Bart: And you are a dorkus mallorkus.
Lisa: That’s not Latin!
It’s just the way she says it. She bites off the words and sounds genuinely stunned that the words she’s hearing aren’t Latin. My bro and I get no end of amusement over this line.
They’ve done that more than once. An episode from years ago also had a bus driving by with an ad for “Mad About You”, which at the time ran opposite the Simpsons. Not only did you have to freeze-frame to see it, but the sign was split between 2 different frames.
Anyone else notice that on recent episodes, they spend too much time pausing between the floors, pretty much clubbing you over the head with the joke? It ruins the subtlety.
Apu telling the Simpsons how he came to America and enrolled at “Springfield Heights Institute of Technology” in the Proposition 24 episode.
From the Mr. Plow episode. At the 2 or 3 am viewing of Homer’s commercial he say “It may be a crappy channel but the Simpsons are on TV”
I also like when Marge is away. (Can’t remember if it’s when she was incarcerated for stealing liquor from the Qwik-e-Mart or when she went to Rancho Relaxo. Lisa suggests that perhaps they ought to do some laundry because “I feel like I’ve been wearing this same red dress forever!”
There is a follow up to the episode guide, very thin though. Apparently there are two. Under a hundred pages, two seasons each.
Similarly, on the “Canary Burns” episode, Homer muses that “Bart won’t be ten forever . . .”
My personal favorite is the episode where the mock UN is shipwrecked on the island, and it turns into a “Lord of the Flies” type thing.
At the very end, as the camera is moving away from the island, James Earl Jones does a voice-over/narrator type thing, saying, “The children all learned to live together in harmony, and eventually they were rescued by… oh, let’s say… Mo.”
I bust up every time I see it.
Flanders: Hey, Homer. What ever happened to that plow you had when you had the plow company?
Homer: What are you talking about?
Flanders: Mr. Plow! You’re wearing the jacket right now.
Homer: (Turns around and is indeed wearing the “Mr. Plow” jacket) I really don’t know what you’re talking about. (Drives away humming the Mr. Plow song.)
The Fighting Hellfish Episode: Burns accidently smashes into Maggie’s room with his crane. Maggie says, “Santa?”
There were a bunch of great throwaways in the medical marijuana episode.
Doctor Hibbert: You’ll need a medical bong. Would you like the wizard, or the skull?
Homer (to the tune of Smoke on the Water): They burned down the gamblin’ house, it died with an awful sound/I really need a candy bar… I think I’ll have a Mounds
Otto: Man, do you realize that Shemp is Hemp spelled backwards?
Homer: And Otto is Otto backwards!
[pause]
Otto: Now I’m just scared.
Otto: [staring at his hands] They call 'em fingers, but you never see 'em fing. Oh, there they go. [Sees his wedding ring and stares] That’s right, I married that chick.
Maggie’s enrolled in the “Ayn Rand School for Tots”, and after OFF returns to fetch her post-escape (cue Great Escape music), Homer wades through the babies to fetch Maggie–an homage to the Hitchcock movie The Birds. As they exit the school, Hitchcock himself walks by with two poodles–the two poodles he cameoed with in The Birds.
Also, the pig latin from the Trashman episode: “Ixnay on the ashhole-tray”
Duffman: “DUFFman CAN’T breathe. OOH no!”
or
“New feelings BREWING in Duffman. WHAT would JESUS do?”
Moe: “It’s a real pleasure to compete against, ah, the Mick there, and the chick wit da rack.”
Mr. Bergstrom: Mrs. Kraboppel, are you trying to seduce me?
Not to hijack the thread, but Family Guy was great at these too… among the funniest thing I’ve ever heard was “You know the Germans - if you don’t join the party, they come and get you!”
Peter is talking about how much fun they are, of course. And just after that - they’re at a fair - the guy in the German food booth attacks the guy in the Polish food booth. And starts making eyes at the (nervous) guy in the Czech booth.
I still say the funniest exchange (well, to me, anyway) was:
Marge’s mother: I was the most beautiful girl in Springfield! It drove all my friends crazy.
Grandpa Simpson: Oh? What friends?
Marge’s mother: Oh, Frances Farmer . . . Zelda Fitzgerald . . . little Sylvia Plath . . .
One of my favorites is from Kent Brockman: “…authorities say that the phony pope can be identified by his high top sneakers and incredibly foul mouth”.
Of course there’s always the one where Burns is making a movie about himself:
“I’m just like Oskar Schindler. We’re both wealthy industrialists, we both made shells for the Nazis. But mine WORKED, dammit!!!”
The scene where Milhouse was running away from being a movie “kid sidekick:” How many corners did the treehouse have?
There are lots of good ones involving Kent Brockman. Whenever a scene starts with him he’s always finishing up a story with something like: “… leaving the Vice President in charge. Now for the lighter side of the news …”
Just tonight, Homer was listing his jobs, and in the time it took him to do that, Marge was able to get up, leave the room, put ALL her hair in curlers, come back to bed, and snuggle in.
In the episode where Bart and Lisa script an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon and submit it under Abe’s name, they get a tour of the animation complex. The guide is explaining how during long progressive shots they sometimes save money by reusing backdrop cells.
At that moment they are all walking down a long hallway and the doorways and trashcans behind them start repeating.
Supposedly, if you freeze frame the scene where they open the door on the room full of animators, you can see that they are being watched over by armed guards.
Anyone have verification of this?
It always kills me when Homer is rummaging around at the swap meet in the “Be Sharps” episode, and everything in the 5 cent box is priceless:
• Copy of the famous rare Declaration of Independence
(“Crap”)
• Famous sheet of upside down biplane stamps
(“Crap”)
• First Superman comic book
(“Crap”)
• Strativarius violin
(“Strati-WHO-vius?!”)
Another one of my favorites is the episode where Lisa tries to see if Bart is dumber than the hamster - when Bart tries to grab the cupcakes, and the shot is identical to the famous scene in A Clockwork Orange when Alex is reaching for the naked breasts and can’t touch them due to his conditioning. The camera angle, shuddering, music, cupcakes…sublime.
This line kills me:
Ralphie Wiggum after eating lots of sugar is jumping up and down “I’m happy AND ANGRY!!”
[cut to outdoor scene, Springfield Nuclear Power Plant]
Crow (off-screen): “CAAW!!”
I was watching the Season 2 DVD with commentary turned on, and someone, possibly Groening, pointed out that a crow squawks every time a scene cuts to the exterior shot of the SNPP. Now I never miss it. Cracks me up, it does.