While The Simpsons can’t always pull off homages to the show’s glory days, one season 33 gag perfectly recreated Homer’s most memorable life lesson. The Simpsons season 33 has a troubled relationship with the show’s past. The long-running animated sitcom has been on the air for decades, meaning there are inevitably moments where The Simpsons either retcons established canon or recreates classic moments from earlier outings.
For instance, one season 33 episode copied The Simpsons Movie’s most cringe-inducing moment by having Homer accidentally leave Bart stranded semi-nude in public. However, that homage failed to mine any new humor from the setup, whereas other Simpsons season 33 jokes arguably do a better job of building on the often-imitated show's earlier successes. The Simpsons repeating Homer’s most iconic life lesson, for example, managed to make the original quote even better.
The classic gag of Homer warning his children not to try, as they will inevitably fail, came back in the recent episode “The Sound of Bleeding Gums” (season 33, episode 17). It’s an inversion of the sitcom trope “The Golden Moment,” wherein characters—typically a parent and child combo—would sit down and earnestly discuss the lesson they learned this week. On The Simpsons, the lesson amounts to a cynical inversion of the typical saccharine stuff learned by the Cosbys and the Tanners. When Bleeding Gums Murphy’s story came back in The Simpsons season 33, Homer and Lisa seemed destined for a schmaltzy “follow your heart” speech, but the show successfully subverted this expectation.
Instead, Homer echoed the iconic quote that earned him a spot in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. The original episode’s line was “Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try” and the quote appeared in the Golden Age Simpsons outing “Burns’ Heir” (season 5 episode 18). However, The Simpsons season 33 built on this bleak premise with Homer adding “don’t try to save anyone or anything… The environment? It’s over. Democracy? Hanging by a thread” before then adding in a final comment that leaned on the fourth wall, as Homer said broadcast television was the third institution that had no hope of ever being worthwhile in the future. While the return of Bleeding Gums Murphy didn’t clear up his casting paradox, it did prove that The Simpsons can still add to its classic episodes with memorable moments like this.
Homer throwing in a jab at television as a medium was a solid meta-gag and a good way to freshen up what could otherwise have just been a case of The Simpsons quoting itself. Instead of resting on its laurels, The Simpsons season 33 gag proved the show can still feel fresh while relying on classic setups that it established decades ago. The joke is a promising sign for The Simpsons season 33, proving the show doesn't need to either ignore its canon or rely entirely on its already-established jokes to succeed comedically.