Summary

• Classic filler jokes in The Simpsons, like Sideshow Bob and the rakes, have had lasting influence on other popular TV shows.
• Even scenes originally meant as padding, such as "The Adventures of Ned Flanders," later inspired full episodes and entire shows.
• The playful, experimental humor of The Simpsons' Golden Age episodes, initially met with mixed reactions, ultimately shaped the future of comedy TV shows.

Even jokes that were intended as filler in Golden Age episodes of Golden Age of The Simpsons ran from around season 3 to season 10. Debate rages over when the Golden Age officially ended, but even the most generous reviews concede that more recent seasons have declined in quality.

While The Simpsons season 36 could reverse that trend, the show has never replicated the acclaim its Golden Age received. The writing featured during that era deftly combined an array of comedic styles, from broad slapstick to surprisingly subtle satire. The Simpsons' Golden Age blended dozens of different influences to create an endlessly inventive style of comedy that went on to shape the meta humor of 30 Rock and Community, the subversive irreverence of Family Guy, and the warped family sitcom stylings of Bob’s Burgers. Even the padding used to fill out The Simpsons' Golden Age episodes is now considered classic comedy.

Two Great Simpsons Episodes Used Classic Gags As Filler

"The Front" and "Cape Feare" included famous jokes simply to make up time

The Simpsons season 5, episode 2, "Cape Feare," is frequently cited among the best Simpsons episodes of all time. Since the Simpsons never age, the show has been able to keep Bart's beef with Sideshow Bob alive for decades since this classic outing aired, but the malevolent clown's vendetta against Bart was never funnier than in this Cape Fear parody. Despite this, even "Cape Feare" featured a scene that was only intended to pad out the episode’s runtime. The iconic sequence where Bob steps on nine rakes in a row after emerging from under a car, shuddering after each, was actually filler.

According to executive producer and former showrunner Al Jean in The Simpsons' DVD commentary, the scene was stretched from one to nine rakes because the writers needed to pad out the episode. It ultimately became one of The Simpsons' best jokes. Similarly, season 4, episode 19, "The Front," ended with a goofy vignette starring Ned Flanders. "The Adventures of Ned Flanders" occupied the episode’s closing minute and involved Ned berating his sons for failing to attend church, only to laugh with relief when he discovers it is Saturday, not Sunday. Per writer Mike Reiss, this bizarre, yet brilliant, gag was introduced solely to bulk up the episode's run time.

The Simpsons Was Criticized For Padding

Simpsons writer Mike Reiss said these experimental gags weren’t always well-received

Although The Simpsons season 35 revisited "Cape Feare" years later due to its status as a fan-favorite outing, the genius of these Golden Age episodes was not immediately obvious. While the scenes are now beloved, writer Mike Reiss itted in his book Springfield Confidential that most of The Simpsons' playful, experimental moments of random humor were initially met with mixed reactions. Reiss said that the prevailing response to "The Adventures of Ned Flanders" was a resounding "what the hell was that?" Despite this, according to writer Bill Oakley, the scene later inspired another iconic episode.

Oakley said that The Simpsons season 7, episode 21, "22 Short Films About Springfield" was inspired by the unexplored potential of "The Adventures of Ned Flanders." The writer loved the idea of standalone mini-adventures starring side characters from the sprawling world of The Simpsons. Despite the mixed response to the original gag, Oakley and the rest of the writer's room used Ned's scene as a jumping-off point to write "22 Short Films About Springfield." This iconic episode would contain one of the show's most popular scenes, the "Steamed Hams" sequence.

Even Golden Age Simpsons Padding Was Influential and Iconic

Jokes like Sideshow Bob and the rakes influenced Family Guy's drawn-out gags

Much like how The Simpsons often mocked Disney and other popular media, both the "Steamed Hams" scene and "The Adventures of Ned Flanders" were parodies of classic sitcoms. Ironically, in the years since the Golden Age ended, The Simpsons became more influential than the sitcoms its early seasons parodied. Overly-long gags that derived their humor from their uncomfortable length, like Sideshow Bob's rake sequence, went on to influence Family Guy’s boundary-pushing anti-humor. One particularly infamous gag wherein Peter Griffin skins his knee and winces over the injury is clearly indebted to the padding of "Cape Feare."

Similarly, American Dad took the premise behind "The Adventures of Ned Flanders" to its logical extreme with a spoof of family sitcoms that was darker, meaner, and more subversive than the sunny shows it drew influence from. Later, Bojack Horseman, whose creator singled out The Simpsons as a huge influence, delved further into the grim world hiding behind the sitcom format. While these shows hinged on the audience’s familiarity with mawkish sitcom tropes, the Golden Age of The Simpsons was spoofing classic TV comedies decades earlier. As a result, this era of The Simpsons produced some of TV's most influential comedy - even when it was just trying to fill time.