Last night The Simpsons dedicated an entire, bravura episode to lampooning awards season. Bart’s animated short film, Angry Dad, gets nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar, so the entire family heads out to Hollywood. The episode was an occasion for any number of great riffs — Ricky Gervais, who got a very handsome Simpsonized avatar, appears as himself; Halle Berry appears as herself, a too-talkative Oscar presenter; and a Randy Newman doppelgänger sings “You’ve Got an Enemy in Me” — but the best part was the other animated shorts nominated alongside “Angry Dad,” shorts that gave The Simpsons’ own animators a chance to spoof the competition. There’s Mixar’s Toy Story–like Condiments, the Wallace & Gromit–esque Better Gnomes and Gardens from Willis & Crumble, the Triplets of Belleville–ish The Brothers of Beauville, and, best of all, a great black-and-white one riffing on Schindler’s List and Persepolis. Bart ends up triumphing over all of these films, and when he takes the stage to give his speech, he reveals that The Simpsons’s writers actually had something earnest to say about awards: “I mean, isn’t the idea of one person taking credit for an entire movie the stupidest thing you ever heard?” And then Martin Scorsese explains to Bart that you “can’t give an Oscar to everyone.” Out of the mouth of Marty.
Here are the clips:
Mixar’s Condiments
Willis & Crumble’s Better Gnomes and Gardens
Brothers of Beauville
Persepolis Spoof
And here’s the family’s trip to the awards, including Gervais’s bit.
