Integral Options Cafe: Subtle Humor in the Simpsons

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Subtle Humor in the Simpsons

I've always enjoyed that the Simpsons works at the gross level of humor, but that they also slip in some subtle humor that many viewers will miss -- or that just makes fun of things we seldom question. I guess someone else does too, because they assembled a website that collects some of the more obscure humor from the Simpsons.

Here are a few gems.

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
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

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

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
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
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
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)