A random mystery was solved after a fan of the popular animated sitcom The Simpsons uncovered an obscured joke buried under dialogue from a 31-year-old episode.
Professional video editor Ewzzy Rayburn shared a short clip of episode 22 from the show's third season that originally aired on April 23, 1992, called "The Otto Show," revealing what Marge actually told Homer in a scene that was sonically distorted on purpose.
The scene showed Marge lecturing Homer prior to him taking their kids, Bart and Lisa, to a Spinal Tap concert–but from his perspective.
The gag was that Homer couldn't hear what Marge was telling him due to the tinnitus ringing in his ears.
The show's creators previously mentioned the scene in a DVD commentary and informed fans they spent a long time working on Marge's line and that it was funny, even though they were cognizant beforehand that it was going to be inaudible to viewers.
Now, thanks to Rayburn's digital audio tech-savvy, he was able to uncover the mystery words uttered by Marge over three decades ago.
"We can remove the tones and boost her voice," he explained in the tweet's video.
Her words to Homer were:
"Well alright, but make sure they [Bart and Lisa] don't pick up any of the band's attitudes toward women, liquor, religion, politics... really anything.”
To which Homer lied and responded, "I hear you," before whisking Bart away and telling him, "C'mon boy."
You can see Rayburn's tweet, below.
\u201cI used my audio editing skills to recover a buried @TheSimpsons joke. #Simpsons\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
So how did he do it?
In the comments, Rayburn said he used Adobe Audition, which provided visual information to help him isolate and adjust the different volumes of layered audio parts.
\u201cSince a few folks asked how, here's before and after in Adobe Audition. You can't see anything in the green waveform, but the spectrogram is vol by color and pitch by height. I used that to find/erase the tones then boost what was left.\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201cWhat was left was Marge... and birds? Hidden in the mix of The Simpsons is almost always birds or crickets to show day and night. Voices are almost always in the center channel in the 5.1 mix so turning that off lets us hear isolated sound effects.\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
Fans thanked Rayburn after they were rightly impressed by his audio-isolating prowess.
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons Brilliant! Well done and thank you so much for unearthing this \ud83d\ude0a\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons This is good, good work.\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons I've always wondered what she was saying here. Thanks you!\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons I don't use the term "hero" lightly, but you are the greatest hero in American history.\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons Very nice work\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons You have done a fine service for the species, and zi commend you.\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons This joke has aged wonderfully lol\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons Nice EQ-ing! Always wondered about this one.\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
\u201c@ewzzy @TheSimpsons Not all heroes wear capes. \ud83d\ude2d\u2728\u201d— Ewzzy Rayburn (@Ewzzy Rayburn) 1681917336
Thank you for your service, Ewzzy.
The Bulwark
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