The opening sequence of the American animated television series ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...

'' is among the most popular opening sequences in television. It is accompanied by " ''The Simpsons'' Theme", one of television's most recognizable theme songs. The first episode to use this introduction was the series' second episode "

Bart the Genius "Bart the Genius" is the second episode of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 14, 1990. It was the first episode written by Jon Vitti. It is the show's ...

". Each episode has the same basic sequence of events: the camera zooms through cumulus clouds, through the show's title towards the town of Springfield. The camera then follows the members of the

Simpson family The Simpson family are the fictional characters featured in the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. The Simpsons are a nuclear family consisting of married couple Homer and Marge and their three children, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Th ...

on their way home. Upon entering their house, the Simpsons settle down on their couch to watch television. One of the most distinctive aspects of the opening is that three of its elements change from episode to episode:

Bart Bart is a masculine given name, usually a diminutive of Bartholomew, sometimes of Barton, Bartolomeo, etc. Bart is a Dutch and Ashkenazi Jewish surname, and derives from the name ''Bartholomäus'', a German form of the biblical name ''Bartho ...

writes different phrases on the school

chalkboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...

Lisa Lisa or LISA may refer to: People People with the mononym * Lisa Lisa (born 1967), American actress and lead singer of the Cult Jam * Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA", Japanese singer and producer * Lisa Komine (born 1978), J ...

plays different solos on her

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

(or occasionally a different instrument), and different visual gags accompany the family as they enter their living room to sit on the couch. The standard opening has had two major revisions. The first was at the start of the second season when the entire sequence was reanimated to improve the quality and certain shots were changed generally to add characters who had been established in the first season. The second was a brand-new opening sequence produced in high-definition for the show's transition to that format beginning with " Take My Life, Please" in season 20. The new opening generally followed the sequence of the original opening with improved graphics, even more characters, and new jokes.

Sequence

1990

This sequence opens with the show's title in yellow approaching the camera through misty cumulus clouds in a dark blue sky. The shot cuts through the

counter Counter may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Counter machine, a subclass of register machines * Counter (digital), an electronic device, mechanical device, or computer program for counting * Loop counter, the variable that controls the iter ...

in the letter "P" to an establishing shot of the town of Springfield. The camera zooms in through the town, toward a lavender Springfield Elementary and then through a window to a lavender classroom, where

is writing lines on the chalkboard as a punishment, and three drawings are seen on the wall. When the

school bell The ringing of a school bell announces important times to a school's students and staff, such as marking the beginnings and ends of the school day, class period, and breaks. In some schools it may take the form of a physical bell, usually e ...

rings, Bart leaves in a hurry and

skateboard A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. They are usually made of a specially designed 7-8 ply maple plywood deck and polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboarder ...

s out of the school doors. The shot cuts to

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

working at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant wearing a safety mask while handling a glowing green rod of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

with a pair of silver tongs. An unknown co-worker in the background eats a sandwich with another pair of tongs. The end-of-shift whistle blows, and Homer immediately takes off his mask and drops his tongs to leave work. As he does so, the uranium rod bounces into the air and falls down the back of his radiation suit. The next shot shows Marge and Maggie checking out at a supermarket. Maggie, who is sitting on the conveyor belt, is inadvertently scanned along with the groceries as Marge reads a magazine. Maggie is rung up at a price of $847.63 (representing the monthly cost of raising a child at the time) and bagged. Marge frantically looks around for Maggie as the bag is dropped into her shopping cart which startles her and makes her turn around, then breathes a sigh of relief when she pops up from the bag.

is shown next at band practice. The opening theme coordinates with this shot, and is orchestrated as if it were played by the school band. Mr. Largo stops the rest of the band to order Lisa out of the rehearsal for her unorthodox playing of her saxophone, which is light blue in this sequence, but gold in the episode. She continues to improvize on her way out of the room. Shots of the family on their way home to

742 Evergreen Terrace The Simpsons house is the residence of the Simpson family in the animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'' and in ''The Simpsons Movie''. The house's address is most frequently attributed as 742 Evergreen Terrace. In the series, the house is occupied by ...

are then shown. As Homer drives through Springfield, he fumbles behind his neck, pulls the uranium rod out of his shirt collar, and throws it out the car window. As it bounces off the curb near Moe's Tavern, Bart skateboards past, noticing a bank of televisions in a store window he passes showing

Krusty the Clown Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofsky (; ) better known by his stage name Krusty the Clown (sometimes spelled as Krusty the Klown), is a recurring character on the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Dan Castel ...

; he then passes a bus stop and unwittingly steals its sign. The five unknown characters waiting at the stop then chase after a bus that fails to stop for them. As soon as Bart crosses the road, a car drives past and Maggie is seen inside at the steering wheel. The camera alternates between close-ups of her jerking the wheel back and forth and the car veering wildly, it then zooms out to reveal that her wheel is only a toy. Marge is actually driving the car, and Maggie imitates her horn-honking. Lisa then rides her bicycle down the street, her books and saxophone case strapped into the front basket and the back of her seat, respectively; when she hits a bump, the books are briefly jolted upward but held down by the straps. Lisa is the first to arrive at home as the garage door opens, jumping off her bike with her things, letting it roll into the garage, and running for the front door. Homer pulls into the driveway and parks, after which Bart bounces his skateboard off the car roof and follows Lisa toward the door. When Homer steps out of the car, he screams at the sight of Marge's car approaching and runs into the garage; the shot switches briefly to Marge's perspective as he escapes through a door into the house and she stops just short of crashing into the wall. The family members then enter the living room from different directions, creating a segue into the

couch gag The opening sequence of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' is among the most popular opening sequences in television. It is accompanied by " ''The Simpsons'' Theme", one of television's most recognizable theme songs. The fi ...

and finally the creator and developers' credits, shown on the television screen. Notably in "

", the famous high-pitched scream of Homer's when he runs from Marge's car into the house is cut. The scream is added in the third episode, "

Homer's Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

1990–2009

For the second season, the original opening was reanimated. Most shots were very closely copied, with some shots (such as Homer's first shot) appearing to be traced. The coloring was changed on most shots, and the characters and animation were cleaned up. Some scenes were replaced or modified: In Bart's chalkboard gag, the school is now orange with purple accents instead of lavender, the classroom is now olive green instead of lavender, there are desks, a red wastebasket and a bookshelf in the background, and a photo of Homer as

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

and a clock are seen on walls. In Homer's first shot at the power plant, Homer's tongs are now orange instead of silver, and Mr. Burns and

Smithers Smithers is a surname of English origin. It derives from the Middle English term "smyther", referring to a metalsmith, and is thus related to the common occupational surname Smith. The name Smither is related. People *Alan Smithers (born 1938 ...

study certain plans in the background in place of the unknown co-worker. When the end-of-shift whistle blows, Mr. Burns checks his wristwatch to see if it is working, he then starts shaking it suggesting that it isn't working. When Bart skateboards down the sidewalk, the scenery is different, the bank of televisions is changed and shorter, and Bart no longer notices them. Instead, he weaves in between a series of secondary characters who crowd the sidewalk and then crosses the road near Moe's Tavern, earning the ire of

Chief Wiggum Chief Clancy Wiggum is a fictional character from the animated television series ''The Simpsons'', voiced by Hank Azaria. He is the chief of police in the show's setting of Springfield, and is the father of Ralph Wiggum and the husband of Sara ...

. This segment is notably shorter than the original bus-stop segment. Lisa's bike ride is cut, and instead, upon Marge and Maggie honking their horns, there is a "whip-pan" across the town, featuring a significant number of secondary characters, towards the Simpsons' house. Homer reaches the house first instead of Lisa, and Bart bounces his skateboard off the car and rolls toward the front door. Homer leaves his car and has to dodge Lisa as she pedals up the driveway, following Bart without dismounting from her bike. The difference in the driveway scene is that Lisa's saxophone is no longer in the case, but on the back of her bike. Finally, the family television has been redesigned to give it a more retro style than in

season 1 Season One may refer to: Albums * ''Season One'' (Suburban Legends album), 2004 * ''Season One'' (All Sons & Daughters album), 2012 * ''Season One'' (Saukrates album), 2012 See also * * * Season 2 (disambiguation) * Season 4 (disambiguati ...

