By Phillip Martinez
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President Donald Trump was the subject of The Simpsons' most pointed political joke to date, and the show's executive producer has shared some insight into why the segment came to be.
During Sunday's "Treehouse of Horror XXXI" special, Homer Simpson is seen at the polls on Election Day when he proclaims that he's undecided as to who to vote for when it comes to president.
His daughter, Lisa, comes in and asks her father how he can be undecided after what's happened in the past four years. A list of reasons not to re-elect Trump are then shown on the screen for the viewers to read.
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"We have the most polarizing president there's ever been," executive producer Al Jean told Give Me My Remote recently, when discussing the thinking behind the segment. "When we started 30 years ago, I had some conservative leanings and I thought that you wanted to be even-handed. It's just things have gotten pushed so crazily—and this is just my opinion, not the show's—but Trump has been engaged in so much illegal activities as documented by the New York Times, you just go, oh this is crazy. No president in my life has violated policy like this; no president had a rally at the White House. You can't be even-handed when the subject at hand is not, that's my view."
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As for the list of reasons not to vote for Trump, Jean revealed that while most of the scene was written a year ago, the writers actually kept adding to the list, to keep it up to date.
"Obviously, we didn't know about the pandemic, so then we added that everybody's wearing a mask, except Homer," Jean said. "The masks, we had those put in April—we guessed that would be what things would look like around November, but most of it, ironically, was written about a year ago."
You can watch the segment below.
This year's "Treehouse of Horror" installment also features parodies of Toy Story, Edge of Tomorrow and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But it's the election day segment that made headlines in advance of the episode's debut. The episode's full list of reasons not to re-elect Trump is below:
- Made it okay to shoot hibernating bears
- Put children in cages
- Called Mexicans rapists
- Imitated disabled reporter
- Looks lousy in a tennis outfit
- Can't get wife to hold hand
- Called third world countries ****holes
- Called Tim Cook 'Tim Apple'
- Said Jewish people who vote Democrat are disloyal
- Showed top secret documents at Mar-A-Lago restaurant
- Called white supremacists 'fine people'
- Leaked classified information to Russian ambassador
- Asked the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens
- Called for China to investigate the Bidens
- Walked into the dressing room at Miss Teen USA pageant
- Pressed the Australian prime minister to help Barr investigate Mueller
- Talked about grabbing *****
- Lied about the size of his inauguration
- Refused to release tax returns
- Gutted the E.P.A.
- Confiscated and destroyed interpreter's notes after meeting with Putin
- Tweeted classified photo of Iran missile site
- Called Baltimore a 'disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess'
- Described Meryl Streep as 'overrated'
- Leaked information to the press about the 2017 Manchester arena bombing
- Did not attend any White House correspondents' dinner
- Said Megyn Kelly had 'blood coming out of her whatever'
- Called Carly Fiorina 'horseface'
- Ruined impeachment
- Brought Ivanka to the G7 summit
- Corrupted Congress
- Appointed and didn't fire Betsy DeVos
- Put Jared in charge of Mideast
- Served McDonald's to Clemson football team
- Destroyed democracy
- Lost Hong Kong
- Threatened Marie Yovanovitch
- Pulled the U.S. out of climate agreement
- Allowed bounties on soldiers
- Invaded Portland
- Withdrew from W.H.O.
- Bragged about knowing the date
- Commuted sentences
- Said to swallow bleach
- Person, woman, man, camera, TV
- Destroyed post office
- Paid $750 in taxes
- Wants third term
- Wanted to be on Mount Rushmore
If you missed the episode, catch up on the Fox website, with a cable subscription.
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