For season 3, the opening credits change again. This time, the tune Lisa plays on the saxophone is different from episode to episode. Season 3 continues to have a lot of famous-at-the-time guest stars. There’s sports stars such as Magic Johnson and Darryl Strawberry, musical stars like Michael Jackson, Sting, and Aerosmith, and actors like Neil Patrick Harris, Jon Lovitz, and Steve Allen.

The season opener, “Stark Raving Dad” (S3, E1) in which Homer meets a man who thinks he’s Michael Jackson (voiced by Michael Jackson), isn’t available to watch on Disney+. The episode was pulled due to allegations made against Jackson. From a quick internet search, this appears to be the only Simpsons episode that isn’t available to watch, but now I’m worried more episodes might get pulled before I have a chance to watch them.

I remember this episode introduced me to agoraphobia, the fear of going out in public, which affects me somewhat. It also contains the great original song “Lisa, It’s Your Birthday”. I remember watching commercials advertising the episode before it aired. At the time, there was a rumor that Michael Jackson lightened his skin, so based only on the commercial, my brothers and I thought The Simpsons was making fun of Michael Jackson for having light skin when it really wasn’t.

“Bart the Murderer” (S3, E4) introduces mobster Fat Tony and in my opinion has one of the funniest lines. When Police Chief Wiggum tells Tony he’s under arrest for murder, Tony says, “What’s a murder?” Wiggum responds with, “Don’t play dumb with me.” Hilarious. I’ve repeated variations of this joke too many times throughout my life. At the end of the episode, Bart says he learns that crime doesn’t pay while the mobsters drive off in limousines. When I first watched it as a kid who expected TV shows to end with a lesson, it was a shocking reversal, but also funny.

The ending to “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington” (S3, E2) doesn’t work in comparison. In that episode, Lisa uncovers political corruption and the wrongdoer is duly punished. The ending feels fake, because it is. Politicians routinely get away with corruption in the real world. Although, I guess you could say political corruption actually getting punished is funny because it’s incongruous with reality.

The Halloween episodes tend to be my favorites. “Treehouse of Horror II” (S3, E7) ends with Mr. Burns’ body being crushed by a robot falling on him. His head gets attached to Homer’s body. Homer thinks it was all a dream until he sees Burns’ head is indeed attached to his body. There’s then a “Next time on The Simpsons” segment which indicates Burns’ head will still be attached to Homer’s body next episode. I was fooled by this. Back when it originally aired, I told a friend who missed the episode that the events of the episode (I was careful to avoid spoilers) would impact the next episode. He didn’t believe me because The Simpsons wasn’t the type of show you had to watch in order, and he was right.

Each episode of The Simpsons is filled with pop culture references. Rewatching it with my daughter, I’m tempted to explain them all to her, but it would take too long. For example, “Flaming Moe’s” (S3, E10) contains references to the television show Cheers, which was extremely popular back when it was on the air and in re-runs, but is unknown to the youth of today. There’s so many references, most people who watch miss out on at least some of them. It would require too much homework to fully appreciate every episode, but fortunately, they’re usually funny on their own even if you don’t get what they’re referencing.

“I Married Marge” (S3, E12) is a flashback episode about how Homer and Marge first met and how he first started working at the nuclear powerplant. His job interview was hilarious. When asked the stereotypical job interview question of what’s your worst quality, the other guys give the stereotypical answers of being a workaholic or pushing himself too hard, but Homer answers honestly: “It takes me a long time to learn anything. I’m kind of a goof-off. Stuff starts disappearing.”

“Lisa the Greek” (S3, E14), like the Christmas and Thanksgiving episodes, got rerun every year. This one during Super Bowl time. The episode correctly predicted the Redskins would defeat the Bills in the 1992 Super Bowl. Every time it was rerun, the episode was redubbed with the teams playing the Super Bowl that year and correctly predicted the winner the next few years as well.

“Homer at the Bat” (S3, E17) is another episode that stands out in my memory. It’s filled with baseball players who were famous at the time. I had a friend who was a huge fan of Don Mattingly and I was a fan of Ken Griffey Jr., so we were both excited to see them appear on our favorite show. Strangely, when the Simpson children are heckling Darryl Strawberry by saying his name over and over, it felt personal because I’m also named Darrell. I loved the inspirational speech Burns gave to the players, basically just saying he wanted them to remember something inspirational someone else had told them at some point in their lives. The end of the episode has a great song that references the events of the episode. “Colonel Homer” (S3, E20) also had a lot of great country songs in it written for the show. I don’t think I’ve appreciated before how great the original music in The Simpsons is.

“Black Widower” (S3, E21) might be the first episode that’s a continuation of another. It’s a sequel to “Krusty Gets Busted” (S1, E12) in which Sideshow Bob frames Krusty the Clown for armed robbery. In this Season 3 follow-up, Bob gets out of jail and marries Aunt Selma. Bart figures out that Bob wants to kill Selma. When Police Chief Wiggum asks how Bart figured it out, Bart says he doesn’t want to tell Springfield’s finest police officer how to do his job. Wiggum responds that it’s the only way he’ll learn. Great stuff. The montage showing Bart trying to explain the same thing to Homer was also hilarious. When Bart asks Wiggum if there’s room in prison for Bob, Wiggum says something like, “Quite frankly, no, but that’s never stopped us before.” A lot of great lines in this one.

In “Krusty Gets Busted”, Bart is the only one who never loses his trust in Krusty, while in “Black Widower”, Bart’s the only one who never loses his mistrust in Bob. A great reversal. During the wedding reception, Homer gorges on appetizers and calls out, “Hey wiener boy! Where do you think you’re going?” When my family got our first computer years after this episode aired, I recorded the audio of Homer saying this from a rerun and had it play when you shut down the computer. I also featured other audio snippets of The Simpsons to play as various error messages. I’d forgotten about this until I heard Homer say it again on this rewatch. Ah, memories.

“The Otto Show” (S3, E22) has another of the funniest moments. When Marge discovers that Otto is living in their garage, Bart claims she gave him permission and plays a tape of him asking her. A voice that’s obviously Bart pretending to be Marge says sure. Marge says the voice on the tape isn’t hers and Homer says everyone says that when they hear their own voice on tape.

I feel like Season 3 is a bit funnier overall than Season 2, but it’s a close race. My favorite episodes this season are “Bart the Murderer” (S3, E4), “Treehouse of Horror II” (S3, E7), “I Married Marge” (S3, E12), “Homer at the Bat” (S3, E17), and “Black Widower” (S3, E21).

I feel like The Simpsons is less problematic than other sitcoms of the same era, but no show is perfect. The fact white guys do the voices of non-white characters such as Apu and Dr. Hibbert is problematic. (To be fair, they have fixed this in recent years). There’s also a lot of fat shaming directed at Homer and other characters. I think the good outweighs the bad, though, and I plan to keep on watching.