A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man. The previous sentence is utter gibberish unless you’re a fan of The Simpsons and Springfield town founder, Jebediah Springfield aka Hans Sprungfeld. The ridiculousness of it encapsulates the most popular television series of our era. The Simpsons has aired almost 600 original episodes plus a movie. It also spawned several videogames as well as Tapped Out, one of the most lucrative freemium apps ever invented. Simply stated, The Simpsons and Springfield represent a seminal part of pop culture.

In 2007, in a time before Harry Potter became the face of Universal Studios Florida, the park attempted to recreate Springfield, the famous city in the ambiguous state, and one of the critical elements of its endeavor was to craft an attraction worthy of the most powerful television brand, The Simpsons. What they built is a loving tribute to the anchor program of the Fox Network over the past 27 seasons (and counting).

Whether you’re like me and can recite dialogue from hundreds of episodes or you’ve never seen the show, Universal Studios Florida and now Universal Studios Hollywood claim one of the most entertaining theme park attractions ever built. Let’s take this opportunity to go Behind the Ride once again. Here are four ways The Simpsons Ride excels in bringing the hilarity of Springfield and its residents to life.

The Experience: Celebrating the style of Krusty the Clown

The Trick: Making everything absolutely terrible

At The Simpsons Ride, the first thing you do is walk into the clown’s mouth. It’s a silly, loving tribute to the zany world of Springfield, and it’s displayed via 32 feet worth of Krusty’s head. The attraction is also a faithful recreation of a land referenced but never shown on the actual series, at least not until after the ride debuted at Universal Studios. The first display of Krustyland on the series didn’t occur until The Food Wife in November of 2011, more than three years after the ride debuted. Universal park planners had the freedom to design Krustyland the ride as they saw fit, albeit with input from writers and producers of The Simpsons.

Where did the idea of Krustyland come from? Krusty mentions his theme park in a sixth season episode entitled Round Springfield, and it’s…not the sort of dream destination you might expect. It seems that a few theme park tourists lost their heads in a most literal sense when they entered the Krustyland House of Knives. As usual, it’s a cut-rate product endorsed by a clown with startlingly low standards for all his merchandise. Since that’s the clown’s modus operandi, the creators of the ride follow the philosophy from start to finish.

Krustyland is a celebration of Krusty the Clown, whether he deserves it or not. The entry point is a cheeky take on the fast food restaurant gag of talking into the clown’s mouth. Monitors appear at key points in the line queue, and the point of each of them is to reinforce that the place you’re visiting is a deathtrap in every sense of the word.

Police Chief Clancy Wiggum is a frequent visitor as the on-duty law enforcement official, which sounds fantastic until he starts reciting information about what to do in case emergency. Apparently, you should dial 991, or maybe it’s 119. Eventually, he settles on his winning answer, which is 787. This entire turn of events leads itself to a simple question for fans of the show. How does Snake keep getting arrested if the police officers in town are this bad?

The Experience: every hero needs a villain

The Trick: The clown prince of villainy

The record-setting first season of The Simpsons exploded into pop culture, shocking basically everyone involved with the project. If they’d known The Simpsons would become such a blockbuster, they’d have prepared better for season two as well as merchandising, both of which were scarcely available during the body of 1990. The moment everyone appreciated that the series was something special was when Sideshow Bob revealed himself as the culprit behind the framing of Krusty the Clown.

That episode, Krusty Gets Busted, became the most popular Fox television program airing that week. More important, it introduced Sideshow Bob as the Moriarty of The Simpsons universe. He has since appeared in some fashion in more than 50 episodes. You can see the full list here as well as an almost too comprehensive list of his accomplishments. What’s germane to the conversation is that in video games, comic books, and other media, Sideshow Bob is always the primary villain for the Simpsons family. The Simpsons Ride is no different.

During the pre-show video introducing the upcoming motion simulator, guests enjoy a hilarious video of the proceedings. They learn the backstory for the attraction, which is that Krusty powers all his new ride with…nuclear power. In fact, the entire facility is a nuclear reactor. A “psychopathic killer” also happens to be skulking around. “For some reason,” he hates Krusty, which probably has something to do with all of Sideshow Bob’s time spent in jail for failed attempts on the lives of Krusty and Bart Simpson, the latter of whom he’s tried to kill about 15 times (eventually succeeding during Treehouse of Horror XXVI.) 

Well, Sideshow Bob has escaped from prison for the umpteenth time, and he’s seeking revenge at Krustyland. When he notices a recently fired Barney walking out in a Scratchy costume, he brains the hapless drunk and infiltrates the theme park. Once inside, he holds Krusty at gunpoint and demands that the Simpsons family board what is now a dangerous and presumably fatal version of the new attraction. Also, Maggie grows to 50 feet tall for some reason. The entire thing is hard to explain, but if you watch this video, you’ll feel thoroughly entertained for the next several minutes. The pre-show for The Simpsons Ride might be the most enjoyable across all theme parks in the world, especially for fans of The Simpsons.