The Simpsons Season 36 Easter Egg Recalls The Show’s Greatest Musical Moment Ever

This article contains mild spoilers for “The Simpsons” season 36 episode “Desperately Seeking Lisa.”

“The Simpsons” season 36 is well underway, and the longest-running American animated show is still going strong. Sure, it may not have an all-time best episode airing weekly and it is no longer revolutionizing comedy and animation as we know it, but it is still impressive that “The Simpsons” is delivering entertaining episodes after so many years. Also impressive is that the animated sitcom can still deliver cool new bits of lore for Springfield and its surroundings, like how Sideshow Bob is now wealthy after starting a rake business or revealing how Homer manages to mess up at his job without causing a nuclear meltdown every day. 

Similarly, the third episode of season 36 of “The Simpsons,” titled “Desperately Seeking Lisa,” has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg teasing the in-universe return of a fan-favorite musical gag.

In the episode, Lisa goes to Capital City to spend a weekend with Patty and Selma, but she quickly gets entangled in a blazing misadventure straight out of Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours.” Before the bohemian art scene mayhem, however, Lisa and her aunts cruise through the touristy area of the city — which looks just like Times Square — and we get a glimpse at a billboard marketing the revival of the popular musical “Stop the Planet Of The Apes, I Want To Get Off!”

“Stop The Planet Of the Apes, I Want To Get Off!” is, of course, one of the best parodies in all of “The Simpsons.” A musical version of “Planet of the Apes,” the bit riffs on the popular song “Rock Me Amadeus” but makes it about the villainous Dr. Zaius, Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith, from the 1968 classic. As a parody, it has everything; an ape that breakdances out of nowhere to an ’80s Europop parody song, Troy McClure in his prime, indoor fireworks inside a theater, and exquisite lines like “I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-a to chimpanzee.” It’s amazing to think that, initially, the episode was not even set to include the “Planet of the Apes” musical parody, with the writers considering a movie or TV show as a career comeback for McClure. 

Now, a “Stop The Planet Of the Apes, I Want To Get Off!” revival may appear as a simple joke on the surface, but it does come with certain implications. Given the character of Troy McClure was retired after voiceover performer Phil Hartman’s tragic death, is this a revival with another actor? There are episodes after Hartman’s death that mention the character of McClure as being alive, so could he be going through a renaissance like Josh Hartnett or Brendan Fraser? And if he is dead, then who could even step into his shoes? Would this be a horrible worst-case scenario like Lin-Manuel Miranda doing a reimagining of the musical, or something more tasteful like Hartman’s real-life friend and former “Saturday Night Live” castmember Jon Lovitz taking over the role as he did on live “The Simpsons” concerts a few years ago? Regardless of the answer, “The Simpsons” finally made a monkey out of me.