For its Season 29 premiere, The Simpsons went far outside of Springfield's box with "The Serfsons," which served as a parody of the ever-popular Game of Thrones and other fantasy properties. It was a fun enough story that once again failed Lisa's wishes for a more-informed society, but perhaps the best moment came when fans got to watch The Simpsons' first Moe phone prank in years. (Even if it technically wasn't a phone being used.) Check out the full clip below.
Bwahaha. Ridiculous, right? Let's throw down a summary of the prank for those who weren't able to watch. The feudalism-era version of Moe's is busy with all the usual suspects -- with the jar of pickled eggs now replaced by a jar of some kind of insects or fairies -- and when a crow came flying in with a message attacked to its foot, fans likely perked up to see this classic Simpsons bit brought back for the season premiere.
The prank itself seemingly had a Game of Thrones reference embedded in it, as Bart's note asked for Moe to seek out "Milady Gwendoline Parts," potentially a nod to actress Gwendoline "Brienne of Tarth" Christie. Of course, that first name was dropped from the request whenever Moe called out to the bar crowd to "Please grab Milady Parts!" That goofy gag, which is a tad more believable when one considers this is an alternate universe where dragons exist and Marge has a twin brother, inspires Barney to inquire about the size of Moe's dowery. Some real x-rated humor going on there, right?
Bart's prank phone calls to Moe's Tavern have been a staple for The Simpsons since way back in Season 1, when "I.P. Freely" was used as the initial faux name. Since then, fans have seen Moe's prank-inspired rage dozens of times across the TV show, comic books, video games and The Simpsons Movie, but the last proper one came five seasons ago. Technically, we actually have seen one in that years-long interim, as the Family Guy crossover episode featured Bart showing Stewie how to make a prank call, which ended far more perversely than The Simpsons tends to handle the gags. You can check out a fun assortment of phone-based Simpsons hilarity in the video below.
There were quite a few direct references to Game of Thrones in "The Serfsons," and it all started with the opening credits. The Simpsons already parodied the look and feel of the location-spanning Thrones opening in the past, and so this episode started off by informing viewers about all the various character groupings that we'd see, while a soundalike theme for G.o.T. played. (This was perhaps our first listen to the new music-scape, which went into effect after The Simpsons fired longtime composer Alf Clausen.) We also got to hear Nikolaj Coster-Waldau voicing Marge's blue-haired twin brother, complete with incestuous marriage joke, and we got to see jokes about the Iron Couch, Ned's decapitated head (using Ned Flanders, naturally), the Night King trying to romance a corpse, a three-eyed crow meal, and a small jab at author George R.R. Martin.
Now that Season 29 has begun in earnest, The Simpsons airs Sunday nights on Fox at 8:00 p.m. ET, just before new episodes of the new live-action comedy Ghosted. And you know we're waiting for the newest Treehouse of Horror episode. In the meantime, everyone can check out our fall premiere schedule to see all the other new shows heading to TV in the near future
