I love really bad knock-off art. The kind you get on fairground rides. Or every ice cream van ever. But today I want to focus on a really specific sub-genre of copyright-infringing art: Simpsons bouncy castles.

I know what you’re thinking. How many can there be? QUITE A LOT IT TURNS OUT. So, as we’ve done before with Shrek and Minion cakes, here are a bunch of them unfairly deposited and criticised for your enjoyment.

LOL. A strong start for sure. Some weird superhero versions of Bart and Homer that I really like. But the crown achievement (pun intended *wink*) is the INFINITELY STARING BART HEAD on top. Why is that there?! It’d be a perfectly fine Simpsons bouncy castle without a weird disembodied head on top. And it means Bart is over-represented on the castle. Very strange.

At first, I thought this was just another angle of the first bouncy castle. But it’s not! The Homer and Bart designs on the side are reversed and different, there’s a side-slide attachment, and the Bart head is different. But again, WHY IS THERE A (now bandito-masked) BART HEAD ON THE TOP? Nobody needs that.

Ok this is more like it. A pretty decent Bart, and a real niche Homer representation of Homer from S03E01 ‘Stark Raving Dad’ where he wears a pink shirt to work and ends up sent to a psychiatric hospital. Notice the lack of a weird Bart head.

Ok. In addition to Homer and Bart, we’re now bringing Maggie and Santa’s Little Helper into the mix. It’s a real chubby Bart though. And there’s a lot of pollution for a fun piece of bouncy castle art. The whole thing just feels a bit grim. I wouldn’t like to bounce on this castle.

OK LET’S GET WEIRD AGAIN. Once more Bart and Homer make up the supporting pillars, but there’s a whole smorgasbord of other characters in the arch. There’s Smithers and Burns, Grandpa and the laziest drawing of Krusty I’ve ever seen. There’s a lovely family mural along the back (hello Marge and Lisa!) and then…. Moe and Mr Burns? Ok, I guess!

IT IS ANOTHER BART HEAD.

Now this is just very cool indeed. Lisa looking Sassy as hell, and Bart rocking a Union Jack skateboard with the coolest looking expression I’ve ever seen. A great, solid castle.

Ok this isn’t a Simpsons one but it was so good I had to include it anyway.

This one has a Bart head so enormous that you can sit inside it. Come on, kids! Come and sit inside Bart Simpson’s mouth! Touch his enormous teeth!

How hard is it to draw an accurate Homer Simpson? When you’re making bouncy castle art, you don’t HAVE to do it from memory. You’re allowed to have a picture to hand while you do it. Mate, you can even blow up a picture and trace it!

Is this some deliberate attempt to avoid copyright infringement? Is that why all knockoff art is so bad? No, I think the people that do it are just lazy and/or unskilled.

Ok, I’m done. I can’t look any more massive weird Bart heads. I’ve got enough nightmare fuel for a solid month.

SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?

Nothing. You’ve just spent a few minutes looking at bad Simpsons bouncy castles. There’s no possible lesson you can take from this. Goodbye.