Our Top 5 Podcast Episodes of 2025
In 2025, the Springfield Googolplex podcast hit its 50th episode, as we continue to explore the many movies referenced on The Simpsons. This year we covered everything from biblical epics to famous flops to nineties teen slashers.
But a few episodes stood out when it comes to the number of listeners. Here are the top five most popular episodes of Springfield Googolplex podcast of the year. If you just heard about us for the first time, this is a great place to start!
1. Jaws with Devan Scott
April 15, 2025
In our most popular episode of 2025, filmmaker and fellow podcaster Devan Scott helped us break down Steven Spielberg’s Jaws on its 50th anniversary alongside “The Joy of Sect” (S9E13). Besides mooning over the first summer blockbuster, we also talked about the similar small town politics of Amity and Springfield and how this movie’s famous dolly zoom became part of The Simpsons’ visual vocabulary. Listen to the full episode.
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me with Allie Goertz
September 16, 2025
Few people know the intersection of The Simpsons and Twin Peaks better than Allie Goertz, a musician and the co-host of the podcasts Everything's Coming Up Simpsons and Fire Talk with Me. So when the 30th anniversary of “Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two” (S7E1) rolled around, we had to have her on the podcast to talk about its memorable parody of Twin Peaks and the feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). Listen to the full episode.
3. Interview with Matt Selman on The Simpsons Season 36
June 10, 2025
To this day, The Simpsons continues to come up with hilarious movie parodies—in fact, in season 36 they’re often longer, more elaborate, and more niche than they were in the classic era. In our third most popular episode of the year, we interviewed Matt Selman, current showrunner of The Simpsons, about this season’s movie parodies, the watching habits of the current writers room, and the mechanics of their summer movie box office draft. Listen to the full episode.
4. The Simpsons vs AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
October 14, 2025
To mark our 50th episode, we dove deep into our Simpsons Movie Reference Database to answer a question nobody was asking: How many movies on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list has The Simpsons referenced? In the process, we talk about the canon of American film, how movie moments get cemented in our memories, and more. Listen to the full episode.
5. Goldfinger
April 29, 2025
Our fifth most popular episode of the year is a sister episode to our Twin Peaks episode, featuring “Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One” (S6E25) and its parody of Goldfinger (1964). As arguably the most iconic James Bond film, its not surprising that this movie had a big influence on the writers behind The Simpsons, from the brassy score to the catchy title song to the cool and silly gadgets. Listen to the full episode.
Honorable Glavins
While these episodes just missed the top five, we couldn’t resist shouting out the wide variety of the rest of the top ten. Check them out for yourself:
6. After Hours
September 30, 2025
7. Alien with Dan Vebber
November 11, 2025
8. I Know What You Did Last Summer with Norm Wilner
October 28, 2025
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
February 18, 2025
10. Wild Wild West
December 9, 2025
Bonus: Our Top Social Media Post of the Year
See You in 2026
Those were some of the highlights of the past year, but there’s lots to look forward to in 2026! We will be kicking off the second half of our season on January 13th with Paper Moon (1973) and its Simpsonized version in “The Great Money Caper” (S12E7). But until then…
We’ll see you round the ‘Plex.
