Spoilers forward for the “Simpsons” season 36 episode “Desperately Looking for Lisa.”
Since time immemorial (that’s, the early ’90s), “The Simpsons” has finished numerous popular culture parodies. Its annual “Treehouse of Horror” episodes, specifically, have been answerable for spoofing well-known horror motion pictures like “The Shining,” and “A Nightmare on Elm Avenue,” in addition to darker TV collection akin to the favored anime present “Demise Observe.” Among the many iconic animated sitcom’s extra frequent targets, nevertheless, is Martin Scorsese, the Oscar-winning filmmaker whose classics like “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver,” and “Raging Bull” alone have impressed a number of episodes of “The Simpsons.”
Surely, although, the present’s greatest Scorsese sendup thus far was the one based mostly on his 1991 thriller “Cape Worry,” which grew to become the premise for one of many all time best episodes of “The Simpsons” — “Cape Feare.” It is a basic installment that not solely has the Simpson household terrorized by Sideshow Bob, however can be filled with memorable slapstick gags. It is an episode so good that it truly impressed a post-modern play and was even banned in Germany for a interval. Likewise, for all of the younger millennials too younger to have seen “Cape Worry” when it debuted in theaters, the episode was their first publicity to the movie, which had simply been launched two years prior. Now, in season 36, “The Simpsons” has poked enjoyable at one other Scorsese movie, albeit one which by no means obtained the type of reward or consideration it deserved — “After Hours.”
Season 36, episode 3, “Desperately Looking for Lisa,” follows Lisa Simpson as she spends a weekend in Capital Metropolis along with her aunts Patty and Selma. However what begins out as a moderately uninteresting journey turns into an avante-gardist nightmare within the small hours of the evening, with the center Simpson youngster on the run from a mob of pretentious native artists throughout the town who assume she’s dedicated a criminal offense.
The Simpsons parodies After Hours with hilarious outcomes
In “After Hours,” Griffin Dunne performs an uptown Manhattan workplace employee who finally ends up going by means of the worst evening of his life after venturing downtown, believing he is about to hook up with a girl he met earlier that night. Many of the movie entails Dunne’s character going from one awkwardly tense encounter to a different and getting entangled in more and more worse-looking misunderstandings till a mob begins chasing him across the artsy SoHo district. It is a spectacular film and a transparent affect on latest dramatic thrillers like “Uncut Gems,” the place the entire objective is to go away audiences sweating in discomfort and nervousness.
In “Desperately Looking for Lisa,” Lisa thinks she’s about to meet her dream of changing into a part of the artwork scene, however finally ends up on the run by means of the streets of Capital Metropolis in the course of the evening after a mob accuses her of stealing artwork. It is a hyper-specific parody a few piece of artwork not that many individuals learn about, but in addition one which “The Simpsons” can solely do now after airing so many episodes. As co-showrunner Matt Selman defined to Animation Scoop, “We will do it as a result of we have now this wonderful inventive freedom and other people count on us at this level to go deep on sudden worlds.”
What makes the parody much more fascinating is the truth that “After Hours” is much from one in every of Scorsese’s better-known motion pictures. Although thought of a cult basic, the movie wasn’t successful, and given how fashionable audiences do not actually watch older motion pictures (in no small half due to how onerous they’re to entry), it is humorous to understand that many individuals would possibly consider “Desperately Looking for Lisa” as an unique plot, moderately than a parody. Certainly, if you have not seen Scorsese’s movie, the episode nonetheless works as a really unusual, dreamlike plot that is cartoonishly absurd and tense. For individuals who have watched “After Hours,” although, the second the place Dunne himself cameos because the voice of an actor enjoying Gregor Samsa in a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” takes on an additional that means, given how a lot Kafka influenced “After Hours.”
“The Simpsons” season 36 airs new episodes Sundays on Fox.