Quoting the Simpsons

December 20, 2005 6:29 AM

I was recently was watching an episode of the Simpsons, which had me reflecting on the fact that the show is quoted all the time by everyone, to some people's great annoyance. My question is, was there ever a show before it that was so widely quoted?

Simpsons quotes seem to have thoroughly saturated everyday speech, at least of a certain age group. I'm too young to remember the heyday of older popular shows like Cheers, MASH, etc. Did people go around quoting those shows when they were popular on the same level as people quote the Simpsons? Or is this quote-craze a new phenomenon?

posted by Sangermaine to society & culture (25 comments total)

Monty Python (70s) or SNL (80s) would fit the bill.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:34 AM on December 20, 2005

I've always thought that today's television program quotations are yesterday's poetry and literature quotations. I have a degree in Japanese literature and I'm always amazed at how many poems refer to other poems by borrowing a line or an allusion. The quotation thing is definately not a new phenomenon.

Also, one does hear quotes from other shows like Seinfeld quite a bit, but they have not aged as well as Simpsons quotes. ('Whoa!', 'Not that there's anything wrong with that.', 'How you doin.?')
posted by Alison at 6:34 AM on December 20, 2005

Python and SNL definitely. For years SNL lived and died on its ability to generate catchphrases.
posted by briank at 6:36 AM on December 20, 2005

I seem to remember someone's idea that television commercials have replaced the bible as the source of shared cultural literacy. It used to be that anywhere you went, you could discuss the stories in the Bible. Now anywhere you go you can discuss that Wal-Mart ad with Queen Latifah.
posted by Xalf at 6:38 AM on December 20, 2005

Seinfeld too, though I suppose that's technically a contemporary of the Simpsons rather than a predecessor.

I don't recall Cheers or M*A*S*H quotes being all that prevalent, even though the shows were wildly popular and long-running. But shows like that were much more linear and less silly and in-jokey than shows like The Simpsons and its ilk. I suspect that has something to do with why older shows weren't and aren't quoted as much.
posted by Gator at 6:51 AM on December 20, 2005

You bet your sweet bippy. It wasn't on nearly as long as the Simpsons but while it was on I think Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was quoted even more widely (and perhaps more annoyingly).
posted by TimeFactor at 6:54 AM on December 20, 2005

I seem to remember someone's idea that television commercials have replaced the bible as the source of shared cultural literacy

Like when the Simpsons all sing the "Feel Like Chicken Tonight" jingle!

I think the Simpsons is a special case, in that so many of the references are useful ellipses for cultural phenomena: the comic book store guy sums up geek sarcasm, "I for one welcome out X overlords" sums up media toadies, etc. "Not that there's anything wrong with that" is the same. But the Simpsons really nails a lot of quirks in our society.

SNL catch phrases and MP skits aren't' really representative of anything; quoting them doesn't explain a larger concept.
posted by bendybendy at 6:54 AM on December 20, 2005

"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!"

"Bam! Zoom! To the moon!"

Quoting TV shows is as old as TV shows.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:58 AM on December 20, 2005

Good point -- due to the longevity of the Simpsons, and the built-in self-referential and pop-culture references for every episode, it's pretty much unique. Other shows have contributed ("Come on down!"), but not nearly as much nor for as long.
posted by davidmsc at 7:19 AM on December 20, 2005

Quoting TV shows is as old as TV shows.
I didn't mean whether TV shows had ever been quoted before, but whether they were ever quoted all the time like they are now. I doubt the Honeymooners were quoted in every other conversation like shows are today. Thanks to everyone for the answers so far. I think bendybendy and davidmsc brought up a good point about the wide-ranging nature of Simpsons quotes. I had been thinking how there is basically a Simpsons quote for any occasion.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:28 AM on December 20, 2005

Shakespeare gets quoted in a similar manner, as a verbal shorthand for a common situation.
posted by yerfatma at 7:31 AM on December 20, 2005

I've seen maybe part of a Honeymooners episode, none where Gleason says "To the moon, Alice!", yet I can still quote you the line. Somehow, the quote was ubiquitous enough to have survived for over 50 years and even infiltrate someone born decades after the show went off the air.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:32 AM on December 20, 2005

Laugh-In was unlike earlier shows like I Love Lucy or Honeymooners in that the catchphrases it generated were explicitly meant to be catchphrases. I think it was the first pop/junk culture phenomenon of its type in that it acknowledged and revelled in its role as pop/junk culture phenomenon.

Everyone watched Laugh-In in large part because they wanted to be in on what everyone else was going to be saying, what catchphrases everyone was going to be repeating, not because it was especially entertaining (in retrospect I don't think it was). The Simpsons definitely shares that self-awareness (but is in all other respects far superior).

