New Orleans Tourists Do Shot-for-Shot Remake of Homer’s Food Tour
The Simpsons is considered the longest-running American scripted primetime television series of all time. In fact, it’s one of those culture-defining TV shows that people worldwide can instantly recognize if they’re one of the few who aren’t fans already. Katrin von Niederhäusern and her friend Janine, both of whom consider themselves Simpsons fanatics, recently took a trip to New Orleans to prove their fandom in the most delicious of ways.
In “Lisa Gets the Blues,” the 17th episode of the 29th season, Lisa feels discouraged from playing the saxophone so the family bands together to head to ‘The Big Easy’ to cheer her up with Jazz Fest. Of course, when Homer discovers the bevy of culinary Cajun delights, we’re treated to a gluttonous montage filled with crawfish and po’ boys a-plenty.
The Swiss duo jumped into character to recreate Homer’s delicious travels through the city and utterly nailed it, from their attire to his… unique eating style.
“We just love both so much: New Orleans and The Simpsons,” Katrin told Bored Panda. “So when in this one episode, both things got combined, we got so excited, we decided to make a homage to it. After googling, we found out that those 54 restaurants exist in real life. And what we admire so much is how accurately detailed the makers of The Simpsons are. Everything looks just like it. So impressive.”
“Even though we planned ahead a lot, there were still some obstacles during filming: a restaurant was closed on Sundays, a restaurant was closed forever, the dish was not on the menu anymore, the dish was out of season, the dish was never on the menu, the restaurant was under construction, another one was closed for the summer break.
“In one of the restaurants, the sign was not as in the cartoon on the window, but it was on the main entrance of the restaurant… The door, where every customer comes in. So to still have the right shot and perspective, we needed to convince the restaurant owner that we can set up our camera and a whole table just right in the front of the entrance door. Thank you Emeril’s for letting us do that.”
One of the most difficult parts of the project was nailing Homer’s various bliss-filled expressions while not making too much of a ridiculous scene in the middle of the restaurant.
“We had to lie on the table, sit on the floors, eat with fingers, eat with the whole hand, lick the plates, and put shrimps and a ton of fries in our mouth. Everything under the constant observation of the other – very disturbed – restaurant guests.”
Their efforts didn’t go unnoticed, either. At the time writing, the video has surpassed 600k views on YouTube and, apparently, even caught the eye of folks from the show itself.
“Hey! Just wanted you to know, we here at The Simpsons Animation Studio saw your video and were blown away!” wrote Erin Koenig, now the top comment on YouTube. “And also hope you don’t have heartburn from all that eatin’!”
“I am always looking for cool and adventurous people, clients or designers to do a project with,” Katrin wrote on her website. “My childhood dream is to help write a Simpsons episode and do a custom intro for it with my illustrations.”
From the looks of things, she’s definitely a little closer to achieving her dreams… and indigestion.
