Summary
The Simpsonsis a classic adult-oriented animated family sitcom by Matt Groening. It’s been an ongoing series that has been running since the 90s. With thousands of episodes under its belt, the show has left no stone unturned when it comes to parodying almost anything popular at the time. From beloved celebrities to blockbuster movies, nothing’s too sacred for them to ignore.
Video games are no exception to the rule. Hence, over the years, you’ve probably watched several video game gags unfold over the course of the show that highlight some of the more salient features of each IP. Although most of these quips are side gags that barely get enough run-time, some jokes are fairly well-nuanced and show how the writers deeply appreciate the gaming eco-sphere.
10Tandem Bike Ride With Your Mom
Season 17 - Episode 5
Although the premise sounds kind of boring, it’s theperfect cozy gamefor people who enjoy laid-back games and similarly despise tandem bike rides with their mother like Bart does. The gameplay is simple: you bike along a linear route with your mom and complete objectives like “Enjoy scenery.”
The graphics for the game seemed rather primitive but fit along with other real-life handheld video games on the market since the tech hadn’t quite evolved just yet and portable gaming was fairly new.
9Word Jammers
Season 21 - Episode 2
Even though floppy drive games are some of the oldest relics in the gaming industry, Edna Krabappel hilariously whips out the educational game in front of her class during an episode in season 21. The game’s rather simple; you have three letters that complete a word with one letter blanked out. The objective is to guess which word it is.
Despite how evidently boring the game was, since Krabapple is an old person who most likely played games using floppy disks, it wound up getting her hooked. In a worldwhere casual gameslike Zuma andCandy Crushstill thrive, Word Jammers seems like it would fit right in with the rest on an app store.
8Assassin’s Creed: Summer Of Love
Season 23 - Episode 5
Although it barely featured any cutaway gag for itself, this banner ad from one of the Simpsons episodes wound up portraying one of the funniest iterations of anAssassin’s Creedgame you could ever expect.
Just imagine infiltrating a peace-loving hippy commune in order to orchestrate complex assassination attempts. The actual games feature some rather gritty combat takedowns that might feel very out of place if performed by an anti-war hippy. Hence, the parody version presented in the show is fairly hilarious when pondered.
7BoneStorm
Season 7 - Episode 11
In an effort to mock the monstrous hype the firstMortal Kombatgame generated back in the day amongst teens and tweens alike, Bonestorm is supposedly a gory, over-the-top, violent fighter with some unique-looking four-armed characters like Goro engaged in a fight to the death.
What made things funnier was the fact that this was being aggressively marketed to children like Bart by a bastardized beefy version of a wholesome figure like Santa Claus.
6Cereal Killer
Season 20 - Episode 5
The main objective is fairly simple: all you do is use your weapons to completely annihilate each mascot that pops up on screen at any point in time. It’s simple but fun enough to find real-world copies of it featured on certain flash game websites found online.
5Guts Of War II: Entrails Of Intestinox
As gory as the promotional material for it was in the episode, thisGod Of Warspoof is a comical tie-in that comes with some social commentary, too. The gameplay seems somewhat similar to the real game, but since it was “made for hardcore gamers” to spend hours on, we didn’t see Bart play much of it. He finished the entire campaign within seconds, much to the chagrin of the woeful game dev showing it off.
It has everything that made the original games a cult classic. The gore and glamour are worth giving this game a shot for any normal human being in the real world, unless you’re one of those hardcoreDark Soulsspeedrunners.
4Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories
Season 18 - Episode 14
At first glance, when Bart’s new therapist pulled out her copy of Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories, it seemed like someGTALiberty City orVice City Stories ripoff, but the game turned out to be far more complicated than that.
Instead of partaking in petty car theft and gang violence, the objective of the game is to cause mass destruction and tear at the very fabric of society. The fact that you need to nuke the city to beat the first level is indicative of how over-the-top the game is. Ninjas, cyborgs, and tough Rambo-esque men make this a must-have for any pre-teen.
3Grand Theft Walrus
The Simpsons Movie
Perhaps one of the most interesting spoofs of the GTA franchise The Simpsons writing team ever came up with was the Grand Theft Walrus spoof they featured in The Simpsons Movie. Featuring the violence that made the original games so prolific, this parody joke landed pretty well, and many people wound up wanting to play something similar.
Not only that, what made this bit funnier was how the game port was an arcade cabinet with some rather next-gen graphics, despite the well-known limitations of similar rigs you’d find featured at any arcade at the time.
2Hockey Dad
Season 15 - Episode 4
Imagine a kids' hockey game skirmish leading up to one of the most absurd and violent feuds one can imagine unfolding at such a venue. Hockey as a sport is rather infamous for its overly dedicated fan base and player-on-player violence, so when you add parents to the mix, it just amplifies the animosity already present within.
Only one dad can overcome the odds and truly win for his child’s honor, even if that means murdering your adversary and getting arrested for it. The funniest part of this bit is hearing the announcer applaud the winner for being a “big man.”
1Super Slugfest
Season 1 - Episode 6
Fans of the ever-popular game Mike Tyson’sPunch-Out will easily recognize this side-gag as a rather cartoonishly violent rendition of their beloved classicsince it basically features similar gameplay. From bonking one another across the side of the head, the game winds up breaking conventional video game logic. It allows the players to assault others from seemingly impossible camera angles despite being featured on an Atari console with primitive joystick controllers.
The winner of the match can either win by knockout or by slugging it out until the opponent quite literally loses their head and has it bleed out onto the ring. It’s one of the earliest video game-related spoofs The Simpsons ever featured and quite possibly one of the funniest.
