UPDATED: Kamala Harris made that Simpsons clip for a 2013 college scavenger hunt

Harris recreated a classic Simpsons line: We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom

By William Hughes  |  July 27, 2024 | 4:41pm
Photo: Montinique Monroe/Getty Images
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UPDATED: Kamala Harris made that Simpsons clip for a 2013 college scavenger hunt

Update, 3:06 p.m., 7/28/24: The clip of Kamala Harris reciting Kang’s infamous political slogan is from the 2013 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt, a.k.a. “Scav 2013.” Challenge #68 required “an elected public official who asserts, either on video or in person, that our country should move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom! [8 points, 2 additional points if the same official supports a policy of abortions for some miniature American flags for others].” Apparently, a couple of participants had an in with Harris while she was Attorney General of California. Either way, this wasn’t some Pokémon Go To The Polls pandering. She was participating in the school’s annual tradition over a decade ago.

We don’t normally spend a lot of time checking in on The Simpsons when it has its annual panels at Comic-Con, for the hopefully understandable reason that it is a 35-year-old TV show that is essentially generated like clockwork, and will continue to do so until well after we’re dead. There aren’t typically a lot of surprises at a Simpsons panel—unless, of course, one of the two frontrunners in an upcoming presidential election opts to virtually crash said panel with a classic Phil Hartman line, spoken by an alien pretending to be Bill Clinton.

Which is, despite the implausibility of the preceding sentence, exactly what happened today, as THR notes that Vice President Kamala Harris appeared via video at the show’s panel this afternoon, delivering Hartman’s line from presidential-election-as-horror-story “Citizen Kang” from 1996’s “Treehouse Of Horror VII”: “We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.” (A classic bit of Simpsons mockery of presidential buzzspeak that’s perfect in part because it’s so close to something you could genuinely hear out of an “inspirational” speech, possibly minus the twirls.)

We do find ourselves wondering if Harris recorded the clip back when she was merely Vice President, and before she got essentially anointed as the Democratic candidate after her boss Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t be seeking a second term. Either way, big get for The Simpsons, which recently drew fresh “Cartoon Prophet” vibes when people re-noticed that Harris’ suit at the inauguration back in 2021 was similar to the one Lisa Simpson wore when she became president in Season 11’s “Bart To The Future.” (A job she gets after she inherited “quite a budget crunch from President Trump,” a line penned back in 2000.) Meanwhile, at the same panel, the show also showed off a clip of an upcoming Venom parody where Homer gets possessed by alien blue jeans (title: “Denim”), so, you know: Timely as ever!

 
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