. Since this season, there have been some episodes that had the opening sequence start from the driveway scene. After the first half of

season 2 Season 2 may refer to: * ''Season 2'' (Infinite album) * '' 2econd Season'' See also

* {{disambig ...

, a yell of " D'oh" of Homer's when he dodges Lisa on her bike was added. Starting with

season 3 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In tempera ...

, the new arrangement of the opening theme is used throughout the intro.

2009–present

The new opening sequence was animated for the show's transition to the High Definition format, premiering with the season 20 episode " Take My Life, Please". This sequence is similar to the previous one, but features many visual changes that take advantage of the wider format. The sequence opens as usual with movement through cumulus clouds, while a 3-eyed crow flies by. The crow is sometimes replaced by Shary Bobbins flying by using her umbrella, a stork carrying Maggie in a bag, Homer on a chair on balloons,

Santa's Little Helper Santa's Little Helper is a fictional dog in the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is the pet greyhound of the Simpson family. He was previously voiced by Frank Welker, and is currently voiced by Dan Castellaneta. The dog ...

catching a frisbee or on his flying doghouse (a reference to

Snoopy Snoopy is an anthropomorphic beagle in the comic strip ''Peanuts'' by Charles M. Schulz. He can also be found in all of the ''Peanuts'' films and television specials. Since his debut on October 4, 1950, Snoopy has become one of the most recog ...

's flying ace story in ''

The Peanuts Movie ''The Peanuts Movie'' (known in some countries as ''Snoopy and Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie'') is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy film based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip ''Peanuts'', produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed ...

''), the Planet Express Ship from '' Futurama'', Maggie and Grampa bringing down the old and up the new year ribbons respectively, and others. In some HD episodes, the beginning just shows the title and cuts through the counter in the "P" (similar to the past sequences). The camera then zooms past the nuclear power plant and into the town square where

Jimbo Jimbo is a diminutive form of the given name James. It is also a Japanese surname, and it means state or province in Swahili. It may refer to: Given name or nickname * Jimbo (drag queen), Canadian drag queen * Jimbo Aquino (born 1985), Filipin ...

and Kearney saw off the head of the statue of Jebediah Springfield (a

callback Callback may refer to: * Callback (comedy), a joke which refers to one previously told * Callback (computer programming), executable code that is passed as a parameter to other code * Callback (telecommunications), the telecommunications event th ...

to "

The Telltale Head "The Telltale Head" is the eighth episode of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 25, 1990. It was written by Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Sam Simon and Matt Gro ...

") which falls onto the head of

Ralph Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf"). The most common forms ...

, who is holding an

ice cream cone An ice cream cone, poke (Ireland/Scotland) or cornet (England) is a brittle, cone-shaped pastry, usually made of a wafer similar in texture to a waffle, made so ice cream can be carried and eaten without a bowl or spoon, for example, the Hong Kon ...

. As it falls on him, he inadvertently tosses the cone into the statue's eye. Then, in selected episodes from " How the Test Was Won" to " Moe Letter Blues", he says a few words after the head falls on him. The camera then weaves through several buildings and structures, featuring a "billboard gag" towards Springfield Elementary and zooms through the familiar window where Bart writes lines as punishment on the chalkboard. In the background, the wastebasket is now dark green instead of red. And the picture on the wall is Homer as an astronaut instead of

. When the bell rings and Bart skateboards out of the school doors, plowing into a pile of leaves raked up by

Groundskeeper Willie William MacMoran MacDougal, better known as Groundskeeper Willie, is a recurring character on ''The Simpsons'', voiced by Dan Castellaneta. He is the head groundskeeper and Janitor at Springfield Elementary School. Willie is almost feral in nature ...

while landing on and exposing

Barney Barney may refer to: People and fictional characters * Barney (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Barney (surname), a list of people Film and television * the title character of ''Barney & Friends'', an American live actio ...

who is buried underneath which also causes him to belch. Homer is shown at the power plant, and in the background,

Lenny Leonard The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The writ ...

is standing on a ladder changing the number of "days without an accident" on the sign from 2 to 3. When the end-at-shift whistle blows, Lenny falls off the ladder onto

Carl Carlson The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The write ...

who is securing the bottom of the ladder, and as in the previous opening sequences, the green uranium rod falls into Homer's clothing as he leaves. The scene changes to Marge at the supermarket checkout with her older twin sisters, Patty and Selma. Among the products Marge is buying is Tomacco juice, Mr. Sparkle detergent and Krusty-O's cereal. Maggie is scanned, and the price doubles from $243.26 to $486.52, before she is put in the shopping cart. When Maggie pops her head out of the paper bag, Marge looks relatively calm and does not panic, unlike in the previous sequences. Maggie shakes her fist at

Baby Gerald The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The writ ...

, who is beside her in another shopping cart, and Baby Gerald shakes his fist too. At band practice, Mr. Largo dismisses Lisa, who plays a solo as she leaves and then pokes her head back in the door to finish it. One notable difference from the previous opening sequences is Sherri and Terri, who are texting messages instead of playing their flutes. Another one is that Bart's classmates

Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...

and Wendell appear in the background. Also, Lisa's saxophone is now gold like during almost every episode instead of light blue, and she is occasionally depicted playing a different instrument (trumpet, harp, etc.). Homer is then shown driving home and discards the stuck uranium rod out the window; it lands in

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded f ...

's lap and he eats it. Bart skateboards past Otto before weaving through several townspeople: a machete-swinging

Sideshow Bob Robert Underdunk Terwilliger Jr., PhD, better known as Sideshow Bob, is a recurring character in the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer and first appeared in the episode " The Telltale Head". Bob is a se ...

Helen Lovejoy The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The writ ...

, Apu and his octuplets, Moe,

Comic Book Guy Jeff Albertson, commonly known as Comic Book Guy, is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the second-season episode " Three Men and a Comic Book", wh ...

, Disco Stu, the

Crazy Cat Lady The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The write ...

, the

Rich Texan The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The write ...

and Chief Wiggum, who shakes his baton at Bart as Bart crosses the road.

Hans Moleman The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The writ ...

pokes his head out from a

manhole A manhole (utility hole, maintenance hole, or sewer hole) is an opening to a confined space such as a shaft, utility vault, or large vessel. Manholes are often used as an access point for an underground public utility, allowing inspection, m ...

, which slams down on him when Marge drives over it in her car. Marge is now driving an orange station wagon instead of a red sedan, reflecting the change in the show. Maggie is shown in a booster seat in the middle while Grampa sleeps next to her. When Marge and Maggie honk their respective horns, Grampa is startled awake and his

dentures Dentures (also known as false teeth) are prosthetic devices constructed to replace missing teeth, and are supported by the surrounding soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity. Conventional dentures are removable ( removable partial denture o ...

fall out. The camera then pans across Springfield and then cuts to the driveway scene. Unlike the other two opening sequences, Marge's car now hits Homer and carries him on the hood until it stops short, flinging him ahead to smash a Homer-shaped hole through the door. The

is shown before the credits are displayed on a new, wall-mounted widescreen

plasma television A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be release ...

, which sometimes falls off and breaks or (in some episodes) the credits are presented in another way. Notably, in "Take My Life, Please", the loud belch of Barney's when Bart plows into him is cut. The belch was added in the sixth HD episode, " Wedding for Disaster". In the 500th episode, the opening sequence was a montage of all previous couch gags. Some episodes since season 22 do not feature an opening sequence at all, instead it cuts from the clouds to the start of the episode.

Season 30 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

was the first season to not include shots of the family on their way home. Season 32 was the first season to only include chalkboard gags, the driveway scene and couch gags, and Season 33 was the first season to exclude the chalkboard gags at the beginning of each episode.

