
Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards. True Love…
It all happened at the beginning of that turbulent decade known as the ’80s.
FLIM Springfield hasn’t done a recasting in a long while, but one genre we’d been talking about covering was comedy. What surprising is, it’s a little hard to recast a comedy with characters from a comedy show. Luckily, our buddy Johnny Grind from The Grind Corps Podcast had the perfect candidate, a film he loves, and is universally loved as one of the best modern comedies. Without further ado, we’ll let Johnny himself introduce our recasting of 2018…
Hi, I’m Johnny Grind! You may remember me from such podcasts as The Grind Corps Podcast. Uncle Diana/Weener, JRC, Frost (one of the hosts for GCP) and myself have done a couple of episodes on the podcast where we talked about The Simpsons and they informed me/us about this game where they recast an entire movie with Simpsons characters. We took a shot (no pun intended) at Aliens with not much in-depth thought just to see if we could whip up something quickly. We then talked about other movies they did and somehow, The Princess Bride came up and I said that I would LOVE to help out with that movie. So, on that note…
Whenever a book is adapted into a movie, people always say, “The book was better.” At first glance, this was exactly that. It bombed in ticket sales at the theaters. It wasn’t until VHS and home viewings became a thing that it really ignited the spark for this one. That’s how I came across this movie. It starts off as a child, played by Fred Savage, is home from school due to sickness. That’s probably how I found out about this movie, too. Just a regular kid, home from school, can’t sleep from being under the weather, so let’s watch a movie… Little did I know, this would be a movie that would keep me awake for the duration because it was so captivating! (Essay continued after gifs)
![]() Bart Simpson as |
![]() Abe Simpson as |
![]() Malloy as Westley (Carey Elwes) |
![]() Teenage Marge as Buttercup (Robin Wright) |
![]() Hans Sprungfeld as Inigo Montoya |
![]() Dr. Hillbilly as Fezzik (Andre the Giant) |
![]() Artie Ziff as Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) |
![]() Cecil Terwilliger as Prince |
![]() Dr. Marvin Monroe as Count Rugen |
![]() Groundskeeper Willie as Yellin |
![]() Dr. Nick as Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) |
![]() Mrs. Glick as Valerie (Carol Kane) |
![]() Agnes Skinner as the Ancient Booer (Margery Mason) |
![]() Reverend Lovejoy as the Impressive |
![]() “Can I come too?” lady as |
![]() Old Jewish Man as |
![]() Smithers as the Albino (Mel Smith) |
Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…
So what makes it so “captivating,” you ask? The story had and has everything: humorous one liners, a great cast of colorful characters and icons of the decade (E.G. Fred Savage, Andre the Giant, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane), and of course, as the grandfather says: Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…
Side Note: Director Rob Reiner just finished This is Spinal Tap, a mock-umentary of a fictitious band that everyone thought was the real deal. You may know the bassist, Harry Shearer, as many of the voices provided for The Simpsons! Christopher Guest is also in This is Spinal Tap and portrays “The 6 Fingered Man” in The Princess Bride.

The Taps on tour in Springfield USA, circa 1991.
Fun Trivia: Guest has a scene in “Tap” about amplifiers that go to 11… in The Princess Bride, he has a total of 11 fingers. Coincidence? You be the judge.
I wanna take this time to thank Diana and JRC for allowing me to do this and I hope we can do this again in the future! Also, if you haven’t already, please check out the episodes featuring these 2 lovelies on The Grind Corps Podcast (Grind Corps on Itunes)