Laufey Parodies Hollywood’s Slow, Haunting Pop Covers On The Simpsons

In the years since the Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019, The Simpsons has been streaming on Disney+, including some new episodes exclusive to the platform. The latest of those, a two-parter called "Extreme Makeover: Homer Edition," premiered Wednesday. It involved celebrities, including some of the musical persuasion.

In the episode, per the Simpsons Wiki, "Homer and Marge's fun couples' date night goes off the rails when Marge learns Homer left the kids unsupervised with only the doorbell camera as a babysitter. Frustrated with her imperfect husband, a tipsy Marge stirs up a trilogy of fantasies of a different Homer." One of those fantasies is a parody of Joker: Folie à Deux, the jukebox-musical Joker sequel with Lady Gaga. They used that setup to mock the slow, haunting "trailerized" versions of classic songs that so often end up in trailers and movies.

In the Joker parody, Marge's Harley Quinn character helps Homer's chaos-sparking supervillain, the D'ohker, break out of prison. As she's releasing him, Homer remarks, "This may be the 39 flights of stairs I fell down talking, but I hear a slow, haunting version of a song that's usually fast and funny." Their violent getaway is then soundtracked by a new Laufey song in which the Gen Z jazz-pop sensation croons the following lyrics against an ominous backing track: "Happy song done ironic/ Sung like a catatonic/ Painfully clear/ That the mood is so drear/ And to really put it on the nose/ Make sure you close/ In an off-putting minor key." Check it out:

Tegan And Sara contributed a song and some dialogue to another one of Marge's imagined scenarios. Here's a behind-the-scenes clip:

Betty Gilpin of Glow fame also had a cameo:

The couch gag was interesting: