‘Simpsons’ Writer Reveals His Favorite Joke That He Didn’t Realize Was A Joke

The Simpsons is such a dense, layered comedy that sometimes the jokes even go over the writers’ heads, but nothing goes higher than Arnie Pye.

Due to Matt Groening’s proclivity for hiring Harvard nerds who want nothing more than to spend their lives writing esoteric jokes about 18th century English prime ministers and outdated zoological theories, the Golden Age of The Simpsons is full of arcane humor that the non-Ivy League layman may not understand or even recognize as a gag on the first viewing. Legendary Simpsons writer, producer and showrunner Josh Weinstein is one such layman, being a Stanford alumnus (You’re going to Stanford!), and, as such, even he doesn’t get all the jokes that his more prestigiously educated colleagues wrote.

Weinstein recently admitted to his Twitter following that it took him some time to realize the joke about Springfield’s Channel 6 News helicopter reporter Arnie Pye and his misnamed segment “Arnie in the Sky”:

As Weinstein now understands, the joke about Arnie Pye’s aerial coverage of disasters in which he proclaims his inability to see through metal and into people’s souls is that the snappier title for his segment would have been “Pye in the Sky,” a play on the common idiom. But, since Springfield is a city of idiots, of course their news team misses the obvious opportunity for a little wordplay, making this one of the most understated and underappreciated name gags in the show.

Weinstein isn’t alone, of course, as the subtlety of The Simpsons has made victims of many a viewer and writer alike. When Weinstein gave fans the floor to share their own experiences missing the joke about high-altitude bagel-droppers, they came up with a list of cleverly hidden gags that needed years of further contemplation and examination like we’re all Homer holding a $20 bill wondering how to turn it into many peanuts: