Let us make a virtual toast to the greatest show ever to grace the small screen: The Simpsons.
What are your favorite scenes? Favorite episodes? Favorite quotes?
I'll get us started, with a few Homer classics:
Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand!
English class?!?! Pfft! What do I need that for? I'm never going to England!
Springfield Celebration
Moderator: Priests of Syrinx
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EndlesslyRocking
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Springfield Celebration
Life in two dimensions is a mass-production scheme...
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happysmilies007
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i loved the episode where the library was devoid of books (for the hobos..lol) & the kids had to get a school project done, so Marge told them about different things that happened in ancient times (like Mozart). it was pretty hilarious!
carolynn
carolynn
"What do I do when we're not taping? Sit in a dark room and refine my plans for someday ruling Earth from a blimp. And chess." --Ryan Stiles .. brought to you by the letter 3!
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EndlesslyRocking
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They also used "D'oh! A Deer! A Female Deer!" at the end of The Big Money on RiR.
And of course Geddy made a vocal appearance (singing Great White North) in the episode when they went to Canada...
Why would I leave America to visit America Junior?
A few more classics:
Homer: Would you like a donut?
Lisa: Uh, no thanks. Do you have any fruit?
Homer: This one's got purple in it. Purple's a fruit.
Marge (after learning she's pregnant): Homer, there's going to be twice as much love in this house.
Homer: You mean we're going to start doing it in the morning?
And of course Geddy made a vocal appearance (singing Great White North) in the episode when they went to Canada...
Why would I leave America to visit America Junior?
A few more classics:
Homer: Would you like a donut?
Lisa: Uh, no thanks. Do you have any fruit?
Homer: This one's got purple in it. Purple's a fruit.
Marge (after learning she's pregnant): Homer, there's going to be twice as much love in this house.
Homer: You mean we're going to start doing it in the morning?
Life in two dimensions is a mass-production scheme...
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EndlesslyRocking
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ElfDude
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The episode that remains my favorite after all these years would be "Terror Lake". That one was a laugh a minute. As simple and stupid as the gag was, Sideshow Bob stepping on all the rakes and getting hit in the face over and over has me in stitches every time I see it.
I would hope that isn't because I'm simple and stupid, but because the gag is such good satire of so many clich?s used by other TV shows.
I would hope that isn't because I'm simple and stupid, but because the gag is such good satire of so many clich?s used by other TV shows.
Aren't you the guy who hit me in the eye?
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ElfDude
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From Time magazine in 1999:
The Best TV Show Ever
James Poniewozik Honors 'The Simpsons'
By James Poniewozik
I dissed Lucy. I stomped on Mary Richards' earnest little hat. Norman Lear, Steven Bochco, all TV's anointed greats ? I told them to eat my shorts. At least, I suspect, that will be the reaction I'll get for naming one of the most praised and reviled shows of TV history ? "The Simpsons" ? as the best TV show ever in TIME's listing of the greatest artworks of the 20th century.
But before you sentence me to write "I Love Lucy" 500 times on the chalkboard, let me explain myself. There are a good 10 or so shows one could easily argue for as TV's best, "All in the Family," "M*A*SH," "The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite" (my #3) and "The Twilight Zone," to name a few. My job, as I saw it, was to choose one program I could confidently send into space as an example of television as a distinct genre at its best. (Thus I excluded shows, like "Playhouse 90" and "The Ed Sullivan Show," that were really more about using TV to broadcast other genres.) The following are five of many reasons I ? like NASA before me ? would choose to launch Homer:
(1) It's great 20th-century art. "Ulysses," "The Godfather," "Rhapsody in Blue" ? 20th-century art has been about smashing barriers between high and low culture, intermingling prosody and pulp fiction. Most of the finest shows in TV history, like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (my #2 of the century), "The Cosby Show" and "Hill Street Blues," don't; they aim for the solid middle. (Some greats like" I Love Lucy" were more strictly vaudeville; some, like "Twin Peaks," aimed elite and ended up noble failures.) "The Simpsons" aims both higher and lower than its predecessors, not afraid of either highbrow literary references or butt jokes, offering something for everyone from grad-school snobs to grade-school snots ? much as Shakespeare and Chaucer did centuries ago.
(2) It was the best series of television's best decade. The '70s were the real Golden Age of television in terms of the quality of the average show ? the last period when networks grabbed massive chunks of the populace with smartly written programs like "MTM," "All in the Family" and "M*A*S*H." Yet in sheer numbers the '90s had it beat, precisely because people saw more television than any other decade. And the same forces that ended "broad"-casting ? the fragmentation of the audience ? enabled Fox to gamble on and thrive with a brash, satiric series from an alternative-newspaper cartoonist. In a decade packed with breathtaking innovations from "Seinfeld" to "The Sopranos," "The Simpsons" is the show that captured the '90s cold from beginning to end ? the consumerism, the media saturation, the stresses on families and civic culture.
