This text accommodates gentle spoilers for “The Simpsons” season 36 episode “Desperately Looking for Lisa.”
“The Simpsons” season 36 is nicely underway, and the longest-running American animated present continues to be going robust. Certain, it might not have an all-time finest episode airing weekly and it’s not revolutionizing comedy and animation as we all know it, however it’s nonetheless spectacular that “The Simpsons” is delivering entertaining episodes after so a few years. Additionally spectacular is that the animated sitcom can nonetheless ship cool new bits of lore for Springfield and its environment, like how Sideshow Bob is now rich after beginning a rake enterprise or revealing how Homer manages to mess up at his job with out inflicting a nuclear meltdown every single day.
Equally, the third episode of season 36 of “The Simpsons,” titled “Desperately Looking for Lisa,” has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg teasing the in-universe return of a fan-favorite musical gag.
Within the episode, Lisa goes to Capital Metropolis to spend a weekend with Patty and Selma, however she rapidly will get entangled in a blazing misadventure straight out of Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours.” Earlier than the bohemian artwork scene mayhem, nevertheless, Lisa and her aunts cruise by means of the touristy space of the town — which appears to be like identical to Instances Sq. — and we get a glimpse at a billboard advertising and marketing the revival of the favored musical “Cease the Planet Of The Apes, I Need To Get Off!”
Cease The Planet Of the Apes, I Need To Get Off! obtained a revival
“Cease The Planet Of the Apes, I Need To Get Off!” is, in fact, among the finest parodies in all of “The Simpsons.” A musical model of “Planet of the Apes,” the bit riffs on the favored track “Rock Me Amadeus” however makes it concerning the villainous Dr. Zaius, Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Religion, from the 1968 basic. As a parody, it has all the things; an ape that breakdances out of nowhere to an ’80s Europop parody track, Troy McClure in his prime, indoor fireworks inside a theater, and beautiful traces like “I hate each ape I see, from chimpan-a to chimpanzee.” It is wonderful to assume that, initially, the episode was not even set to incorporate the “Planet of the Apes” musical parody, with the writers contemplating a film or TV present as a profession comeback for McClure.
Now, a “Cease The Planet Of the Apes, I Need To Get Off!” revival might seem as a easy joke on the floor, but it surely does include sure implications. Given the character of Troy McClure was retired after voiceover performer Phil Hartman’s tragic dying, is that this a revival with one other actor? There are episodes after Hartman’s dying that point out the character of McClure as being alive, so might he be going by means of a renaissance like Josh Hartnett or Brendan Fraser? And if he’s lifeless, then who might even step into his footwear? Would this be a horrible worst-case state of affairs like Lin-Manuel Miranda doing a reimagining of the musical, or one thing extra tasteful like Hartman’s real-life good friend and former “Saturday Night time Stay” castmember Jon Lovitz taking up the function as he did on stay “The Simpsons” concert events a couple of years in the past? Whatever the reply, “The Simpsons” lastly made a monkey out of me.