In order to make sure that my child does not lack in his appreciation of the finer things that our culture has to offer, sometimes I’ll sit with him and make sure he takes in some of the important foundational pillars of modern culture: the soothing, life-affirming paintings of Otto Dix, for example, or perhaps the melodious sounds of GWAR, or even, as was in the particular case I want to talk about now, watching old episodes of The Simpsons.
In this particular case, we were watching an episode from 1999: season 11, episode 5, known as “E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt).” Most historians and anthropologists know this episode primarily as “the one about tomacco.” And while there’s a great deal of cultural impact tied up in this episode, the part I want to focus on is something I only just noticed now, decades after the episode first ran: there is a Ford Aerostar-based luxury limousine in the episode.
That’s an extremely unlikely choice for a luxury vehicle, but I suppose in the context of the episode, it almost makes sense. You see, in the episode, a group of wealthy and powerful tobacco industry people have gotten together to try and secure the rights to tomacco, a hybrid tomato/tobacco crop that Homer Simpson had developed. The group needed, effectively, a mobile meeting room that matched their status and prestige, and, for some reason, settled on a stretched and highly modified Ford Aerostar:
That’s our first view of the limo-van, and what it’s actually based on – if any real-world car at all – isn’t clear. But then we get a closer look:
Okay, that’s definitely an Aerostar. Now, it’s not perfect, by any means: the rectangular headlamps seem to have round elements inside them, the front indicators have disappeared into the gray/chrome front “mask” and it’s all wildly simplified, of course – this is a cartoon after all – but I’m pretty confident that the basis for this was an Aerostar. I mean, look:
The front fascia shape, the whole A-pillar with that little triangular window, the three-bar grille – this is an Aerostar. A van never marketed in any upscale context whatsoever. And yet, somehow, these fictional and animated tobacco industry executives, who had their pick of any fictional, animated van platform to start from, chose an Aerostar.
Let’s watch an Aerostar ad to celebrate this choice!
Oh, and I just checked – it looks like IMCDB agrees with this assessment, and they’re the authority, so there.
Inside, the Aerostar Mobile Big-Time Dirty Dealings Conference Room is quite well-appointed, with a large, seven-seat conference table, each equipped with an ashtray. There’s even a bathroom on board:
All of this refinement and luxury seems to suggest something more like one of those Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van conversions:
…but I’m not entirely sure those were a thing back in 1999? Did this fictional Aerostar luxury stretch van predict the Sprinter Luxury Stretched vans that were to come later? It wouldn’t be the first time The Simpsons predicted something that later actually came to be, after all.
You know what else I learned because of this old Simpsons episode? Tomatoes actually do have nicotine in them! Both tobacco and tomatoes are members of the Solanaceae or nightshade family, and tomatoes do have nicotine in them, albeit in trace amounts. A 1959 article in Scientific American described how nicotine could be detected in tomatoes after grafting it with tobacco plants, and in 2003 an actual strain of tomacco was cultivated by Rob Bauer of Oregon, who successfully grafted tobacco and tomato plants, and that plant bore tomaccoes for a year and a half.
What a world we live in.
Top graphic images: Ford; The Simpsons/20th Century Fox
What you mean, “never marketed in any upscale context whatsoever?” I had an Eddie Bauer Edition Aerostar once, what is that, chopped liver? I paid a friend $1 for it (he’d gotten it from one of those “donate your car for a tax writeoff” programs), used it for about a year, and sold it back to him for $1, so it didn’t depreciate at all! Most upscale vehicle I ever owned, though it was a bit long in the tooth, had some rust and exhaust problems.
Add potato FTW!
https://www.livinggreenandfrugally.com/grow-tomatoes-potatoes-one-plant/
Tomatoes, potatoes and tobacco all from one plant? Yes please!
What’s next, ham and shrimp?
There’s an Aerostar thats been abandoned at this parking lot i drive by on the way to work and it’s sad to see it slowly decay but on the flip side, the sight of a mighty Ford Aerostar always makes me smile.
Today, Simpsons cars would be called AI slop
The lavatory door, brilliant. No diagonal red line through that cigarette!
