Top 25 Simpsons Guest Appearances

There have been scores of guest stars on The Simpsons, but what makes it a great guest appearance? In our book, it's a guest role that is not only memorable and enjoyable but helps make the entire episode itself memorable and enjoyable. Most of the appearances we list here are ones that were integral to the plot of an episode, as opposed to just short, now-you-see-'em, now-you-don't cameo shots. Please note that we left off anyone who has voiced on the show so often that they're nearly regular cast members, such as the great Phil Hartman, Kelsey Grammer, and Joe Mantegna (although you'll see several of their characters on our Top 25 Peripheral Characters list).

Now, here are IGN TV's Top 25 Simpsons Guest Appearances! If we missed any of your favorite cameos, be sure to let us know in the comments below.

Before the seventh season episode "Mother Simpson," Homer's mom had been glimpsed a couple times before, via flashbacks in season two's "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" and season six's "Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy," but in those brief appearances she was voiced by Maggie Roswell (who also voiced Maude Flanders, Helen Lovejoy, and others). For "Mother Simpson," the first episode that centered on Homer's mom, the Simpsons producers tapped acclaimed actress Glenn Close for the role. Close truly made the role her own, presenting a misunderstood woman who's been on the run from the law since the 1960s who bonds with Lisa. Close appeared again as Mother Simpson in the fifteenth season episode, "My Mother the Carjacker."

On the heels of Michael Jackson's guest role, another huge musical act appeared in the form of the ever-enduring Aerosmith. Unlike Jackson, the band played themselves, as they begin hanging out and performing at Moe's, after the introduction of the Flaming Moe drink makes the bar a huge success. While Steven Tyler's animated self may have mistook Springfield for St. Louis, Aerosmith's appearance set a precedent, as many other huge musical performers and bands would appear as themselves on The Simpsons in the years to come.

In the seventh season episode "Homerpalooza," Homer ends up going on tour with Peter Frampton, Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill and Sonic Youth as part of a genre-spanning music festival called "Hullapalooza." Frampton uses a talkbox (which leads to Otto seeing his shoes talking), Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan has a great exchange with Homer (Billy: "Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins." Homer: "Homer Simpson, smiling politely."), Cypress Hill performs "Insane in the Brain" with an orchestra, and Sonic Youth plays a great grunge version of the end credits; on the commentary track for the episode, Matt Groening says it's his favorite alternative theme song for the show.

Tito Puente nearly made the whole two-part "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episodes. With his Latin song of fury, he was a runner-up for the shooter… but as it turned out all that it was, was a vengeful song. How can you go wrong with a salsa song with the last verse being: "It may not surprise you, but all of us despise you, please die, and fry in hell, you rotten, rich old wretch. Adios viejo!"

In the episode "Deep Space Homer," everything is going wrong on the space shuttle, and Homer and the crew are in serious need of help - what they receive instead is a soothing song from folk rock artist James Taylor. In a very appropriate situation, Taylor sings the crew the song "You've Got a Friend" - with the appropriate lyrics "When you're down, and troubled, and you need a helping hand, and nothing, oh, nothing is going right..."

When Homer is banned for life from Moe's bar, his quest for a new place he can hang out and get drunk includes a visit to a very familiar place where everybody knows your name. Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt and John Ratzenberger all reprise their famous roles, in a great scene that deftly parodies the popular bar-based series. The highlight is perhaps a rage-filled, drunken Norm, yelling at Woody, "give me another beer, you brain dead hick!", before breaking a bottle and threatening to kill everyone in the bar. Interestingly, despite his frequent appearances as Sideshow Bob, Kelsey Grammer does not voice Frasier Crane, who is seen but not heard in this episode.

In the eleventh season premiere episode, titled "Beyond Blunderdome," Homer attends a screening of Mel Gibson's latest movie, a remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. While everyone else in the audience loved the movie, Homer hates it and Mel decides to let Homer help him edit the movie. Together, Homer and Mel craft the film into a horribly violent action movie.

Sure, Harry Shearer is a regular on The Simpsons, but he'd never been joined by his fellow mockumentary masters Michael McKean and Christopher Guest. In the third season episode The Otto Show, the trio reprises their classic roles as the clueless heavy metal group, who come to Springfield for a typically embarrassing concert. From a giant devil balloon that only half-inflates to screwed up music cues, it's a great moment of pop culture blending as The Simpsons meets Spinal Tap. Funniest of all is the fact that the band is apparently killed when Otto accidentally causes the Spinal Tap tour bus to crash into a fiery wreck.

In the episode "Homer at the Bat" we get the most stacked guest roster to ever grace the show. Featuring the voices of nine of professional baseball's best players at the time (1992), we were treated to mass insanity. All these players were brought in as ringers for Burn's company team, but mysteriously only one was able to show up due to circumstances out of their control. Wade Boggs was punched out by Barney; Jose Canseco was busy helping a woman whose house was on fire; Roger Clemens was hypnotized to believe that he was a chicken; Ken Griffey Jr. got gigantism; Don Mattingly was kicked off the team for his "sideburns"; Steve Sax was arrested on fake charges; Mike Scioscia got radiation poisoning; Ozzie Smith was lost in a mystery dimension; and Darryl Strawberry was the only one to make it - hitting nine home-runs till he was replaced by Homer. Each of these appearances was hilarious, making this a classic episode.

