Subtly Simpsons

Subtly Simpsons

In case the site ever goes down, I've stolen the text directly from the site referenced above. This is long, but worth it:

What follows is a list of lines from The Simpsons that we, your editors, have found to be particularly witty, often with their humor derived from subtleties of language, esoteric allusions, or just plain wit.


Subtle Allusions

Grandpa: "Grover Cleveland spanked me on two non-consecutive occassions."
Cleveland was the only President of the US to serve two non-consecutive terms.
Episode: 3F09 Two Bad Neighbors

Sign outside Cape Canaveral says, "Cape Canaveral Formerly Cape Kennedy Formerly Cape Arbuckle"
Cape Canaveral was formerly named Cape Kennedy, and before that was named Cape Canaveral (yes, the name was changed, then changed back). But it was never named Cape Arbuckle.
Fatty Arbuckle was a popular silent-movie comedian whose career was ruined after he was tried for the rape & murder of actress Virginia Rappe at a wild party. Even though he was found not guilty, he was essentially blacklisted, and his very name became disreputable. So, the writers were making fun of the Cape's name-changing by IMAGINING that it was once called Cape Arbuckle in honour of Fatty, but changed to Canaveral after the scandal. There is also an implicit comparison between Kennedy's sexual scandals and Arbuckle's.
Episode: 1F13 Deep Space Homer

Mayor: "Ich bin ein Springfielder." Homer: "Mmmmm. Jelly Donuts."
Explanation: "Ich bin ein Springfielder" is an allusion to JFK's speech in West Berlin in which he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner"). A "Berliner," however, is not only someone from Berlin, but also a German word for Jelly Donut.
Episode: 8F09 Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk

When Sideshow Bob is in court, accused of trying to kill Bart, the lawyer says to him on the stand, But what about that tattoo on your chest? Doesn't it say, "Die Bart, Die?"
Sideshow Bob responds by saying, "No, That's German for, 'The Bart, The."
Someone in the courtroom then whispers, "No one who speaks German could be an evil man."
Episode: 9F22 Cape Feare

Abe: "My car gets fourty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I like it"
A rod is an arcane form of measurement, equal to 512 yards or 1612 feet; a perch or pole. A rod is also farming measurement used in spacing the furrows in ploughed fields, of 16.5 feet. A Hog is a large, often old, car or motor-cycle in old U.S. Slang, and a hogshead is an old unit of measurement for liquids equal to 63 old wine-gallons, which is 5212 imperial gallons.
Episode: Film festival/critic episode

Fidel Castro: They named a street after me in San Fransisco... [whisper whisper] It's full of WHAT!?!?
Episode: The one trillion dollar bill

Jasper Johns stealing lightbulbs
Some of Johns best early works were of lightbulbs.
Episode: Homer as an Artist

Milhouse, on falling in love: "It was just like Romeo and Juliet, only it ended in tragedy."
Episode: When Milhouse has a girlfriend and Bart is jealous

Milhouse says of Springfield, after Homer floods it, "It's just like Venice, but without the Black Plague."
Episode: Homer as Artist

Apu: I have come to make amends, sir. At first, I blamed you for squealing, but then I realized, it was I who wronged you. So I have come to work off my debt. I am at your service.
Homer: You're...selling what, now?
Apu: I am selling only the concept of karmic realignment.
Homer: You can't sell that! Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos. [slams the door]
Apu: He's got me there.
Episode: Apu loses the Quik-E-Mart

Bodyguard coach: As a personal bodyguard, your only loyalty is to your protectee, not anything else, not even Muhammed.
Homer: Not even during Ramadan?
Episode: When Homer becomes a personal bodyguard for Mayor Quimby

The rightful owner of the stolen paintings (Baron Von Wurtzburg) says," Mach schnell vit de art theengs, I have to get back to DanceCentrum in Stutgart to see Kraftwerk".
Kraftwerk was a popular German electronic music group of the 70's and 80's well known to many Baby boomers and anyone into alternative 80's music.
Episode: Curse of the Flying Hellfish

Herman: The key to Springfield has always been Elm Street. The Greeks knew it. The Carthaginians knew it. Now you know it.
The allusion here is to the movie Patton starring George C. Scott. In the movie, while planning the invasion of Sicily, Patton says "The key to Sicily has always been Sicacusa . . ." and says exactly what Herman says.
Episode: 7G05 Bart the General.

