The Simpsons Does Hamlet
Want a slightly warped but surprisingly thorough summation of Hamlet in 5 minutes? Well “The Simpsons” has got you covered.
Warning: This post will contain many a Hamlet plot spoiler. If you are avoiding knowing what happens, including many significant moments, this is not for you.
If you are familiar with The Simpsons you will know that some episodes consist of the telling of 3 stories. The episode containing their take on Hamlet is one of them. It is the 3rd of the three stories (along with Homer’s Odyssey and Joan of Arc) taken from a “Classics for Children” book that Homer took out from the library when Bart was born. So you don’t even have to watch an entire episode, it is literally 5 minutes.
I can’t show you the episode here unfortunately but it is:
Series 13, Episode 14 – Tales from the Public Domain
And the Hamlet story begins at about 15 minutes 20 seconds in. So, if you have means of finding and watching that then I highly recommend it.
Our cast list includes:
- Hamlet – Bart Simpson
- Hamlet’s Father (do we ever know this guy’s name?) – Homer Simpson
- Hamlet’s Mother (Gertrude) – Marge Simpson
- Hamlet’s Uncle (Claudius) – Moe Szyslak
- Players – Krusty the Clown and co.
- Polonius – Chief Wiggum
- Laertes (Polonius’ son) – Ralph Wiggum
- Ophelia (Polonius’ daughter) – Lisa Simpson
Also with a small appearance from Rosencarl and Guildernlenny (my personal favourites).
So there are no points for high levels of accuracy in this adaptation but we’re not really expecting it from 5 minutes of a cartoon. But it is, as I say, surprisingly thorough. We have Hamlet’s father telling him of his murder, Hamlet using the play to see if his uncle is guilty, awkward situation with Polonius leading to more avenging (quite the theme in this play), Ophelia gets a brief moment and it ends with a room of dead people.
As with many other classic tales and stories (a lot of my general knowledge was gained from growing up with what I call the Simpsons Education) they have some fun but they do it well. We get a story told with relative accuracy but still in keeping with the characters we are familiar with!
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