During its 35-year run and counting, The Simpsons has never been shy of inviting famous guests to take part in its episodes. Guest appearances have become increasingly significant to the show’s appeal over the past two decades, as it uses them to string out threadbare storylines during a seemingly never-ending downward spiral into a tragic parody of the high watermark for television it once was.
But even during its golden age, celebrity cameos were part and parcel of the Simpsons universe. Although they did tend to be worked more seamlessly into a convincing plotline, rather than crowbarred in as a cheap attempt at gaining or retaining viewers. Take Michael Jackson’s uncredited appearance as a psychiatric patient who befriends Homer and writes Lisa a birthday song, for instance. Or Dustin Hoffman’s turn as the world’s best substitute teacher, Mr Bergstrom.
As far back as season two in 1990, even members of The Beatles were more than happy to appear in the series. Marge’s teenage crush, Ringo Starr, unexpectedly writes back to her years after she sent him a portrait of him she’d painted. His positive feedback encourages her to follow through with the painting of Mr Burns, which she’s been commissioned to create.
The first episode of season five sees avid Beatles fans among the show’s writers go into full pastiche mode as they invoke the rise and fall of the Fab Four in ‘Homer’s Barbershop Quartet’. Who better to guest star in the story than George Harrison? In the episode’s final scene, Harrison drives past The Be-Sharps performing a rooftop concert and quips, “It’s been done”.
And what about McCartney?
Not one to be left behind, Paul McCartney was soon getting in on the action. The yellow cartoon version of the Beatles bassist appeared on The Simpsons alongside his first wife, Linda, in an episode that premiered on October 15th, 1995. It’d taken until the seventh season to entice McCartney to appear, but the episode ‘Lisa the Vegetarian’ struck the right chord with the Beatle.
He and his wife were two of the most famous vegetarians in the world, and the story of Lisa taking a stance against eating meat chimed with a cause close to their hearts. Macca had one condition for his appearance, though. As Simpsons executive producer David Mirkin told The Vegetarian Star, “He agreed but made me promise to keep Lisa as a vegetarian.”
And the musician still calls in now and then to make sure Mirkin’s kept to his word. “Every time I see him, he always checks,” Mirkin has revealed. “And he’s always surrounded by nine or ten lawyers, so it’s quite frightening!”
In ‘Lisa the Vegetarian’, the most sensitive Simpson meets Paul and Linda in the rooftop garden of Apu’s Kwik-e-Mart convenience store, or, as Linda jokes, “In Apu’s garden in the shade.” Macca explains his friendship with Apu by telling Lisa, “We met him in India years ago during the Maharishi days.” He then goes to lampoon Beatles conspiracy theorists who try to find hidden messages in his songs by claiming, “If you play ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ backwards, you’ll hear a recipe for a really ripping lentils soup.”
Between them, Apu and his famous friends convince Lisa that it’s cool to be vegetarian but that vegetarians also need to be tolerant of others’ beliefs on the issue. The scene does feel a little forced, but at least fits neatly into the narrative arc of the episode as a whole.
Voice acting was never McCartney’s day job, but it’s arguably the unnatural style in which his dialogue with Apu is scripted that let him down a little. Perhaps episode writer David S Cohen was overly nervous about writing lines for the greatest living Beatle. And who could blame him?