Rabbi Krustofsky: If you were a musician or a jazz singer, this I could forgive.
The plot of this episode is the Rabbi disowning his son (Krusty the Clown) because he became an entertainer rather than becoming a Rabbi. This is the same general plot as the movie The Jazz Singer
Episode: 8F05, Like Father, Like Clown

Homer: No one in history has ever done anything this clever!
On the plan to get back Springfield's Lemon Tree, stolen by Shelbyville, by parking the van illegally, so it is towed into the parking lot where the tree is kept, from which they all sneak out at night. (À la the Trojan War.)
Episode: 2F22 Lemon of Troy

The whole episode when Lisa gets married is a play on Love Story; Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw meet in a library and argue over a book, just like Lisa and Hugh
Episode: 2F15 Lisa's Wedding

Mrs. Lovejoy, screaming to the crowd in Church: "Everyone turn around and look at this!"
Abe: What is it? A Unitarian?
Episode: 2F04, Bart's Girlfriend

Mrs. K: I believe with persistent discipline, even the poorest student can end up becoming, oh, say, Chief Justice of The Supreme Court.
Homer: Chief Justice of The Supreme Court. What great men he would join: John Marshall. Charles Evans Hughes. Warren Berger. Hmmmm, Burger...
Episode: 9F03: Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie

When Sideshow Bob is in jail, his prisoner number is: 24601.
This is also Jean Valjean's number in Les Miserables
Episode: 8F20, The Return of Sideshow Bob

Mr. Burns always answers the phone by saying, "Hoy Hoy!"
This is the word that Alexander Graham Bell suggested that we all say when we answer the phone. Bell resented Thomas Edison, who popularized the use of "Hello."

When Grandpa is told his flag only has 49 stars, he snaps, "It will be a cold day in hell before I recognize Missour-ah!" When Missouri first wanted to enter the Union as a slave state, abolitionists at the time flatly refused to recognize Missouri as a state.
Episode: Father Goose

They go to an all-night emergency waiting room run by Dr. Nick, they ask Smithers if they can go ahead of him. He replies, "Uh no, I'd really rather get this taken care of." He's standing up, while everyone else is sitting which I believe to be a very subtle reference to the legendary problem gay men supposedly come to emergency rooms with, namely having a foreign object in his anus he is unable to remove.
Episode: When Lisa babysits for Bart

"There was a reference to BRAZIL on Simpsons episode [1F07]: The Last Temptation of Homer, originally aired on December 9th, 1993. Department of labor workers slide in from the top of the screen on wires in a manner very similar to Sam's rescue scene in the torture chamber. The Brazilian soccer team is mentioned soon afterward. In the same episode, Lisa steps out of a clam shell a la BARON MUNCHAUSEN."
From the FAQ of the Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil

Lisa goes to the Lincoln Memorial to ask advice from Abe Lincoln, but tons of tourists are there asking him for advice so he can't get his say in. So he then goes to the Jefferson Memorial, and she's the only person there.
Lisa: "President Jefferson, I have a problem..."
Jefferson: "Yes, the Lincoln Memorial was full!"
Mocking how everyone who visits DC goes to the Lincoln Memorial, but not the Jefferson.
Episode: When Lisa is a finalist in an essay competition in Washington, DC

Cuban salsa sensation Tito Puente is playing at a club called Chez Guevara's, a subtle reference to Cuban Communist revolutionary and Castro aide (and Argentine) Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
Episode: Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 2

In the episode when Bart makes prank calls to a bunch of places around the world in an effort to find out if water in toilets in the southern hemisphere really flush clockwise, he ends up calling some place in South America before he makes the fateful call to Australia (where he runs up the phone bill for some Aussie-bumpkin). When he does make the call, the scene shifts to a street with a fat German man wearing Lederhosen on a bicycle who gives a "Heil Hitler" salute and says "Buenos dias, mein fuhrer" to a Hitler-lookalike who is fumbling with his keys to answer his car phone, in front of the Casa Rosada, the White House of Argentina. This is a reference to the large number of Nazi's who fled post-war Germany to South America, particularly Argentina.

Lisa: Oedipus is the one who killed his father and married his mother
Homer: Argh! who paid for that wedding?
Episode: Simpsons play tennis with the pros

Homer: "but marge it's uterUS not uterYOU"
Episode: hen homer spends their life savings in the animotion stock

Chief Wiggum is directing the mass deportation and he says "OK, we'll put the tired over here, the poor over there, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free over there."
Episode: the one where they deport all the immigrants

Alcohol: the cause of and solution to all of life's problems

Saleswoman says: "...this is the first toy made for children, by children, with all profits going to children."
Lisa says: "Really"
Saleswoman says: "Well we're all somebody's children"
Episode: don't remember, do you?

Principal Skinner: "Do you kids want t be like the real UN, or do you want to squabble and waste time?"
Episode: Don't remember, do you?

