Talk:The Simpsons

Deletion

This page is uncanonical and uninformative.--Fluffball Gato 04:29, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

Support

• Template:Support- What I said was true. --Fluffball Gato 04:29, March 17, 2010 (UTC)

• There isn't actually anything in-universe that specifically references The Simpsons, there are quotes which using out-of-universe knowledge we can deduce that they're referring to The Simpsons. The article might have a life as a real world article in which the in-universe reference can be noted, but as all the statements currently have 'source needed' tags I'm not sure of its validity. --Tangerineduel 10:53, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

Against

• Keep, as they say on Wikipedia. The Simpsons is actually important to Doctor Who in that it's the first time the show had been referenced on a major American network in prime time. That fact alone keeps it in, especially as we have a pic of the appearance. Also we do know the credits for the recent "Treehouse" episode do explicitly refer to the 2009 specials. So it's worth keeping around, for sure. But does it need to be repurposed into a real world article? Well, here I'm less sure. We have several articles, like Circle of Life, or The Lion Sleeps Tonight, where the reference to the title isn't explicit in the episode. Instead, we've used our common sense to tell us that this is in fact the subject being referenced. And I don't see how that does any harm. We don't need the words "The Simpsons" in Planet of the Ood to tell us that the "comedy Ood" is pulling a Homer Simpson. We don't need Silver Scream to use the words "Charlie Chaplin" to tell us that the Doctor is referring to Chaplin at a couple of points in the story. Physical descriptions, photographs, and aural cues — if they are specific enough — are enough to start an article on this wiki, I feel. Now, sure, we get into problems sometimes by believing a thing is a reference to X when maybe there's room for doubt. For instance, this article once referred to the Doctor's line in The End of Time, "Worst. Rescue. Ever.", as a reference to The Simpsons, and I think that's a bit too vague to state with authority. But I don't think there's a problem here with doing something like this:
  • Go ahead and repurpose the article as primarily a real world article. This subject is much more important to Doctor Who because of its parodic connection than anything else. Add it to Category:Television shows with Doctor Who connections and Category:Parodies and pastiches. We have missed several references to Doctor Who within The Simpsons, including one in the episode "Bart the Fink" that unambiguously refers to a "Doctor Who [episode watching] marathon", and another in "Springfield Up" in which Homer refers to a character voiced by Eric Idle as "Doctor Who". I don't personally think that all the references given at Wikipedia:Doctor Who parodies are entirely valid, but these two, when combined with the more famous Fourth Doctor appearances, are more than enough to confirm the fact that the television show, Doctor Who, exists within the Simpsons universe.
  • Flip the order of the information in the article. Pull the real world stuff to the top, and put the in-universe stuff at the bottom.
  • Relabel the section for the DWU stuff to Possible references in the DWU, or some such.
  • Make it clear in the DWU section that the DWU has never positively referred to The Simpsons by name.
  • Retain Category:Television series from the real world. As you know, I don't like having articles tagged in both RW and DUW categories, but this is, I think, a special case. I don't think you can justify how the Ood is a "comedy" Ood unless it is referencing the comedy television programme, The Simpsons. The Homerian "D'Oh!" is not funny in isolation from The Simpsons. Nor can you explain Bart's appearance in Party Animals or signature Bart phrases in Cuddlesome. Remember, Category:Television series from the real world is underneath Category:Cultural references from the real world, and these are definitely references. They don't "work" unless you know The Simpsons. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 19:37, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

It's not quite in the same league as the other things in the Parodies and Pastiches category.

However I think it could have a small bit of info on the Doctor Who parodies or the Doctor Who pastiches pages linking to this page, just so it's acknowledged as something of a parody and when in the timeline of parodies the occurrences occur.

How significant is a reference in The Simpsons to Doctor Who? Can we positively prove it was the first on prime time US TV? (I'm just curious on this point)

Perhaps the Circle of Life article needs to be merged into The Lion King article as it's what the Doctor says it's from and The Lion Sleeps Tonight moved to 'Track number 90' (with a note in the article that it is 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. --Tangerineduel 12:39, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Fourth Doctor

Is there really a case where the individual is actually supposed to be the Doctor? The Treehouse of Horror episode has Lucy Lawless and other actors including Tom Baker, who never aged apparently. The Mark Hamill episode was at a sci-fi convention and was more likely a fan. The Sideshow Bob episode has the "representatives of television" which means... something.
--Nyktimos 04:50, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Longevity

When I encountered it, this article made a claim about The Simpsons having a chance to beat Doctor Who's record of 26 years of continuous broadcast. This is a spurious comparison, as DW's record is not for longest runnng scriped drama, but longest-running SF show. There are several shows in the UK which have records The Simpsons are never going to touch, like Corrie, and these are what should be the point of comparison with Simpsons. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 04:52, March 17, 2010 (UTC)