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100 Things The Simpsons Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
Most fans of The Simpsons can distinguish Lenny from Carl without checking their hands. But only real fans recall the Eastern European equivalent of The Itchy & Scratchy Show , know the name of Barney Gumble's submission to the Springfield Film Festival, and have road tripped to the World's Fair in Knoxville.
100 Things The Simpsons Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource for true fans, whether you read at a Ralph Wiggum or Lisa Simpson level. Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott have collected every essential piece of Simpsons knowledge and trivia, as well as must-do activities, and rank them all from 1 to 100 in this entertaining book, which was just discarded from the shelves of The Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop.
100 Things The Simpsons Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource for true fans, whether you read at a Ralph Wiggum or Lisa Simpson level. Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott have collected every essential piece of Simpsons knowledge and trivia, as well as must-do activities, and rank them all from 1 to 100 in this entertaining book, which was just discarded from the shelves of The Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop.
- GenresNonfictionHumor
272 pages, Paperback
Published September 18, 2018
29 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 22, 2025
Just finished:
Chicago. Triumph Books, 2018.
When asked what my favorite TV show is, I respond with "The Simpsons." I can remember seeing it for the first time in 1996 and The Simpsons Movie is the only movie I've seen at a midnight showing.
This was a lighter read for me. It took me down Simpsons memory lane and I learned a few things along the way. I've said that if you wanted to understand American culture, the Simpsons is a good staring point. It's a show that can be understood by kids and deep enough for intellectual stimulation. Where else would you hear a character fear that she was losing her perspicacity?
That said, I found three errors in the book.
1. The babysitter from the season one episode is Ms. Botz, not Ms. Blotz (pg 52).
2. The author mentioned that Mr. Burns stole the trillion dollar bill in 1941. If you see the episode, Truman sends Mr. Burns with the trillion dollar bill to rebuild Europe after WWII. The bill has Truman's face on it (pg 56).
3. In the X-Files crossover episode, the authors claim that Mr. Burns appears to be an alien because he get radiation treatments daily. In fact the gets them weekly (pg 238).
Chicago. Triumph Books, 2018.
When asked what my favorite TV show is, I respond with "The Simpsons." I can remember seeing it for the first time in 1996 and The Simpsons Movie is the only movie I've seen at a midnight showing.
This was a lighter read for me. It took me down Simpsons memory lane and I learned a few things along the way. I've said that if you wanted to understand American culture, the Simpsons is a good staring point. It's a show that can be understood by kids and deep enough for intellectual stimulation. Where else would you hear a character fear that she was losing her perspicacity?
That said, I found three errors in the book.
1. The babysitter from the season one episode is Ms. Botz, not Ms. Blotz (pg 52).
2. The author mentioned that Mr. Burns stole the trillion dollar bill in 1941. If you see the episode, Truman sends Mr. Burns with the trillion dollar bill to rebuild Europe after WWII. The bill has Truman's face on it (pg 56).
3. In the X-Files crossover episode, the authors claim that Mr. Burns appears to be an alien because he get radiation treatments daily. In fact the gets them weekly (pg 238).
April 1, 2024
This is a bit of a tough one to rate, and a tough one to completely like. I picked it up as a massive fan of the classic Simpsons (in my opinion, Season 1 to about 10). Unfortunately, this is not a proper non-fiction book about everything that went on behind the show, but it does include many interesting details. However, it also caters both to fans of the later seasons (which I refuse to watch), and casual fans who laugh like morons when the most cliched, over-quoted lines from the show are referenced. Contrary to its subject, at least in its early days, the writer of this book has a very lame and mainstream sense of humour.
The book was not that great, and it sometimes annoyed me for not being nearly as good as it could have been. But there are just enough curious snippets of trivia that I will bump it up another star.
The book was not that great, and it sometimes annoyed me for not being nearly as good as it could have been. But there are just enough curious snippets of trivia that I will bump it up another star.
July 21, 2024
I really wanted to rate this higher because it’s clearly written with extensive Simpsons knowledge and so much love, and I enjoyed it! It was silly and cute while also teaching me some neat facts! It’s a relaxing read on a subject I adore. It has been extra nice to read this while rewatching the show for the first time in years so I can freshly recognize the moments the book references.
