Season 7 of The Simpsons is one of the best seasons of television ever to air. Not only was the show still in its "golden age" delivering classic gag after classic gag at the time, but season seven is also noteworthy for featuring some of the best episodes of Milhouse in the show's history, including the brilliant "4 Foot Summer," in which the level of sheer emotional abuse Milhouse endures remains one of the most hilariously dark running gags the show has ever attempted.

What's more, season seven gave us A Fish Called Selma, in which spoiled actor Troy McClure marries Marge's sister as part of his comeback attempt. On her way back to stardom, McClure stars in the hilarious musical Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off!, which features a big musical number named after the character Dr. Zaius from the original film. By itself, this scene could probably make A Fish Called Selma one of the the best episodes of The Simpsons ever. Even now, the show is still about what remains his greatest musical moment to date — maybe with the exception of the Monorail song.

With "Stop the Planet of the Apes", within two minutes the show managed to parody the 1968 film "Planet of the Apes", Austrian artist Falco's pop hit "Rock Me Amadeus", the musical "Stop the World, I Love to get off!”, and the idea of ​​musicals in general, with the raunchy performances of the musical cast sending out the worst. impulses of musical theater. There's even a bit where a monkey dances, which, as it happens, was one of several crazy pitches thrown out after showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein decided to bow to their writers' wildest ideas.

On the first draft of the screenplay "A Fish Called Selma" didn't even have a "Planet of the Apes" musical. The show's writers just knew they needed Troy McClure to make a big comeback, but once the musical idea came up, it set off a chain reaction in the writers' room, where five "crazy" pitches converged in this moment of satirical genius.

Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein have been with "The Simpsons" since season three, but have stepped up as showrunners for season seven, bringing with them considerable writing experience and wisdom. As Weinstein explained in a thread on Twitter/Hone of the best pieces of writing advice he ever received was to always lean toward strange ideas, or, as he put it, "Never shoot down an idea, no matter how crazy or silly it may sound." Bend over. It might be nothing OR it becomes the scene of Dr. Zaius.”

As the former showrunner explained, each of the show's writers contributed to the finished musical, with each pitch inspiring the next. Weinstein revealed that the Stop for the Planet of the Apes scene was actually "a combo of five separate 'crazy' 'stupid' pitches" that he and Oakley were entertaining to see where they would lead.

According to Josh Weinstein, the whole Stop the Planet of the Apes idea started with writer Steve Tompkins writing, "What if we made a Planet of the Apes musical?", with Weinstein commenting, "This is either a crazy idea or a stupid idea or both , but we all loved her and we could all sense the potential, so I say let's at least explore this and see if it goes anywhere." Of course, it went somewhere, with Tompkins' idea prompting his fellow writers to see how funny they could make this particular parody.

Weinstein never saw the original 1968 "Planet of the Apes" — a movie that needed more makeup artists than Hollywood could provide — he asked the writers' room to confirm a few key facts about the film before pitching his own idea: “So you know that Falco song? This was the genesis of Rock Me Amadeus. Thus the song "Dr. Zaius" was born. But that was just the beginning.

The third pitch came from veteran "Simpsons" writer George Mayer, who suggested "intersperse (the) song with flashy/goofy old vaudeville-style joke breaks, like the piano gag." The piano gag refers to Troy McClure asking him halfway through the song if he can still play the piano, to which Dr. Zaius replies, "Of course you can," only for McClure to sing, "Well, I couldn't before ". Then an upright wheel spins on stage and the actor performs a short interlude before the song continues. It all came from Mayer.

With the main idea cemented and some hilarious additions from George Mayer and Josh Weinstein, Stop the Planet of the Apes began to come together. But by this point the pitch machine was in motion, and other writers started throwing out equally ludicrous but still funny ideas. The fourth of these came in the form of Dr. Zauis accompanied by a nurse. "Someone talking because he's a doctor, let his nurse start the song with 'Oh help me, Dr. Zaius,'" Weinstein wrote on his Twitter thread/H. "I have no idea if there's a nurse in the movie, but sure, it's a great way to start."

Finally, the former showrunner remembered another writer, whose name has since been forgotten, pitching the idea for the big Dr. Zaius musical number to include "a lot of breakdance moves." Why? Because, as Weinstein said, "At the time, that seemed to be the trend in a lot of Broadway musicals." This was the fifth and final main pitch to form the Stop the Planet of the Apes parody. But there were still a few honorable mentions that Weinstein included in his thread.

In A Fish Called Selma, we cut the Dr. Zaius performance to the climax of the musical itself, during which Troy McClure sings "I hate every monkey I see, from Chimpanzee-A to Chimpanzee," which remains one . of the best lines in The Simpsons' musical history—perhaps in the show's entire history. Josh Weinstein recalled how that particular addition really took things to another level in the writers' room. “Somewhere in the middle of this whole process,” Weinstein wrote, “(writer and (Futurama representative) David Cohen we put in the "Chimp-A to Chimp" line, which was one of the few/only times we actually knew right away that the line was going to become a classic. His pitch took everyone's pitches to a new high.” According to Weinstein, Cohen's contribution was the point where everyone in the room knew they had to follow the “crazy” and “stupid” ideas they were throwing around.

While the pitches may have been "silly" at the time, the enduring appeal of Stop for the Planet of the Apes speaks to how seemingly silly ideas can actually mean a lot more than they might seem. The musical in A Fish Called Selma remains one of the best parodies in The Simpsons history, and one look at the comments below Weinstein's thread should be enough to convince you that this ridiculous idea for a musical is much more than a "dumb" idea. . It remains a fan-favorite moment in a series that is full of some of the best moments in TV history.

For Weinstein, the whole thing simply confirmed his idea of ​​embracing seemingly ridiculous ideas. The writer concluded his topic with, "If you have an idea and immediately after it comes to you, you have the feeling that 'there's something special there,' lean into it." The worst that can happen is that you lose a few minutes or hours. The best thing that speaks to a whole group of people and makes them happy."