With no reference being too obscure for the series, The Simpsons has hidden all manner of clever cameos throughout its countless episodes — but not many fans noticed the show’s nod to the Mad Max movies. Beginning in 1979 with George Miller’s sparse, brutal revenge thriller Mad Max, the Mad Max series began with a low-budget, slow-burn thriller and has since taken a detour into high-octane sci-fi to become one of action cinema’s most beloved institutions ever since the first sequel, 1981's The Road Warrior.
Speaking of beloved institutions, since beginning way back in 1989, The Simpsons has remained a firm favorite sitcom of many TV fans, despite its decline in later seasons. The enduring popularity of The Simpsons is thanks in part to the endless invention of the show’s early years, wherein the anarchic animated family comedy took satirical aim at almost everything imaginable. However, even the most eagle-eyed viewers of The Simpsons may not have caught the show’s subtle nod to the Mad Max franchise back in the sixth season’s "Bart Vs Australia."
The episode is a classic Golden Age Simpsons outing, with memorable moments including the “knife-y spoony” exchange and the unforgettable one-off Simpsons supporting cast character the Honorable Averil Ward. But a close look at the scene when Bart moons the Australian PM and press, thus prompting a massive chase scene back to the safety of a US government helicopter, reveals an obscure reference to the Aussie cult classic The Road Warrior. Viewers who inspect the crowd of angry Australians closely will find The Road Warrior’s Wez among their number, a sly nod to one of Australia’s most famous cultural exports that are hidden in a "blink and you’ll miss it" secret cameo.
As fans of the Mad Max franchise know, Wez was one of The Road Warrior’s secondary villains and a reliable henchman to the more iconic Lord Humungus. Like Humungus himself, Wez originally received a dark backstory that was excised from the finished film, but even in his truncated role, the character is an unforgettable villain who can hold his own against the franchise’s more famous baddies Immortan Joe and Toecutter. The Simpsons, typical to the show’s idiosyncratic humor, opts to slip Wez in as a reference to the Mad Max series rather than the more immediately recognizable Lord Humungus as the cameo is only a fleeting reference and not one that many fans will catch regardless.
A much more obvious nod to the Mad Max movies came in the later episode "Beyond Blunderdome," wherein series star Mel Gibson ends up caught up in a fast-paced car chase while in one of the franchise’s famous cars. It’s a goofy outing that sees the controversial actor pair up with Homer for a memorable adventure and remains worth revisiting — even if its nod to the Mad Max movies is nowhere near as subtle as the earlier, hidden cameo for Wez