Development and variations

Creator

Matt Groening Matthew Abram Groening ( ; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is the creator of the comic strip ''Life in Hell'' (1977–2012) and the television series ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), ''Fut ...

developed a lengthy opening sequence for the first season of ''The Simpsons'', in order to cut down on the animation necessary for each episode, but devised the two gags as compensation for the repeated material each week. In the first of the original gags, the camera zooms in on Springfield Elementary School, where Bart can be seen writing a message on the chalkboard. This message, which changes from episode to episode, has become known as the "chalkboard gag". The other gag is known as a "couch gag", in which a twist of events occur when the family meets to sit on their couch and watch television. Groening, who had not paid much attention to television since his own childhood, was unaware that title sequences of such length were uncommon by that time. The episode "

" was the first to feature the series' full title sequence. The

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

, which plays over the sequence, was composed by Danny Elfman in 1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro-style theme. The piece, which took two days to create, has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career. The season two episode " Bart Gets an 'F" featured a revised opening sequence and a rearranged version of the theme, which was shortened by fifteen seconds from its original length of roughly 90 seconds. The opening sequence for the first season showed Bart stealing a "Bus Stop" sign; whilst the new sequence featured him skateboarding past several characters who had been introduced during the previous season. Starting with this season, there were three versions of the opening: a full roughly 1-minute-15-second-long version, a 45-second-long version and a 25-second-long version. This gave the show's editors more leeway. The current arrangement of the theme by Alf Clausen was introduced in

. " Take My Life, Please" was the first episode of ''The Simpsons'' to air in

720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...

high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

, though not the first time ''The Simpsons'' appeared in high-definition, as ''

The Simpsons Movie ''The Simpsons Movie'' is a 2007 American Animation, animated comedy film based on the long-running animated sitcom ''The Simpsons''. The film was directed by the show's supervising director David Silverman (animator), David Silverman and star ...

'' was rendered in HD. This episode was the first to feature the new opening sequence. It was the first major permanent change to the show's introduction since the opening added in season two; previous changes have included variations in the duration of the intro, and special one-shot introductions for the ''

Treehouse of Horror ''Treehouse of Horror'' is an annual series of special Halloween-themed episodes of the animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'', with 33 anthology episodes between 1990 and 2022. Also known as ''The Simpsons Halloween Specials'', each episode typica ...

'' Halloween episodes, as well as a handful of others. This new intro also includes some 3D animation when the camera pans over Springfield. ''The Simpsons'' creator

told the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'': "The clouds at the very beginning of the main title were always unsatisfying to me. My original direction to the animators was to make the clouds as realistic as possible, and as we go through the clouds we enter this cartoon universe of ''The Simpsons''. Finally, after a couple of decades, they've gotten closer to what I had in my mind. Not perfect, but better." The two original variations were further expanded to these variations: * Something different flies past the show's logo in the clouds at the start of the intro (since 2009). * The billboard in front of the elementary school changes (since 2009). *

writes something different on the chalkboard in every episode. *

may play a different solo on her saxophone (or on a different instrument entirely). *

's scream changes as he dodges Marge (first two seasons only). * The Simpsons attempt to sit on the couch as something goes awry in an often

surreal Surreal may refer to: *Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art * "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki * ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze *Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor ...

manner. * In the 2009 intro,

says something different when the head of Jebediah Springfield falls on him (selected episodes in season 20 and season 21). * At the end of the sequence, the TV set sometimes comes loose from its wall mount and smashes on the floor (since 2009).

Billboard gag

The billboard gag is a running visual joke added to the opening sequence with the updated 2009 high-definition opening. In the gag, a billboard is seen on the roof of the building across the street from the elementary school as the camera pans through the town. The billboard changes every episode. The first episode with a billboard gag was " Take My Life, Please" where the billboard says "Krusty: Now Doing Funerals".

Chalkboard gag

The chalkboard gag is a running visual joke that occurs during the opening credits of many episodes. In this gag, Bart Simpson is

writing lines Writing lines is a form of punishment handed out to misbehaving students by people in a position of authority at schools. It is a long-standing form of school discipline and is frequently satirised in popular culture. Description Writing lines in ...

on the

as a punishment; when the school bell rings, he immediately stops writing and runs out of the classroom. The phrase he writes on the chalkboard changes from episode to episode. Chalkboard messages may involve political humor such as "The

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

does not cover burping", pop culture references such as "I can't see dead people" (''

The Sixth Sense ''The Sixth Sense'' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient ( Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead. Released ...

'') and "I was not the sixth Beatle", and

meta-reference Meta-reference is a special type of self-reference that can occur in all media or media artifacts, for instance literature, film, painting, TV series, comic strips, or video games. It includes all references to, or comments on, a specific medium, ...

s such as "I am not a 32-year-old woman" (in reference to Bart's voice actress

Nancy Cartwright Nancy Cartwright (born October 25, 1957) is an American actress. She is the long-time voice of Bart Simpson on the animated television series ''The Simpsons'', for which she has received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Perform ...

) and "Nobody reads these anymore". When possible, Bart is shown deliberately disobeying the line that he is writing on the chalkboard (e.g. squeaking chalk when asked to write "I will not squeak chalk", putting in

ditto mark The ditto mark is a shorthand sign, used mostly in hand-written text, indicating that the words or figures above it are to be repeated. The mark is made using 'a pair of apostrophes'; 'a pair of marks used underneath a word'; the symbol (quota ...

s for "I will not cut corners", showing dis-coordination with "coffee is not for kids", or putting "I will finish what I sta" for a single line). In ''

'', the gag, "I will not illegally download this movie", is a reference to

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

. In

MyPods and Boomsticks "MyPods and Boomsticks" is the seventh episode of the twentieth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 30, 2008. In the episode, Homer becomes sus ...

, the couch gag was the family finding Bart writing "I will not bring the chalkboard home" on a chalkboard in front of the couch. The animators are able to produce the chalkboard gags quickly and in some cases have changed them to fit current events. For example, the chalkboard gag for "

Homer the Heretic "Homer the Heretic" is the third episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 8, 1992. In the episode, Homer decides to forgo going ...

" reads, "I will not defame

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

." The gag had been written as an apology to the city for a controversial song in the previous week's episode, which called the city a "home of pirates, drunks and whores". Another such chalkboard line gave the creators' stance on the threats made towards another popular animated sitcom, '' South Park'', by the group Revolution Muslim, following the controversies with the episodes

200 __NOTOC__ Year 200 ( CC) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Victorinus (or, less frequently, year 953 ''Ab ur ...

and

201 Year 201 ( CCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Fabianus and Arrius (or, less frequently, year 954 ''Ab urbe condit ...

and the depictions of Muslim prophet Mohammed (South Park- We'd stand beside you if we weren't so scared). Many episodes do not feature a chalkboard gag because they are cut to make more room for story, plot development and advertisements. In "

Four Regrettings and a Funeral "Four Regrettings and a Funeral" is the third episode of the twenty-fifth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' and the 533rd episode of the series. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 3, ...

" ( season 25, 2013), Bart writes "We'll really miss you Mrs. K" only once, in tribute to the recent death of

Marcia Wallace Marcia Karen Wallace (November 1, 1942 – October 25, 2013) was an American actress and comedian, primarily known for her roles in television situation comedies. She is best known for her roles as receptionist Carol Kester on the 1970s sitc ...

, the voice of

Edna Krabappel Edna Krabappel-Flanders ( Krabappel; ) is a fictional character from the American animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'', voiced by Marcia Wallace from 1990 until her death in October 2013. She was a 4th-grade teacher, who taught Bart Simpson's class a ...

. In the first episode to air after

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

won the

United States presidential election The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not dir ...

in 2016, Bart writes "Being right sucks", a reference to the 2000 episode "

Bart to the Future "Bart to the Future" is the seventeenth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 19, 2000. In the episode, after their picnic ...

" where Lisa succeeds Trump as Commander-in-Chief. Chalkboard gags have not been featured since Season 33.

Lisa's solo

During the opening sequence, Lisa is seen being expelled from band rehearsal due to her non-conformist saxophone playing. She exits the room playing a saxophone solo, which (from the third season onward) sometimes changes. Some of the solos have similarities with pieces by Donovan, Frank Zappa, James Brown, and

Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...

. ''The Simpsons'' composer Alf Clausen said that the session musicians who perform her solos do not try to play at the second grade level and instead "think of Lisa as a really good player". Lisa plays the baritone saxophone, but according to Matt Groening, "she doesn't always play a baritone sax because the animators don't know what it looks like, so it changes shape and color from show to show." After the switch to HD production, Lisa has also occasionally performed her solo on an instrument other than the saxophone. As of season 20, she has played a

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

, a

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, a fiddle, a

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

, a baritone horn, a clarinet, a

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

, and a harp. In this last instance, she drags the instrument with her and continues playing once Mr. Largo orders her out of the room. Whenever she plays a different instrument, she takes it with her while riding home on her bike. Lisa's solo has been cut from opening sequences since Season 32.

