The Simpsons Couch Gag

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About

The Simpsons Couch Gag is a recurring visual gag featured in the opening sequence of the American animated TV sitcom The Simpsons in which all members of the titular family rush to the living room in the house to watch television together, only to be offset by some kind of an anomaly with the couch, its occupants and/or its surroundings. As of June 2016, nearly 600 different editions of the couch gag have been officially introduced in the opening sequence of the show, in addition to dozens of fan-made parody animations that have been circulating online.

Origin

The first couch gag was featured on January 14th, 1990 at the beginning of The Simpsons Season One Episode Two "Bart the Genius," in which Bart Simpson is squeezed off the couch and into the air. With each subsequent episode, the opening couch sequence was changed to include a new joke (shown below).

Spread

On June 30th, 2006, a list of Simpsons couch gags was created on Wikipedia.^[3] On January 23rd, 2008, a page titled "Couch Gag" was created on the Simpsons Wiki.^[2] On December 8th, 2012, a TV Tropes^[6] page was launched for The Simpsons couch gags. On May 14th, 2013, Animation on FOX posted a stop motion couch gag created by the show Robot Chicken (shown below, left). On October 3rd, the Animation on FOX YouTuber channel posted the couch gag by director Guillermo del Toro from The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXIV" (shown below, right). Within three years, the videos gained over 15 million and 26 million views respectively.

On September 29th, 2014, the /r/couchgags^[1] subreddit was launched for discussions about the introductory sequences. On January 14th, 2015, IGN^[4] published a listicle of the "Top 25 Couch Gags." On October 27th, The Guardian^[5] published an article about the show's couch gags created by guest animators. On December 17th, YouTuber Lee Hardcastle uploaded a clay animation couch gag parody titled "You're Next," in which the Simpsons family is brutally murdered during a home invasion (shown below, left). Within six months, the video gained over 3.6 million views and 8,700 comments. On January 9th, 2016, The Simpsons featured an Outrun-style couch gag by guest animator Steve Cutts (shown below, right).