Hank Azaria Uses ‘Simpsons’ Voices to Try and Break the Buckingham Palace Guards, A Very Funny Joke That All British People Love
Imagine suffering a barrage of D-tier jokes all day while you’re just trying to get through your shift at work. Hank Azaria doesn’t have to — he worked on The Simpsons Season 35.
One of the most tired tropes about American tourists visiting the U.K. is that us colonists’ first stop during our London holiday is at Buckingham Palace, where we distract the notoriously stoic and hilariously styled guards in futile attempts to get them to break character. In fact, it’s such a cliché that The Simpsons themselves satirized the annoying and unbecoming trend all the way back in 1995 during the episode “Bart vs. Australia,” in which the family has to pay a visit to the U.S. embassy in Australia where Homer mistakenly assumes that the marines guarding the compound are similarly bound to a “no smiling” rule and gets his own grin punched in.
Azaria, on the other hand, decided to unironically reinforce one of the U.K.’s most negative stereotypes about American travelers in a now-viral video shot in front of Buckingham Palace where he tried to find out if one member of the King’s Guard was a big Simpsons fan.
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He wasn’t.
@thehankazaria
Seriously, this has to be one of the lowest-hanging-fruit jokes for American tourists to score some chuckles back home at the expense of further ruining our reputation abroad. Once Azaria is done doing his spin on the played-out “pester the people who have to deal with the dumbest foreigners in the world on a daily basis” gag, is he going to hop on a flight to Italy and do the Superintendent Chalmers voice while he holds up the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
The Buckingham Palace video is just one of many recent posts from Azaria’s current expansion of his social media presence, possibly in order to promote his passion project, Hank Azaria and the EZ Street Band. Since April, the actor who brought characters like Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Professor Frink and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon to life (before the lattermost had to leave for stereotype purgatory) on The Simpsons has been mastering his most challenging character yet: Bruce Springsteen.
Maybe Azaria’s attempt to “entertain” an unenthused Englishman who’s just trying to do his job was a way to get more eyeballs on his TikTok account so that he can reach a wider audience once he starts blasting his “Thunder Road” covers publicly. Maybe it was just a bit of fun on vacation that I’m taking far too seriously, despite its tackiness. Maybe we’re in the midst of the midlife crisis that will bring down an American institution only matched in esteem and antiquity by the British royal family.
Whatever inspired the viral video, it’s certainly not helping the reputation of Americans in England — they still haven’t forgiven us for for the disappearance of Sherry Bobbins.