(3) It has TV's greatest cast. No other series has developed as numerous and fully fleshed a supporting cast as the population of Springfield. The writers of "The Simpsons" opened worlds within worlds, investing seemingly minor characters with full back stories and lives. Any character who showed up for a few seconds one episode might carry entire episodes later on: Apu, Smithers, Barney the drunk. To look at one of these B-listers, Krusty the Clown, is to understand the endless fertility of "The Simpsons." Beginning as a prop for Bart and Lisa to watch on the family TV, Krusty developed a story of ethnic identity (born Herschel Krustofsky, he rebelled against his rabbi father) and became a satiric stand-in for the entire entertainment industry. By comparison, "MTM"'s Chuckles the Clown (murdered by an elephant while leading a parade dressed as a peanut) was the jumping-off point for perhaps the finest TV episode ever, but he was never drawn in the detail "The Simpsons" gave Krusty.
(4) It is every television series. It's a loving satire of home and society, just as trenchant and ultimately warm as "All in the Family" ? and Norman Lear had the advantage of writing at a time of a clearly drawn generation gap and social turmoil. It's a workplace comedy, like "Dick Van Dyke," "Taxi" and "MTM," and with the incomparable villain Montgomery Burns, it shows that the job is more than just a warm surrogate family. It's a political satire, like "M*A*S*H," but with an even broader range of targets ? from Burns's money-fueled run for governor to education and privatization (most recently, when Bart and Lisa's school was bought by a toy company for test-marketing purposes) ? and a more nuanced, less ideologically certain point of view. Both timeless and au courant, it was not just the comics; it was the news.
(5) It is no other television series. In 1997 critic Steven Stark omitted "The Simpsons" from his survey of television's 60 top shows, "Glued to the Set," saying that it had not influenced as many other shows as "I Love Lucy" or "Dragnet." Although Stark's argument looks less convincing with every year, it still has some validity ? but that's precisely why finally "The Simpsons" is TV's best. We have words for the phenomenon Stark notes. We call it uniqueness. Inimitability. What "The Simpsons" has accomplished for 11consistent seasons ? and no other canonical TV show has had the same legs ? may never be copied. And as long as Matt Groening and company keep it on the air, who cares? One greatest show of all time is plenty, thank you very much. As the century ends, we should be thankful one of its finest artworks is still being created, week after week.
The Best TV Show Ever
James Poniewozik Honors 'The Simpsons'
By James Poniewozik
I dissed Lucy. I stomped on Mary Richards' earnest little hat. Norman Lear, Steven Bochco, all TV's anointed greats ? I told them to eat my shorts. At least, I suspect, that will be the reaction I'll get for naming one of the most praised and reviled shows of TV history ? "The Simpsons" ? as the best TV show ever in TIME's listing of the greatest artworks of the 20th century.
But before you sentence me to write "I Love Lucy" 500 times on the chalkboard, let me explain myself. There are a good 10 or so shows one could easily argue for as TV's best, "All in the Family," "M*A*SH," "The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite" (my #3) and "The Twilight Zone," to name a few. My job, as I saw it, was to choose one program I could confidently send into space as an example of television as a distinct genre at its best. (Thus I excluded shows, like "Playhouse 90" and "The Ed Sullivan Show," that were really more about using TV to broadcast other genres.) The following are five of many reasons I ? like NASA before me ? would choose to launch Homer:
(1) It's great 20th-century art. "Ulysses," "The Godfather," "Rhapsody in Blue" ? 20th-century art has been about smashing barriers between high and low culture, intermingling prosody and pulp fiction. Most of the finest shows in TV history, like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (my #2 of the century), "The Cosby Show" and "Hill Street Blues," don't; they aim for the solid middle. (Some greats like" I Love Lucy" were more strictly vaudeville; some, like "Twin Peaks," aimed elite and ended up noble failures.) "The Simpsons" aims both higher and lower than its predecessors, not afraid of either highbrow literary references or butt jokes, offering something for everyone from grad-school snobs to grade-school snots ? much as Shakespeare and Chaucer did centuries ago.
(2) It was the best series of television's best decade. The '70s were the real Golden Age of television in terms of the quality of the average show ? the last period when networks grabbed massive chunks of the populace with smartly written programs like "MTM," "All in the Family" and "M*A*S*H." Yet in sheer numbers the '90s had it beat, precisely because people saw more television than any other decade. And the same forces that ended "broad"-casting ? the fragmentation of the audience ? enabled Fox to gamble on and thrive with a brash, satiric series from an alternative-newspaper cartoonist. In a decade packed with breathtaking innovations from "Seinfeld" to "The Sopranos," "The Simpsons" is the show that captured the '90s cold from beginning to end ? the consumerism, the media saturation, the stresses on families and civic culture.
