The Simpsons: The 10 Best Couch Gags In The Show’s History

As if The Simpsons hadn’t already done enough to prove its position as the greatest TV show of all time, it’s spent its iconic 30-year run not only pumping out hundreds of episodes but filling the opening credits of each one with two different jokes that change almost every time they appear.

The classic whiteboard gag has been examined time after time, but the longer and often much more detailed couch gag is the focus of our list today. Of the 671 (at the time of writing) episodes produced, we’re whittling it down to just 10 of best couch gags The Simpsons has ever produced.

10 The Circus Line

My own personal favorite couch gag also happens to be the most frequently used in the history of The Simpsons, appearing in 8 episodes overall. Its reuse initially stemmed from the need to stretch out the run-time of the slightly shorter episodes. Very cheeky.

The yellow family begins their own dance routine before the screen widens and a stage full of circus performers and elephants join in. Arguably the highlight is the specially composed circus version of the title theme that plays in the background. Not only is it a brilliantly funny opening, but it also shows just how much effort the producers of the show were willing to put in to make sure every episode is as timeless as the last.

9 The Frogs

There isn’t much more to say about this one other than the fact that the Simpson family all appear in frog form. If that doesn’t draw you in I don’t know what will.

It isn’t the most inventive, clever or well-thought-out gag, but there’s something about seeing a family of ribbiting frogs replace a family of humans that’s just really funny. It’s even funnier when you find out that it was the idea of Dan Castellaneta’s (the voice of Homer) daughter.

While it has been reused a few times, the first and most iconic use was at the start of the season 9 episode ‘Das Bus’.

8 The Flipbook

Used just twice, the producers of The Simpsons must have really wanted to branch out into new styles of animation. This couch gag is a live-action shot of a flipbook flipping through some hand-drawn scenes of the family sitting on the sofa. A real throw-back to the Golden Era of animation. Sort of.

It certainly doesn’t have the humor of many other gags, but it shows that the producers aren’t afraid to go a little meta, acknowledging the real-world scenario that goes into creating the show. Also, it’s really quite cool to see the Simpson family drawn in this way. They probably started out as concept art drawn like this.

7 500th Anniversary Mosaic

To celebrate the release of their 500^th episode, the producers went all out. This gag opens with a few previous couch gags in montage form, before zooming through screenshots of every single couch gag ever made until it lands on this one, which is simply the family sitting down… until it zooms out to reveal an impressive mosaic which creates the number 500 using screenshots of previous couch gags.

It’s a great nod to such a brilliant tradition, which I’m sure took a lot of extra work. Now we’re edging towards the 700th anniversary, there is likely to be something pretty cool in the works.

6 Flintstones Crossover

All the way back in season 4, The Simpsons managed to get the licensing rights to use the entire Flintstone family at the start of the iconic ‘Kamp Krusty’ episode. While they don’t speak, the ever-delightful Fred Flintstone smiles and invites Homer to take a seat on his own sofa.

Crossovers were a long-established novelty by this point, but it’s still always cool to see characters you love interacting with each other. Maybe this intro would have been better placed before ‘Marge Vs The Monorail’, though, as that is the episode in which Homer parodies ‘Meet The Flintstones’.

5 Escher

One of the greatest and coolest looking pieces of art of all time is one of the most parodied visuals in history. We’ve seen it in every format imaginable, but when The Simpsons finally did it, it couldn’t have been more perfect.

MC Escher’s original work merges various levels of reality into one strange almost-3D looking rendering of some bizarre scenes. This version is as confusing as expected, with the TV visible from behind for one of the first times ever, and the family each entering from a different perspective. Trippy.

4 Egyptian Dance

One of the funniest ever couch gags is built on a simple concept executed absolutely perfectly. Nothing is said, nothing is taken to particularly extreme depths but it’s just so brilliantly done.

The vision of the yellow family moving unprompted into an obviously rehearsed choreographed routine is just so great it’s impossible not to mention it alongside these more far-fetched, high concept efforts. It makes you wonder if the family likes to have planning meetings to work out their dances. Its first appearance was all the way back in the season 2 episode ‘Simpson And Delilah’.

3 Mismatched Heads

This is another relatively simple couch gag, but it just works on so many levels. Given it’s from the pinnacle of Simpsons quality, it’s no surprise that every gag around this era was working so well.

The family sits down, but their heads are all on the wrong body. Seeing Lisa with Marge’s huge head of blue hear turns the 8-year-old into the tallest member of the family, and we see Maggie take her pacifier out of Homer’s mouth. One of the best moments is the delightfully satisfying pop that comes as they all swap back to their correct heads.

2 Zombies

While many ‘Treehouse Of Horror’ episodes remove the couch gag in favor of an extended, alternative introduction, the 4^th installment of the long-running Halloween special gives us a particularly cool look at an alternate reality version of the Simpson family.

The Simpsons appear in zombie form, mouths open and climbing into their house through the floor. It isn’t as dark as, for example, the introduction in which the whole family hangs themselves from the roof (!) but it does allow us a glimpse into what could one day be a pretty cool spinoff series. The Dead Simpsons?

1 Snow Globe

It’s nice to see the writers making sure the episodes link to their couch gag, with this particular one reflecting the Christmassyness of ‘Miracle On Evergreen Terrace’.

It combines a cool concept with a meta approach. The Simpsons sit down as normal before the camera zooms out to reveal a pair of hands shaking a snow globe in which the family resides. It prompts all sorts of questions. Is the entirety of Springfield stuck in a snow globe? Is everything we’ve ever known a lie?