So many clever little jokes in the Simpsons. I am sure that if I rewatch everything, I will catch one or two jokes i missed in each episode.
I swear they tried to get in a dig at religion joke in so many if not most episodes.
Ah Tomacco, that one is a classic.
Here just to say that I have an irrational love of the Aerostar, despite this era of Ford being, charitably, not my favorite. They were genuinely rare when I was a kid, many families had moved on to the far more user friendly Chryslers by then, and for whatever reason the Astro was far more popular around here. I only knew one family that still had one by the mid 90s. Which is probably all I need to know, but I still love the way they look.
Yes, Gwar! A bunch of us went to see Gwar when we were teenagers. If you have never been to a Gwar show, just know you will get cover in lots of (presumably fake) bodily fluids shot at you from the stage. We all were covered head to toe in fake blood. My friend’s Mom was pissed as his non-disposable super expensive contacts turned red and no amount of cleaning solution would change that. Good times!
Uh, GMC Motorhome.
Closer match than “Aerostar”.
There is literally nothing about the image of that stretched van that says “GMC Motorhome” to anyone who has seen one before. Unless I’m not understanding your statement.
Other than the shape? The window placement. The Grille treatment. The headlight shape. The wheelbase. The interior volume, as shown in the cartoon.
So, yeah, pretty everything about it says “26 foot GMC in the Executive Configuration”.
Nothing much really suggests “Aerostar”, other than somebody hitting the edibles too hard.
The shape? A GMC Motorhome is rounded on every edge like a giant jelly bean. A Ford Aerostar has sharp creases on every corner, and a very sloped front face exactly like the one in the cartoon.
The window placement? A GMC Motorhome has a wraparound windshield, while the Aerostar and the cartoon vehicle have visible A pillars.
Grille treatment? I suppose both have three bar grilles, but the GMC’s grille comes to a point in the center, while the Aerostar and the cartoon vehicle have flat fronts.
Headlight shape? Uhhh… no. Just no. That’s one of the features that most distinctly makes a van from the cartoon look the most like a Ford Aerostar.
I’ll let readers revisit what a GMC Motorhome looks like with this linked picture and draw their own conclusions, but seriously, dude, I have not a clue what you’re on about. If one of us is on drugs, it is definitely you. And I say that as someone home sick from work today after having a wisdom tooth pulled, and I’m even on drugs myself – but I am still not high enough to think that this van looks less like a Ford Aerostar than a GMC Motorhome. Not only do I disagree, I cannot even grasp why you would make this argument.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTExKfejX1fy7CzOgipTsSuJAlRUUadZo3USzlqpckryw&s=10
Er, because the planform looks NOTHING like an Aerostar and is identical to the long wheelbase GMC?
I mean, I acknowledge that you guys have strange sensibilities, but c’mon. An Aerostar ain’t almost 30′ long and doesn’t have a conference room inside— even setting aside how the front isn’t even that close to a Ford Aerostar..
The side rear window, toward the back? That’s STRAIGHT off the GMC.
As for the side view?
The one with the almost 30′ long Aerostar, with the distant side rear window– you know the window that’s in the exact same spot as the Eleganza version of the GMC? Right above the skirted rear mains, another signature of the GMC?
None which resemble, in the slightest, “an Aerostar”.
I mean I realize “you members” have the obligation to adore any strange post on this site— but even a turn signal geek like Torch should admit that the front fascia is a helluva long way from an Aerostar.
That’s even if you look beyond the cavernous interior conference area, a standard feature of the Eleganza, is laugably NOT even cartoon-world feasible in an Aerostar.
But, yeah, the planform view is a dead ringer for a 26 foot GMC.
But, whatever, knock yourselves out. I remember why I never come over here. Happy New Year.
Yeahhhh…
No.
Are you looking at the same picture as the rest of us?
The one with the almost 30′ long Aerostar, with the distant side rear window– you know the window that’s in the exact same spot as the Eleganza version of the GMC? Right above the skirted rear mains, another signature of the GMC?
