Recurring jokes in The Simpsons

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The Simpsons catch phrases

There are many recurring jokes in The Simpsons, many of which have been retired during the series.

1 Most famous catchphrases
2 Other recurring jokes
3 Self references
4 Notes

[edit] Most famous catchphrases

"D'oh!" - Homer - has achieved such mainstream usage as to be featured in the Oxford English Dictionary
"Stupid Flanders." - Homer after seeing, communicating, etc. with Ned Flanders
"Eat my shorts" - Bart - featured on t-shirts
"Don't have a cow, man!" - Bart - featured on t-shirts (somewhat parodied in the episode "Bart Gets Famous")
"Haa ha!" - Nelson Muntz
"Hi everybody!" - Dr. Nick
- "Hi, Dr. Nick!" - The response to the above statement, uttered in unison by everyone present.
"Excellent..." - Mr. Burns
"Ay, caramba!" - in early episodes Bart would use this Spanish expression
Belching - Barney, and to a much lesser extent Homer
"Yoink!" - many characters, after stealing something from another character
"The Simpsons are going to..." - Homer - talking to the family about the next trip
"Hey hey (Krusty laugh)" - Krusty the Clown, when he makes an entrance, including at the beginning of his show
"Hi, I'm Troy McClure, you may remember me from such (films, programs, etc.) as (insert cheesy-sounding program titles)..." - Troy McClure
"Mmm... (then food, object, person, or concept)" - Homer
"Ohhhh yeahhh!" - Duffman
"Thank you. Come again" - Apu
"Hiya Homer...What's wrong?" or "What's the matter?"-Moe
"Er..uh.." -Mayor Quimby in between sentences.

[edit] Other recurring jokes

Dr. Julius Hibbert often laughs in inappropriate situations.
Characters frequently rush out of a room to escape an embarrassing situation, followed by the sound of a car door slamming, an engine turning over, and screeching tires.
For many seasons, Mr. Smithers' sexuality and feelings for his boss create tension during scenes in which the two are together.
The anger of the characters toward one another is often highlighted. Homer strangles Bart in an exaggerated fashion for even minor offenses usually saying "Why you little...!", and reiterates orders to his children and others with the "do it..." in a threatening tone (often while wagging his fist). Other members of the family frequently take up "Why you little...!" as well.
The "Stay-On-the-Line and Cry" routine (more prevalent in earlier seasons of the show), a running gag in which one of the members of the Simpson family (usually Homer and Marge) would wait on hold on the telephone, but then break down and cry when a popular song pertaining to the situation would be played as soft/easy listening music. One example would be the Missing Baby Hotline playing "Baby Come Back" by Player.
Bart often makes prank calls to Moe's Tavern, asking for someone with a name such as "Amanda Huggankiss," "Mike Rotch," "Jacques Strap," "Oliver Clozoff," "Heywood U. Cuddleme", "I.M. Adope (in the video game Bart vs. the Space Mutants) or "Hugh Jass" (this latter case being one in which Bart's prank call backfires, as there actually is a Hugh Jass in the bar). Moe falls for the trap every time, and when he realizes that the joke is at his expense shouts threats sback at Bart. He also never realises that it is Bart. In "The Regina Monologues" he says to Marge, "How much to have Bart prank call me? Oh, that would be hilarious!" This is a reference to the (in)famous Tube Bar prank calls^[1] However, one phone call it is hinted that Moe knows who is calling him: when Bart (with the power to do anything), calls with a long list of offensive remarks, Moe agrees because he knows if he doesn't Bart will do something to him (this is, however in Treehouse of Horror II)
Mr. Burns is unable to remember Homer Simpson's name, despite the countless times the two have met. He is also extremely weak and often speaks of early 20th century (and even 19th century) subjects as though they were still talked about today.
Comic Book Guy's real name, which was, for a long time, never stated. The gag, however, eventually ended in 2005.
Krusty the Clown rarely remembers Bart, a boy who has helped him on numerous occasions.
The Fox Network, which is also the broadcaster of The Simpsons, is often parodied on the show, usually in a negative light. Some examples:
- In "The Heartbroke Kid", Bart says "I've learned that even made-up corporate shills can lie to you," to which Homer responds "Did you hear that Foxie, the Fox Network fox?"
- When Homer invests in the stock market, he uses the telephone to learn the current value of the stock of the company Animotion. He is instructed to speak the company's name into the phone receiver by an automated answering system. When informed that the stock has risen, he responds excitedly, "Yahoo!". This prompts the system on the end of the phone to search for Yahoo, and it informs Homer of its stock's value. His response is then "Huh? What is this crap?" which prompts the computer to search for Fox Broadcasting and says that its stock has lost value.
- In "'Scuse Me While I Miss The Sky", Lisa points out that you can't see anything in the light sky, except for the Fox satellite (which is portrayed as a crummy, broken down satellite held up by several balloons).
- In the "Behind the Laughter" episode, it is revealed that Marge's hairdresser is the president of Fox.
- Krusty, when trying to find a network to air his show, goes to Fox appealing to their "reputation to take chances on crap," to which the Fox directors nod and agree.
- When Homer calls Fox with an idea for a TV show, the automated message states, "Please stay on the line. Your half-assed ideas are all we have."
- Homer complains that Lisa stopped the family from watching Fox as they own chemical weapons plants in Syria.
- When Homer buys stock in "...something called Newscorp", Lisa says: "Dad, that's Fox!", to which Homer screams "Aaaah! Undo! Undo!", and franticly pushes the Undo button.
- When Lisa asks ivory dealer Mr Blackheart if he is, in fact, an ivory dealer, he responds by saying he has had lots of jobs, including whale-hunter, seal-clubber, president of the Fox network, and that yes he does deal ivory.
The Republican Party is sometimes portrayed as evil, with the Springfield group located in a frightening castle.
Often, Homer says that doing a particular thing has always been his lifelong dream, Marge will follow up by saying that his lifelong dream was something else that he has already accomplished (because he has had so many jobs and participated in so many amazing events in the show's long run).
A common gesture shared by many characters after doing something embarrassing, is pulling their shirt collar back with one finger and gulping, Charles Nelson Reilly-style.
'Retirony', in which a character (or object) dies very soon before retirement, is a familiar occurrence.
Many commercial establishments on The Simpsons have comically farcical names (that are puns) such as:
- "Try-N'Save," a discount store
- "Nuts Landing", a pet sterilization clinic
- "Kentucky Fried Panda", a fast food restaurant that is finger "Ling Ling" good)
- "BloodBath, and Beyond", a gun shop
When the Springfield Grocery Store is visited, the camera almost always first cuts to the street, where a shopping cart can be seen rolling onto the road.
During an establishing shot of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a buzzard is heard squawking in the distance.
The Godfather Part III is often parodied in a negative sense on the program.
- When movie studio executives review Homer and Mel Gibson's joint production, the level of pointless violence prompts one executive to say, "This is worse than The Godfather III!".
- When Bart and Millhouse discover Comic Book Guy's collection of top secret films, one of which is titled "The Godfather III, good version".
- When Maggie escapes to Little Italy after always listening to Moe's mafia stories, Fat Tony remarks "I haven't cried this much since I paid to see The Godfather III."
A close-up of Homer's butt occurs in many episodes. Examples include "The Parent Rap" where Bart repeatedly spanks Homer with the broken tether device and in "Blame it on Lisa" when Bart and Homer walk on the beach in Rio and Homer's crack 'swallows' his speedo.
Homer reads Playdude, a parody of Playboy.
Parodying many movies and TV shows, vehicles—cars, trucks, even a baby carriage, and once, a desk —often explode in flames after an accident.
Whenever Nelson talks about his father, he says that his father left them after saying that he was stepping out to get a pack of cigarettes, this is a reference to Stephen King's father leaving his family after stepping out for a pack of cigarettes.
The ambiguous location of the town of Springfield is often the subject of jokes, for example, Lisa once pointed it out on a map at the exact instant Bart ran in front of the screen, or saying "It's the greatest town in the State of..." before being cut off.
Unitarians are usually made fun of.
During public speeches Homer often cries out "boring!" no matter how important the speech may be.
When an unimportant character is killed in a brutal and/or embarassing fashion, he/she will often cry out "Remember me as a/an (insert adjective)."
The mentioning of "Frosty Chocolate Milkshakes", which Homer originally mentioned in a Tracey Ullman short. In Bart the Genius, Homer offers to take Bart out for some of the aforementioned milkshakes. In a later episode, Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk, when the Simpsons' stock in the Nuclear Power Plant goes up and they begin imagining what they'll do with the money they'll make, Bart dreams of an entire cement truck pouring "Frosty Chocolate Milkshake" into his mouth. Finally, in the Treehouse of Horror XIII story "Send in the Clones", one of the clone Homers, who's drawn in the original Tracey Ullman style, quotes the original line.
Homer, from time to time, would be holding a flag, that would be referenced with what he would be doing or watching on TV as the time depends.

