With over 740 episodes and two additional seasons confirmed, The Simpsons continues to be a topic of conversation, though not so much for its new material, but for the things we have discovered in its 33 years on air (36 if we count the shorts). The latest news comes via Twitter, and it focuses on an episode from 1992. When Marge tries to explain something to Homer (as always), the truth is that Homer does not understand anything because of his tinnitus, but thanks to Ewzzy Rayburn's edit, we can finally hear Marge's exact dialogue…
On April 23, 1992, "The Otto Show" aired, episode 22 of the third season of The Simpsons. You may remember that season better for the monkey's paw, Lisa's pony, "Llamarada Moe", and Homer's championship softball team, but "The Otto Show" tells the story of Otto living temporarily at the Simpsons' house. The episode begins with Bart and Homer getting ready to go to a Spinal Tap concert (Milhouse joins them later), and when Marge tries to explain something to Homer, he does not listen because of his tinnitus.
The joke works regardless of language because Homer assures he suffered no damage after attending multiple concerts, but the scene has an extra detail: Marge's dialogue that Homer doesn't hear is real. The DVD commentary says it's "something very funny", but the creators don't remember exactly what. And that brings us to Twitter, where Ewzzy Rayburn, a professional video editor, decided to accept the challenge.
A Hidden Dialogue From The Simpsons Resurfaces After 31 Years
Basically, Marge says something like "Okay, fine, but make sure they don't imitate any of the band's attitudes towards women, liquor, religion, politics... actually, everything!". In other words, Marge being Marge. Ewzzy used Adobe Audition to isolate and filter the tinnitus tone. The spectrogram shows volume by color and pitch by height, and with that reference he managed to erase everything that was extra. The rest was a matter of optimizing the remaining audio, and that's how he arrived at Marge's real dialogue.
Another detail in The Simpsons audio is the presence of birds and crickets to indicate whether a scene is day or night. For example, when Bart and Homer leave the house, birds are heard, but there are crickets when they return (and forget Milhouse at the concert). The voices are almost always in the center channel of the 5.1 mix, and it's very easy to "turn off". Finally, Ewzzy asks if the joke is still there in other languages. In French it seems intact, but he only hears strange noises in Latin American Spanish…
