp-exing his own signature off a stack of contracts when he is interrupted, classic

Also on the newspapers, I'm never quick enough to read all the bits at the bottom they always put in below the headlines.

sceptre

Spacedog wrote:

Also on the newspapers, I'm never quick enough to read all the bits at the bottom they always put in below the headlines.

Ah, you've got to cheat and just read the smaller one - it's always the funnier one. For instance when the comet is coming and Quimby arrives and gets the name of the town wrong (he calls it "Springfeld") the smaller headline reads "Mayor Visits Town!". The main headline is something boring like "Comet Disaster" or "Comet To Destroy Bar" or something else we knew already.

The usual funny main headline is when they've had three or four spinning newspapers in a row and the last one reads something like "Editor injured by spinning newspaper". They've done that one at some point as well.

Flukey

You spot most things, but there are always a few that will mean nothing to us non-Americans, unless you are very clued in to the US. Sometimes you will pick up on those obscure ones by chance, because of something you've heard or know. Still, there is plenty enough to get us laughing, with the direct and with or without the subtle humour.

DAEDULUS

just saw one flew over the kuckoos(sp? :E) nest
and coulndt stop laughing at the joke in simpsons where homers in an insane hospital and chief from the film picks up a washing machine(or somthing like that) and smashes the window

mwnger

One my fave newspaper gags was in the Halloween story King Homer (spoof on King Kong) The headline was something like "Giant Ape On Broadway" but the smaller one below was "Dick Clark Born" with a picture of him as he looks now - in his 70's! Typically surreal Simpsons moment, I was in bits laughing.

RuggieBear

one of the earlier episodes where bart goes to war against Nelson and the bullies is a spoof of "Patton" and a heap of other war movies. There is a scene where he slaps a "soldier" and he gets reprimanded...can't remember but i think there was a court martial in a war based on an officers right (or not) to hit his soldiers....

Blisterman

I laughed loads at one flew over the cuckoos nest and It's a wonderful life based on simpsons spoofs.

JBoyle4eva

Spacedog wrote:

Also on the newspapers, I'm never quick enough to read all the bits at the bottom they always put in below the headlines.

"Study proves secondary headlines not important"

That's a classic gag!

Capt'n Midnight

Springfield Heights Institute of Technology

aidan_dunne

In the episode where Lisa talks the family into going to the Springfield Knowledgeum, as they're going in she says, "Who says science can't be fun?" Bart replies, "Me! I smell a museum", and Homer says, "Yeah, good things don't end with "eum". They end with "mania" or "teria"!"

If you're a fan of Def Leppard, you'll get the reference.

Blisterman

Just got that.