The episode where Principal Skinner's identity is revealed as Armand Tamzarian is a *complete* parody of a French story (historical event?) called: "The Return of Martin Guerre", where a 'no-goodnik' rolls into town and pretends that he's Martin Guerre (or Skinner), and resumes the man's life, only to be challenged by the real guy years and years later. Then the locals have to choose between the two and a court case ensues.
Episode: the one where Skinner's true identity is revealed

Bart and Lisa sitting together on bus. Lisa is reading a children's book titled "Love in the time of Coloring Books". Reference to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the time of Cholera". Mocking the unrealistic literary awareness Lisa is empowered with.
Episode: Bart and Lisa get lost.

Sly Social Commentary

Lisa: Mom, romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, then sold off piece by piece.
Episode: Another Simpsons Clip Show

When Bart & Lisa's class watch from the distance a Civil War re-enactment, someone screams, "Look! They're trying to learn for free!"
Episode: 2F19, The PTA Disbands

Store sign reads, "Mom & Pop Hardware: A Subsidiary of Global Dynamics Corporation"
Episode: Homer as Artist

Homer says, on the smuggling of jeans into Springfield: "Think about the real victims: Calvin Kline, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Antoine Bugleboy -- people who saw an overcrowded market and said, 'Me, too!'"
Episode: 2F21 The Springfield Connection (when Marge becomes a Cop and then Herman smuggles jeans into Springfield)

Flanders' wife: "I've been going to Bible classes. They're teaching me to be more judgmental."
Episode: the one where Bart breaks his leg/ Lisa is popular because they have a pool.

Lisa on Slave Labor: "You get what you pay for."
Episode: The Bible episode

Bart to Lisa, while watching a movie: if you don't watch the scary parts, you won't get desensitized to it.
Episode: when Homer meets a white trashy girl in a bar

Reverend Lovejoy: "Eventually I stopped caring. But that was the '80s so nobody noticed."
Episode: when Marge takes over the help line at the Church and Flanders calls obsessively.

Homer: "The '80s were an idealistic time. The rise of Supertramp, the candidacy of John Anderson."
John Anderson was a third-party candidate who ran for President in 1980.
Episode: I Married Marge

The Superintendant: "But I'm a public servant. I can't use my judgment."
Episode: When Principal Skinner & Mrs. Karbopel have an affair.

Homer to Billy Corgan (of the Smashing Pumpkins): "Thanks to your gloomy, depressing music, my children no longer hope for the future I can not afford to give them."
Corgan: "Yeah, we try to make a difference."
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

T.V. Commercial advertising the World Cup: "Come see the battle to determine what the greatest nation on this planet is: Portugal or Mexico."
Episode: Homer buys a gun

Television show to replace Bart & Lisa's News show: Mars and Mattel Chocobots
Episode: When Bart & Lisa get their own children's News show.

Lisa explain's the new character on Itchy and Scratchy's failure by describing him as a "soul-less product of committee work."
Episode: Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie

Grandpa: "I'm an old man, no one listens to me."
Lisa: "I'm a young girl, no one listens to me."
Homer: "I'm a white male aged 18 to 49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are."
He then goes to the cabinet and takes out a can of food titled, "Nuts and Gum: Together At Last"
Episode: The one where Lisa invents an alternative to the talking stacy-malibu doll

A Matt Groeing-type working in Itchy and Scratchy says that "aren't words like 'paradigm' and 'pro-active' justwords that stupid people use to sound smart?"
Episode: Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie

When Apu & Homer are in the Airport in India, there are groups of Christians trying to win converts, and some Hare Krishnas walk by and say, "oh, Great. Christians."
Episode: When Apu loses the Quik-E-Mart

Troy McLure: Coming up this hour on the Impulse Buying Network, your chance to own a piece of Itchy and Scratchy, the toontown twosome beloved by everyone -- even cynical members of Generation X!
Gen Xer: [watching at home] Pfft, yeah. "Groovy". [Uses his fingers to make the quotation marks signs]
Beautifully mocks how we (Generation X-ers) make everything "ironic" (and thus "cool") by putting everything in quotation marks. Also, note the Java Lamp in the background of the Gen X-er's room. And the whole episode, it is worth noting, is a spoof on The Graduate
Episode: 1F21, Lady Bouvier's Lover, when Grandpa and Marge's mother date

Bruno, the Australian: This is an outrage! I'm going to take this all the way to the Prime Minister! [Yells out window] Hey Mr. Prime Minister! Andy!
Episode: 2F13, Bart vs. Australia

Superintendant Chamers: "Religion has no place in public schools the way facts have no place in organized religion."
Episode: when Skinners is fired as principal

Evan Covoner, of the U.S. State Department: As I'm sure you remember, in the late 1980s the US experienced a short-lived infatuation with Australian culture. For some bizarre reason, the Aussies thought this would be a permanent thing. Of course, it wasn't.
Episode: 2F13, Bart vs. Australia