World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has appeared as himself in three Simpsons episodes to date: season ten's "They Saved Lisa's Brain," the sixteenth season's "Don't Fear the Roofer," and season eighteen's "Stop or My Dog Will Shoot." Hawking played a fairly major role in "They Saved Lisa's Brain," as he stepped in to stop Springfield's smartest citizens from ruining the town. Hawking had some really great lines in the episode, including "Your theory of a donut-shaped universe is intriguing, Homer. I may have to steal it." Hawking appeared just briefly in "Don't Fear the Roofer," which featured Ray Romano in the main guest starring role of a roofer named Ray that no one but Homer could see. Hawking came on to explain that Bart couldn't see Ray on time because there was a black hole appearing directly behind Ray. In "Stop or My Dog Will Shoot," Hawking showed up when the Simpson family got lost in the A-Maize-Ing Maize Maze, during which Hawking had one line: "This maze is too hard for me," and then escaped via his helicopter-wheelchair.

Matt Groening has listed this guest appearance by the influential punk group, as his favorite among all the Simpsons guest stars. In less than a minute of screen time, the band deliver a flurry of great jokes, as their performance of "Happy Birthday" for Mr. Burns is added to with lines like, "Hey, up yours Springfield!" and "Go to hell, you old bastard!", all capped off with the clueless Burns ordering, "Have the Rolling Stones killed."

Due to the Guatamalean Insanity Pepper at the Chili Cookoff, Homer hallucinates and goes on a spirit journey. In the episode "El Viaje de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)" Homer is lead by his spirit guide, a coyote voiced by Johnny Cash. In this hallucination Homer is told to find his soul mate. Even if the advice that the coyote gives isn't all that helpful, it still brings Homer around to the knowledge that Marge is his true soul mate. With Cash's help the coyote became a great Simpsons character.

After four seasons, little baby Maggie Simpson was going to finally speak. For such a momentous occasion in Simpsons you don't just go to any actress. So who else, but the legendary, iconic, Academy Award-winning Elizabeth Taylor? Sure, Taylor said only one single word: "Daddy." But that was part of the fun of having her guest star in the first place.

Ron Howard was a guest star in the very funny tenth season episode, "When You Dish Upon a Star." In the episode, Homer crash landed a paraglider into Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger's vacation house, where Ron Howard was visiting. While Homer works as Baldwin's and Basinger's assistant, he continually pitches a script to Howard about a killer robot driving instructor who travels through time. At the end of the episode, Howard ends up pitching Homer's idea to his producing partner, Brian Grazer. Howard also appeared in a brief cameo in the eleventh season episode, "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder," as himself on the fictional game show "Springfield Squares."

Appearing as himself in two episodes, Leonard Nimoy has made a hilarious impact on both of the episodes. In "Marge vs. the Monorail," Leonard is called in to be a part of the inaugural run of Springfield's monorail. In the episode he saves Krusty's life and takes credit for the monorail stopping safe. In the episode "The Springfield Files," Nimoy is used as the narrator of the episode. In the very sci-fi themed episode it was great to see a classic sci-fi actor appear to move the story along - and subsequently leave halfway through to join the story that he was previously narrating.

Appearing in three separate episodes, Matt Groening has said that it is a personal achievement that he was able to get all the living members of The Beatles onto his show. Paul McCartney appeared on "Lisa the Vegetarian," with then wife Linda McCartney. In this appearance they show Lisa that it is okay to be a vegetarian. Ringo Starr appeared in the episode "Brush with Greatness." In the episode Marge makes a painting of Ringo and sends it to him, only to have him compliment her on her ability. Finally George Harrison appears in "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," to show Homer where the brownies are on a buffet and claim that the Quartet singing on the roof of Moe's had been done before. Although none of these appearances were really large, the fact that the most popular band of all time appeared on The Simpsons is a large statement on the popularity and importance of the show.

The lovably campy filmmaker behind Hairspray and Serial Mom (not to mention Divine's onscreen gross-out behavior) had a large guest star role as a character who was awfully close to Waters himself. Drawn to resemble Waters -- pencil-thin mustache included -- the director's character, John, was the owner of an offbeat collectibles store who Homer befriended, until he realized John was gay. Waters was great on this episode, which hilariously parodied Homer's homophobia. The hysterical conclusion involved John saving Homer from a dangerous attack by reindeer, thanks to the use of an outlawed, missile-shooting Santa Clause toy. As John said at the end, "Homer, I won your respect, and all I had to do was save your life. Now, if every gay man could just do the same, you'd be set."