[edit] Self references

Meta-references are also used as running gags. Attention is drawn to the fact that Homer rarely appears at his legitimate day job at the Nuclear Power Plant. Homer has pursued more than 100 different occupations, many on a full-time basis. While early episodes generally showed Homer's voluntary or involuntary departure from his plant job before a new occupation, for many years the norm has been for him to spontaneously pursue the new job before inevitably returning to the plant, all without explanation.

The show continues to carefully avoid explicitly identifying Springfield's US state or providing any evidence that could be used to conclusively deduce the state. This was parodied in the Brazil episode where the boy tells Lisa he couldn't send her a letter since he didn't know which state she lived in, and she responded, smirking, that it's a little vague, but if he "looked at the clues, he could figure it out."

The Simpsons is based on an episodic format with little continuity between episodes, a fact which is often parodied within the show. For instance, when Mr. Burns does not remember Homer, Smithers often points out numerous life-changing events involving the two ("Simpson, eh? New man?" "Actually, sir, he thwarted your campaign for governor, you ran over his son, he saved the plant from meltdown, his wife painted you in the nude..."). In another incident, Principal Skinner remarks on the peculiarity of Lisa giving her new cat the same name as her old one, and she responds by calling him Principal Tamzarian, which is a reference to his previous identity as Armin Tamzarian which was until that point only dealt with in one episode in the series.

[edit] Notes

^ Mike Walsh, The Legendary Tube Bar Recording at MissionCreep.com. In the late 1960s, pranksters John Davidson and Jim Elmo pulled similar pranks on grumpy New Jersey bar owner Louis "Red" Deutsch. The Simpsons recording follows an almost identical pattern to the Tube Bar Recording (which uses much more profanity).

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