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The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom ever, and it’s filled with larger-than-life characters doing insane things. When Google was founded in 1998, it was already in its tenth season. When Reddit first came online in 2005, it had just finished its 16th.
So it’s no wonder The Simpsons is a treasure trove of meme materials. It’d be impossible to cover them all, so we’re taking a break from our usual format today. Here are our top six favorite Simpsons memes of all time.
6) Bart Simpson Chalkboard
Our number six pick comes from the second-ever episode of the series, titled “Bart the Genius.” Originally airing back in January of 1990, this was a simple-but–funny gag on TV, birthing an equally simple but effective meme. In August 2007, the first-known “Bart Simpson Chalkboard Sign Generator” was released on txt2pic .com, but it was followed by any number of imitators. Choose your target fandom, and away you go.
5) Old Man Yells at Cloud
More than a decade after Bart first wasted all that chalk, Grandpa Abe—after taking some classes at the Springfield community center—gets his new driver’s license. Rather than taking a new picture, he convinces the DMV to let him use a photo of himself that once appeared in a newspaper.
In 2009, Halolz user Shawn Handyside edited a frame from the episode to poke fun at the Final Fantasy 7 protagonist for his otherworldly appearance.
In the following years, users on Tumblr, Facebook, and Reddit co-opted the image to get in on the outrage and absurdity of a range of bizarre moments in the zeitgeist. Everything from Clint Eastwood’s 2012 RNC “empty chair speech,” to 2015’s Starbucks red-cups, amid backlash where many coffee-lovers took the redesign of the previous holiday cups as an affront to Christianity generally, and Christmas specifically.
4) “I’m in danger”
This one technically comes from a Family Guy episode—albeit the Simpsons crossover. Drawn-out, epic battles have long been a staple of Family Guy filler time, and in the Season 13 premiere, Peter Griffin turns his eye away from his usual enemy, a chicken, and onto Homer Simpson. Mid-way through a fight that begins in the front yard and ends in superhero-style mass destruction, Ralph Wiggum gets a back-row seat to the fistfight as Peter and Homer crash a school bus into everything in sight.
Sort of like KC Green’s “This is Fine,” “I’m in Danger,” became an online way to express anxiety over a situation in which you have no control and feel like everything bad that could happen, is about to happen.
3) “I for one welcome our new overlords”
“I for one welcome our new overlords” is almost more of a catchphrase than a meme. Dating back to a Season 5 episode “Deep Space Homer,” it was first uttered by Springfield news anchor Kent Brockman in reference to the invading space ants. All over Metafilter and The Straight Dope in the mid-2000s, to welcome our new overlords means trying to get on the good side of whatever non-human it seems like is about to take over next.
Eventually, this led to users taking stills from Brockman’s newscast and inserting logos and images in the place of his over-the-shoulder graphic, in reference to his now-iconic line. And notably, when IBM’s supercomputer Watson bested Ken Jennings at Jeopardy in 2011, Ken included this note in his final jeopardy answer.
2) Lisa’s blank presentation
Our number two pick is a product of the smartest member of the Simpsons household, Lisa.
In Season 12, after being punched in the face by the new girl at school, Lisa endeavors to figure out why people bully in the first place and subsequently, demonstrates her findings at a conference.
In the real world, this provides internet-goers a literal blank canvas on which to write out whatever people think they’re right about. And anyone who’s ever spent time on the internet knows that is a lot.
1) Homer backing into bushes
And last but not least, our number one Simpsons meme is Homer backing into bushes.
All the way back in 1994, during the appropriately titled season five episode “Homer Loves Flanders,” Homer, out of character, becomes friends with Flanders. After asking if he wants to get together but is rebuffed, Homer disappears into the bushes separating their two front yards.
In 2010, it appeared as a reaction gif, and in 2012, a Tumblr blog emerged in which the bushes were removed, which lets users have Homer disappear into virtually anything. In The Simpsons’s 30th season, the writers of the show itself even got in on the meme, having Home text a gif of it to Lisa during an episode.
At one point or another, we’ve all had a moment when we wish we could just disappear, and this is a perfect way to get that across online.
These are just a few instances where the Simpsons-verse leaked out into the online world. We didn’t even mention Millhouse is not a meme, Stupid Sexy Flanders, Limewire, Steamed Hams, or any of the other countless times Matt Groening’s characters made us all laugh well beyond their original air dates.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, cartoon-y characters make for good memes, and the Simpsons are no exception.
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