The TV show The Simpsons is part of the fabric of American culture at this point. It has been on for decades, and although the show doesn’t put out banger after banger like they did in their heyday, they can still be counted on to put out fun shows and the occasional home run.
As part of their cultural influence, naturally puzzles have featured prominently from time to time.
Probably the most famous puzzly moment was when Lisa became a competitive crossword solver and Homer’s apology puzzle to her appeared in The New York Times. But they’ve also featured brain teasers, anagrams, and a Da Vinci Code-esque series of riddles.
And that legacy of puzzle-fueled storytelling hasn’t stopped since I wrote that post over a decade ago.
But it wasn’t through crosswords or brain teasers that puzzles have appeared on the Simpsons more recently. It was through Wordle.
Wordle has been mentioned enough times on The Simpsons that it actually has its own entry on the Simpsons Wiki.
We get a glimpse of a Wordle game in episode 2 of season 37, entitled “Keep Chalm and Gary On.”
Supernintendo Chalmers is fired from his job, and ends up working at the Nuclear Power Plant with Homer. After seeing how hard Chalmers was working, Homer teaches him how to APPEAR like he’s working hard.
During this montage, we get a glimpse of Chalmers playing Wordle.
But this was actually the second instance of this exact same Wordle game appearing on The Simpsons.
A few seasons earlier — episode 2 of season 34, entitled “One Angry Lisa” — Lisa finds herself on a jury, and is annoyed when she spots Judge Constance Harm playing Wordle during court.
Lisa points out that she’s playing games on the bench, and the judge realizes the answer word is, in fact, BENCH.
Wordle is also mentioned in episode 8 from season 36, entitled “Convenience Airways.” The pilot is making announcements:
Just a reminder, folks, the call button is only for real emergencies, like if you’re down to your last guess on Wordle.
The Simpsons also inspired their own variation on Wordle, Simpsle, where you try to figure out which Simpsons character the game has chosen.
You get hints — are they the same gender as your guess, older or younger, related to your guess, or had more or fewer appearances than your guess — in order to deduce the character’s identity in six tries or fewer.
It’s a good time, depending on your familiarity with the show. I’m a huge fan, so I managed to guess Kearney (one of the older bullies/miscreant kids in town) on my sixth guess.
(There was actually another Simpsons-inspired Wordle game at one point, Doh-dle, but it no longer appears to be active.)
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a personal anecdote involving puzzling and The Simpsons.
I was removing a repeat from a Penny Press crossword grid, and as I was working on the puzzle, I thought I’d found the perfect quick fix to fill the space.
I showed Patti Varol, future editor of The LA Times Crossword, my correction, and she pointed out that my fix, EMBIGGENS, despite being a perfectly cromulent word, wouldn’t be accepted.
It had not even occurred to me that EMBIGGENS wasn’t standard jargon. We both lamented that fact, and I got back to work on the grid.
Still, it shows the cultural impact of the show in general. From “Yoink!” and “meh” to “saying the quiet part out loud” and “old man yells at cloud,” it has literally changed how we speak.
And that goes for how we puzzle as well.
Do you have any favorite puzzly Simpsons moments? Or puzzly moments from other TV shows? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.
I mean, a little more legibly than this, if you don’t mind…
PuzzCulture 