But every time I came across another very visible typo or error, it interrupted my reading and frustrated me. Each error made me wonder if I could trust all the trivia and facts to be accurate if the editing was lacking to this extent. For instance, there were misspelled episode titles, other spelling errors and inconsistencies, a capital letter in the middle of a word, missing or extra indefinite articles and prepositions, multiple sentences with unintentional duplicate words, and at one point, one lonely parenthesis without its companion. I guess almost half the book is a parenthetical. There are a lot of ways to use grammar correctly, and this book demonstrated a lot of ways to botch grammar. Was as much care put into fact-checking the rest of the book? The writing style is skillful and most sentences are written in an interesting and entertaining way, but the book being littered with this many glaring typos made me prefer listening to the authors’ thoughts verbally in their podcast rather than reading what they have to say.
So, three stars, I wish they’d had another run-through (or two) of an editor, but I would still recommend this book to fans of the Simpsons or of the authors’ podcast. It’s cute, it’s organized in a fun way, it’s filled with Simpsons references for every level of fan, and I either learned or was reminded of many reasons why the Simpsons is such an excellent and well-crafted show! So, hopefully everything I learned is accurate because I do intend to repeat these trivia when I have good opportunities.
Well-timed references and quoted jokes highlight the statements made and illustrate the whimsy of Springfield in such a wonderful way. I wish I had the memory and comedic timing to pepper Simpsons jokes into conversations as masterfully as these two (I’m well on my way, and I’m sure if I watch the show another hundred times and reread chapters of this book from time to time, I’ll embiggen my skills to a perfectly cromulent degree).
Another aspect I loved is all the insight into the process of making an episode of the Simpsons. The authors did their research and have garnered a cool collection of behind-the-scenes details that create a useful summary of what goes into the writing and animation processes. I learned a lot of fascinating information about show production and about the specific people who worked on the Simpsons, and this knowledge does make me better appreciate the finished episodes. I want to reread passages until these facts, and others from the book, like who wrote or directed which classic episodes, are engraved in my memory as much as my favorite quotations and visual gags!
The ending of this book leaves something to be desired. The last chapter is about following the writers on Twitter, and while I do appreciate the message of keeping up with these creative and hilarious people, “We recommend scrolling through Vitti’s old tweets, and following John Swartzwelder, whose entire timeline is quotes from his books” is really not much of a final sentence, especially for those of us who have never used Twitter (or X). The beginning of the book includes a cool foreword by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein as well as a sweet introduction by the authors and a funny author’s note, but the ending of the book feels imbalanced and lackluster in comparison. However, the authors had already provided so much silliness and knowledge, and I suppose they had already said everything they wanted to say.
Sometimes the chapters harmoniously flowed together, and sometimes the ordering of information seemed a little awkward or noticeably repetitive. Sometimes the chapters felt concise and complete, and sometimes I felt like a specific reference or some depth was missing. Overall, the writing was good, but the editing was seriously lacking. This was a sweet celebration of the show, and it could have been something really great with more effort put into polishing it up. But hey, the Simpsons show itself contains plenty of haunting animation errors and evidence of writers having changed their minds, and it’s been a lasting work of art and a massive success for decades. So, this is not the Worst Book Ever. It’s no inanimate carbon rod, but it’s better than a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters would do. It made me even more S-M-R-T about this show I grew up on and continually cherish.
But every time I came across another very visible typo or error, it interrupted my reading and frustrated me. Each error made me wonder if I could trust all the trivia and facts to be accurate if the editing was lacking to this extent. For instance, there were misspelled episode titles, other spelling errors and inconsistencies, a capital letter in the middle of a word, missing or extra indefinite articles and prepositions, multiple sentences with unintentional duplicate words, and at one point, one lonely parenthesis without its companion. I guess almost half the book is a parenthetical. There are a lot of ways to use grammar correctly, and this book demonstrated a lot of ways to botch grammar. Was as much care put into fact-checking the rest of the book? The writing style is skillful and most sentences are written in an interesting and entertaining way, but the book being littered with this many glaring typos made me prefer listening to the authors’ thoughts verbally in their podcast rather than reading what they have to say.