(3) It has TV's greatest cast. No other series has developed as numerous and fully fleshed a supporting cast as the population of Springfield. The writers of "The Simpsons" opened worlds within worlds, investing seemingly minor characters with full back stories and lives. Any character who showed up for a few seconds one episode might carry entire episodes later on: Apu, Smithers, Barney the drunk. To look at one of these B-listers, Krusty the Clown, is to understand the endless fertility of "The Simpsons." Beginning as a prop for Bart and Lisa to watch on the family TV, Krusty developed a story of ethnic identity (born Herschel Krustofsky, he rebelled against his rabbi father) and became a satiric stand-in for the entire entertainment industry. By comparison, "MTM"'s Chuckles the Clown (murdered by an elephant while leading a parade dressed as a peanut) was the jumping-off point for perhaps the finest TV episode ever, but he was never drawn in the detail "The Simpsons" gave Krusty.
(4) It is every television series. It's a loving satire of home and society, just as trenchant and ultimately warm as "All in the Family" ? and Norman Lear had the advantage of writing at a time of a clearly drawn generation gap and social turmoil. It's a workplace comedy, like "Dick Van Dyke," "Taxi" and "MTM," and with the incomparable villain Montgomery Burns, it shows that the job is more than just a warm surrogate family. It's a political satire, like "M*A*S*H," but with an even broader range of targets ? from Burns's money-fueled run for governor to education and privatization (most recently, when Bart and Lisa's school was bought by a toy company for test-marketing purposes) ? and a more nuanced, less ideologically certain point of view. Both timeless and au courant, it was not just the comics; it was the news.
(5) It is no other television series. In 1997 critic Steven Stark omitted "The Simpsons" from his survey of television's 60 top shows, "Glued to the Set," saying that it had not influenced as many other shows as "I Love Lucy" or "Dragnet." Although Stark's argument looks less convincing with every year, it still has some validity ? but that's precisely why finally "The Simpsons" is TV's best. We have words for the phenomenon Stark notes. We call it uniqueness. Inimitability. What "The Simpsons" has accomplished for 11consistent seasons ? and no other canonical TV show has had the same legs ? may never be copied. And as long as Matt Groening and company keep it on the air, who cares? One greatest show of all time is plenty, thank you very much. As the century ends, we should be thankful one of its finest artworks is still being created, week after week.
Aren't you the guy who hit me in the eye?
This is from my earlier 'Simpsons' thread, still think its cool. Last night they showed the Canada episode and even my son recognised Geddy's 'take off' bit 
.
.Lisa Cries Freedom for Cornwall
In the UK, this year's alternative Christmas message is going to be done by our favorite family. Channel 4 is preparing a four-minute Simpsons special to be aired at the same time as the Queen's speech.
The special will feature Lisa Simpson supporting Cornwall's independence campaign by running around the living room and shouting in the Cornish dialect "Rydhsys rag Kernow lemmyn," which translates to "Freedom for Cornwall now" and "Kernow bys vykken," "Cornwall forever."
Cornwall is Britain's southernmost county with half a million residents. A group of them is actively campaigning for a Cornish Assembly, and some 50,000 people have signed declarations calling for an autonomous administration.
The plans became public when writer-producer Tim Long contacted The Cornish Language Fellowship last week and asked the phrases translated into Cornish. The organization also gave pointers to Yeardley Smith, voice of Lisa, in the proper pronunciation. Cornish is a language spoken fluently by only 300-400 people, yet up to 10,000 people understand it a little.
"Lisa Simpson is a great ally. She is a cult icon and a cool character, and to attach some of her coolness and cult status to the Cornish language movement is obviously good," said spokesman Matthew Clarke to local media. "I don't get the impression they are looking to directly poke fun."
I live in Cornwall (South-West England). I find the above both surreal and amusing. Still in shock... .
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Walkinghairball
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ElfDude
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Another thing I love about so many episodes of The Simpsons... so often the first few minutes are so unpredictable, so hilarious, so off the wall, and they're only there to bring us to the point where the actual plot begins, and never has anything to do with the plot that follows. For example:
Bart's new enemy, the mean white dog, which leads him to meeting Buck McCoy.
Homer making the grocery bag boys so angry they go on strike, which leads to them having no food, which leads to him finding the winning box of animal crackers in the attic which leads to the real plot, the Simpsons going to Africa.
The big Evergreen Terrace multi-family yard sale (Homer got a good song in that one) which is interrupted by former president George Bush moving in across the street from them. An all out feud between George and Homer ensues and fills the rest of the episode.
I love this stuff!
Bart's new enemy, the mean white dog, which leads him to meeting Buck McCoy.
Homer making the grocery bag boys so angry they go on strike, which leads to them having no food, which leads to him finding the winning box of animal crackers in the attic which leads to the real plot, the Simpsons going to Africa.
The big Evergreen Terrace multi-family yard sale (Homer got a good song in that one) which is interrupted by former president George Bush moving in across the street from them. An all out feud between George and Homer ensues and fills the rest of the episode.
I love this stuff!
Aren't you the guy who hit me in the eye?
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EndlesslyRocking
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