Wait, what? I read this blog regularly and I have never seen anything about a TV Show episode countdown-how could this be?!? If you're asking that first, thanks for reading regularly and second, yeah, that's on me, not on you. Last year I started a series of the best episodes of all-time of my favorite series, but got stuck when I hit #2 (they are some of the most-trafficked posts in the history of the site and some of my favorites, so if you haven't read them yet please click the links at the bottom of the page, and remember the date they were published if you're grousing about the fifth season missing for Game of Thrones). It's hard not to be daunted when picking the best episodes of the television series The Simpsons, though. 574 episodes and counting, so many of them absolute brilliance, and yes, as a true fan I have seen literally every episode. I actually started watching the show in the mid-90's when my parents had banned me from watching the show-my brother had the same idea, and we were both sneaking around watching it on different televisions when we both laughed at the same spot, thus blowing both of our covers (after that, in a far more environmentally-friendly way we perused clandestinely on the same television).Creating a Top 10 list for it, though, was a challenge not just because of the daunting task ahead, but also because with dozens and dozens of well-rounded side characters, it's hard not to look chummy and a bit like you aren't spreading the wealth. My favorite characters on the show are Lisa, Sideshow Bob, and Mr. Burns, and I could easily just fill up a Top 10 with those three characters as the central figures and be happy, but that would leave out Marge, Homer, Bart, Moe, Edna, and all of the other Springfield-ers that fill Matt Groening's magical world. As a result, I tried to spread the wealth a bit, but you can judge in the comments if I did what I intended. Since you've already waited long enough, I won't make you stave off any further. Here are my Top 10 Simpsons episodes:
Possibly the prettiest episode of the series (the animation is flawless), this is also one of the greatest stand-alone style episodes, where Abe, dismissed by his grandson for being an old coot, realizes that he is one of the last surviving members of the Flying Hellfish, and has a tontine with Mr. Burns involving some priceless World War II artifacts (in true Simpsons attention to detail, the paintings depicted are actually lost WWII art). The episode features Mr. Burns at his most diabolical, including hiring a bumbling assassin to off Grampa and consistently tries to murder he and Bart. The episode is unique not only because it's one of the few where Homer, Marge, and Lisa don't factor in at all (this is clearly a Bart-centered episode), but also because it's so action-packed, essentially serving as a stirring adventure movie more than your average Simpsons installment.
"The dead have risen-and they're voting Republican!" So proclaims Bart in arguably my favorite line in the entire series. This is one of the best Sideshow Bob installments in the series, a wonderful parody of the entire political system, with Bob being released from prison and promptly runs for political office against the inept Mayor Quimby. Bob wins the election, but it turns out he was pulling a Mayor Daley-style election-style, having dead citizens of Springfield out voting for him to ensure his victory. The political junkie in me is overjoyed by all of the detail in this episode, from Birch Barlow's blowhard impression of Rush Limbaugh to the Waylon Smithers Deep Throat aspect to the final courtroom speech from Bob. Best of all may be Kelsey Grammar actually being a charming, confident conservative in real-life, finding a strong corollary between art and life.
I'm just now realizing these episodes were back-to-back-awesome. You can't do a Simpsons rundown without at least one Treehouse of Horror, where all pandemonium is thrown into the carefully structured universe of Springfield, and this is certainly the best one. When the clever Soylent Green-parody is easily the worst of the bunch, you know you're in for a treat. You also have the brilliant "Time and Punishment," where Homer throws us into a series of visually-popping realities ranging from a world where Bart and Lisa are giants to Ned Flanders as a cruel dictator (considering he's also the devil, it's sort of a cold rag the producers throw on religious zealots in the series). Best of all you have Homer doing his best Jack Torrance in "The Shinning," with a dead ghost Moe and a soon-to-be-axed Willie filling out the supporting cast. I cannot stop laughing during the episode's best sight gag, where Homer continually chops into doors saying not just "Here's Johnny," but also taglines for The Late Show and (successfully) with 60 Minutes. It's smart comedy at its brainiest.
Lisa Simpson is a tragic figure in a lot of ways. A young woman with sparkling ideals, stuck in a house that frequently dismisses her as a kook or someone that is "outside the norm," she needed a role model, and that comes in the form of substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom. While both Marge and Homer have had near affairs or cheated on the family, no one did it in the emotionally-starved way that Lisa did, as she finds a newfound hope in a role model who celebrates her individuality. The episode's best moments may not just involve Dustin Hoffman's wonderful guest spot (he was billed under the pseudonym Sam Etic), but the way Lisa blasts Homer for being callous and how Marge a-characteristically stands against her husband stating, "no little girl can be happy unless she has faith in her daddy." In one of those rare moments in the series where Homer isn't just given a free pass, he actually apologizes, finds some solace in Lisa, and she forgives him. It's a beautiful moment in perhaps the series most poignant relationship (Homer and his completely opposite daughter Lisa), and one that decades later is still fondly recalled by fans of the show, including yours truly.