None which resemble, in the slightest, “an Aerostar”.
I mean I realize “you members” have the obligation to adore any strange post on this site— but even a turn signal geek like Torch should admit that the front fascia is a helluva long way from an Aerostar.
That’s even if you look beyond the cavernous interior conference area, a standard feature of the Eleganza, is laugably NOT even cartoon-world feasible in an Aerostar.
And, yeah, the planform view is a dead ringer for a 26 foot GMC.
But, whatever, knock yourselves out.
It’s a cartoon van, dude. It literally doesn’t exist.
It also literally looks absolutely nothing at all like a GMC Motorhome.
Ya gotta get off the drugs, son. They’re ruining your eyesight.
Also, look closely at my username and all associated characters in that field – “you members” ain’t me.
No wonder you think this thing looks like a GMC Motorhome. You also completely missed that part, too.
I hope you remember quite sharply why you never come here, though. I’m not even sure why you came this time.
Oh I have no duty to defend anything. You’re just nuts.
In 1999, you’d think Big Tobacco could’ve sprung for a Mauck.
Am I the only one who thought it was the executive version of the Vixen RV??
I think a commentor at the old site put me onto this years ago, but very appropriate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBmoQSHfO2U
I assume you’re warning him of the dangers of unsolicited Dix pics.
Actually the Aerostar headlights in the picture you posted also seems to have a circle in a square motiff. I say spot on.
Those who know me know full well that I’m a madman.
That said, the same frame and underpinnings of the first gen Ford Ranger are under the Aerostar, which means that a Vulcan V6 4×4 Aerostar overlanding rig is do-able here.
Ooh, I’m a sucker for such ridiculous body swaps. I keep waiting for someone with more money and skill than me to make the one that I accidentally figured out: with a difference of only a half-inch in wheelbase and track, an 80s “bustleback” Cadillac Seville body would pretty much drop straight onto a Cadillac CTS frame.
Somebody please do this.
Oh yeah, those subframes can be fabricated onto the ElDo frame pretty easily. That would be rad.
Proud elder Millennial here that I knew from the headline, without noticing Homer in the topshot, which episode this was about. Proud, and also a little alarmed about what almost certainly more useful information my brain has let go of to maintain its Simpsons database.
How can you talk about this episode without bringing up Sneeds Feed and Seed (formerly Chucks)?
Dirtiest joke the show ever told. Easy to miss in the times before you could get a clear picture during a pause. I know I didn’t even notice it until I heard about it, and I’d seen the episode when it was new.
Not to mention that some of us just weren’t clever enough to figure it out. The jokes were so dense, by the time we pieced together “Chuck’s Feed and Seed makes no sense, what are they…” another joke or three had come and gone and we moved along.
Seriously, I think I saw that episode a dozen times before I figured it out.
I just looked that up. That’s hilarious! Thanks for sharing!
Good work, Jason. I thought it was an Aerostar then, and your digging has brought me vindication. If only I still talked with all the philistines and naysayers that called me crazy back in those days, I’d give them such an I-told-you-so…on second thought, I’ll just be quietly smug. Ahhhhhhh.
Assmatt got to use the Nelson hah hah for the laugh
Hybridize pot and tomaccos and then you’d get the “devil’s fruit” instead of the “devil’s lettuce”/veggies…
But then you’d get random super powers when you ate one
That’s not going to dissuade some of us
I suppose it really depends on the super power, I really don’t want to be rubber-man
I don’t think you have given enough thought about what you could do with certain parts of your anatomy if you were rubber man. Any size and can be your own prophelactic.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
User name checks out.
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
You say this like it’s a bad thing …
I think that was in the marinara that made “shower spaghetti” seem like a good idea.
So I’m lost I know the tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable does that mean tobacco is a fruit as well? If so can we count it as a vegetable serving if we give every kid a cigarette with their lunch?
Too bad this vehicle isn’t available to use (steal) in Hit and Run.
My young daughter had a lot more fun watching me play that game than I had playing it. And a decade later, she STILL suggests we dust off the PS2 for hell that is The Simpsons Game.