You’d be hard pressed to narrow down greatest ever episode of The Simpsons given how there are over 600 (and counting) to choose from. But if you were to average it out among the show’s legion of fans, there’s a good chance the most popular choice would be the iconic ‘Bart vs Australia’ episode.
Speaking of The Simpsons, the GOAT team talk about how the show somehow predicted the coronavirus years ago on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
Looking back on ‘Bart vs Australia’ 25 years after it first aired, almost all the comedy and the hilarious digs at Australian stereotypes hold up remarkably well.
We’re still having to tell people we don’t drink Fosters, cork hats and boomerangs are still cliched staples of our culture, the infamous “dingo ate my baby” quote remains relevant as investigations into Azaria Chamberlain’s death continued into the 2010s, tourists still believe kangaroos are everywhere, actual Aussies wanted our money to be renamed “dollarydoos“, and of course, knifey spoony.
As The Simpsons is wont to do these days when it comes to eerily accurate predictions of the future, the show’s portrayal of our politicians as beer-swigging, holidaying bogans who handle serious incidents without any grace and often in comically embarrassing ways turned out to be depressingly accurate.
When a scene as ridiculous as kicking Bart Simpson’s butt with a giant boot is somehow less bonkers than actual political events like Barnaby Joyce threatening to euthanise Johnny Depp’s dogs, an ex-PM being BFFs with a convicted pedo, and introducing a pointless dress code for new Aussies, you know The Simpsons were certainly onto something 25 years ago.
To no one’s surprise, ‘Bart vs Australia’ copped some criticism from some Aussies when it first aired. While many Aussies were cool with the episode, The Simpsons staff got over 100 letters of complaint (presumably from boomers and Karens who clearly didn’t get the joke), articles about how insulting the episode was were written, and producer Mike Reiss even recalled the show getting condemned in the Australian Parliament.
Given how well the humour has held up and how eerily accurate The Simpsons lampooned our politicians, it’s probably safe to say that all the criticism ‘Bart vs Australia’ got in 1995 would’ve been far worse had the episode been aired today.
The politicians in power these days have a tendency to deflect, gaslight and resort to childish antics, especially when they’re caught out for doing something dodgy and/or being made fun of. If the response to scandals like the “sports rort” was bad, imagine the almighty stink they would kick up an about The Simpsons had the scene of Bart mooning Aussie pollies been aired today. It would be the perfect distraction to whatever seedy stuff that’s happening behind closed parliament doors.
Couple that with the rise of social media and how a small group of whingers can often become the loudest voices of a fandom (*cough* Star Wars *cough*), you can almost be certain that there will be a contingent of Aussies tweeting their disgust over The Simpsons‘ intentionally inaccurate portrayal of them, all while having absolutely no self-awareness about how they’re just not getting the joke.
But while the negative stuff would be amplified tenfold had ‘Bart vs Australia’ been aired today, the same can be said about all the positive reception towards the episode.
Considering how ‘Bart vs Australia’ still receives so much love today, you can only imagine the number of Aussie Simpsons fans frothing over the episode had it been released in 2020 rather than 1995.
Is this the greatest Simpsons episode ever? Hard to answer that, but it’s perhaps been the timeliest, maybe the most accurate, and definitely one of the funniest.
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