Couch gag

The "couch gag" is a running visual joke near the end of the opening credits. The gag generally changes from episode to episode, and usually features the Simpson family's

living room In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room (Australian English), lounge (British English), sitting room (British English), or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a residential house or apartment. Su ...

couch. A typical gag features the Simpson family running into the living room, only to find some abnormality with the couch, be it a bizarre and unexpected occupant, an odd placement of the couch, such as on the ceiling, or any number of other situations. In the syndicated version for the episodes from seasons 1 to 5, the couch gag for the episode is usually replaced with the one from season five's "

Rosebud Rosebud may refer to: * Rose bud, the bud of a rose flower Arts * The name of Jerry Garcia's guitar from 1990 until his death in 1995. * In the 1941 film ''Citizen Kane'', the last words of Charles Foster Kane and an overall plot device. * "Ros ...

" where The Simpsons find an exact double of themselves on the couch (though the syndicated versions of the later episodes retain their original couch gags). The couch gag is frequently used to make the show longer or shorter, depending on the length of the episode itself. For example, longer couch gags have been used to fill time in shorter episodes, such as in "

Lisa's First Word "Lisa's First Word" is the tenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on December 3, 1992. In the episode, as the Simpson family g ...

", "

I Love Lisa "I Love Lisa" is the fifteenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 11, 1993. In the episode, Lisa gives Ralph Wiggum a ...

", "

The Front ''The Front'' is a 1976 drama film set against the Hollywood blacklist in the 1950s, when artists, writers, directors, and others were rendered unemployable, having been accused of subversive political activities in support of Communism or of b ...

", " Cape Feare", "

Fear of Flying Fear of flying is a fear of being on an airplane, or other flying vehicle, such as a helicopter, while in flight. It is also referred to as flying anxiety, flying phobia, flight phobia, aviophobia, aerophobia, or pteromechanophobia (although a ...

", "

Monty Can't Buy Me Love "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" is the twenty-first episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 2, 1999. In the episode, Mr. Burns is jealous of ...

",Hauge, Ron. (2007). Commentary for "Monty Can't Buy Me Love", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Tenth Season'' VD 20th Century Fox. " Simpson Safari"Maxtone-Graham, Ian. (2009). Commentary for "Simpson Safari", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season'' VD 20th Century Fox. and "

The Bart Wants What It Wants "The Bart Wants What it Wants" is the eleventh episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 17, 2002. In the episode, B ...

",Selman, Matt. (2010). Commentary for "The Bart Wants What It Wants", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Thirteenth Season'' VD 20th Century Fox. where the family dances in a

kickline A kickline is a show dance figure consisting of a series of dancers who throw their legs synchronised up to eye level in the air, forming a straight line. The difficulty here is not only to lift the leg in a coordinated manner to create a uniform i ...

with women resembling

The Rockettes The Rockettes are an American precision dance company. Founded 1925 in St. Louis, they have, since , performed at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Until 2015, they also had a touring company. They are best known for starring in the ...

. An extended couch gag was also seen in the first episode to use the new opening sequence, " Take My Life, Please", where the family chases their couch on a tour across the world. Another long couch gag was in the show's 500th episode " At Long Last Leave", showing a montage of previous couch gags.

Other versions

Live action

In 2006, the British television channel

Sky 1 Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...

began advertising ''The Simpsons'' using a

live-action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ...

recreation of the series' opening sequence directed by Chris Palmer. With the exception of the very first shot in which the logo appears out of the clouds, every piece of the opening is present in this version, with even multiple chalkboard and couch gags filmed. Attached to the end of this sequence is the message "Come home to ''The Simpsons'' on Sky One." The recreation was used instead of the regular opening sequence in the

season 17 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

episode "

Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" is the fifteenth episode of the seventeenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 26, 2006, and was watched by ...

", first broadcast on the

Fox network The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations ...

on March 26, 2006. The live-action opening had also become an Internet hit before it was aired in front of "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", and it was Groening's decision to use it.

Al Jean Alfred Ernest Jean III (born January 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter and producer. Jean is well known for his work on ''The Simpsons''. He was raised near Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his wri ...

commented in a press statement that he was "just amazed there are people who want to be known for looking like the Simpsons."

Christmas

A Christmas-themed version of the opening sequence was animated for the season 18 episode " Kill Gil, Volumes I & II", which aired on December 17, 2006, and later re-aired with the season 20 episode "

The Burns and the Bees "The Burns and the Bees" is the eighth episode of the twentieth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 7, 2008. In the episode, during a poker game, M ...

", which aired on December 7, 2008. It begins with two lines of instrumental "

Jingle Bells "Jingle Bells" is one of the best-known and most commonly sung American songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) and published under the title "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in September 1857. It has been claimed t ...

" ("Kill Gil, Volumes I & II") and "

O Christmas Tree "" (; "O fir tree", English: O Christmas Tree) is a German Christmas song. Based on a traditional folk song which was unrelated to Christmas, it became associated with the traditional Christmas tree. History The modern lyrics were written in 1824 ...

" ("The Burns and the Bees") and then the normal theme music begins. This version is similar to the normal version, except for several key differences: # Everything outside is covered with snow # Bart's skateboard has been replaced with a snowboard # Everyone is wearing winter attire # Mr. Burns and Smithers have been replaced by a Scrooge-esque Burns and Ghost of Marley-esque Smithers, and there are several Christmas banners in the plant # Lisa's saxophone solo is a jazz version of "

Deck the Halls "Deck the Hall” is a traditional Christmas carol. The melody is Welsh, dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, "Nos Galan", while the English lyrics, written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant, date to 1862. ...

" # Bleeding Gums Murphy, who is now deceased, has been replaced with Jasper in a Santa costume. Maude Flanders and Marvin Monroe, however, remain in the pan across Springfield # Marge and Maggie's supermarket and car sequences have been cut In the end, the couch gag is that the family sits on the couch and the camera then pulls out to reveal that the family was reflected in a

Christmas ornament Christmas ornaments, baubles, "Christmas bulbs" or "Christmas bubbles" are wiktionary:decoration, decoration items, usually to decorate Christmas trees. These decorations may be Weaving, woven, Glassblowing, blown (Glassblowing, glass or Blow ...

, which rests on a Christmas tree.

High-definition versions

A Christmas version of the sequence in High-definition appeared in the season 25 episode "

White Christmas Blues "White Christmas Blues" is the eighth episode of the twenty-fifth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' and the 538th episode of the series. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 15, 2 ...

", which aired on December 15, 2013. The entire sequence is similar to the 2009 opening, but is a retelling of ''

The Night Before Christmas ''A Visit from St. Nicholas'', more commonly known as ''The Night Before Christmas'' and ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously under the title ''Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas'' i ...

'' with a Christmas-arranged opening theme. Key differences include: # Jimbo and Kearney saw off the star of the Christmas tree instead of the head of Jebediah Springfield and the star falls on Ralph who is licking a frozen pole # When Bart snowboards out the school doors, he plows into a pile of snow shoveled by Groundskeeper Willie, exposing Grampa underneath as he holds a sign that says "Still warmer than nursing home" # The plant has been replaced with

Santa's workshop Santa's Workshop is the legendary workshop where Santa Claus and his elves are said to live and make the toys and presents given out at Christmas. The exact "location" of Santa's workshop varies depending upon local culture. There are at lea ...

