Super Bowl with The Simpsons

The Simpsons have covered every topic imaginable over their near thirty year run. One of their best but seldom used topics has been the game of football. With the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 4th a great pre-game option is to watch the top three Simpsons episodes about football. Here’s a viewers guide to the Simpsons Bowl.

No. 3: Homer Loves Flanders

The majority of this episode isn’t about football as much as the other two episodes on the list, but, the premise does take place at a football game. Ned wins the football tickets that Homer wants so they attend the game together. One of Homer’s more famous lines is his singing of “Nacho Man” while wearing a giant nacho hat with queso in it. By the end of the game Homer becomes enamored with Ned Flanders.

The episode also developed one of the most popular GIFs floating around the Twittersphere, the one above where Homer backs into the bushes. There’s a great Terminator 2 reference as well. Ned eventually gets annoyed with Homer and by the end of the episode Springfield is returned to normal where Homer is annoyed by the ever-friendly Ned Flanders.

No. 2: The Town

“The Town” is a Simpsons episode released on October 9, 2016. Homer, a fan of his local Springfield Atoms, has to suffer with Bart who becomes a Boston Americans fan after they beat the Atoms. The episode has some hilarious Patriot Way material like the hoodie-wearing Americans coach cheating with magnets to win the coin toss, manipulating the rules to throw a touchdown to the mascot, and “The Bonk” being a meathead football player.

Homer moves the family to Boston. Lisa loves it, Bart hates it, and Bart convinces the family to return to Springfield. The Pati... Americans of course win the championship and Homer crashes the parade by knocking over bobbleheads and choking on “a Pedro.”

No. 1: Bart Star

In classic Homer fashion, the kids of Springfield start to play pee-wee football when they’re deemed overweight. Ned Flanders is named coach and has the team with an undefeated record before quitting because Homer heckles him relentlessly. Homer becomes the coach, makes Bart his quarterback, and goes full Junction Boys running off his team and cutting all the girls.

The episode originally aired on November 9th of 1997. There’s a cameo by Joe Namath, and King of the Hill’s Hank Hill, on the way to Bart and Nelson switching places as Bart goes to jail and Nelson helps Homer win the big game. As a coach, it’s great to see The Simpsons poke this much fun at ‘daddy ball’ which has infuriated coaches, players and parents since David versus Goliath.

Enjoy the Super Bowl and Tom Brady winning yet another championship even as the Patriots are allegedly showing “cracks” per ESPN on the way to eighth Super Bowl appearance in the Brady-Belichick era.