Simpsons Fan Uncovers Three-Decade-Lost Joke Using Audio Processing

A fan of popular sitcom The Simpsons, has uncovered a joke from a three-decade old episode thanks to audio processing.

The editor in question, Ewzzy Rayburn managed to unlock this joke from an episode called The Otto Show, where the character Otto moves in with the Simpsons family, having lost his job as the school bus driver.

In the episode, Homer takes Bart and Lisa to see a rock band called Spinal Tap perform. He is warned by Marge about the possible consequences and negative impact that this rock group may have on the children.

As she warns him, Homer's tinnitus drowns out her voice, literally showing her warning falling on deaf ears.

However, thirty years later, audio processing has been able to find out what exactly Marge said, as the joke was revealed for the first time by Ewzzy Rayburn who was able to use Adobe Audition to remove the sound of Homer's tinnitus. He shared the clip on Twitter.

 "Well alright, but make sure [Bart and Lisa] don’t pick up any of the band’s attitudes toward, liquor, religion, politics… really anything", Marge says to Homer in the episode. 

Rayburn also shared screenshots of the spectogram both before and after the audio. He was able to monitor the volume levels, using colours, and depicting the pitch through height on the graph, and remove the tinnitus sounds, and increase the volume of Marge's vocie. 

Check it out below.

I used my audio editing skills to recover a buried @TheSimpsons joke. #Simpsons pic.twitter.com/H0gD1qO7vF

— Ewzzy Rayburn (@ewzzy) April 19, 2023