, Homer paints a cane and Lenny changes the number of "days till March 28, actual birth of Christ" on the sign from 94 to 93 before falling off the ladder # Marge's supermarket has been replaced with a gift shop, Maggie is gifted, she stamps Baby Gerald as "defective", and two men take him away # At band practice, Sherri and Terri play bells instead of flutes, and snow falls on Lisa after she finishes her solo # Homer's car has been replaced with a

snowmobile A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not ...

and Otto smokes on the cane when it lands on his lap # Marge's car has been replaced with a dog sled, two more sleds come to her until Mr. Burns and Smithers' sled scares the other mean sled away, and Maggie imitates Marge's rope throwing # When Marge's dog sled hits Homer and carries him on the front edge, he says " Merry Christmas" after being crashed into the back door The first, second and eighth scenes of this sequence re-aired with the Season 32 episode " Sorry Not Sorry", which aired on December 6, 2020. The second HD Christmas version appeared in the season 26 episode " I Won't Be Home for Christmas", which aired on December 7, 2014. Unlike the first HD Christmas version, Jimbo and Kearney's Christmas tree scene has been cut, the other key differences are as follows: # When Bart snowboards out the school doors, he plows into the pile of snow shoveled by Groundskeeper Willie, who is being played by two polar bears # At Santa's Workshop, Lenny changes the number of "days until Greek Orthodox Christmas" on the sign from 31 to 30 before falling off the ladder # At Marge's gift shop, Maggie gives Baby Gerald a present to make him feel better # At band practice, everyone plays "Jingle Bells", and Lisa gets completely covered in snow after she finishes her solo # In Marge's dog sled scene, an

abominable snowman The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''

Frozen'' reference", before cutting to a snow couch, where Lisa, appearing as Elsa, is sitting. Bart as Kristoff hits her with a

snowball A snowball is a spherical object made from snow, usually created by scooping snow with the hands, and pressing the snow together to compact it into a ball. Snowballs are often used in games such as snowball fights. A snowball may also be a large ...

and she immediately creates a giant

ice palace An ice palace or ice castle is a castle-like structure made of blocks of ice. These blocks are usually harvested from nearby rivers or lakes when they become frozen in winter. The first known ice palace (or, rather, '' ice house'', ледяной ...

, with Bart stuck at the top. Homer appears as

Olaf Olaf or Olav (, , or British ; Old Norse: ''Áleifr'', ''Ólafr'', ''Óleifr'', ''Anleifr'') is a Scandinavian and German given name. It is presumably of Proto-Norse origin, reconstructed as ''*Anu-laibaz'', from ''anu'' "ancestor, grand-father" a ...

, and bites his own nose, disappointed to discover it is simply a carrot. The third HD Christmas version appeared in the

season 29 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

episode "

Gone Boy "Gone Boy" is the ninth episode of the twenty-ninth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 627th episode of the series overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on December 10, 2017. The title is a spoof o ...

", which aired on December 10, 2017, and later re-aired with the

season 30 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

episode

'Tis the 30th Season "Tis the 30th Season" is the tenth episode of the thirtieth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 649th episode overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on December 9, 2018. Plot After Thanksgiving dinn ...

", which aired on December 9, 2018. This time, it is a Santa's workshop-themed version. The following key differences are: # When Bart snowboards out the school doors, he crashes into

Frosty the Snowman "Frosty the Snowman" is a popular Christmas song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later recorded by Jimmy Durante. It was written after the success of A ...

, who was built by Groundskeeper Willie # At Santa's Workshop, Lenny changes the number of "Bricks and Mortar stores remaining" on the sign from 24 to 23 before falling off the ladder # At band practice, everyone plays "

" (Tis the 30th Season" only) # In Marge's dog sled scene, an

elf An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...

is seen in the background, and four more sleds come to her until Mr. Burns and Smithers' sled scares the other three mean sleds away ("Gone Boy" only) # In Tis the 30th Season", the shots of the family on their way back to 742 Evergreen Terrace have been cut In the end, there are two couch gags. In "

", the family pops into popcorn sitting on a hot couch, and are threaded onto a

garland A garland is a decorative braid, knot or wreath of flowers, leaves, or other material. Garlands can be worn on the head or around the neck, hung on an inanimate object, or laid in a place of cultural or religious importance. Etymology From the ...

that is hung around the Christmas tree. Tis the 30th Season"s couch gag is a spoof to '' Star Wars'', where Bart cuts off

Wampa This is a list of creatures in the fictional universe of '' Star Wars'', a space opera media franchise. The types of creatures in this list are listed by category and then in alphabetical order. Humans and humanoid sentient species Humans Huma ...

Homer's hand while they and the rest of the family say "Merry Christmas!".

''The Simpsons Movie'' and callback

A completely different sequence was created for ''

'' and features an orchestrated version of "The Simpsons Theme" as adapted by

Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living G ...

. The cumulus clouds are displayed in 16:9 television aspect ratio, with black matte bars at either end of the screen. As "The Simpsons" logo appears out of the clouds,

Professor Frink Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink Jr., is a new recurring character in the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Hank Azaria, and first appeared in the 1991 episode "Old Money". Frink is Springfield's nerdy scientist an ...

flies past in one of his inventions carrying a banner marked "MOVIE" and proclaims "Moo-vie! On the big screen!" (On the movie's DVD menu he says, "On the small screen!" when the menu appears, but then "On the big screen" during the actual opening sequence.) Frink bumps one of the matte bars out of view, and the other one recedes as the camera zooms in on the town, with several major landmarks popping up. The scene changes to Mr. Burns, who collapses under the extra weight of the toothpaste on his toothbrush, which is dispensed by

. The camera then zooms past

Moe's Tavern Springfield is the primary fictional setting of the American animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'' and related media. It is an average-sized, fictional city within an indeterminate state in the United States. The fictional city's geography, surroundi ...

into the

Kwik-E-Mart The Kwik-E-Mart (spelled "Quick-E-Mart" in "Bart the General") is a convenience store in the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It is a parody of American convenience stores, such as 7-Eleven and Cumberland Farms, and depicts many of th ...

where Apu is secretly changing the expiration date on a carton of milk from 2006 to 2008. The camera cuts to Springfield Elementary where Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney are hoisting

Martin Prince The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The write ...

up a flagpole by his underwear and saluting it as if it were a flag. The camera then zooms through a window of the school where

is doing the chalkboard gag which is "I will not illegally download this movie", a reference to

before quick-fading to the popular 90s band Green Day who are hosting a concert at Lake Springfield, playing their rendition of " The Simpsons Theme". "

He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs", also known as "He Loves to Fly", is the nineteenth season premiere of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It was the first episode to air after the release of ''The Simpsons Movie'', having or ...

" was the first new episode to air following the release of ''

'', and the episode's opening sequence is a

to the film. Bart writes "I will not wait 20 years to make another movie" on the chalkboard and skateboards through Springfield, which is still recovering from the dome incident. Several movie characters reappear, including President

Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...

, the Multi-Eyed Squirrel, Colin, Russ Cargill, and the Medicine Woman. Also seen is that the Simpsons' house is still under construction and the silo is strapped to Homer's car. Plopper the pig is also featured for the first time in the series, during the couch gag and Homer refers to him as "my summer love".

"Tik Tok"

A special opening sequence, featuring the cast

lip dub A lip dub is a type of music video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in p ...

bing to Kesha's single " Tik Tok", was animated for the season 21 episode " To Surveil with Love", which aired on May 2, 2010 to promote "Fox Rocks" week. This is the first canonical episode in the show's history that does not feature " The Simpsons Theme" in any capacity, apart from "

Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (titled onscreen as "The Simpsons Christmas Special") is the series premiere of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on Fox in the United States on December 17, 1989. Intro ...

". The sequence starts with Lisa waking up and then grabbing Milhouse's glasses. It then shows Groundskeeper Willie brushing his teeth with whiskey. He then gives it to Mrs. Krabappel who drinks some while they walk into school before Mrs. Krabappel grabs Willie and drags him into a classroom. In the hallway Sherri, Terri and Martin are having

pedicure A pedicure is a cosmetic treatment of the feet and toenails, analogous to a manicure. Pedicures include care not only for the toenails; dead skin cells are rubbed off the bottom of the feet using a rough stone (often a pumice stone). Skinc ...

s while Ralph is playing in the lost and found box. Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers walk past. The three bullies stick their heads out a classroom and blow up a phone causing coins to explode out of it. Then it shows the music room. Then the bus where Otto falls over. It then shows Nelson singing before showing inside Moe's bar where a group of people are fighting. Marge comes and drags Homer out of the bar and into her car where they drive home. It then pans over a few characters. Marge and Homer then come in where Lisa, Bart (dressed like a rapper) and Maggie are waiting. They all run into the living room and sit on the couch before a number of characters lift them up. The family then falls asleep.

