Is the line that Bart writes on the chalkboard and the couch scene both specific to that episode? Can you tell what episode will be on by the opening credits? Or are they just random?
Yes, they are specific although sometimes they repeat or sometimes the scene is cut due to a shortened opening.
The couch gag is always there, though.
Here’s a list of all the couch gags. To confirm what ElwoodCuse says, you can see from the list that many of them are repeated. Here’s a list of all the chalkboard gags.
There was also a whole season(season 2 I think) where the same couch gag was used in each episode. It’s the one where they run in and a duplicate family is already seated on the couch.
Should mention that they frequently reuse different couch gags for episodes in syndication, so if you’re watching a rerun, odds are you’re not seeing the original couch gag that aired with the original episode.
5-HT thank you for that bit of information! I was going nuts trying to figure out why that particular scene seemed to come up MUCH more often than the others! I even went so far as to log the episodes (two a day) for a MONTH to prove it to a friend! (yep, they showed up more often. I’d have to dig up the paper to say how much.)
Although 5-HT’s bit of info is interesting, it is erroneous. However, as Anamorphic’s link shows, there are 35 episodes that in syndication feature the double-Simpsons intro. Anyone with the Season Two DVD can prove that they did not use the same couch gag for all 24 or so episodes.
Last night I saw an episode without the couch gag, went straight from “The Simpsons” to “created by”.