The Simpsons/The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase

The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase
8x24
Airdate	May 11, 1997
Production Number	4F20
Written by	David X. Cohen Dan Greaney Steve Tompkins
Directed by	Neil Affleck
← 8x23 Homer's Enemy	8x25 → The Secret War of Lisa Simpson
The Simpsons — Season Eight

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The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase is the twenty-fourth episode of the eighth season of The Simpsons, and the one-hundred and seventy-seventh episode overall.

The episode is a tribute to and a parody of both the concept of a series pilot, and memorable long-running and short-lived television series, each filled with cliches specific to different formats (situation comedy, crime drama and variety show) and oftentimes poor script writing and directing that earned many of those shows poor reviews and (often) low ratings. Here, perennial wannabe leading man Troy McClure introduces three (fictional) pilots, each featuring Simpsons characters, purportedly to fill Fox's 1997-1998 prime time lineup.

Guest Stars: Gailard Sartain (Big Daddy), Tim Conway (Himself), Pamela Hayden (Lisa Simpson #2), Phil Hartman (Troy McClure)

Trivia

Allusions and References

• The "spinoffs" of "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase":
  • The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and Rowan & Martin's Laugh In: "The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour" mixes a large dose of the Krofft Brothers-created variety show based on the 1970s sitcom, with a dose of the 1968-1973 variety show hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. Brady is referenced when an attractive teenaged actress with blonde hair replaces Lisa, much like actress Geri Reischl replaced Eve Plumb in the role of Jan when Plumb, although for a different reason. (The Simpsons variety show had Lisa refuse to participate for intellectual reasons, while Plumb backed out due to a dispute with Sid and Marty Krofft.)
  • Magnum P.I. and Miami Vice: "Chief Wiggum P.I." is akin to "Magnum P.I.," although set in New Orleans. Wiggum's partner, Principal Skinner (apparently moonlighting from his school administrative duties), is dressed like Don Johnson's character, Sonny Crockett, from Miami Vice.
  • My Mother the Car: "The Love-Matic Grampa" is about Grampa, who in this sitcom's universe was killed and his soul is reincarnated in a novelty love-tester machine, much like the general premise of the short-lived 1965 sitcom starring Jerry Van Dyke, where a young man finds that the soul of his recently deceased mother was reincarnated in an antique car. Grampa is heard primarily to Moe, whose eponymously named tavern owns said machine.
• Actual spinoffs: McClure refers to several successful spinoffs in his introductory spiel, including The Ropers (from Three's Company), Laverne & Shirley (from Happy Days), Rhoda (from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Fish (from Barney Miller) and The Jeffersons (from All In the Family).
• The Flintstones: McClure teases a pilot series featuring Homer and "an alien named Ozmodiar whom only he (Homer) can see," is a parody of The Great Gazoo, a space alien-type creature seen in several Season 6 episodes of the pioneering ABC prime-time animated series. Like Ozmodiar with Homer, only a few characters (Fred, Barney, Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm and Dino) could see and interact with The Great Gazoo.