''Breaking Bad'' parody

An homage to the

AMC AMC may refer to: Film and television * AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain * AMC Networks, an American entertainment company ** AMC (TV channel) ** AMC+, streaming service ** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company *** ...

drama '' Breaking Bad'' is used as an opening sequence for the season 24 episode "

What Animated Women Want "What Animated Women Want" is the seventeenth episode of the twenty-fourth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 525th episode overall. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 14, 201 ...

", which aired on April 14, 2013 and is set to the tune of "

Crystal Blue Persuasion "Crystal Blue Persuasion" is a 1969 song originally recorded by Tommy James and the Shondells and composed by Eddie Gray, Tommy James and Mike Vale. Background A gentle-tempoed groove, "Crystal Blue Persuasion" was built around a prominent orga ...

" by

Tommy James and the Shondells Tommy James and the Shondells are an American pop rock/psychedelic rock band, formed in Niles, Michigan, in 1964. They had two No. 1 singles in the U.S. – " Hanky Panky" (July 1966, their only RIAA Certified Gold record) and "Crimson and Clo ...

. The song is also used during a montage in the ''Breaking Bad'' episode "

Gliding Over All "Gliding Over All" is the eighth episode and mid-season finale of the Breaking Bad (season 5), fifth season of the American television drama series ''Breaking Bad'', and the 54th overall episode of the series. Written by Moira Walley-Beckett and di ...

", in reference to the blue-colored methamphetamine produced by the show's central character

Walter White Walter White most often refers to: * Walter White (''Breaking Bad''), character in the television series ''Breaking Bad'' * Walter Francis White (1893–1955), American leader of the NAACP Walter White may also refer to: Fictional characters ...

. The sequence opens with a parody of the ''Breaking Bad'' title card, with ''The Simpsons'' displayed across the screen with the symbols for

Thorium Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high ...

(Th) and

Silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ta ...

(Si) appearing at the beginning of each word. Marge, aping the downtrodden demeanor of Walter's wife Skyler, sits on the couch drinking coffee. She goes into the kitchen to begin baking cupcakes, using food coloring to turn the batter

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

and adding frosting and sprinkles in other shades of this color. She places one batch in a silver briefcase, which she gives to Bart before he leaves the house. Homer, dressed in the dark hat and sunglasses Walter dons for his "Heisenberg" persona, sneaks a taste of the batter while Marge is baking and is later woken from a nap by the smell. The scene cuts to a church bake sale, where Marge sells a cupcake to Milhouse as Homer watches from a distance. Back at the Simpson house, Marge runs her earnings through a

currency-counting machine A currency-counting machine is a machine that counts money—either stacks of banknotes or loose collections of coins. Counters may be purely mechanical or use electronic components. The machines typically provide a total count of all money, or ...

, bundles the money, and adds it to a large pile on the dining table. The camera zooms out to reveal a live-action scene (taken from the episode "

Hazard Pay "Hazard Pay" is the third episode of the fifth season of the American television drama series '' Breaking Bad'', and the 49th overall episode of the series. Written by Peter Gould and directed by Adam Bernstein, it originally aired on AMC in the ...

") of Walter White and his partner Jesse Pinkman sitting on a couch drinking beer and watching the sequence on a TV.

''Futurama'' parody

The crossover episode " Simpsorama" from season 26, which aired on November 9, 2014, begins with a parody of the '' Futurama''

title sequence A title sequence (also called an opening sequence or intro) is the method by which films or television programmes present their title and key production and cast members, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound (often a opening theme song with vi ...

, which includes the ''Futurama'' theme music and the text reading "A show out of ideas teams up with a show out of episodes." It ends with a couch gag with the Simpsons sitting on the couch, only to find out the couch is actually Hedonismbot.

''Adventure Time'' parody

The

season 28 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

episode "

Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus "Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus" is the The Simpsons (season 28), twenty-eighth season season premiere of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 597th episode of the series overall. It aired in the United States on Fox Broad ...

", which aired on September 25, 2016, features a couch gag that is a parody of the ''

Adventure Time ''Adventure Time'' is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and ...

'' opening recreated with characters from ''The Simpsons''.

"Bart Gets the Remote"

Used as an opening sequence for the

episode "

Dad Behavior "Dad Behavior" is the eighth episode of the twenty-eighth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 604th episode of the series overall. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 20, 20 ...

", which aired on September 25, 2016. The sequence opens as usual, until Bart skateboards out of the school and lands on the pile of leaves. He wakes up Barney in the process, who then grabs his skateboard and breaks it in half, forcing him to walk home. At work, when Homer drops his tongs, the glowing rod bounces into his mouth, causing him to swallow it, before collapsing. At school, when Largo dismisses Lisa, she hits the door with her saxophone and collapses; the saxophone then falls on her. Next, when Maggie is seen at the steering wheel, when the camera zooms out, it reveals that she is actually driving the car while Marge is sleeping in the backseat. She then wakes up, just when the car drives off a cliff and through a barn. In the process, a hen gets in the car, and is sitting next to Maggie, clucking, before she sticks her pacifier into its mouth, before driving them all into the lake, where the car sinks. Marge and the hen then surface, but Maggie does not. Finally, the couch is shown, and Bart walks into the room, alone, carrying his broken skateboard. After calling around for his family, but getting no notice, he takes their pictures and puts them on the couch as he sits there, remarking that he gets the remote.

Underwater

The

episode "

Singin' in the Lane "Singin' in the Lane" is the seventh episode of the twenty-ninth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 625th episode of the series overall. The episode was directed by Mike Frank Polcino and written by Ryan K ...

", which aired on November 19, 2017, features underwater themed opening sequence, with all of the characters including the

depicted as sea creatures. This sequence begins with the title "The Shrimpsons" zooming through the water while Blinky the three-eyed fish swims by. The scene zooms toward a hole in the sunken ship to an underwater classroom where Bart is writing lines ("We don not live in our own pee") on the chalkboard as punishment. The bell rings, and Bart rides a sting ray out of another hole in the ship, scaring away the fish covering Barney's skeleton. Homer is shown at an underwater lab, handling a green glowing fish, while Lenny changes the number of "days until global warming" on the sign from 3 to 2. The end-at-shift whistle that blows scares him and Carl away, and Homer gets out of his underwater gear. The scene then changes to an underwater store, where Maggie is bagged and put in a shopping cart, Marge gets shocked, and Maggie pops her head out of the bag. Maggie then shakes her fin at Baby Gerald in another shopping cart, and Baby Gerald shakes his fin too. At band practice, Lisa is dismissed by Mr. Largo and plays a solo on her instrument while leaving, then she pokes her head through the seaweed to finish it. Otto is then seen as an anglerfish chewing on his own light and Bart rides past him before weaving through other characters. Hans Moleman is seen under a seashell which is then closed under him when a sea turtle goes over it. Marge and Maggie steer with sea stars to make the turtle go different directions. The camera then quickly pans to Homer arriving at the coral reef, Bart jumps off him, and Homer dodges Lisa while she carries her saxophone, then the sea turtle carries Homer on its head and crashes him into the coral reef. The family then swims into their underwater living room, which is decorated with coral, underwater plants, and other decorations that are from the coral reef, and sits on the couch. A fishing hook then grabs the couch with the family in tow, and is raised to the surface, where a human

Ned Flanders Nedward "Ned" Flanders Jr. is a fictional character in the animated television series ''The Simpsons'', voiced by Harry Shearer and first appearing in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire." He is the good-natured, ch ...

grabs the couch and says, "Okily dokily!" as he places them inside a lobster cage. Once in it, Homer says, "Aw, our own home." A few lobsters are later seen crawling towards the family. The sequence then ends as usual with the opening credits on the underwater television.

Flanders

The Flanders-focused episode titled " Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?" from season 31, which aired on December 1, 2019, begins with the title "The Flanderseseseses" and cuts through the counter in the letter "R" to

Todd Flanders The American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' contains a wide range of minor and supporting characters like co-workers, teachers, students, family friends, extended relatives, townspeople, local celebrities, and even animals. The write ...

doing a chalkboard gag. The scene then cuts to Ned at the supermarket checkout. Among the products he buys is Bland-O-Lake butter, White Bread for the Soul, a Devout People Magazine and Mild Rice. Ned then walks out of the supermarket with his products, and starts a "Food Kitchen for the Homeless". Then, Homer is seen on a tractor feeling sad, while Ned parks his car in his garage, before he walks in through a door in it. Ned, Rod and Todd run into their living room where their couch would be, but Ned says to Rod and Todd, "No couch boys, I gave it to the poor," and they cheer.

