5 Times The Simpsons Made an Excellent Pop Culture Ref (And They All Aged Like Wine)
They work on every binge.
The Simpsons is truly one of the most brilliantly-written animated series ever created. Having been on the air since 1989, it has covered so many different but equally amazing storylines that no other show can boast of.
Everyone knows that The Simpsons is also a show that somehow predicted many things that would happen in reality long before they actually did, but today we are going to talk about something else that the show did and still does perfectly.
The Simpsons is a show that has some sort of pop culture reference, if not in every episode, then definitely in a bunch of them every season. And here we have 5 of them that have aged like fine wine.
1. The Shining
Every season of The Simpsons has a special episode called Treehouse of Horror, and in season 6 it went all the way using Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining as a script for the episode. It features Homer as Jack Nicholson’s iconic character, brilliantly recreating him on screen, still adding a pinch of Homerness with quotes like “no TV and no beer make Homer something something."
2. James Bond
You Only Move Twice is episode 2 of season 8 and is considered one of the greatest of the entire series. The episode follows a man named Hank Scorpio who offers Homer a better life if he accepts a job offer and moves to another city. At first Scorpio seems nice and caring, but later we discover that he is a supervillain lunatic, and the whole episode is a long reference to the James Bond franchise.
What makes it absolutely clear is the fact that James Bond himself appears on screen as a target of Scorpio's, trying to escape a laser assassination attempt. Classic Bond!
3. The Godfather
There are a lot of The Godfather references in The Simpsons, and they are all great, but we want to focus on a few of them because they may be the first times you ever learned about the greatest movie in the entire industry.
“For example: I've never seen the Godfather, but I learned about famous Godfather references because of The Simpsons. e.g. The horse's head in "Lisa's Pony," Homer's vision of being union leader in "Last Exit to Springfield," Bart getting pelted with snowballs in "Mr. Plow," and Moe explaining the plot of the Godfather in "Moe Baby Blues" (ok, maybe that one is cheating...)” Redditor AdamHR said.
4. Psycho
Another iconic movie has been referenced in various episodes of The Simpsons, some of which even attempted to visually resemble Alfred Hitchcock's legendary The Shining.
For example, in the episode "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" (episode 9, season 2), the creators took it to the next level by changing the camera angles to match the original, and with a story centered around details like red paint "blood." A brilliantly handcrafted episode worth revisiting.
5. Planet Of The Apes
In episode 19 of season 17, titled A Fish Called Selma, we witnessed an amazing reference that still lives rent-free in our minds. The episode follows a parody of Planet of the Apes turned into a musical. The story centers on washed-up actor Troy McClure as he tries to make a comeback through the musical.
He sings a song called "Dr. Zaius," a reference to the main antagonist of the original franchise, but that's not all the episode has to offer fans of the movie, there's more to catch. So we suggest you just revisit the episode, but this time maybe after watching Planet of the Apes first.