10 Worst Simpsons Guest Stars (Who Played Themselves)

10. U2

U2 appeared in The Simpsons’ 200th episode Trash Of The Titans (they’re on over 650 now, by the way), and was one of the first obnoxiously gratuitous guest roles. Clearly brought on board to celebrate the impressive milestone, the band are woefully misused and overshadow Steve Martin’s Ray Patterson, who’s a much better guest star all around.

Bono gets the starring role of the foursome as per usual, but (again as per usual) he comes off incredibly preachy. His insistence on stopping the show to let Homer talk about garbage management is supposed to be an ironic wink, but comes across as too genuine, and so loses all of its comedy. All his other lines feel too stiff as well.

The other three band members (the Edge, Adam and Larry, though nobody ever remembers the latter two) are a bit better, actually getting some gags and managing to stick the landing. Still, the fuss of getting one of the world’s biggest rock bands only to fumble them so spectacularly is sad to see.

*NSYNC suffer from similar balancing issues in their episode, but to their credit they’re a bit funnier and more natural than U2, so avoid inclusion here.