ASU takes a stray from The Simpsons-themed Monday Night Football broadcast

This is supposed to be ASU’s week with the football team headed to the Peach Bowl after winning the Big 12 Championship. The Simpsons-themed alt-cast of Monday Night Football, which featured the Dallas Cowboys losing to the Cincinnati Bengals, wasn’t letting the Sun Devils off so easy.

During player introductions of some classic Simpsons characters, the broadcast landed on Herschel Krustofsky, better known in the long-running animated series as Krusty the Clown.

“Herschel Krustofsky, Clown College, also known as ASU,” Krusty says in the NFL-style introduction.

What the hell did ASU do to deserve this stray?? 😒 #FundayFootball pic.twitter.com/72RGKGXWFb

— Kris Vossmer (@kvossmer) December 10, 2024

This wasn’t the first time Arizona State University caught a stray from The Simpsons.

The show took a shot at ASU’s admissions rate in a 1999 episode.

“Maude, it’s a miracle,” says the Simpsons family’s neighbor, Ned Flanders, as he looks at a flood out of a window. “The Lord has drowned the wicked and spared the righteous.”

“Is that that Homer Simpson?” Maude responds as Homer rows a boat through the flood.

“Urgh,” Ned says. “Looks like heaven is easier to get into than Arizona State.”

What was the Simpsons alternate broadcast of Monday Night Football?

The show’s creators worked with ESPN and the NFL to make sure the look and sound is definitely Simpsonsesque.

The theme song was a mash-up of The Simpsons opening and Monday Night Football’s iconic Heavy Action.

The producers pre-recorded skits and bits to use during the broadcast featuring Simpson’s legendary voices Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner and Yeardley Smith.

The telecast was entirely animated, with the players’ movements in sync with what is happening in real-time on the field. That is done through player-tracking data enabled by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats system and Sony’s Beyond Sports Technology.

While Next Gen Stats tracked where players are on the field with a tracking chip in the shoulder pads, there is skeletal data tracking and limb tracking data — which uses 29 points per player — to get closer to the player’s movements.

LISA SIMPSON BALL GAME pic.twitter.com/FzDOE9NhWB

— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) December 10, 2024

There should be a simpsons broadcast of every game pic.twitter.com/edh1HxACyR

— garrett (@YourDadsFather) December 10, 2024

The other data tracking allowed Beyond Sports and Disney to add special characters to the game. For example, one play substituted Homer for a Cowboys linebacker and Bart for Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, resulting in the father sacking the son.

“Lisa is much smaller than the rest of the players. So, in real life, the ball would go over her head, but now, with data processing, we can take the ball and make it go exactly into her hands. So for the viewer, it still looks believable, and it all makes sense,” said Beyond Sports co-founder Nicolaas Westerhof.

The broadcast featured ESPN personalities Stephen A. Smith, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning.

ESPN’s Drew Carter, Mina Kimes and Dan Orlovsky called the game from Bristol, Connecticut, and were likewise animated. They wore Meta Quest Pro headsets to experience the game from Springfield using VR technology.

While the game was the focal point, the alternate broadcast, in some ways, resembled a three-hour episode of The Simpsons. It started with Homer eating too many hot dogs and having a dream while watching football.

Homer joined the Cowboys in the dream while Bart teamed up with the Bengals. Lisa and Marge were sideline reporters. Lisa, Krusty, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph were with Bart and the Bengals; while Carl, Barney, Lenny and Moe joined with Homer and the Cowboys.

This is the second year ESPN has done an alternate broadcast for an NFL game. It used the characters from “Toy Story” for last year’s Sunday morning game from London between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Can you still watch the Simpsons broadcast?

The animated game streamed on ESPN+, Disney+ and NFL+ (on mobile devices), while ESPN and ABC carried the main broadcast. Additionally, ESPN2 carried the final “ManningCast” of the regular season.

The replay will be available on Disney+ for 30 days. Globally, more than 145 countries will have access to either live or on replay.

“We’re such huge football fans, and the Simpsons audience and the football audience, I feel, are like the same audience of just American families and football. And the Simpsons are so much a part of the DNA of the American family and culture that for us to, like, mush them together in this crazy video game, it’s so fun,” said Matt Selman, executive producer of The Simpsons.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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