10 Times The Simpsons Referenced Video Games
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In the 30+ years, it's been on the air, The Simpsons has done sendups and parodies of just about every aspect of pop culture, from movies to anime references littering the show. However, no well is easier to keep coming back to than video games. It’s a medium that keeps evolving in unexpected ways and can be pretty deserving of mockery at times.
Still, The Simpsons’ writing room is filled with plenty of nerds, so there have been some really great jokes over the years. Here are the best video game references in The Simpsons.
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Starting off with a classic and all-time great Simpsons episode, Marge Be Not Proud has a bunch of great video game jokes. Bonestorm is a generic sendup of the overly bloody games of the 1990s, Mortal Kombat, Doom, and all the good gory stuff. While we don’t actually see much of the game, Bart’s desire for it drives the plot of the episode, and it gives us that brilliant “Thrillho” joke, which is really all we need.
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Easily the best joke about predatory arcade games there’s ever been. Aside from the bizarre idea of turning Kevin Costner’s Waterworld into an arcade game, the way Milhouse deposits 40 quarters, only for the game to declare “Game over, would you like to play again?” after a single step is utterly hilarious.
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In first-act setpiece fashion, this is an episode that starts with a reel of jokes that have very little to do with the rest of the story. Here, Homer takes the kids to video game expo, E4, a parody of E3 in case you didn’t get it. There are a bunch of funny parody titles around this scene, but Guts of War is definitely the best, as the developers boast about its impossible difficulty only for Bart to blast through it in no time.
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Despite directly referencing Pokémon many times, the team decided to go the parody route for this one, as the sub-plot of the episode features Lisa and Homer playing this Pokémon Go clone. It’s not a particularly clever joke, but the Peekimon designs are fun. Plus, Lisa sings a parody of the original Pokémon anime theme.
This is by far the laziest joke of the bunch, but it’s still worth mentioning as it was a part of The Simpsons Movie. As you probably guessed, it’s a parody of Grand Theft Auto where you play as a gagster Walrus that guns down penguins. It’s also got surprisingly smooth graphics for an arcade machine.
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In this episode where Marge explores the online world, she quickly begins playing a World of Warcraft-style MMORPG – where it seems Springfield has a dedicated server as the only other players are residents. Still, they use the game to tell a nice store between Marge and Bart, as he lashes out at Marge encroaching on his virtual playground. It’s got a lot of nice little jokes about MMO tropes but doesn’t go especially deep.
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If this game is good enough to distract Lisa from homework, it must be good. A parody of Crash Bandicoot, Dash Dingo is hilarious if only for how hard it leans on the Australian stereotypes. “You must find a devour the seven crystal babies,” is the kind of great absurd comedy only The Simpsons can pull off.
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Time for things to get meta. The Simpsons have had many video games over the years, but the weirdest is the 2007 game released on the consoles of the day. This adventure sees Bart discover the manual for a Simpsons video game that gives all of the family special powers. The whole thing is full of gaming jokes and references, but the best is the revelation that the entire game has itself been a video game that Ralph Wiggum has been playing.
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Easily the funniest video game parody The Simpsons have ever done is this ridiculously dull low-rent golf simulator featuring fake golfer Lee Carvallo. It perfectly captures the mundanity of those titles, especially in the 90s when the technology wasn’t really there to make it engaging.
“Would you like to play again? … You have selected: No.” Side-splitting stuff.
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A very recent episode of the show is set almost entirely in the gaming space and manages to be both cringe-worthy and clever.
Marge catches Bart playing a first-person version of Assassin’s Creed and decides he needs to play something more kid-friendly, like Boblox, which is of course a Roblox parody. Bart manages to make it seedy by exploiting a glitch to repeatedly sell the same cosmetic item over and over, making a bunch of money. It makes for a nuanced take on how even games that look kid-friendly are anything but, none more so than Roblox.
Also, Maggie gets a subplot about being able to talk by using emoji, which is cute.