I promise not to make this entire list about Homer-shaming, but if Lisa got her day against her father's oafishness in Number 7, then "A Streetcar Named Marge" gave his wife a moment of pride over Homer's callousness. Marge is playing Blanche DuBois in a local production of A Streetcar Named Desire, but Homer is acting with indifference toward her artistic and creative side, and she fuels her anger at him to drive her performance. The show is wonderful not just because it allows Marge to have a personality outside of being just a wife and mother, but also because it shows the weird dynamic in their relationship has to be stretched on occasion, as Homer is too unkind to Marge too often, and she reaches a breaking point. This alone would qualify it for the list, but we also have one of the series' great B-plots with Maggie at an Ayn Rand School for Tots, where she parodies The Great Escape to get back at her teacher for taking away her pacifier. So memorable was this story that it became the source of The Longest Daycare, which scored The Simpsons their first Oscar nomination.
Occasionally in the 1970's, the era of sitcoms that Matt Groening would have grown up with, episodes would try to encapsulate something more important, something uncomfortable for the audience. It was a moving experience, principally because it showed that our beloved comedic characters whom we would go to for warmth and familiarity could have their lives interrupted by a crisis. This is probably the closest The Simpsons ever got to that, with Bart selling his soul to Milhouse without realizing its worth. In the end he gets it back from the always kind Lisa, but in the meantime he goes on a spiritual journey, feeling lost and alone. This episode has been taught in religion classes about the nature of the soul and spirituality, and is surely the darkest moment in the history of the series. It also proclaims that Bart is familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda, a passion I wouldn't have expected from him.
If ever there was a season of television that the Emmys should be ashamed for not letting be nominated for Best Comedy Series, it is the fourth season of The Simpsons. Basically every episode from the season is considered a classic, perhaps none more iconically than Mr. Plow, Homer's snow-plowing business that creates him much success, and garners him the most familiar ditty of the series (just try not to sing it right now). The episode features an intense rivalry with Barney, who essentially pushes Homer out of business with Linda Ronstadt somehow in tow, and has wonderful touches from Homer doing an impression of an old woman (Forbidden Widow's Peak) to God himself ruining both of their businesses at the end of the episode. All-in-all, it might be a cliche to put it on a list of the greatest episodes, but like "Time Enough at Last" and "The One Where Everyone Finds Out," "Mr. Plow is undeniable.
Once again we have back-to-back episodes, but unlike "Mr. Plow," this one is iconic for the ridiculously beautiful ending to the episode. The characters, while trying to get Maggie to speak, stumble instead into a story about Lisa's first word. We were still close enough to beginning of the series to get away with a story of the children being in the actual 1980's, rather than later gags where flashbacks couldn't rely on pop culture, and so you get wonderful sight gags of Homer singing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." The episode's ending is what sets it apart, though, as the producers got Oscar-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor, one of the biggest stars to grace the series, to be the voice of Maggie Simpson, having her first word be "daddy." It's a beautiful little moment that Taylor reportedly did dozens of takes to get exactly right, but it's perfect that the silent Simpson get such a gargantuan titan of acting to be her vocalist.
For the record, the eleventh episode (since we went three out of four here) of "Homer's Triple Bypass" was also quite wonderful and poetic, but if I have to pick a favorite episode from the best season of the series, it would assuredly be "Marge vs. the Monorail," a wonderful parody of The Music Man which involves Marge trying to solve the city's infrastructure problem with the millions that Mr. Burns has been forced to spend as a result of EPA violations. However, Marge is overruled by a huckster named Lyle Lanley, who convinces the city that they need a monorail to improve transit. He shortchanges them on supplies and eventually they build a monorail (with Homer as conductor, naturally) that is clearly destined for doom. The entire episode is classic, with a lovely cameo from Leonard Nimoy and the classic "Monorail Song" at the episode's center. All-in-all, a great showcase for both Julie Kavner and the late, great Phil Hartman.
How do you pick a best episode of a series that has run for 26 seasons? Well, you start with an episode that would result in iconography for the series (that score!), you mix in a plot so impressively full that you don't need a B-story, and then you mix in references from everyone from Gilbert & Sullivan to Linda Lavin. Honestly-this is pretty much a perfect 22 minutes of television, with Kelsey Grammar wonderfully-playing his role as Sideshow Bob, creating the model for pretty much every later endeavor he undertakes, while the entire Simpsons clan gets consistent humor and sight gags. Parodying the similarly-named Robert de Niro picture of two years earlier, this shows exactly what I love about The Simpsons: it's biting, wry, and not afraid to keep the humor sophisticated, even amidst the occasional belch.
And there you have it-my list of the Top 10 episodes. I swear you won't have to wait as long for Number One on this list as you did for Number Two, but in the meantime, let's discuss-did I make the right call for the Matt Groening series (I'm a little disappointed I didn't pick any of the episodes past Season 7, as there's still a lot of great stuff there, even if this list sort of backs up the "Simpsons classic years" argument)? If not, the comments are there for the typing!
For more of my favorites: Girls, Pushing Daisies, How I Met Your Mother, Game of Thrones, The Office, Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, South Park, Mad Men, The Twilight Zone, Friends, Gilmore Girls
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