Homer: The code of the schoolyard, Marge! The rules that teach a boy to be a man. Let's see. [enumerates them on his fingers] Don't tattle. Always make fun of those different from you. Never say anything, unless you're sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do. What else...
Episode: 7G05 Bart the General

Lisa: [sigh] I've got to stop being so petty. I should be Alison's friend, not her competitor. I mean...she is a wonderful person...
Bart: Way to go, Lis. I mean, why compete with someone who's just going to kick your butt anyway?
Lisa: [pause] I prefer my phrasing.
Episode: 1F17 Lisa's Rival

Krusty: [saying a pre-meal blessing] Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu, melech ha'olam, hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz.
Homer: Hee hee hee hee hee! He's talking funny-talk!
Lisa: No Dad, that's Hebrew! Krusty must be Jewish.
Homer: A Jewish entertainer? Get out of here!
Lisa: Dad, there are many prominent Jewish entertainers, including Lauren Bacall, Dinah Shore, William Shatner, and Mel Brooks.
Homer: Mel Brooks is Jewish!?!
Episode: 8F05, Like Father, Like Clown

At the KBBL Radio Studios, the announcer says: And, in order to keep our broadcasting licence, we devote Sunday night dead time to public service shows of limited appeal.
Episode: 8F05, Like Father, Like Clown

The Rev. Lovejoy, Msgr. Kenneth Daly, and Rabbi Krustofsky, on their joint radio show:
Announcer: And our first caller is from Shelbyville Heights.
Caller: Yes, hi. With all the suffering and injustice in the world, do you ever wonder if God really exists?
Rev. L: No.
Msgr. D: [Irish accent] Not for a second.
Rabbi K: Not at all.
Announcer: Great, good conversation there. Our next call...
Episode: 8F05, Like Father, Like Clown

Newspaper headline reads: PARADE TO DISTRACT JOYLESS CITIZENRY
Episode: 3F13 Lisa the Iconoclast

TOXIC WASTE -- DO NOT EAT.
Warning on Barrel
Episode: 9F10 Marge vs. the Monorail

Jebediah: People, our search is over! On this site we shall build a new town where we can worship freely, govern justly, and grow vast fields of hemp for making rope and blankets.
Shelb.: Yes, and marry our cousins.
Jebediah: I was -- what are you talking about, Shelbyville? Why would we want to marry our cousins?
Shelb.: Because they're so attractive. I, I thought that was the whole point of this journey.
Jebediah: Absolutely not!
Shelb.: I tell you, I won't live in a town that robs men of the right to marry their cousins.
Jebediah: Well, then, we'll form our own town. Who will come and live a life devoted to chastity, abstinence, and a flavorless mush I call rootmarm?
[the people divide between Jebediah and Shelbyville]
Episode: 2F22 Lemon of Troy

Grandpa [lying on the grass]: The grass is sharper than the grass in my day...
Episode: AABF16, The Old Man and the 'C' Student

Mr. Smithers, in the future, to a dead but cyrogenically preserved Mr. Burns: Oh, Mr. Burns, we'll thaw you out the second they discover the cure for seventeen stab wounds in the back.
Making fun of cyrogenics. Also an allusion to an Agatha Christie mystery in which the victim was stabbed in the back 17 times.
Episode: 2F15 Lisa's Wedding

A sign for Kent Brockman's TV station in the future reads: CNNBCBS: A division of ABC
Episode: 2F15 Lisa's Wedding

Lisa: Beautiful dinnerware, Mrs. Parkfield.
Mrs. Parkfield: Thank you, Lisa. They were made for the finest family in Britain.
Mr. Parkfield: I don't know how we ended up with them.
Lisa: [thinking] Uh oh. Should I laugh? Was that dry British wit, or subtle self-pity?
Episode: 2F15 Lisa's Wedding

Lisa on Lollapalooza: Wow! It's like Woodstock, only with advertisements everywhere and tons of security guards.
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Bart: Eh, making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Teen1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
Teen2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
Teen1: I don't even know anymore.
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Bart: What religion are you?
Homer: You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work out in real life. Uh... Christianity.
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Kim Gordon: Hullabalooza isn't about freaks; it's about music, and advertisement, and youth-oriented product positioning.
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square".
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring, right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Skinner at the entrance to a historical park: Five dollars a child?! Last year it was free!
Woman at counter: Hmph, new ownership. [points to sign] ["Diz-Nee Historical Park; Sorry, but there's profit to be had."]
Episode: 2F19, The PTA Disbands