So, three stars, I wish they’d had another run-through (or two) of an editor, but I would still recommend this book to fans of the Simpsons or of the authors’ podcast. It’s cute, it’s organized in a fun way, it’s filled with Simpsons references for every level of fan, and I either learned or was reminded of many reasons why the Simpsons is such an excellent and well-crafted show! So, hopefully everything I learned is accurate because I do intend to repeat these trivia when I have good opportunities.
Well-timed references and quoted jokes highlight the statements made and illustrate the whimsy of Springfield in such a wonderful way. I wish I had the memory and comedic timing to pepper Simpsons jokes into conversations as masterfully as these two (I’m well on my way, and I’m sure if I watch the show another hundred times and reread chapters of this book from time to time, I’ll embiggen my skills to a perfectly cromulent degree).
Another aspect I loved is all the insight into the process of making an episode of the Simpsons. The authors did their research and have garnered a cool collection of behind-the-scenes details that create a useful summary of what goes into the writing and animation processes. I learned a lot of fascinating information about show production and about the specific people who worked on the Simpsons, and this knowledge does make me better appreciate the finished episodes. I want to reread passages until these facts, and others from the book, like who wrote or directed which classic episodes, are engraved in my memory as much as my favorite quotations and visual gags!
The ending of this book leaves something to be desired. The last chapter is about following the writers on Twitter, and while I do appreciate the message of keeping up with these creative and hilarious people, “We recommend scrolling through Vitti’s old tweets, and following John Swartzwelder, whose entire timeline is quotes from his books” is really not much of a final sentence, especially for those of us who have never used Twitter (or X). The beginning of the book includes a cool foreword by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein as well as a sweet introduction by the authors and a funny author’s note, but the ending of the book feels imbalanced and lackluster in comparison. However, the authors had already provided so much silliness and knowledge, and I suppose they had already said everything they wanted to say.
Sometimes the chapters harmoniously flowed together, and sometimes the ordering of information seemed a little awkward or noticeably repetitive. Sometimes the chapters felt concise and complete, and sometimes I felt like a specific reference or some depth was missing. Overall, the writing was good, but the editing was seriously lacking. This was a sweet celebration of the show, and it could have been something really great with more effort put into polishing it up. But hey, the Simpsons show itself contains plenty of haunting animation errors and evidence of writers having changed their minds, and it’s been a lasting work of art and a massive success for decades. So, this is not the Worst Book Ever. It’s no inanimate carbon rod, but it’s better than a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters would do. It made me even more S-M-R-T about this show I grew up on and continually cherish.
September 30, 2021
A great read. This had me laughing right from the dedication page. Though, they did get a few things wrong. For instance, Summer of 4 ft. 2 is a season 7 episode, not season 6 as this book claims! Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!
November 15, 2018
This was a fun book to read, though a majority of it was information that even casual fans would know. There are some gem tidbits placed throughout the book, but for the most part it was one long simpsons quote. The people who are going to read this probably already know 95% of the information here, but might still enjoy hearing it again. The podcast these authors put on is pretty great and worth checking out. They often have writers, producers, and other celebrity fans of the show on the air with them.
December 30, 2024
This book sucked! I was a huge Simpsons fan in the early days of the show. I watched it religiously for the first ten seasons. I was enthusiastic about listening to this book on tape and assumed I’d get through it in two or three weeks. It took me two months because I dreaded listening to it so much. It wasn’t a book, it was a list of stuff in the show. There was no creativity to this whatsoever. It was just garbage detailing episodes and characters. It brought nothing to the table. It just mentioned crap that I had known and forgotten 25 years ago. It was terrible. It’s not worth my time to read about characters in a show or lists of episodes that had funny catch phrases. This book was nothing but dumb lists. These two authors suck. The reader did a decent job with what she had but it was still terrible. On top of the complete lack of talent two people combined bring together to write this book it also was woke in a lot of places. It’s a book about Simpsons but they kept including snippets of how the Simpsons predicted that Trump would be president and then added their opinions which was the only original part of this book but was still terrible because no one picks this book up to read about other people’s political views.
