Sarah McLachlan Just Helped ‘The Simpsons’ Recreate the Saddest Moment in Animation History
The Season 36 finale of The Simpsons, “Estranger Things,” found Bart and Lisa abandoning Itchy & Scratchy after discovering that the show now makes products for babies — which somehow wasn’t a problem for the franchise that once gave us Simpsons-brand teething toys.
The siblings end up discarding all of their Itchy & Scratchy merchandise, much to the distress of Marge. While she wasn’t always the biggest fan of the ultraviolet cartoon, Marge starts to worry that scrapping their shared TV time will result in Bart and Lisa growing apart. And this mournful anxiety is expressed in song form, thanks to Grammy-winning singer Sarah McLachlan.
This was all seemingly a reference to “When She Loved Me,” the tune that McLachlan performed in Toy Story 2. It was another sad ballad about a toy being thrown away, specifically, Jessie the cowgirl doll, who was beloved by her child owner, Emily, before she was ultimately discarded once the kid became a teenager.
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Of course, if any of these toys had owned up to the fact that they’re all living creatures capable of heartbreak, physical pain and existential despair, maybe Emily wouldn’t have been so quick to toss Jessie in the Goodwill pile. Sorry, that’s on you, Jessie.
While Pixar has obviously given us a number of cinematic moments that felt scientifically-calibrated to make parents cry in front of their children, “When She Loved Me” was an especially memorable tearjerker. The song, written by Randy Newman, was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, competing against South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut’s “Blame Canada.” Although the Oscar ultimately went to Phil Collins for some dentist’s office radio-bound nonsense about Tarzan.
And this isn’t the first time that The Simpsons has parodied one of Randy Newman’s Toy Story songs — in Season 22’s “Angry Dad: The Movie,” Newman (played by Dan Castellaneta) sings the threatening “You Got an Enemy” to Lisa at the Golden Globes.
And there was yet another parody of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” in the “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” segment “Toy Gory.”
But, of course, having Sarah McLachlan on board meant that the show gave us a genuinely beautiful song about a homicidal cartoon mouse and his frequent victim.