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What is the greatest episode of The Simpsons? Is it the Monorail episode? Is it one of the Treehouse Of Horror episodes? Maybe it's the one with the Pin Pals? Needless to say, the best episode is undoubtedly from the earlier seasons as they are by far the most memorable.
At least this appears to be the consensus from most diehard Simpsons fans as well as those who create the numerous 'best episode' lists on the internet. While each of the lists may have a different episode in the top slot, one half-hour constantly places near the top... That would be Season 4's seventeenth episode, "Last Exit To Springfield".
During an oral history by The Wrap, the creators and writers of The Simpsons shed light on the origin of the 1993 episode as well as why they don't think it's the best they've ever made...
The Origin Of 'The Best' Simpsons Episode
On the surface, "Last Exit to Springfield" is a very simple episode of the Simpsons. It mostly follows Lisa's need for braces and Homer becoming a union leader at his work in order to get his family's dental plan covered.
However, the episode also does everything a great episode of The Simpsons does; it balances a heartfelt story with some truly absurd gags, cutting political satire, as well as a copious amount of pop culture references.
During their interview with The Wrap, the co-writers of the episode, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky, explained that much of the episode was inspired by the latter's hatred of his orthodontist.
"I hated my orthodontist. I hated him. He was horrible. He was mean, and he was never nice," Wallace Wolodarsky said to The Wrap. "That’s what brought around my psychoses before I got to take advantage of it."
"I remember Wally being instrumental on that dental scene," Jay Kogen added. "All the dental tools, 'the gouger, the scraper,' those are Wally’s jokes as far as I remember. He also created the Big Book of British Smiles."
Wallace knew there was a benefit of keeping the story extremely simple as it allowed them to branch off and explore more complex themes (as well as jokes).
"The story is very easy to understand. You lose your dental insurance, or Lisa will have horrible braces. Now you start to hang every last joke that you can on it," Wallace explained to The Wrap.
"You never think about weighing heavy themes, though it does have one of my favorite themes, which is labor versus management. As a person who’s in multiple Hollywood unions, I’m very much a labor person. So that was fun to put the labor message out into the world. As it’s been the case for many years now, labor has been crushed every which way. It was fun to see labor as the hero."
It was producer/writer Mike Reiss who was credited for coming up with the idea that Homer becomes a leader of the union.
"We were conscious of being very even-handed at the time," Showrunner Al Jean explained, as the topic of unions could be seen as quite divisive.
"There were many more moderate Republicans and there was a real sense, although I think many of the writers always leaned liberal, most of them, not all of them, that there was a sense that you wanted to respect both sides."
Why "Last Exit To Springfield" Isn't The Best Episode Of The Simpsons, According To The Creators
Despite appearing on numerous 'best episode' lists, including one from USA Today, many of The Simpson writers disagree.
"About 15 seasons into the show, I saw USA Today had ranked it as the best of the first 300 episodes of The Simpsons," Mike Reiss said to The Wrap. "I called Jay Kogen and said, 'They picked your episode “Last Exit to Springfield” as the best episode ever'. And he said, 'It wasn’t even the best one we wrote that month!'"
"One day I’d have three of my shows on the top 10, and the next time there would be some list, I’d have none," Simpsons director Mark Kirkland said to The Wrap of the ever-changing opinion about what episode is the greatest.
"Whoever is writing these lists, they have a new favorite all the time. But it’s probably the one I’ve done that’s the highest on the list in my career. It’s probably the one that’s most consistently on the Top 10," Mark continued.
As for the two writers of the episode, well, they just don't understand the acclaim either.
"It seems picked kind of randomly. It’s not even my favorite episode that we wrote, let alone everyone’s favorite in an entire 30-year series," Jay Kogen admitted to The Wrap.
Co-writer Wallace Wolodarsky added, "Why it’s considered the best is totally beyond me. I have no idea. I’ve heard that before from people, and it seems like a really good episode from a really fun year, but is it the best? I don’t know about that."
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