The Simpsons likes its pop culture references. There’s an argument to be made that the show leans on them a little too heavily in recent years. And if there’s one go-to grab bag for references in that Fox-sponsored writers’ room, it has to be the filmography of Stanley Kubrick. Allusions and outright parodies of films like A Clockwork Orange and The Shining are so prevalent that French video editor Candice Drouet was able to piece them and their corresponding influences into one super-tight two-minute supercut.
As much like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal this compilation is, there’s one reference to 1971’s A Clockwork Orange that’s missing. Perhaps the best one of all. It’s from the 1993 episode “Duffless” from the show’s fourth season, and it’s maybe the most clever visual gag they ever employed. You can just skip right ahead to the 1:15 mark.
The original referenced scene probably shouldn’t be embedded here for reasons that are obvious to anyone who gets the joke. For those who don’t, Google is always a good resource.
Crazy as this sounds, it would seems as though over the course of 25 years, the Simpsons never got around to making either a Lolita or Spartacus reference. (But somehow hit Barry Lyndon?) Not even one use of Nelson Riddle’s “Lolita Ya Ya” or an “I am Krusty The Clown” joke. So strange. Seems like the closest the show ever came to those two films was when they made a quick reference to the character Lolita Bouvier in The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album and when voice actor Hank Azaria played a guy named Agador Spartacus in The Birdcage.
[via Vox]