Principal Skinner: Mr. Burns, what is the secret to your success?
Mr. Burns: Family, religion, friends... these are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.
Episode: AABF17, Monty Can't Buy Love [note to morgan: get other quotes from this episode]

Reverend Lovejoy in a sermon about the Movementarians: "This so called new religion is nothing but a pack of weird rituals and chants designed to take away the money of fools. Let us say the Lord's prayer 40 times, but first let's pass the collection plate."
Episode: 5F23, about the Movementarians

Marge: [in the distance] Bart! Lisa! Time for church!
Mrs. Van Houten: [in the distance] Milhouse! Time for church.
Jewish Man: [in the distance] Shlomo! Time for your violin lesson!
Episode: 2F04, Bart's Girlfriend

Bart: Why the crap do we have to go to church anyway?
Marge: You just answered your own question with that commode mouth. Besides, you kids need to learn morals and decency and how to love your fellow man.
[in church]
Lovejoy: And with flaming swords, the Aromites did pierce the eyes of their fellow men and did feast on what flowed forth. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh...
Episode: 2F04, Bart's Girlfriend

Mrs. Lovejoy: So, Bart, how's school going? Jessica always gets straight A's.
Bart: Well, in my family grades aren't that important. It's what you learn that counts.
Rev. Lovejoy: Six times five, what is it?
Bart: Um...
Episode: 2F04, Bart's Girlfriend

Homer: And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we're just making God madder and madder!
Episode: Homer the Heretic

Homer: I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?
Episode: Homer the Heretic

Lisa: Why are you dedicating your life to blasphemy?
Homer: Don't worry, sweetheart. If I'm wrong, I'll recant on my deathbed.
Episode: Homer the Heretic

Homer: Kids, let me tell you about another so-called [makes quotation marks with fingers] ``wicked'' guy. He had long hair and some wild ideas. He didn't always do what other people thought was right. And that man's name was... I forget. But the point is... I forget that, too. Marge, you know what I'm talking about. He used to drive that blue car?
Episode: Homer the Heretic

Flanders: I don't need to be told what I think.... by anyone living
Episode: AABF18, They Saved Lisa's Brain

Bart: Oh boy! Free trading cards!
Milhouse: Wow! Joseph of Arimathea! Twenty six conversions in A.D. 46.
Nelson: Whoa, a Methuselah rookie card!
Flanders: Heh heh, well boys, who'd have thought learning about religion could be fun?
Bart: Religion?
Milhouse: Learning?
Nelson: Let's get out of here!
Episode: 9F21, Homer's Barbershop Quartet

Homer [talking about God]: He's my favorite fictional character...
Episode: don't remember, do you?

Skinner: So, what's the word down at One School Board Plaza?
Chalmers: We're dropping the geography requirement. The children weren't testing well. It's proving to be an embarrassment.
Skinner: Very good. Back to the three R's.
Chalmers: Two R's, come October.
Episode: Whacking Day

Homer: Come on, Marge, I want to shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I want to explore the world. I want to watch TV in a different time zone. I want to visit strange, exotic malls. I'm sick of eating hoagies. I want a grinder, a sub, a foot-long hero...I want to live, Marge! Won't you let me live? Won't you please?!
Episode: Fear of Flying

Postmaster General: The days of the gun-toting, disgruntled postal worker went out with the Macarena.
Principal Skinner: I'm just glad I work in an elementary school.
Episode: Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

Bart: The social order of school is a densely layered hierarchy; the cool kids are on top...
Marge: Oh, like the A-students?
Episode: when Bart & Ralph become friends

A Senator, on the bill to expel Senator Bob Arnold from the Senate: I'm all for this bill, but shouldn't we tack on a pay raise for ourselves?
Episode: Lisa is an essay finalist about democracy, in Washington, DC

Homer: When will you Australians learn? In America we stopped using corporal punishment, and things have never been better! The streets are safe. Old people strut confidently through the darkest alleys. And the weak and nerdy are admired for their computer-programming abilities. So, like us, let your children run wild and free, because, as the old saying goes, "Let your children run wild and free."
Episode: 2F13, Bart vs. Australia

Kang [running for President]: Abortions for all! [crowd boos]
Very well, Abortions for none! [crowd boos]
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for the others! [crowd cheers]
Episode: a Halloween special

Sign on the school: Parent-Teacher Night: Let's share the blame
Episode: 9F03: Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie

Homer the Hippie: This is more important than the ideals that our Hippie forefathers refused to go to war and die for.
Episode: Seth & Munchie's, the Ben & Jerry's parody.

Homer: I don't have the discipline necessary to be a Hippie.
Bart: You'd be a great hippie, dad: You're lazy and self-righteous!
Episode: Seth & Munchie's, the Ben & Jerry's parody.

Bart writing on the blackboard: I will not make art from dung
Don't remember, do you?

Lisa is supposed to marry Hugh. The wedding gets cancelled and Rev. Lovejoy says, "... this is terrible. And this never would have happened if the wedding had been inside the church with God and not out here in the cheap showiness of nature".
Episode: when Lisa is supposed to marry Hugh

On the episode where Bart and Lisa are writing scripts for Itchy & Scratchy, Grandpa is their ghost writer. When asked if he ever wondered why he was getting checks in the mail, Grandpa answered," I just thought the Democrats were back in office."
Episode: Bart & Lisa are writing scripts for Itchy & Scratchy

Homer: You don't quit your job because you don't like it, you just go in and do it really half-assed.
Episode: Don't remember, do you?

Wit

Homer [beginning a speech]: If I could just say a few words... I'd be a better public speaker.
Episode: 3F20, Much Apu About Nothing

Proctor: All right, here's your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?
Apu: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter--
Proctor: Wait, wait... just say slavery.
Apu: Slavery it is, sir.
Episode: 3F20, Much Apu About Nothing

Grandma Simpson & Lisa are singing "How many roads must a man walk down?" together.
Homer overhears and says, "Eight!".
Lisa: "That was a rhetorical question!"
Homer: "Oh. Then, Seven!"
Lisa: "Do you even know what 'rhetorical' means?"
Homer: "Do I know what 'rhetorical' means?"
Episode: When Grandma Simpson returns

Lionel Huntz tells Homer: "This is the greatest case of False Advertising I've seen since I sued the movie The Never Ending Story
Episode: Homer at the All-you-can-eat restaurant

T.V. Commercial for the new Springfield Waterfront shopping center: "More over Baltimore, Springfield has stolen your idea!"
Episode: Homer in the all-you-can-eat restaurant

Arnold Schwartzenegger at a Press Conference for the opening of a Planet Hollywood (type restaurant) in Springfield: Yes, it's true, the menu was personally approved by my secretary.
Episode: Homer in the all-you-can-eat restaurant

Yuppie going into Mo's Bar: This place isn't a Faux-Dive; this places is a dive!
Episode: Homer in the all-you-can-eat restaurant

Marge to Lisa on why people don't hire 8 year olds as babysitters: People want to hire someone mature, someone whom they can trust, that's why they hire teen agers.
Episode: Homer in the all-you-can-eat restaurant

Homer: "Trying is the first step towards failure."
Episode: The one with the Spinal Tap concert at the beginning, the one where Otto has to get his bus license, and ends up living with the Simpsons for awhile.

Apu: I've just enrolled in a screenwriting class. I yearn to tell the story of an idealistic young Hindu, pushed too far by convenience store bandits. I call it 'Hands Off My Jerky, Turkey.
Episode: Brush with Greatness

An employee in the American Embassy in Australia, showing the Simpsons their bathroom: To combat homesickness, we've installed a device that makes them swirl the correct American way. [Toilet is souped up to twirl counter-clockwise]
Episode: 2F13, Bart vs. Australia

Homer's new German boss wants to chat with him.
Horst: Homer, could ve have a word with you?
Homer: No.
Horst: I must have phrased that badly. My English is, how you say, inelegant. I meant to say, may we have a brief friendly chat.
Homer: No.
Horst: Once again, I have failed. [consults phrasebook]
We request the pleasure of your company for a free exchange of ideas.
Homer: [runs away in panic]
Episode: 8F09 Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk

Kent Brockman on the Olympics at Springfield: Springfield is expecting an economic boom from the Olympics like the one Sarajevo experienced after the '84 Olympics
Episode: AABF16, The Old Man and the 'C' Student

Abe: I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me.
Episode: 3F21 Homerpalooza

Professor Frink takes over the kindergarten class, drawing equations and free-body diagrams on the blackboard to explain the workings of one of those things that kids push which makes the balls pop.
Frink: N'hey hey! Ahem, n'hey, so the compression and expansion of the longitudinal waves cause the erratic oscillation -- you can see it there -- of the neighboring particles.
[a girl raises her hand]
[sighs] Yes, what is it? What? What is it?
Girl: Can I play with it?
Frink: No, you can't play with it; you won't enjoy it on as many levels as I do. [he chuckles as he plays with it]
Mocking pseudo-intellectual pretensions
Episode: 2F19, The PTA Disbands

Grandpa [beginning his speech against the construction of the Monorail]: We could spend this million building a Monorail, bu--
Crowd: Yah!!!
The mob not understanding rhetorical devices
Episode: Marge vs. the Monorail

Mayor Qimby: We're twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville. Just tell us your idea, and we'll vote for it!
Episode: Marge vs. the Monorail

