The Simpsons have parodied countless television shows and movies in their time, but only The Real Ghostbusters have turned the tables on the series and spoofed the cartoon family—kind of. Debuting in 1989, The Simpsons soon became a huge hit for Fox and has since gone on to become one of television’s most recognizable institutions.
A warm, silly, anarchic family sitcom The Simpsons was a massive success from early on, amassing a huge fanbase and gaining critical acclaim from its first season onwards. The series never shied away from controversy, earning the ire of then-President George H. W. Bush before the show even reached its third season (although The Simpsons did avoid airing a Scientology-spoofing episode for fear of litigation).
Although the show has parodied pretty much every major movie and television series imaginable over its thirty-three seasons, something The Simpsons has never had to worry about is the series being spoofed itself. As a comedy series (and a uniquely silly, surreal one at that), The Simpsons are not prime material for parody—or so one might think. However, the Ghostbusters television spinoff The Real Ghostbusters did just that in a late-season episode that took satirical aim at Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Homer… Save for the fact that the animated comedy seemingly mistook them for the Bundys of Married With Children fame.
Springfield’s first family The Simpsons are parodied in “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner,” a season 6 episode of the animated Ghostbusters spin-off series that sees their ghastly ghost counterparts invade the titular paranormal investigators’ clubhouse while the group is conveniently out of town. Oddly, although the family of ghouls who take over the Real Ghostbusters’ repurposed firehouse is clearly modeled on The Simpsons visually, their personalities and names are based on Married With Children’s Bundy family. This may be because it is one of television’s earliest (few) Simpsons parodies, with The Real Ghostbusters episode being released only a year into the show’s now-over-30-year run. As this episode aired before the season 3 debut of The Simpsons’ “Stark Raving Dad,” much of the humor that fans recognize as unique to the series had not yet been established in the show.
Since the series was still in its early days, there is not much instantly recognizable Simpsons-centric detail for The Real Ghostbusters to mock in the outing. Instead, a lot of the episode’s humor centers on jokes based around the Bundy family, with the ghosts being named after Al (who in the show becomes "Foul"), Peg (Pig), Bud (Bug), and Kelly (Smelly). It's a shame, as seeing ghost versions of the animated family does have potential, even if a Simpsons parody was always going to struggle to be as funny as the actual source material. Nonetheless, despite The Real Ghostbusters’ lack of focus on their target of parody, The Simpsons was still kind enough to return the favor years later—and their reference to the horror-comedy franchise wasn’t even limited to one of the show's annual "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween specials. In season 13’s “Tales From the Public Domain,” The Simpsons family patriarch Homer claims Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a great play that went on to become a great movie... in the form of Ghostbusters.