While South Park famously said “The Simpsons already did it,” The Simpsons season 33 reversed this aphorism by borrowing one of South Park season 25's best jokes. The Simpsons is a long-running television institution and, as such, the show isn’t shy about its creative influences. After all, the series has served as a huge influence on modern comedy shows and movies, so it is no surprise that by season 33 The Simpsons can remake an obscure indie horror or one of The Simpsons’ own classic plots and get away with it.
However, The Simpsons is not usually as quick to borrow from its competitors, particularly those that took some satirical swings at Springfield’s first family in the past. That said, despite South Park famously claiming that The Simpsons already told every joke and story imaginable, The Simpsons season 33 ended up borrowing a joke directly from South Park season 25. The copy happened in “Pretty Whittle Liar” (season 33, episode 16), during the opening scene of The Simpsons outing.
In the episode, Homer watches a reality television show about the realty business titled “Million Dollar Li$tings.” The potential house buyers on the in-universe show look and act identical to the titular “City People” of South Park's “City People” (season 25, episode 3). South Park’s season 25 gag spoofed gentrification by depicting City People as mindless drones invading the titular town in their hordes. In both episodes, though, the home buyers are depicted as zombie-like yuppies who wander around spouting fashionable buzzwords like “open concept” and “cortado” without displaying any apparent autonomy, sentience, or independent thought.
Since The Simpsons has a far longer production time than the infamously quick South Park, it’s hard to call this a case of plagiarism. Odds are, The Simpsons writers had scripted that joke long before South Park told a similar gag, although the South Park episode did air first. That said, as The Simpsons’ misguided cancel culture parody proved, the long-running show does sometimes add last-minute jokes to the script late in the production process (as proven by that outing’s gauche “Russian generals” gag).
However, to give The Simpsons its due, the episodes do have two slightly different takes on the same joke. In South Park, the City People are depicted as trend followers who obsess over everything from WiFi to bottled water provided these things are proof of an area’s up-and-coming status. In The Simpsons joke, the home buyers only drone on about specific features of the property, meaning the gag might be meant as more of a dig at the mindless stars of reality shows and less of a condemnation of the lifestyles of buyers responsible for gentrification. In any case, like South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers prove, The Simpsons has had a massive impact on the landscape of television comedy and essentially defined the adult animation genre’s parameters in its early Golden Age. As such, it’s probably safe for The Simpsons and South Park to share this throwaway joke.