Save yourself some time and don’t read this book that a fourth grader could have written.
Save yourself some time and don’t read this book that a fourth grader could have written.
May 9, 2019
This book was a bit of a snooze; it had some interesting stories about the production and history of The Simpsons, and about phenomena related to the show, but it also had a lot of material that was essentially just listing things that happened in the show. That latter material felt kind of pointless for someone who's already pretty intimately familiar with the show; even if I wasn't, I feel like I'd rather just watch the relevant episodes than have things from them written out for me.
July 5, 2018
The problem with writing a book about the show is you're trying to write to an obsessive fan base. Most of the material in this book is pretty common knowledge. It's also written in a way that a casual fan may get lost. Either way it's a fun read just with so many previous (including official) books this isn't anything new.
May 29, 2021
I don't know what I expected, but there was way too much material in this from the bad, post-season 10 "Zombie Simpsons" years. All the nominally fun trivia and factoids from those years might as well be someone describing things that happened in bad fanfic as far as I'm concerned. "In season 18, episode 6, Selma said..." insert MorganFreemanIDontGiveAShit.gif
April 27, 2025
As someone who has been watching The Simpsons in pre-school (1993-1995), there wasn't a lot here that I didn't know. It felt a lot like just sharing favorite moments and a few behind the scenes things.
I think this is good for those who weren't deeply enthralled with The Simpsons from a young age, but maybe not for those where their finger has stayed on the Springfield pulse.
I think this is good for those who weren't deeply enthralled with The Simpsons from a young age, but maybe not for those where their finger has stayed on the Springfield pulse.
November 6, 2018
One chapter reminded me of Ralph Wiggum's book report diorama (he misunderstood the assignment and just put together a bunch of original Star Wars figurines, and yet due to nostalgia of the judges, won the contest). Perfection!
April 2, 2021
I am a somewhat big fan of the Simpsons. So I had to read yet another book about the show I so love. This book approach Simpsons from the fan’s point of view. A lot details but a lot of this I knew already. Not bad but not so great either.
February 12, 2024
I love the Simpsons, so I'm predisposed to grin at any Simpsons reference. In this instance, the references were slightly repetitive. To my annoyance, there were a few errors (grammatical and otherwise) in the text. I went in expecting a long Listicle and that's what I got.
January 29, 2020
Felt there we a few mistakes and omissions but over all enjoyable and nostalgic
November 17, 2022
More like 100 things Simpsons fans already know.
January 5, 2023
Nostalgic, funny and easy to read. Wish there was abit more behind the scenes stories, but still plenty in there for it to be interesting.
August 11, 2023
This book was okay. The copyediting is terrible, though. It is also repetitive. It's nice for bite-sized reading.
June 15, 2025
For fans of all eras of The Simpsons, not just the ones you deem good.
November 5, 2025
This book could have been a podcast. At least I learned that Nelson’s middle name is Mandela.
June 21, 2019
Read this book next!
Take a break from murder-mysteries, sci-fi and romance and have some fun. This book offers some great insight into the Simpsons world. Written by two super-fans (who also happen to a host a Simpsons based podcast) who's love of all things Simpsons shines through in this fun, quick read.
Take a break from murder-mysteries, sci-fi and romance and have some fun. This book offers some great insight into the Simpsons world. Written by two super-fans (who also happen to a host a Simpsons based podcast) who's love of all things Simpsons shines through in this fun, quick read.
Read
May 28, 2019I don’t want to rate this because those kinds of things are important and I don’t wish this book or the authors any ill will because I’ve enjoyed some of the episodes of their podcast. That being said, who is this book for? Too much of it retreads over plot and character beats, quoting the usual quotes, and reiterating the behind the scenes stories that always get told. Did you know John Swartzwelder bought the booth from his favorite restaurant and installed it in his home because he’s an eccentric recluse with a nicotine addiction? I did, but I also got to read it again here for the hundredth time. If you’re new to The Simpsons and want to become a hardcore fan, then this can be a helpful guide, but if you’re already a fan, this covers virtually nothing you wouldn’t already know to some degree and it never dives into any one subject with the depth one might appreciate having been a diehard for years.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews