Football fans weren't sure why they were watching an episode of "The Simpsons" when they turned on their televisions to watch the Dallas Cowboys and the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday night.
As part of a partnership between Disney+ and ESPN+, "Monday Night Football" was traced with characters from the long-running series and broadcasted as if it were set in Springfield.
This was not just a single segment, however; the entire game was broadcasted separately from the original broadcast on ESPN+, with characters like Homer Simpson and Krusty the Clown routinely being injected into the game.
Characters were put in place of real players throughout the game, standing in for names like quarterback Joe Burrow or kicker Evan McPherson.
"They're putting Homer Simpson at quarterback!" ESPN's Drew Carter said at one point during the broadcast. "Krusty has already hit a field goal from 37 yards," he later said.
The animation feat was accomplished by tracking the movement of the real players from the broadcast, then layering the cartoon stand-ins over each player, to present them as characters from "The Simpsons."
While the broadcast was funny at times, it seemed largely unpalatable for most fans to watch at length:
"This is hard to watch," a fan wrote on X.
"[Not going to lie] this sucks," said another.
There was support, however, for tongue-in-cheek moments where characters made fun of themselves, real-life players, or different colleges. For example, Krusty the Clown said he went to "Clown College," also known as Arizona State. As well, Bart took over officiating at one point and said, "The ruling on the field stands, Homer stinks!" through 20 megaphones lined up behind each other.
Plenty of fans at the same time were confused with the broadcast, saying it was too "delayed" or wondering, "Who asked for this?"
The Bengals eventually took home the 27-20 win after the Cowboys blocked a punt but still lost possession due to a fumble fiasco. While the animation of the pivotal play was hilarious, for some reason none of the iconic yellow characters were on the field for this part of the game with less than two minutes left.
Had Bart blocked a punt that Ralph Wiggum eventually recovered for the Bengals after it hit Moe's arm, fans might be singing a different tune with one of the greatest NFL highlights of all time.
The canonical justification of the broadcast, according to cartoon announcer Stephen A. Smith, was the entire event was inside Homer's dream while sleeping on the couch as football played on the TV.
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