Simpsons Jokes You Didn't Get The First TIme

Cafe Society
1

(Mods: Maybe more of an IMHO, but Cafe-topical, so do as you will. I took a shot.)

One of the things that makes the Simpsons the show that it is, is the density of jokes present (well, sometimes). Many of these blow right past people, and are often therefore funnier when they finally ARE understood.

The “Sneed’s Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck’s)” is a good example: practically every time this is mentioned on this board, someone comes into the thread and says, “‘Sneed’s Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck’s)’? I don’t get it.” Then, someone has to explain the concept of keeping the rhyming scheme: Sneed’s Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck’s F** & S***).

I have had this same problem. The Aerosmith episode, where Homer invented the new drink, escaped me for ages…until this board came to the rescue. I was informed by one of our gay brethren that both “Flaming Homer” and “Flaming Moe” were peripheral euphemisms for “Flaming Homo.” The lightbulb went on.

Nevertheless, just today, I got another joke from this show. The episode is the one where the power plant is required to hire a female employee, and recruits Mindy Simmons (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer). When Homer first meets Mindy, his brain transforms her into a rendition of WARNING: PAINTED BREASTAGESBotticelli's "Birth of Venus".

Homer being totally starstruck, sits agog. Lenny (who shows up in Homer’s fantasy as one of the zephyrs–the spirits who bring the breezes in the painting) asks: “Homer, what’s the matter?”

“Yeah,” responds Carl (another zephyr), “Aintcha never seen a naked chick ridin’ a clam before?”

Now, I have always thought this was simply a reference to the painting, where Venus is depicted coming to shore on a giant clam shell.

Until today.

Today, I realized that “bearded clam” has often been used as a euphemism for female genitalia.

<<Naked chick riding a clam.>>

Vulgar as hell, but a whole 'nother layer of joke on the joke.

So…what other jokes are the rest of us not getting?

2

[sub]Damned “don’t preview” gene…[/sub]

Mods, if you’re bored?

3

Sneed’s Feed & Seed
Formerly Chuck’s

4

Wow… more than a bit of stretch with the clam thing.

Last night’s had a joke that I don’t kow if it was a non-sequitor or if I just didn’t get it.

Ray: I sold all my weather jokes to Jay Mohr.

???

5

Damn, I didn’t even notice that my joke was mentioned in the OP.

::slinks away quietly::

6

Wasn’t trying to stretch, it just dropped on me today. Perhaps they didn’t intend it, but it still works. I’d heard “bearded clam” before, and of course, there is the “fleecy clam” mentioned by Chuck Barris in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.”

I don’t know if they intended the connection, but (as I said), it added to the humor. Made it funnier, is all.

7

We saw you! We saw you!!

::chases Lord Ashtar under the carpet::

Saw you, saw you, saw you!!!

8

It wasn’t Ray, it was Krusty!

9

sigh… You’re right…

Stupid Ray Magini!

10

In the episode One Fish, Two Fish… where Homer has a day to live, he listens to the Bible audio tapes at the end, read by Larry King. The last line before Larry wraps up and starts chatting about the area and basketball is from Malachi, ‘lest I come and smite the land with a curse’ instead of Revelations ‘May the grace and love… Amen.’ My sister and I were too young to know at the time that Larry King is Jewish and so of course his Bible ends at Malachi (unless he believes the Apocrypha? :wink: ).

11

In the April Fool’s Day episode, Barney offers Homer a beer, and Homer refuses it, having been traumatized by opening a well-shaken beer can. Barney goes, “I can’t bear to see him like this!”, suffocates Homer with a pillow, rips a drinking fountain out of the wall, throws it through a window, and runs away. I thought it was a bizarre nonsequitor until I saw “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Makes me wonder how many other movie references I’ve missed.

12

A friend of mine (who once had a membership to this board, incidentally) told me that once he finally got around to seeing Citizen Kane, dozens of Simpsons bits suddenly made sense.

I’ll admit a number of sexual references tend to escape me (“sugar walls”, “chocolate star wars”) but one that really bugged me was Martin standing nude among the wreckage of his collapsed swimming pool singing “The summer winds / came blowing in / from across the sea…” It looks stylized so I thought it was suggesting something, but I never did find out what.

I might just be overthinking the bit, as I probably did early in the “Homer goes to space” episode when Homer seethes in rage that the inanimate carbon rod has won the employee-of-the-week award. There’s a seemingly stylized bit with Homer standing in a pose of fury with the shadows growing. It apparantly just shows that Homer was standing there in hours frozen in anger, when for years I thought it was a copy of a famous panting or something.

13

“I’ll show you inanimate!”

14

Well, yeah. That, too.

15

I never understood:

It sounds fine to I.

16

Chocolate Star Wars? Huh?

17

They’ve done a bunch of great Cuckoo’s Nest jokes on that show. There’s another episode where, if I remember right, a Native American Forest Ranger asks the Simpsons to vote against some Proposition. Then he picks up a water fountain, throws it through the window, and leaves.

Only to throw the fountain back through another window a moment later, announce “Forgot my hat,” grab it, and leave again.

18

I must’ve missed that too - actually I always miss those, I didn’t get “sugar walls” or “Sneed” or “Flaming Homer” before I came to this board - but ‘chocolate starfish’ is slang for the asshole.

19

The best is the old Jewish man’s line:

“Why don’t you use a door, chief break-everything!”

He’s one of my favorite characters.

20

In the episode, “Marge vs. the Monorail,” when, in city hall, they are entertaining suggestions on what to do with Mr. Burns’ 3 million dollars acuired as a fine for him illegally disposing of nuclear waste, Mr. Burns, disguised, stands and self-servingly proposes they invest the money into the nuclear power plant. This alone is not very coy or clever. Mr. Burns calls himself Mr. Snrub. A bit more subtle, but, again, hardly coy or clever. However, this joke escaped me for the longest time, mostly due to indifference. I figured the joke was his frail, unsucessful attempt to disguise his identity. Later on in life, without provocation or forethought, the fact that Snrub backwards is Burns appeared in my head. It was one of the greater revelations of my life. And…now…pretty darn funny.
The Simpson’s archive site.

Gives away the dialog, jokes and references for every episode.