Posted on 10/01/2025 7:22:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
An old episode of The Simpsons that portrayed Jane Goodall in a poor light has reemerged online after her tragic death at 91.
The episode, from Season 12, showed a character resembling Goodall being accused of exploiting chimpanzees. The storyline quickly escalated into a parody that depicted her as greedy and unstable.
"How could you exploit your beloved chimps like this?" Lisa, who once predicted the 2024 election, asks in the episode. Bart chimes in, "I think we should look at her research before we condemn her entirely." Lisa adds,"These are just pictures of monkeys from famous movies. This is disgraceful, doctor."
The animated version of Goodall responds, "All right, so I snapped. You don’t understand the crushing loneliness and greed."
Moments later, the parody shifts into surreal comedy.
"Don’t put me away. I’ll give you diamonds. Everybody wants diamonds. Diamonds will make everything all better. Diamonds. Diamonds," the character pleads before Homer says, "What a nice lady. Very nice."
When the show originally aired, the portrayal sparked some criticism for taking aim at Goodall, who was widely respected for her decades of field research on chimpanzees in Tanzania. At the time, producers issued a tongue-in-cheek apology in a later post.
On the official Simpsons Instagram account, a 2022 upload of the scene included the caption, "Our apologies to Jane Goodall."
The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed she died of natural causes while in California on a speaking tour.
"Her discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world," the organization said in a statement.
Goodall was only 26 when she traveled to Tanzania’s Gombe National Park in 1960.
"Their behavior, with their gestures, kissing, embracing, holding hands and patting on the back," she told ABC News in 2020, "the fact that they can actually be violent and brutal and have a kind of war, but also loving and altruistic."
Her passion for animals began in childhood in London and Bournemouth. At the age of 10, after reading Doctor Dolittle and Tarzan, she dreamed of living among African wildlife.
"It was what I always dreamed of," she recalled in a later interview.
Goodall later earned a PhD in ethology at Cambridge University, writing her thesis on the first five years of her observations.
In 1977, she co-founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which today operates in more than two dozen cities worldwide.
Joan Bushwell's Chimp Refuge (Episode about Goodall.)
She has a sense of humor, she later appeared on the show:
Lisa Meets Dr. Jane Goodall | Season 31 Ep. 5 | The Simpsons
She even allows them to make fun of her as pretentious.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 I remember Goodall saying something to the effect that ‘’ We must continue to care for the environment’’ and some such nonsense.
3.000 Americans slaughtered and she was worrying about the monkeys.
Goodall died due to natural causes while she was in California on a cross-country speaking tour, according to The Jane Goodall Institute.
This is hardly tragic.
Leftists tell the truth?
A old to me rancher I worked for as a kid had two inch scars at each corner of his mouth.
Said as a kid after watching Tarzan movies, dived off a dock with a knife in his mouth.
It was not the best of bad ideas.
There was also a Far Side cartoon mocking her, and Gary Larson was all set to be sued by her Institute, except they never bothered to ask her. Turns out she loved the cartoon.
Now all those chimps are orphan. Probably to be adopted by some gay Canadian throuple.
I wouldn’t describe it is mocking her. The joke is that the the chimp couple is acting like humans, and that someone who dedicates her life to researching an animal, would do things.
Her Institute thought so, but apparently she just thought it was funny.
at age 91 how was her death tragic? Did she lose weeks off her life by dying in an accident? Other than anyone cashing in their chips an be considered tragic for the one dying I cant see how this is particularly tragic
at age 91 how was her death tragic? Did she lose weeks off her life by dying in an accident? Other than anyone cashing in their chips an be considered tragic for the one dying I cant see how this is particularly tragic
She was crazy green idiot.
All in in green grift agenda.
I respect both her willingness to laugh at herself and that when she observed hunting and carnivore behavior among the chimpanzees she observed she reported it. She was shocked and saddened, and that’s an understandable emotional reaction. But she didn’t act like so many defend-my-paper-to-the-death researchers and academics and ignore or cover up something that seemed to contradict so many of her preconceptions and prior work.
She was a researcher not a military person
It was a very insensitive and self-centred thing to say at such a time for a supposed intelligent woman.
She left her husband and her young child to go live in the jungle. She may have been a dedicated researcher but she was a crappy wife and mother.
Wasn’t there a movie about this lady? Gorillas in the Mist or something like that.
Jane Goodall studied chimps.
Fossey was two years older than Goodall, but she was murdered at 53, supposedly by her assistant, but some people think poachers.
Even worse, she named her son Grub. Isn’t that something a chimp eats? Seems significant.
Thanks for the info. A shame about Fossey.
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