The Simpsons and Werner Herzog

The Simpsons season is over, so they're replaying all of the 2005 episodes. I've already seen most of the 2005 episodes, but watch them again anyway, precisely for the reason that I always get something new and obscure out of the Simpsons. Case in point: tonight's rerun episode about the Springfield glacier. While the kids are pulling the bus up to the top of the mountain by a chain, one of the kids says:

"I feel like I'm in Fitzcarraldo."

To which Nelson replies:

"That movie was flawed."

Now, I really have to wonder how many people got that reference. It's even more obscure than most of their references. Let's face it - most people don't watch Werner Herzog movies. I laughed long and hard - I missed it the first time around, because quite honestly, I had no idea what Fitzcarraldo was or what it was about. (To those who don't know - in Fitzcarraldo, they haul a riverboat over a mountain - hence the referrence.) In fact, I still haven't watched Fitzcarraldo - it's sitting on my shelf, my latest Netflix acquisition. The only reason I know about it is that I watched a documentary by Werner Herzog about his working relationship with the actor Klaus Kinsky.

And they say TV isn't educational...