They’ve had some excellent sacreligious humor. (Or as Homer said of some snack food, something like Stigmata Jam Tarts, “Sacrelicious!”)
In the Halloween segment “The Homega Man”, after the town is wiped out you see that Homer has changed the church marquis to read “Today’s Sermon: HOMER RULES!” and inside the church, a buck-naked Homer is dancing around to a boom-box playing “War”. I thought, “Okay, that’s what blasphemy looks like, right there.” Very funny.
I love it when people say “You don’t have the right to offend people.” Bullshit!
All good examples: but the Glory Hole reference still is my number one as well.
Random one: Homer flashback: Flanders shaking his spandexed butt “Feels like I am wearing nothing at all … nothing at all … nothing at all” “stupid sexy Flanders”
Didn’t Lenny say “jerkoff” during the episode that aired last Sunday (in reference to Carl, who was driving at him at full speed in light of there being no police)?
The best one hasn’t been mentioned.
Marge and Homer are in the barn naked. The farmer with the pitch fork shot gun comes out and yells, “Whoever is in there prepare for some ass forking!”
The only religion references that got them in trouble were those about Catholicism. After the Catholic League complained, it became off-limits for the show to make fun of Catholics. Other Christian denominations are okay, however.
The strange thing is that my mother is very religous, and doesn’t really like some jokes regarding religion. She found “Dancing Jesus” not funny, but the Catholic League didn’t even flinch. The Super Bowl commercial (“We’ve made a few…changes.”) was the exact opposite reaction from both of them, and the reason the show can’t make fun of Catholics anymore. But neither of them cared when Moe suggested “The Christ Punchers” as a gang name…probably because Moe’s an idiot.
I meant, of course, to say “sacrilegious”, not “sacrilegious”. Damn those i’s and e’s!
Homer reading the Bible: “What a preachy book! Everybody’s a sinner – oh, except this guy!”
Are Catholics really out-of-bounds on the Simpsons? Speaking as a lapsed Catholic, that’s a real shame – there’s so much material.
Why are people more offended by that than by the fact that Bart’s favorite video game is something like “DeathCage – the game where condemned prisoners fight to the death with rusty meathooks!”
The thing that makes The Simpsons so great (IMHO) is that they take pot-shots at everything and everybody. In our P.C. society, it seems only possible to say “un-P.C.” things through a cartoon.
The only ethnic group that seems to get a pass is african american. Having the Cosby Clone, Dr. Hibbard(sp?) isn’t exactly bold and daring.
My favorite Homer line: “Stupid, itchy church pants.”
Oh, yeah, the computer says, in a recorded voice-where all the words sound pieced together-
“Hello, Smithers. You’re quite good at turning me on.”
They do laugh at Catholicism a bit. There was the part where Homer and Marge are framed for a “fake” murder, and an Irish priest and Rev. Lovejoy get into it.
“Aw! Go home and have sex with yer wife!”
And then there’s the one where they’re in church and the sermon is extremely long. On the way home, Bart says, “Can’t we go Catholic? At least then we’ll get bread and booze.”
Marge: “No one in this family is going Catholic. Three children are enough, thank you!”
In the Halloween short Night of the Dolphin, Homer lists the glory hole as one of man’s great inventions as they try to prove man is better than dolphins.
The Lovejoy-Catholic fight came after the “wafers and booze” and “we’ve made a few…changes,” but even though the Catholic League complained about those two, they didn’t care about the fight. Probably because it has to do with the differences between religions, and doesn’t attack the religion or its dogma itself-and besides, as one person said, it’s nice to see a joke about Catholic priests that doesn’t involve them molesting somebody.
Y’all are missing a classic. Krusty’s flashback of his childhood, when his father tried to discourage his interest in clowning:
Rabbi Krustofsky: What are you doing in that bathroom?
Herschel (Krusty) Krustofsky: Go away!
[the Rabbi breaks down the bathroom door just in time to see young Krusty spray a burst from a seltzer bottle]
R: [shocked] Oy gevalt!
H: [mortified] Close the door!
Yeah, but look at some of the things Hibbard says. As the writer’s of the show often point out, Hibbard often says things that are totally inappropriate for the occassion. Then there was the episode where they were doing an operation outside and something lands in the patient and kills him. Hibbard’s totally blase about the whole thing. Can you picture the “Coz” pulling a stunt like that on one of his shows? I think not.
