Since US Presidents are an interest of mine, I’ve been keeping track of presidential references in The Simpsons. For season 10, we have a reference to then-current president Bill Clinton in “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace” (S10, E2). A couple radio DJs joke that the President has a new website: http://www.[whistling noise].[boing noise]. This is a reference to Clinton’s womanizing ways. It’s interesting that The Simpsons is said to be a liberal show when, so far at least, they make fun of Democrats as much as, or more than, Republicans.

“Treehouse of Horror IX” (S10, E4) has a funny skit in which Maggie turns out to be part alien. To determine custody, Homer, Marge, and the alien go on the sensationalistic Jerry Springer Show and much of what they say is hilariously bleeped out. When the aliens first showed up at the door, Homer thought they were Mormons! I was a Mormon myself when I first watched this and was mildly offended at the time.

“When You Dish Upon a Star” (S10, E5) wasn’t that funny overall, but I did like one line from Homer. During a court scene in which Homer is accused of stalking celebrities, he says, “If celebrities didn’t want us to root through their trash and call them gay, they shouldn’t have tried to express themselves creatively.” Touché.

“Mayored to the Mob” (S10, E9) is the funniest episode this season. It starts with a presidential joke on the blackboard which is probably a reference to then-president Bill Clinton: “The President did it” is not an excuse. We open with the Simpson family watching a movie about The Titanic. It hits an iceberg and sinks. A couple survives in a life raft. It gets romantic and the woman starts to take off her top, but then The Titanic reemerges from the water behind them and opens it jaws to eat them!

The show then goes to a commercial for a Sci-Fi convention. “Be there AND be square.” Mark Hamill is the main guest, but starts with a commercial for long distance! The crowd gets out-of-hand, but Mayor Quimby’s bodyguards are watching clouds! Homer serves as bodyguard for both the Mayor and Mark Hamill. When the Mayor’s bodyguards show up, they say, “Mayor, we were just talking about you!” There’s another presidential reference later. When Mayor Quimby is hanging from a window looking into the intern’s bathroom, he says this is how FDR met Eleanor! Mark Hamill plays Luke Skywalker in Guys and Dolls! There’s laughs all the way through this one.

We get an updated Superbowl episode in “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” (S10, E12). Homer gets a free coupon for tire balancing and they trick him into buying four new tires. We’ve all been there. I once got a coupon for a free oil change that ended up costing me hundreds of dollars because they insisted I needed part of my engine replaced. Then-president Clinton calls to congratulate the winning team, but Homer answers. Homer quickly gets distracted and wanders away from the phone which infuriates Clinton. Meanwhile, Vice President Al Gore is preparing to move in to the oval office. This is because Clinton was getting impeached at the time, but also it seemed a sure thing that Gore would be the next president. Gore did end up winning the popular vote, but he lost the electoral college (although whether he actually lost the electoral college remains controversial to this day.) Rupert Murdock, the owner of the Fox network refers to himself as “the billionaire tyrant” so I was surprised to learn he played himself.

There was some controversy with this one that I wasn’t aware of until now. A Superbowl commercial featuring scantily clad women washing a car turns out to be a commercial for the Catholic church. It’s obviously poking fun at how Superbowl commercials often use sex appeal to sell their products even when it doesn’t make sense for them to do so. However, hundreds of angry letters from the Catholic League caused the network to censor the scene and you can only watch an edited version on Disney+ to this day. Instead of “Catholic church” the announcer now says simply “the church”. There’ve been many jokes about other religions in The Simpsons up to this point, poking fun at Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians, Jews, Hindus, and the generic Protestant denomination the Simpson family belongs to. Unlike members of other religions, I guess Catholics just can’t take a joke.

The next episode, “Homer to the Max” (S10, E13) also makes fun of Clinton. Homer and Marge are invited to a party with lots of famous people and Clinton hits on Marge, telling her he’s not picky and has done it with actual pigs. The episode also makes fun of how crappy solar power was at the time. This season overall seems to be more conservative-leaning than previous seasons have been.

Marge starts driving a Canyonero which leads to road rage in “Marge Simpson in Screaming Yellow Honkers” (S10, E15). While the family is watching a school play presented by the teachers, Bart comments, “I didn’t think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.” A great line. I also thought it was funny when Skinner messed up the classic Who’s on First routine. When Chalmers asks him, “Who’s on first?” Skinner replies, “Yes, not the pronoun, but a man with the unlikely name of Who is our first baseman.”

Going along with the theme of The Simpsons predicting the future, in 1999, “Maximum Homerdrive” (S10, E17) predicts self-driving semi trucks which have only recently become a thing. It’s amusing that Flanders plays God in “Simpsons Bible Stories” (S10, E18) since he played the devil in a Halloween episode previously. Are God and the Devil the same person in The Simpsons universe?

In “The Old Man and the C Student” (S10, E20), there’s a scene in which Lenny gets a spring stuck in his eye. It then gets entangled with a spring stuck in Moe’s eye. This kind of gruesome injury felt out-of-place. Things like this routinely happen during the Itchy and Scratchy show and during Halloween episodes, but having something like this happen during a regular episode felt off.

A similar gruesome injury befalls Lenny in the next episode, “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love” (S10, E21). There’s a scene in which Mr. Burns is dropping silver dollars on the crowd in a bid to earn their love. One coin lodges in Lenny’s forehead. When he pulls it out, blood gushes forth, so he puts it back in. Then a woman walks by and he pulls the coin out in a hat doffing gesture, grossing her out. Is Lenny taking Scratchy’s job?

In “They Saved Lisa’s Brain” (S10, E22) a palindrome, “rise to vote sir” is used. This reminds me, at some point in the 1990s (I don’t remember exactly when), I had a palindrome webpage that showed up as the top result in Google. This is back before Google used an algorithm to show different results to different people based on your search history, so everyone would have gotten my website as the top result if they did a search for palindromes (admittedly a niche subject). Is it possible The Simpsons writer who picked this palindrome got it from my website? Maybe.

I’ve got to say, this season isn’t as funny as previous seasons. The only episode I thought was funny all the way through was “Mayored to the Mob” (S10, E9) with the Jerry Springer segment of “Treehouse of Horror IX” (S10, E4) getting an honorable mention. Hopefully, things get better next season.