Jon Lovitz has voiced a few minor characters over the years, such as Marge's Springfield Community college art professor, Prof. Lombardo; Shelbyville Nuclear Power Plant owner Aristotle "Ari" Amadopolis; and Marge's flamboyant "A Streetcar Named Desire" director, Llewelyn Sinclair. But Lovitz's voice may be best remembered as the recurring character, Artie Ziff. Artie was Marge's overeager prom date in high school in the episode "The Way We Was" and in season thirteen's "Half-Decent Proposal" Ziff was revealed to now be a billionaire, who offered Marge $1 million to spend a weekend with him. Ziff appeared a third time in the fifteenth season episode "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner," which found him living the Simpsons' attic, after losing his fortune by buying extravagant items. Lovitz has also appeared on two episodes -- "A Star Is Burns" and "Hurricane Neddy" -- as his character Jay Sherman from the animated series The Critic, which was created by Simpsons producers Al Jean and Mike Reiss.

James Earl Jones has done many voiceovers for The Simpsons. With his unique voice, Jones has narrated two episodes: "Treehouse of Horror" and "Das Bus." Both of those appearances lent a bit of legitimacy to the narration that wouldn't have been present otherwise. But in everybody's favorite appearance, Jones lends his voice as Maggie in the fifth installment of Treehouse of Horror. In this appearance Maggie puts an axe into Willie's back, takes out her pacifier and says, "This is indeed a disturbing universe." Classic.

Lisa Simpson finally met her match when she met new student Allison Taylor, voiced by Winona Ryder in the sixth season episode, "Lisa's Rival." Allison was not only as smart or smarter than Lisa but she was also younger (having skipped a grade) and was even a master of Lisa's favorite instrument, the saxophone. The highlight of the episode involved Springfield's annual "Diorama-rama," as Lisa and Bart sabotage Allison's diorama of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," inserting a rotten cow's heart. Lisa and Allison both end up losing the diorama competition to Ralph Wiggum ("What's a diorama?") and his box of Star Wars action figures (as Ralph walks home you get two more classic Ralph lines: "I bent my Wookiee," and "My cat's breath smells like cat food.")

The first of The Simpsons truly big name celebrity guests couldn't get much bigger than a (pre-lawsuit) Jackson, who appeared in the third season premiere under the pseudonym John Jay Smith. On the episode, Homer is sent to an asylum and befriends his large, white cellmate Leon, who just so happens to believe he's Michael Jackson, and sound just like him, thanks to Jackson himself providing Leon's voice. Jackson plays a big role on the episode, which involves Homer bringing him back home to live with the family.

After his show is canceled, Krusty the Clown falls on hard times, only to turn things around with a comeback special. "Krusty Gets Kancelled" featured one of the largest and most eclectic assembling of celebrities on The Simpsons at this point. Bette Midler parodies both her appearance on Johnny Carson (who also guest stars) and the strange but true fact that she'd "adopted" a stretch of Los Angeles freeway; Hugh Hefner shows off a surprising musical talent; and The Red Hot Chili Peppers perform. Plus, in perhaps the most inspired appearance, we meet Krusty's latest sidekick: Sideshow Luke Perry.

Dustin Hoffman, credited as "Sam Etic" for contractual reasons, turns in one of the first and still one of the best guest performances on The Simpsons to date in the second season episode, "Lisa's Substitute." Hoffman's character, Mr. Bergstrom, is kind, funny, smart and engaging -- exactly the kind of teacher Lisa's always wanted. The episode stands up to repeated viewings, with Hoffman shining every time.

In the very funny tenth season Simpsons episode "Mayored to the Mob," Mark Hamill voices not only himself (appearing at a science-fiction convention) but also Leavalle, the head of a bodyguard academy that Homer attends. Truly great moments in this episode abound, many of them thanks to Hamill being such a good sport about his past, from Hamill dressing up as Luke Skywalker to singing "Luke be a Jedi" to the tune of Guys and Dolls' "Luck be a Lady." The episode ends on a perfect note, with Homer carrying Hamill away from paparazzi, a la Bodyguard.

Always willing to lend his voice, Albert Brooks has been in five episodes of The Simpsons as five different characters. Each character that Brooks has worked on has made a lasting impression in The Simpsons universe. The first appearance by Brooks was in the episode "The Call of the Simpsons" in which he voiced an RV salesman named Cowboy Bob. The second was a large role in which he voiced Jacques in the episode "Life on the Fast Lane." This character would show up again, but would be known best for being the first character to try to entice Marge away from Homer. His third appearance was on "Bart's Inner Child," where he played Brad Goodman - a motivational speaker who tells the people of Springfield to get in touch with their inner child, like Bart. The fourth appearance (and easily the best) was as Hank Scorpio from the episode "You Only Move Twice." This hilarious role placed Brooks as Homer's new boss, and also a megalomaniacal Bond-esque villain bent on world domination. The final guest appearance (so far) by Brooks was in the episode "The Heartbroke Kid," where he plays Tab Spangler - the man in charge of a forced starvation camp: Serenity Ranch. In all these appearances Brooks has captivated the audience with his unique characters, and with any luck we will see 'A. Brooks' on many more episodes in the future.