Guest-made versions

Banksy

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

graffiti artist Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

and

political activist A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some ...

Banksy Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigram ...

is credited with creating the opening titles and couch gag for the season 22 episode " MoneyBart", in what amounted to the first time that an artist has been invited to storyboard the show. Jean first took note of Banksy after seeing his 2010 film ''

Exit Through the Gift Shop ''Exit Through the Gift Shop'' is a 2010 British documentary film directed by street artist Banksy. It tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who, over the course of several years, filmed a host of street artists a ...

''. According to Jean, "The concept in my mind was, 'What if this graffiti artist came in and tagged our main titles?'" ''Simpsons''

casting director In the performing arts industry such as theatre, film, or television, casting, or a casting call, is a pre-production process for selecting a certain type of actor, dancer, singer, or extra for a particular role or part in a script, screenp ...

Bonnie Pietila Bonita Pietila (born January 14, 1953) is a casting director and producer. She is best known for her work on ''The Simpsons'', with which she has won three Emmy Awards (in 1998, 2000, and 2001). Pietila has been with the series since its beginnin ...

was able to contact the artist through the film's producers, and asked if he would be interested in writing a main title for the show. Jean said Banksy "sent back boards for pretty much what you saw." Series creator

gave the idea his blessing, and helped try to make the sequence as close to Banksy's original storyboards as possible. Approximately the first half minute of the opening sequence remains the same, with a few oddities: the word "BANKSY" is sprayed onto a number of walls and other public spaces. The chalkboard gag ("I must not write all over the walls") is written all over the classroom walls, clock, door, and floor. After the Simpsons arrive at home, the camera cuts to a shot of them on the couch, then zooms out to show this as a picture hanging on the wall of a fictional overseas

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

n animation and merchandise

sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...

. The animation color quickly becomes drab and gray, and the music turns dramatic à la ''

Schindler's List ''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel ''Schindler's Ark'' by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film f ...

''. A large group of tired and sickly artists draw animation

cel A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th century, bu ...

s for ''The Simpsons'' among piles of human bones and

toxic waste Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm (e.g. by being inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin). Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemi ...

, and a female artist hands a barefoot child employee an animation cel, which he washes in a vat of

biohazard A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. This could include a sample of a microorganism, virus or toxin that can adversely affect human health. A bioh ...

ous fluid. Small kittens are thrown into a

woodchipper A tree chipper or woodchipper is a machine used for reducing wood (generally tree limbs or trunks) into smaller woodchips. They are often portable, being mounted on wheels on frames suitable for towing behind a truck or van. Power is general ...

-type machine to provide the filling for Bart Simpson

plush doll A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be cal ...

s. The toys are then placed into a cart pulled by a sad

panda The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes use ...

which is driven by a man with a whip. A man shipping boxes with ''The Simpsons'' logo on the side uses the tongue from a

decapitated Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

head to fasten shut the packages. Another employee uses the horn of a sickly

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

to smash the holes in the center of ''The Simpsons''

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

s. It is then revealed that the sweatshop is contained within a grim version of the

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

logo, surrounded by barbed wire,

searchlights A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular dire ...

, and a

watchtower A watchtower or watch tower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to ...

. ''The Simpsons'' is storyboarded at Film Roman, a company based in California. The storyboards, voice tracks and coloring instructions are then sent to

AKOM AKOM Production, Ltd. (Animation KOrea Movie 애이콤 프로덕션) is a South Korean animation studio in Songpa-gu, Seoul that has provided much work since its conception in 1985 by Nelson Shin. Its biggest claim to fame is the overseas animat ...

, a company in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

, South Korea. According to

Nelson Shin Shin Neung-kyun (born 1939), also known as Nelson Shin, is an animation director who is the founder and president of Akom Production Co., Ltd., in Seoul, South Korea. He founded Akom in 1985. Career In the 1970s, Shin worked as an animator at th ...

, the founder of AKOM, they received the storyboard for the sequence in August 2010. Believing the sequence to be "excessive and offending" he pushed for some of the darker jokes to be removed. He was successful, though "not nearly as much as he had pushed for." For example, in the storyboards, the workers were wearing

conical Asian hat A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines co ...

s, but these were removed. Fox's standards and practices department also demanded a handful of changes, but, according to Jean, "95 percent of it is just the way anksywanted." Banksy told ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' that his opening sequence was influenced by ''The Simpsons'' long-running use of animation studios in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

. The newspaper also reported that the creation of the sequence "is said to have been one of the most closely guarded secrets in US television – comparable to the concealment of Banksy's own identity." Although conceding to the fact that ''The Simpsons'' is largely animated in South Korea, Jean went on to state that the scenes shown in titles are "very fanciful, far-fetched. None of the things he depicts are true. That statement should be self-evident, but I will emphatically state it."

John Kricfalusi

After the positive response to the opening sequence by Banksy, creator

and Jean came to Canadian animator and creator of ''

The Ren & Stimpy Show ''The Ren & Stimpy Show'' (also known as ''Ren & Stimpy'') is an American animated television series created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi. Originally produced by Spümcø for Nickelodeon, the series aired from August 11, 1991, to Dece ...

'',

John Kricfalusi Michael John Kricfalusi ( ; born September 9, 1955), known professionally as John K., is a Canadian illustrator, blogger, voice actor and former animator. He is the creator of the animated television series ''The Ren & Stimpy Show'', which was ...

and asked him if he could do something similar for the season 23 episode "

Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts "Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts" is the second episode of the The Simpsons (season 23), twenty-third season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network in the Un ...

". Originally, they only wanted him to do the storyboards and then let their regular crew animate it, but Kricfalusi insisted on doing the animation himself, explaining that "If we had done it that way, no one would even have known that I had anything to do with it because it would have ended up on model and all pose to pose". On ''The Simpsons'', the animators draws key poses and then let tweeners interpolate between those poses. The interpolation however, is a straight A-to-B animation. That way the animation ends up having the characters just going from pose to pose. Kricfalusi explains that "On ''the Simpsons'' I wanted to try moving the characters in crazy fun ways, not just looking funny each time they come to a stop", and further elaborated "that the way things happened was even more important than what was happening in my work. You can’t write visual performance. You have to actually draw it." He showed Groening and showrunner

his

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...

shorts and Groening responded by giving him a free hand to do the 35-second-long segment. Groening told him to break all ''The Simpsons'' rules, but Kricfalusi explains that he "tried not to break any rules in the characters’ personalities, just in the execution of the visuals. I didn't follow any modelsnot even my own". The more rules he broke, the more pleased Groening and Jean were with the result. Contrary to Banksy, who lives a life in secrecy, Kricfalusi was involved in every detail and even oversaw the

dubbing Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sou ...

of the final soundtrack. While Kricfalusi animated the 2D parts, he had John Kedzie to help him with the

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

and Sarah Harkey and Tommy Tanner to do the assistant animation. The couch gag for the episode, which had Homer demand a beer and Marge getting it for him, was critically acclaimed by television critics. Amid Amidi of ''

Cartoon Brew Cartoon Brew is an animation news website created by Amid Amidi and animation historian Jerry Beck that was launched in 2004. Cartoon Dump It also created ''Cartoon Dump'', a weekly podcast showing poorly made TV cartoons featuring ''Mystery Sc ...

'' calls the opening revolutionary and explains that "in 35 short and sweet seconds, he liberates the animation of ''The Simpsons'' from years of graphic banality." He continued: "The visual look of the show, which has been so carefully controlled by its producers, becomes a giddy and unrestrained playground for graphic play, and the balance of creative authority is shifted from the writers’ room to the animators in one fell swoop." When comparing the segment to Banksy's, Amidi concluded that it is "in fact, far more subversive because he focuses almost exclusively on making a pictorial statement, relegating the show's dominant literary elements to the back seat." Similarly, Television Blend's Katey Rich wrote that she appreciates "''The Simpsons'' always being willing to push the envelope in different ways", but admitted that "it's gonna take ersome time to get the gangly-legged Marge Simpson and the leering Homer Simpson out of erbrain." Kricfalusi later animated the opening sequence for the

season 27 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

episode " Treehouse of Horror XXVI" where the Simpson children are trick-or-treating before being set upon by soul-hungry spirits with a monstrous Frank Grimes among them that skins Bart for his soul before Maggie saves him and Lisa. The spirits chase after the Simpson children to their home, and the Frank Grimes monster takes Homer's soul.

Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton has written and animated eight couch gags, one for the season 23 episode "

Beware My Cheating Bart "Beware My Cheating Bart" is the eighteenth episode of the twenty-third season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 15, 2012. The title refers to the son ...

" where Homer falls in love with the couch...until he meets Marge, one for the season 24 episode "

Black Eyed, Please "Black Eyed, Please" is the fifteenth episode of the twenty-fourth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 523rd episode overall. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 10, 2013. The nam ...

" where Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa are in a 1930s gangster story, armed with several weapons which are revealed to be gifts once Maggie turns the light on, one for the season 25 episode " Married to the Blob" where Maggie changes the family's surroundings every time she uses the TV remote, cycling through several backgrounds with increasing speed and throws it at the TV to turn it on once they are back in the living room, one for the

episode "

Lisa the Veterinarian "Lisa the Veterinarian" is the fifteenth episode of the twenty-seventh season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 589th episode of the series overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on March 6, 2016. Plot T ...

" where the television and couch imagine themselves frolicking together until the power cord stops it short in midair and it crashes to the floor when the television tries to jump toward the couch, one for the

episode "22 for 30" where the family is crudely-drawn on the couch and each family member is subsequently drawn by the next oldest, ending with Homer holding a spare pencil and a donut in his non-drawing hand, one for the

episode "3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage" which is a new version of his 1987 film ''Your Face'' with Homer's face as a replacement, one for the The Simpsons (season 32), season 32 episode "Manger Things" which depicts Homer's head turning into the family and the living room, and one for the The Simpsons (season 34), season 34 episode "One Angry Lisa" where the rug becomes a vortex and eats the Simpson family, before they come out of Homer's mouth and Homer belches after the rug flips over.

''Robot Chicken''

The couch gag for the season 24 episode, "The Fabulous Faker Boy", which aired on May 12, 2013, was stop-motion animated by Seth Green's Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, which also works on the television series ''Robot Chicken''.

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro directed the 3-minute opening sequence for the season 25 episode, "Treehouse of Horror XXIV", aired on October 6, 2013, which contained numerous references to horror and science fiction, including his own films.

Sylvain Chomet

The couch gag for the season 25 episode "Diggs (The Simpsons), Diggs", which aired on March 9, 2014, was directed by Sylvain Chomet. It depicts the family running to the couch until the lights go off. Marge leaves to fix the fuse, and when the lights go up, the characters are drawn ''The Triplets of Belleville, Triplets of Belleville''-style and everything has a French aesthetic to it. Bart plays with a do-it-yourself foie gras kit, Lisa plays an accordion, Marge cries out, "Maggie? Où est Maggie?" and Homer gets up and eats a snail off the TV, oblivious that Maggie is stuck between his butt cheeks.

Michał Socha

The couch gag for the season 25 episode "What to Expect When Bart's Expecting", which aired on April 27, 2014, was directed by Michał Socha. It depicts the family taking a nightmarish trip through Homer's body, eventually settling on a couch formed from his brain.

Don Hertzfeldt

The couch gag for the episode "Clown in the Dumps", which aired on September 28, 2014, was animated by the Academy Award-nominated surrealist animator Don Hertzfeldt, who was recommended to the show by Mike B. Anderson. It depicts Homer using a time-traveling remote control to regress to The Simpsons shorts, his original 1987 character model from The Tracey Ullman Show then accidentally going into a distant future incarnation of the show called ''The Sampsans'' where he and his family have evolved into grotesque, mindless, catchphrase-spouting mutants, which also say to 'buy their merchandise'. Homer (now named 'Homar') sees a window, triggering memories of when the show was more pure and genuine, and where in one of the three flashbacks, Marge says 'Still love you Homar'. Homer feels sad when he returns to the bastardized world he lives in. Al Jean deemed it "crazier than we thought" and "the most insane one we've ever done".

Pixel art

The opening sequence for the episode "My Fare Lady", which aired on February 15, 2015, was done in a pixel art style, created by Australian animators Paul Robertson (animator), Paul Robertson and Ivan Dixon. Jeremy Dower, an Australian musician, created a chiptune version of the main theme song, which was used in this version.

''Rick and Morty''

The couch gag for the episode, "Mathlete's Feat", which aired on May 17, 2015, features Rick and Morty from the

series ''Rick and Morty''. The couch gag was written by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland. The episode with George H. W. Bush, George Bush was mentioned by them.

Steve Cutts

The couch gag for the episode "Teenage Mutant Milk-Caused Hurdles", which aired on January 10, 2016, features guest animator Steve Cutts' "LA-Z Rider" with over 14 million views on YouTube. Fox had anticipated low viewing figures due to the NFL overrun pushing the start of primetime to 8:20 p.m. Despite this, the episode was the highest viewed of

with 8.3 Million views.

Eric Goldberg

The couch gag for the episode "Fland Canyon", which aired on April 24, 2016, was created by veteran Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney animator Eric Goldberg (animator), Eric Goldberg. It depicts the family as different Disney characters with Maggie as 1920s-era Minnie Mouse, Lisa as Cinderella (Disney character), Cinderella, Marge as Snow White (Disney character), Snow White, Homer as Baloo, and Bart as Fantasia (1940 film)#The Sorcere's Apprentice, Sorcerer's apprentice Mickey Mouse.

Parodies within the show

The opening sequence has been parodied within seven episodes of ''The Simpsons'': * A short parody as ''The Thompsons'' in the episode " Cape Feare", when the Simpsons go into a witness protection program to evade

. * As ''The Hurricane'' in the episode "Hurricane Neddy". Gray clouds appear, and the words "The Hurricane" in red letters come out in the same manner as the real opening. Similar vocals sing "The Hurricane", and then the letters are blown away to show parts of Springfield being destroyed. * In "Simpsons Bible Stories", Bart is writing a chalkboard punishment in hieroglyphics when he hears Moses/Milhouse Van Houten, Milhouse's horn being blown and leaves the classroom. * As ''Three weeks later'' in "The Heartbroke Kid". Instead of writing on a chalkboard, a now overweight Bart is seen buying and eating chocolate from a vending machine. He cracks the pavement when he leaves the school, bends a lamppost, runs over pedestrians, hits Marge's car, sending it spinning off-screen, and crushes the roof of

's car, before stumbling into the living room having a heart attack. * In "Little Big Girl", Bart is awarded a driver's license. Bart is seen at the chalkboard writing "So long suckers". He bursts through the school doors in Homer's car, instead of on his skateboard, and speeds away. Instead of dodging all the obstacles seen in the standard opening sequence, he runs them over. As Homer pulls into the driveway and steps out to enter the house, the other car lands on him, and Bart walks into the house. * As ''The Outlands'' in " At Long Last Leave". In place of the chalkboard, Bart uses spray paint to vandalize a wall before leaving in a motorcycle. The family return home in a variety of ramshackle vehicles, before settling down on the couch to watch a sleeping fox. * In "The Burns Cage", while Mr. Burns and Smithers are about to skydive out of an airplane, they fly over some clouds containing the yellow text from the opening sequence. The choral singing of "The Simpsons" briefly starts but then fades out as the letters disappear from view.

Reception

The opening sequence has multiple times been picked as one of the best title sequences of all time on TV. In a 2010 issue of ''TV Guide'', ''The Simpsons'' opening title sequence ranked #1 on a list of TV's top 10 credits sequences, as selected by readers.Tomashoff, Craig. "Credits Check" ''TV Guide'', October 18, 2010, Pages 16-17 In 2017, James Charisma of ''Paste (magazine), ''Paste'''' ranked the opening sequence #1 on a list of ''The 75 Best TV Title Sequences of All Time''.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Simpsons Opening Sequence The Simpsons, Opening sequences Film and television opening sequences Articles containing video clips Running gags