Supernatural Season 1 Stealthily Referenced One Of The Best Episodes Of The Simpsons

It’s no secret that Sam and Dean Winchester (especially Dean) love TV. The monster-hunting brothers at the center of the erstwhile CW fixture “Supernatural” made plenty of pop culture references over the course of the show’s considerable run, and once they even ended up stuck in a madcap television world, guest starring on shows that borrowed from “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI: Miami.” Angel Castiel (Misha Collins) has a memorable relationship with the boob tube, too; he learned a lot about humankind while watching bad hotel-TV porn in season 6.

“Supernatural” wears its pop culture-loving heart on its sleeve, but way back in season 1, the show also dropped in some subtle “if you know, you know”-style references. Among them? A shout-out to one of the best classic episodes of “The Simpsons,” dropped squarely into a dead serious scene about a kid-killing witch that’s central to Dean’s childhood trauma.

In the first season episode “Something Wicked,” “Supernatural” is in full “depressing daddy issues” mode. Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles), still on the hunt for their absent father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the show’s earliest serialized plot, are on the hunt for a Shtriga, an Albanian folkloric figure that steals the lifeblood of kids while they’re asleep. It turns out that the Shtriga they’re after is actually the same one that nearly killed Sam when they were young, traumatizing Dean in the process when his younger brother was put in harm’s way after Dean broke his dad’s rules and left him alone. Of course, the elder Winchester left both kids alone in a motel for days, so who’s the real monster here?

The parental failings of John Winchester may be a major theme of “Something Wicked,” but one of the episode’s best moments comes during a seemingly run-of-the-mill research conversation between Sam and Dean. During a phone call, Sam tells Dean that the Shtriga recently struck in Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook — the same fictional towns that feature prominently in the season 4 “Simpsons” episode “Marge vs. the Monorail.” Clearly Sam wasn’t watching “The Simpsons” when he was stuck in that motel room as a kid, or he would’ve recognized the connection.

Released in 1993 during the long-running animated sitcom’s first and most acclaimed golden era, “Marge vs. the Monorail” is a fantastic episode of TV situated within an unbelievable comedic and heartfelt hot streak (see also: “Mr. Plow,” “Lisa’s First Word,” “Homer’s Triple Bypass”). The Conan O’Brien-penned half hour introduces Lyle Laney (Phil Hartman), an old-timey, musically-inclined con artist a la “The Music Man.” The singing, dancing drifter blows into town just as Springfield gets a $3 million windfall, and does everything he can to convince the townsfolk to spend their cash on a high-speed monorail system instead of much-needed infrastructure repairs.

“Marge vs. the Monorail” is a series standout for several reasons, from its action-packed climax that gives Homer a rare, unironic win to its most famous song, in which Lyle responds in rhyming verse to public forum questions like “Were you sent here by the devil” (his answer: “No, good sir, I’m on the level”). It’s also one of several season 4 episodes that effortlessly eases up on the more bittersweet recurring aspects of the Simpsons family dynamics, like Homer’s alcoholism and Marge’s domestic listlessness. During his razzle-dazzle presentation, Lyle wows most of the audience — ever-clever Marge excepted — when he makes reference to the three towns whose economies he’s saved with monorails in the past: Brockway, Ogdenvile, and North Haverbrook.

The reference is sly enough that it’s tough to catch if you haven’t rewatched “The Simpsons” lately, but it’s also unmissable for anyone who’s a “Marge vs. the Monorail” devotee. The three towns are mentioned several times throughout the “Simpsons” episode, and Marge eventually saves the day by visiting North Haverbrook and discovering it’s become a comedically broken-down ghost town ever since Lyle swindled its residents. In the world of “Supernatural,” these three places are also haunted, but it’s a mythical witch that puts kids into comas, not a cheap death trap train, that’s behind all the trouble.

Hilariously, this isn’t the only “Simpsons” reference snuck into the early seasons of “Supernatural.” In the show’s season 3 premiere, Sam jokes that Dean is “polling the electorate,” the Springfield cops’ shorthand for Mayor Quimby’s motel trysts, when his brother gets some rare action on the road. The season 5 premiere features what might be the show’s most obscure “Simpsons” reference, when Dean tells Kurt Fuller’s angel Zachariah to “cram it with walnuts, ugly!” That insult is identical to the one Homer let fly in a season 8 episode of “The Simpsons,” when he was auditioning for the Poochie role on “The Itchy and Scratchy Show.” Series creator Eric Kripke, who wrote two of the three “Supernatural” episodes mentioned above, is clearly a fan of the groundbreaking FOX series; last year, he compared his other show, “The Boys,” to the “very lived-in, ridiculous dystopia” of “The Simpsons” in an interview with Creative Screenwriting. We’re now accepting bets on which Supe will say “eat my shorts” next season.