Lisa: Why build a monorail in a small town with a centralized population around a town center?
Lyle Lanley: I could answer that question for you, but you and I would be the only ones here who would understand the answer.
Episode: Marge vs. the Monorail

Nelson: ...The thing about huckleberries is: once you've had fresh, you'll never go back to canned.
[Skinner walks up]
Nelson: Uh.. so I kicked the guys ass!
[Skinner grunts approvingly]
Nelson: Now, if the berries are too tart, I just sprinkle them with a little confectioners sugar.
[Kids around him murmur approvingly.]
Episode: Homer and Bart were collecting grease and that girl transfered into Lisa's class

Homer, to Lisa when she builds a perpetual motion machine during a teacher's strike: In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Episode: 2F19, The PTA Disbands

An early reference to Smither's homosexuality might be when Smither suggests, "I don't think women and seamen [semin] mix, sir." Burns says, "Yes, we know what you think." This episode came out long before Smithers was openly gay and I think it's one of the first overt references.
Episode: The Halloween episode with the King Kong parody

Greenpeace Man 1: All right! We're finally going to stop those corporate pigs from dumping that nuclear waste!
Greenpeace Man 2: Oh, no! Our boat is sinking!
Burns: It was I, you fools! The man you trusted wasn't Wavy Gravy at all! [tosses a guitar away] And all this time, I've been smoking harmless tobacco.
Episode: 1F16, Burns' Heir

Rev. Lovejoy: Homer, I'd like you to remember Matthew 7:26. ``A foolish man who who built his house on sand.''
Homer: And remember... Matthew ... 21:17!
Rev. Lovejoy: ``And he left them and went out of the city into Bethany and he lodged there''?
Homer: Yeah... [regains his nerve] Think about it!
Episode: Homer the Heretic

Sideshow Bob: Hah! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?
Episode: 2F02, Sideshow Bob Roberts

Brich Barlow [on the radio; a Rush Limbaugh imitation]: My friends, isn't this just typical? Another intelligent conservative here, railroaded by our liberal justice system, just like [reads lists] Colonel Oliver North, officer Stacey Koons, and cartoon Smokespeson Joe Camel.
[scene switch back to Bart listening to walkman in class]
Well, I've had it! I am going to make it my mission to see that our friend Bob is set free.
Bart: Nooo! [class stops, looks at him]
Edna: Well, despite Bart's objections, the people of South Africa can now vote in free democratic elections.
Episode: 2F02, Sideshow Bob Roberts

Lisa: This is so cool, Bart. We're just like Woodward and Bernstein.
Bart: Yeah, except their dad wasn't waiting in the car reading Archie comics.
Episode: 2F02, Sideshow Bob Roberts

Homer: Weasling out of work is important to learn; it is what separates humans from animals. Except for weasels.
Episode: When Bart joins the Boy Scouts

Marge: Homer, it's very easy to criticize...
Homer: and fun, too!
Episode: when Homer coaches Bart's football team

Marge: You shouldn't pressure Bart like that
Homer: If you know of a better way for me to live through my son, then tell me
Episode: when Homer coaches Bart's football team

Homer: My dad never believed in me. I'm not going to make the same mistake; I'm going to be nicer to my son and meaner to my dad.
Episode: when Homer coaches Bart's football team

Chief Wiggum: Ralphie is so incredible, the special schools are all over him.
Episode: when Bart & Ralph become friends

Barney: If I did vote, I'd vote for him.
Episode: Lisa is an essay finalist about democracy, in Washington, DC

Smithers [as nuclear plant is about to meltdown]: Sir, there may be never be another time to say... I love you, sir.
Burn: Oh, hot dog. Thank you for making my last few moment on earth socially awkward.
Episode: 8F04, Homer Defined

Lisa: [laughing at an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon] Bart, you're not laughing. Too subtle?
Simpsons mocking itself
Episode: 8F04, Homer Defined

Krusty: I'm going to personally spit in every 50th Krusty Burger!
Homer: I like those odds!
Episode: the one when krusty gives away food based on how well the US does in the olympics. He loses a lot of money and gets mad at all the people.

Principal Skinner, as he returns to Capitol City on his motorcycle: Ah, 433rd street -- my old neighborhood
Episode: When Principal Skinner's true identity is discovered: Armond Tanzanian.

Grandpa Simpson to old lady: Hello, beautiful!
Woman: In your dreams
Grandpa: We'll see about that! [falls asleep and starts snoring]
Episode: When Principal Skinner's true identity is discovered: Armond Tanzanian.

Rod: [taking down poster] I don't like this clown!
Bart: Ah, I wouldn't take it down if I were you. It's a load-bearing poster.
Episode: the episode when flanders' house gets blow down in the hurricane. The town helps rebuild it, somebody takes down the poster, and the wall cracks.

Homer to ambulance driver: I want my wife to get the best treatment money can buy!
Ambulance driver flicks switch so ambulance sign changes from "Ambulance" to "Beth Israel."
Homer: are you kidding?
Flicks switch again, sign changes to, "St. Mary's"
Homer: better but...
Flicks switch again, to "Springfield Presbyterian"
Homer: now you're talking!
Episode: the one which starts with marge giving to goodwill, then they go skiing, then lisa has to run the house, then she gives homer and bart "leprosy"

Flanders buys, "Alcohol-free Alcohol"
Episode: the leprosy episode, see above

Homer: alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Episode: don't remember, do you?

Homer: Cloning is a troubling issue. I like the ones with blood.
Episode: don't remember, do you?

Skinner: We can buy REAL periodic tables instead of these promotional ones from Oscar Meyer.
Krabappel: Who can tell me the atomic weight of bolognium?
Martin: Ooh ... delicious?
Krabappel: Correct. I would also accept snacktacular.
Episode: the teacher's strike

Sign: Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's>
Episode: don't remember, do you?

The Slogan on Costingtons the department Store "Over 50 Years Without A Slogan
Episode: don't remember, do you?

Vocabulary

Marge: Homer, has the weight loss tape reduced your appetite?
Homer: Ah, lamentably no. My gastronomic rapacity knows no satieties.
In Episode 8F22 Bart's Friends Fall in Love, Homer buys a weight-loss tape to listen to but accidentally gets a vocabulary improvement tape. Here are some lines of his.

Homer: Here in the boudoir, the gourmand metamorphosizes [sic] into the voluptuary! [He kisses Marge]
Homer's response when Marge asks Homer, in bed, why the weigh loss tapes aren't working.
Episode: Ibid.

Homer: Ooh, a sextet of ale!
Episode: Ibid.

Jebediah: [on film] A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Edna: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Episode: 3F13 Lisa the Iconoclast

Homer: [watching TV] Maggie, can you point to the monkey?
[Maggie points at Homer]
Pfft. What do babies know?
Lisa: Maggie, can you point to the credenza?
[she does so]
Homer: D'oh!
Episode: 1F21, Lady Bouvier's Lover

Chief Wiggum: Ooh, and here, out of the mists of history, the legendary esquilax, a horse with the head of a rabbit and the body of a rabbit.
Episode: 2F15 Lisa's Wedding

Name of machine that shrinks Lisa: Debigulator. When Lisa proposas a "rebigulator," the scientist responds, "That is an idea so patently absurd I can't even begin to comprehend it."
The linguistic humor here arises from the complicated-sounding Latinate word really based on a simple Anglo-Saxon word.
Episode: a Halloween special

Beat it!
I'm not sure what the 'it' refers to...
Episode: AABF18, They Saved Lisa's Brain

Carl [To the MENSA members]: Lets make litter of the literati!
Lenny: That was too clever! You're one of them! [punches him]
Episode: AABF18, They Saved Lisa's Brain

Wolly: I can't believe I fell for counterfit Superbowl tickets. The guys will be crestfallen when they find out.
Homer: Yes, if by 'crestfallen' you mean they're going to kill us.
Episode: Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

Homer: Good things don't end in -eum; they end in -mania or -teria
Episode: when Bart & Ralph become friends

Lisa: Dad, why is the world such a cesspool of corruption?
Homer: [sotto voce] Oh, great... [speaking up] All right, what makes you say that?
Lisa: Well, in Sunday School, we learned that stealing is a sin.
Homer: Well, DUH.
Lisa: But everybody does it. I mean, we're stealing cable as we speak.
Homer: Oh. Look at this way, when you had breakfast this morning, did you pay for it?
Lisa: No.
Homer: And did you pay for those clothes you're wearing?
Lisa: No, I didn't.
Homer: Well, run for the hills, Ma Barker! Before I call the Feds!
Lisa: Dad, I think that's pretty spurious.
Homer: Well, thank you, honey.
Episode: 7F13, Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment (when Homer gets free cable TV)

Burns: Oh, meltdown. It's one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus.
Episode: 8F04, Homer Defined

Lisa: A rose by any other name smells as sweet
Bart: Not if you call them 'Stench Blossoms'.
Episode: When Principal Skinner's true identity is discovered: Armond Tanzanian.

Faith: Lisa, I'm Faith Crowley, Patriotism Editor of Reading Digest.
Homer: Oh, I love your magazine. My favourite section is How to increase your word power. That thing is really, really... good.
Episode: Das Boot, the lord of the flies / bill gates parody

Added: 12/09/2004 05:30:00 PM
|