Unless you were around at the time I don't think you can appreciate how ubiquitous phrases like: "verrry interesting, but stupid", "sock it to me", "here come da judge", "fickle finger of fate", "you bet your sweet bippy", "look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls", etc. were. Simpsons-quoting is done by a certain (albeit very large) demographic, but Laugh-In quotes were thrown out by everybody.
posted by TimeFactor at 7:50 AM on December 20, 2005

I had been thinking how there is basically a Simpsons quote for any occasion.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:28 AM PST on December 20

That makes me think of "You've Got Mail" (yeah, I watched it, so what?) when Tom Hanks' character says the Godfather is like the I Ching - there's advice for any situation. One example he gives is "What to pack for a trip?" - the answer is "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." Now, I've not seen the entirety of the Godfather (no, I didn't watch it, so what?) but there are a few movies that at least within certain circles are continuously if not constantly quoted. Of course, even a long-running film franchise like Bond can't really compete with an episode a week for 16 years. Probably not really fair to compare movies to TV in this case.
posted by attercoppe at 7:52 AM on December 20, 2005

I think because The Simpsons focuses so much on cultural quirks and on pointing out societal ideosyncracies and has had such strong writing that it has left us with a cultural shorthand, there are Simpons quotes that explain things that happen to each of us everyday as we go about our lives.
posted by Cosine at 8:48 AM on December 20, 2005

Ahhhh, shaddup, dingbat. You know why? 'Cause youse a meathead, meathead! Gloria, eh, I'm tryin' to sleep heah ...
posted by WCityMike at 9:13 AM on December 20, 2005

I had a course in college where the professor bemoaned the fact that our shared culture was gone; in the past, people could quote lines from Shakespeare and easily and quickly convey a complex idea by referencing shared knowledge.

For illiterate TV-bred know-nothings like us, The Simpsons has replaced Shakespeare.
posted by jewzilla at 9:15 AM on December 20, 2005

Star Trek.
posted by johngoren at 10:27 AM on December 20, 2005

Aliens:
"Game over! We're fucked! We're gonna bite it on this rock!"
"Move like you got a purpose!"
"I want a clean even dispersal by the numbers."
"You're really an asshole"(in an emotionally inappropriate context)

A friend and I were able to communicate very economically using lines from Apocalypse Now:
"[name of place we happen to be in]. Shit."
"Never get out of the boat."
"Yeeaaahhh..." (answer to "Do you know who the C.O. is?")
"Someday, this war's gonna end."
"Who's gonna tell them, me? Look at me. Wrong!"
"What are you gonna do, land on 3/8?"
etc

For some reason, that never caught on beyond the two of us.
posted by Eothele at 10:51 AM on December 20, 2005

I seem to remember as a kid in the 70s, we were quoting a lot of "Welcome Back, Kotter":

-- "I'm Arnold Horschaaaack"
-- "Up your nose with a rubber hose!"
-- "Wha? Wha?"
-- "Hey, Mr. Kott-air!"
-- "Ooohh! Ooohh! Ooohh!" (Horschack)

(Didn't say they were good quotes, just quotes).

Of course, there's always "Dyn-O-Mite"!
posted by pardonyou? at 11:14 AM on December 20, 2005

You know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society!
posted by Tubes at 12:06 PM on December 20, 2005

I worked with some guys who were able to communicate almost exclusively through Simpson's quotes. My own quote memory was supplemented by theirs until I could do the same. (The best way to learn a language is through total immersion.)

I came to believe there is no situation one can encounter in life that cannot be referenced to a Simpson's episode.

As jewzilla pointed out, it is our new shared cultural reference, and I don't know that it's really any less sophisiticated than Shakespeare was in his time.
posted by Tubes at 12:09 PM on December 20, 2005

I think the Simpsons does inspire more quotation than other shows.

And it's worse than you think:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neologisms_on_The_Simpsons
There are an awful lot of words and phrases invented on the Simpsons that have become common usage.
posted by winston at 5:16 PM on December 20, 2005

I had been thinking how there is basically a Simpsons quote for any occasion.

Absolutely. I can attest to this from first-hand experience. A good friend of mine can (and does) come up with a Simpsons quote for pretty much any situation.

The Simpsons also has a unique quality in that the show is attractive to a wide span of ages. Many of us who quote the Simpsons grew up on it and still watch it today.
posted by spiderskull at 1:37 AM on December 21, 2005

Yeah, I think the quote phenomenon is as old as TV and as old as any catchy medium, be it Elizabethan song or Homeric verse.

And, re:
"verrry interesting, but stupid"
I remember it as "verrry interesting, but silly and stupid"

And I hope I can forget it again, now. Laugh-in catchphrases were indeed ubiquitous.
posted by Listener at 9:53 PM on December 17, 2006