Two Swiss tourists has turned their vacation into the ultimate The Simpsons tribute by recreating shot-for-shot an episode of the popular cartoon show while visiting New Orleans.
Last year, The Simpsons gave a stunning tribute to 54 restaurants and types of foods in New Orleans by showing Homer Simpson going on an in-depth food tour through the city.
This inspired Katrin von Niederhäusern and her friend Janine, who work as illustrators, to recreate the episode when they visited New Orleans this year.
Committed: Katrin von Niederhäusern and her friend Janine recreated The Simpsons episode when the cartoon family visits New Orleans on the way to Florida
Original: The episode of The Simpsons the two women mimicked aired last year. It featured Homer stopping in New Orleans on the way to Florida with his family. At one point, he enjoyed crawfish from Cajun Seafood Co.
Creative: Similar to the episode, the two Swiss women visited restaurants featured in the episode to eat the food Homer eats
Copycats: A YouTube video showed a side-by-side comparison of the moment in the episode when Homer tried 54 different foods, like the seafood mirliton casserole at K-Paul’s, around New Orleans next to a version made by Katrin and Janine
All is fair: The women would switch off on who played Homer and who played Lisa for each of the scenes
Shot after shot shows how Katrin and Janine were able to not only get the food mentioned by Homer, but also recreate how Homer ate the food and where he ate it in the episode.
Not only does the recreation demonstrate the astounding effort the two women put into the YouTube video, but it also illustrates the detail The Simpsons put into the foodie episode to properly show actual places in New Orleans.
The Simpsons episode, titled Lisa Gets the Blues, follows the cartoon family making an unexpected trip to New Orleans on the way to Florida.
Homer is then followed around by Lisa through one segment of the episode as he tackles local eateries to eat one iconic menu item from each.
At one point, Lisa says to her father: ‘There’s also a lot of historical sites.’
But Homer ignores this statement and continues to indulge in all the good eats around the city.
Katrin and Janine’s viral YouTube video then mimics this foodie moment for every scene. The description of the video reads: ‘Two Swiss girls love the Simpsons as much as they love New Orleans. So of course they needed to recreate this sequence!’
Keeping it accurate: They would even get the correct background and facial expressions for the mirrored shots. Pictured is both the cartoon and the women enjoying po-boys
Priorities: The description in the YouTube video reads, ‘two Swiss girls love the Simpsons as much as they love New Orleans. So of course they needed to recreate this sequence’
Food goals: Not only did the YouTube clip show the women’s commitment to recreating the foodie scene, but it also shows how well The Simpsons depicted each restaurant
They then took viewers through each moment of the foodie scene, from visiting Bevi Seafood Co. for crawfish to getting creole sweet potato pies at Antoine’s. The women also enjoyed po-boys, fried crabcakes, jambalaya, friend chicken and pecan pie at popular spots in New Orleans.
Although the video looked nearly flawless to a viewer’s eye compared to the scene from The Simpsons, Katrin and Janine told Bored Panda that they ran into some difficulties when filming.
‘Even though we planned ahead a lot, there were still some obstacles during filming: a restaurant was closed on Sundays, a restaurant was closed forever, the dish was not on the menu anymore, the dish was out of season, the dish was never on the menu, the restaurant was under construction, another one was closed for the summer break,’ they explained.
Another issue the women ran into was mimicking Homer’s exact facial expression when eating the food because of how he lacked manners.
‘A man with great charm but not so great manners,’ the women said. ‘We had to lie on the table, sit on the floors, eat with fingers, eat with the whole hand, lick the plates, and put shrimps and a ton of fries in our mouth.
‘Everything under the constant observation of the other – very disturbed – restaurant guests.’
They switched off playing Homer and Lisa throughout the video so each of them could be front and center for hilarious moments.
Incredible: The women confessed to running into issues when filming the scenes, such as certain restaurants being closed or shut down since The Simpsons episode filmed
Focused: Another difficult part of filming was mimicking Homer’s very expressive reactions and ways he ate the food
Finished product: The video quickly went viral after it was shared last week with more than 570,000 views online
Whoever was playing Lisa for a specific scene would then look on from a similar position that the cartoon character was standing during that moment.
The video was so popular with fans that it has since been viewed more than 570,000 times after the women first shared it last week.
People online commended not only the creativity of choosing to recreate the episode, but also the commitment by the women to capture the correct angles of each shot.
‘The attention to detail is spectacular,’ one viewer wrote. ‘I love how they switch roles so they can take turns playing Homer. And the very fact that it’s an homage to a latter-day Simpsons episode. These Swiss misses are golden gods.’
Another person commented: ‘Okey, I’m really impressed. Even the zooming and camera tilting is right on spot!’