The latest season of The Simpsons is in full swing, and among the best jokes in the show’s newest episodes is a parody of a legendary standup comedian who was once one of its biggest sitcom rivals. This is the second time America’s favorite TV family has lampooned Jerry Seinfeld, an incredible 35 years after the first.
Episode five of The Simpsons season 37 features a parody of Seinfeld’s Netflix show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. This scene effectively serves as a callback to the moment when his style of standup comedy was affectionately mocked, way back in the second season of the animated sitcom.
The rivalry between The Simpsons and Seinfeld for the title of all-time best sitcom adds some extra spice to these Jerry Seinfeld jokes, even though most of the cartoon’s writers undoubtedly have a great deal of respect for his comedy. But what makes them truly stand out in the canon of classic Simpsons parodies is the remarkable timespan between them.
The Simpsons Season 37 Episode “Bad Boys… for Life?” Parodies Jerry Seinfeld
“Bad Boys… for Life?”, the Simpsons episode first broadcast by Fox on November 2, 2025, includes a bit that Jerry Seinfeld himself would have been proud of writing. It sees Seinfeld driving a luxury sports car alongside fictional Springfield comedian, Krusty the Clown.
The two comics are starring together in a parody of Seinfeld’s Netflix series, which The Simpsons mischievously titles “Comedians in Cars Kvetching”. They complain about political correctness at American colleges, in reference to Seinfeld’s controversial comments in real life about oversensitivity ruining comedy.
Right on cue, previous Simpsons guest character Jay Leno arrives to crash into them with his own car. The only thing that could have made this scene funnier would have been Jerry Seinfeld starring as himself, rather than being voiced by actor Maurice LaMarche.
Seinfeld’s Standup Routine Was Previously Parodied In The Simpsons Season 2
This recent episode of The Simpsons isn’t the first time the show has parodied Jerry Seinfeld. Back in February 1990, the season 2 episode “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment” aired for the first time.
As well as being one of the sitcom’s best stories shared between Homer and Lisa Simpson, the episode featured a brief but brilliantly cutting sendup of Jerry Seinfeld’s style of standup comedy. A Seinfeldesque comedian standing in front of a brick wall imparted a rare pearl of observational insight, with Jerry’s trademark high-pitched, nasal vocal delivery.
“Don’t you hate it,” he asks his audience, “when you go to the bathroom… and there’s no toilet paper?” On the other side of his TV, Homer Simpson is laughing hysterically at how universally true this observation is.
Meanwhile, on the other side of our TVs, we’re laughing both at Homer – for finding such a banal observation so funny – and at Jerry Seinfeld for popularizing this form of observational humor in the first place. It’s a classic, carefully-layered, richly-textured Simpsons joke.
Jerry Seinfeld Himself Has Never Starred In The Simpsons
It’s worth bearing in mind that Jerry Seinfeld himself wasn’t in on this joke in season 2 of The Simpsons. The comedian styled after him in “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment” was played by one of the show’s specialist voice artists, Hank Azaria. Nor was Seinfeld in on the recent gag in “Bad Boys… for Life?”.
In fact, unlike Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander, who played arguably Seinfeld’s best characters Elaine Benes and George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld has never appeared on The Simpsons. This might be something the comedian wants to tick off his bucket list at some stage.
However, it could well be that The Simpsons has ruined its chances of ever getting Seinfeld on the show following this latest joke. Either way, it’s to be hoped that he takes it as the good-natured ribbing it is.
- Release Date
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December 17, 1989
- Network
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FOX
- Showrunner
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Al Jean
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Homer Simpson / Abe Simpson / Barney Gumble / Krusty (voice)
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Marge Simpson / Patty Bouvier / Selma Bouvier (voice)
