"Welcome, Super Friend!" from Bart's Comet (S6E14).

Welcome, Super Friend! You’ve found the nerdiest page on the Springfield Googolplex website.

In this article, we’ll share some our methodology for creating the Simpsons Movie Reference Database, from compiling references to fact checking to crunching the numbers.

1. Combining Key Sources

The first step was to compile possible references from key sources of information about episodes of The Simpsons from across the internet, like IMDb, Wikipedia, Simpsons Wiki, and Wikisimpsons.

While these crowdsourced treasure troves offer a great start, they also come with a few disadvantages. Firstly, the quantity and quality of information varies significantly from episode to episode and season to season. For example, some episodes have no references at all listed on Wikipedia or the Simpsons wikis, leaving only IMDb’s contributions that lack citations and moderation. Which leads me to…

Secondly, none of these sources include an assessment of how likely a reference is to be true. Theoretically, wikis require a citation, but often these are missing or poor sources for these types of factoids. Plus, the fact is, lots of the more subtle references are up for interpretation, so level of certainty is worth being transparent about.

Finally, these sources all divide up movie references within specific episodes, so there’s no easy way to aggregate overall trends or to search and filter by movie, director, genre, and so on.

The Simpsons Movie Reference Database combines all of these sources in one searchable and sortable database, offering the most complete and fact-checked compilation of Simpsons movie references on the internet.

2. Rewatching for References

The next step was to add new references that no online source had found yet. Believe it or not, even two decades after the last episode included in this database aired, we were still able to add over 400 more references (about 20% of the total database).

This process involved rewatching every episode of the first 13 seasons of The Simpsons with commentary, and taking note of any shot, line of dialogue, needle drop, or sign gag that even had a chance of being a reference. Some of these were instantly recognizable as a nod to a specific movie, while others required some online sleuthing. Many of these observations are still a mystery, and haven’t made it into the database—yet.

Likely the biggest room for future growth in the database is Alf Clausen’s famous movie score soundalikes, which were underrepresented in existing online sources and continue to be difficult to identify at times.

3. Fact Checking

Next, we attempted to fact check all 2,000+ references in the database. The best source of confirmations, of course, came from writer and animator commentaries on The Simpsons DVDs. In particular, showrunners Al Jean, Mike Reiss, and David Mirkin love to point out movie references in the episodes they oversaw.

But many potential references are never mentioned in these commentaries, and had to be fact checked independently. For written text and dialogue, this often involved a simple series of Google searches to find matching phrases in movie titles or quotes. For audiovisual references, this required watching the movie or video clips side by side with The Simpsons episode. Sometimes, we’d even get lucky and find a quote from a Simpsons writer on social media confirming the connection.

Through this process, we were able to directly confirm or independently fact check 83% of all references in the database, and debunk about 2%. The remainder that could not be confirmed or debunked are marked in yellow as “Claimed.”

4. Making Tough Calls

In the process of compiling this database, we ran into some fringe cases that required a subjective decision about whether to include a reference or not. Here are a few of the tough calls we made.

The biggest one involves what we would now call “IP.” If someone wears a pair of Vulcan ears, is it a reference to Star Trek: The Original Series or Star Trek: The Motion Picture? If we’re treated to a sixities-style Batmobile montage, should we count it as a reference to the Adam West Batman TV series or to Batman: The Movie?

In these cases where a reference is common to multiple incarnations of a piece of intellectual property, we included the reference in the database, but marked it as an “Indirect Reference,” and do not include it in counts of the most referenced movies or directors. This status applies not only to references that could be to TV shows, but also to books, plays, and other media.

The other toughest call has to do with repetition. If a couch gag with a movie reference gets reused, do we count it again? What about if a soundalike score becomes a regular part of the show? (I’m looking at you, Sideshow Bob.)

The short answer is “yes.” We decided to count these repetitions, because they involve an active decision to make the reference again. The only exception we make to this rule is references that must be repeated for continuity, such as recurring settings (e.g. the Legitimate Businessman's Social Club) and characters (e.g. Professor Frink).

5. Enriching the Data

Finally, with this refined list of references, we were able to add more ways to search, sort, filter, and analyze the data.

For example, we categorized every reference as one of 11 types (e.g. Scene, Episode Title, Audio) that allow us to better distinguish major references—what we might call “parodies,” like a perfect recreation of the shower scene from Psycho—from minor references, like a single line of dialogue or the design of a character’s car. This also allows us to isolate weird little rabbit holes, like movies that are only ever referenced in episode titles.

Most significantly, though, we also created complementary tabs to see every movie and director referenced on The Simpsons, as well as every episode, season, and writer on the show. This allows us to finally answer big questions like, what was the most referenced movie during the golden age of The Simpsons? (It’s The Wizard of Oz.) Or which recurring writer includes the most references in his episodes? (It’s Dan McGrath.) It also allows us to dive into more nitty gritty details like how the number and type of references have changed from season to season, or what movie genres get parodied most.

Your Turn: Explore the Database

Now that you’ve immersed yourself in our absolute geekiness, why dive into our dashboard of the Simpsons Movie Reference Database itself for some key findings? Or, if you want the TL;DR, check out our roundup of the top 10 most referenced movies on The Simpsons.

Spot an error or something missing? Contact us!

Making the Simpsons Movie Reference Database