Homer Simpson has done a lot of things over the course of The Simpsons, and he once was in a band called The Be Sharps – and here’s why the band was called like that. Created by Matt Groening, The Simpsons had its beginning as a series of animated shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, and after three seasons, it was developed into a half-hour prime time show, making its official debut on Fox in 1989. The Simpsons has since become the longest-running animated American series and has successfully expanded to other media, most notably comic books and film, and it shows no signs of stopping soon.
The Simpsons follows the daily adventures of the title family in the fictional town of Springfield, along with those of their closest friends and even a couple of enemies, such as Mr. Burns and Sideshow Bob. The show has also taken some time to show the audience what the famous family did before the events of the series began, and even though some of those moments don’t quite fit the timeline of The Simpsons, they have become quite memorable. One of those moments arrived in season 5’s episode “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet”, where Homer reminisced of a very special moment of his life: his time with a band.
During the Springfield Swap Meet, Bart and Lisa found an album cover with Homer’s face, which led Homer to tell them all about his time with a barbershop quartet back in 1985 alongside Apu, Skinner, and Barney, who came in to replace Chief Wiggum. The band was called “The Be Sharps”, and were a clear parody of The Beatles, even including the appearance of Barney’s Japanese girlfriend who brought conflict among the band, as Yoko Ono reportedly did with The Beatles. However, the name of the band is mostly a reference to sharps and flats in musical terminology, the joke being that there is no “b sharp” – though the note technically exists, it’s referred to as “C”.
As mentioned above, The Be Sharps had a story very similar to that of The Beatles. They had their beginnings playing at Moe’s Tavern and then expanded to the Springfield State Prison and the First Church of Springfield. When they caught the attention of a man named Nigel, he became their agent and suggested they got rid of Chief Wiggum as he reminded him too much of Village People. Barney joined the band after they heard him singing in the bathroom of the tavern, and he immediately accepted their offer. The group became widely popular thanks to Homer’s song “Baby on Board”, part of their album Meet the Be Sharps (a parody of the Beatles’ album Meet the Beatles), and after that, they won a variety of awards. Sadly, their popularity began to decrease and they started having problems within the band, made even bigger when Barney brought his new girlfriend and added her “creative ideas” to the band’s songs.
After splitting up, Skinner returned to Springfield Elementary School, Apu to the Kwik-E-Mart, Moe to the tavern, and Homer to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. However, at the end of the episode, the group reunited one final time to perform a rooftop concert at Moe’s, which was a direct reference to the Beatles’ rooftop concert at the end of the group’s career. The Be Sharps is one of the most memorable moments from The Simpsons, and it’s also one of the show’s most clever and fun parodies.