My Top 26 Simpsons Episodes

The Simpsons marathon is going strong on FXX.  Actually, it's in season 10, so it's not going as strong anymore.  A few years back, I made a list of my top 25 Simpsons episodes.  So I'm going to break that out for a blog post.  For comparison, here are the rankings of Simpsons episodes based on IMDB user ratings.

Before I get to my list, a couple of thoughts.  I wish the marathon didn't go exactly in order.  It would have been great if they ran seasons 1-12 when people were awake (maybe from 10 in the morning through midnight or something) and season 13 and on when people were sleeping.  I've watched a lot of the marathon, but I've missed some really good ones while I've been sleeping.  And I won't be watching anymore after tomorrow.  But I guess it makes the most sense to run them consecutively.  With that in mind, my top 25 are all from the first 10 seasons.  Seasons 6-8 are the best in my mind.  Season 9 still had some really great episodes, but it also gave us a sure sign that the show's best days were over.

This is not an easy list to make and I'm sure I left some good ones out.  So if you think I left anything out or you disagree with any of these rankings, feel free to comment.

I was looking at the list I made a few years ago and made some adjustments.  I had emailed my list to my brothers when I originally made my list and they had some thoughts.  I left out one episode that my brother Tom pointed out.  And I found another episode that I left out that nobody mentioned.  I bumped one episode into the honorable mentions category, but I didn't feel comfortable bumping a second one, so here are my top 26 Simpsons episodes:

Honorable Mentions- Mr. Plow, Bart Star, Dumbbell Indemnity, Homer to the Max, and You Only Move Twice.  Just one note about those: I thought You Only Move Twice was ranked higher on IMDB.  The average rating isn't ridiculously high, but the only episode with more ratings on IMDB is the first episode, which indicates some strong feeling both ways for that episode (17.7% give it 1 out of 10, but the median is 10 out of 10).

26.  Homer at the Bat (Season 3)- Mr. Burns hires ringers to win in softball.

25.  The Canine Mutiny (Season 8)- Santos L. Halper gets a credit card.

24.  The Trouble with Trillions (Season 9)- The IRS tries to get Homer to retrieve the trillion dollar bill that was stolen by Mr. Burns.

23.  The Last Temptation of Krust (Season 9)- Homer says one of my favorite lines in the history of the series because he wants Krusty to tell the audience to burn their pants:  "Don't you hate pants?"

22.  Homer Loves Flanders (Season 5)- Flanders takes Homer to a football game.

21.  Hurricane Neddy (Season 8)- Flanders goes insane after his house is destroyed by a hurricane.

20.  Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment (Season 8)- Homer as the Beer Baron.

19.  Marge vs. the Monorail (Season 4)- Mono means one and rail means rail.

18.  Two Dozen and One Greyhounds (Season 6)- Mr. Burns sings "See My Vest."

17.  Bart on the Road (Season 7)- Bart, Milhouse, Martin, and Nelson take a road trip to Knoxville, Tennessee.

16.  Homer the Smithers (Season 7)- This is the highest ranked episode on IMDB.  Smithers goes on vacation and Homer takes his place.  Homer calls Mr. Burns pretending to be his mother is probably my favorite moment of this episode.

15.  Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily (Season 7)- Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are taken in as foster children by the Flanderses.

14.  Bart Sells His Soul (Season 7)- Bart sells his soul to Milhouse and Moe's Tavern is turned into Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag.

13.  Cape Feare (Season 5)- The Simpsons become the Thompsons to hide from Sideshow Bob.

12.  Grade School Confidential (Season 8)- Skinner and Krabappel get fired because of their relationship.  One of the great all time Chief Wiggum lines:  "The baby looked at you?"

11.  Girly Edition (Season 9)- Kidz Newz and Mojo the helper monkey.

10.  The Cartidge Family (Season 9)- I left this off my original list and Tom pointed it out.  Mexico vs. Portugal, the soccer riot, Homer gets a gun.  It's a classic.

9.  Lisa Gets an "A" (Season 10)- Pinchy the Lobster and Lisa gets an A+++.

8.  Summer of 4 Ft. 2 (Season 7)- The Simpsons stay in the Flanderses' summer house.  I watch this episode every year to start my summer vacation.

7.  Bart of Darkness (Season 6)- The Simpsons get a pool and Bart breaks his leg.

6.  Mountain of Madness (Season 8)- This is the episode that I left off my list a few years back that I just realized now.  Homer and Mr. Burns in the cabin is just outstanding.

5.  In Marge We Trust (Season 8)- Mr. Sparkle, Marge as the Listen Lady, and Donny's Discount Gas.

4.  Lemon of Troy (Season 6)- Shelbyville steals Springfield's lemon tree.

3.  The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show (Season 8)- Homer as the voice of Poochie.

2.  Lisa the Vegetarian (Season 7)- "You don't win friends with salad" in song and "Go back to Russia!"

1.  Homer's Enemy (Season 8)- Frank Grimes and Bart buys a factory. It's the second highest rated episode on IMDB.  In my senior yearbook in high school, I said that my future plans were to be as successful as Homer Simpson.  This episode pretty much summarizes why I said that.

If I was rating these episodes on IMDB, I think 1-6 on my list would get 10, 7-17 would get 9, and 18-26 (and probably the honorable mentions too) would get 8.

It was once a great show.  It's too bad they didn't know when to call it quits.