Reception
The episode received generally positive reviews. Travis Pickett of IGN gave it a 8.5 rating, especially praising Trey Parker and Matt Stone for managing to contrast the episode with the actual Simpsons (with themes like Cartman performing fellatio on "some guy in an alley"), while respectfully paying their dues. Daniel Vancini of Amazon.com liked the homage to The Simpsons longevity, while pointing out that the writing for season six has not taken a downfall, quality wise.
"Simpsons Already Did It" was inspired by the fact that The Simpsons did in fact beat South Park to an idea. In the season 4 episode "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", Cartman was supposed to block out the sun, but one writer pointed out that "The Simpsons already did it." The episode "calls out" the obvious observation that The Simpsons have realized a vast number of ideas throughout their long-lived run. Some have found a certain reciprocity to this statement, finding instances of repetitiveness in The Simpsons itself while quoting South Park. However, although the leitmotif throughout the episode is "Simpsons did it first", South Park creators released their feature film based on the series in 1999, eight years prior to The Simpsons Movie.
The Simpsons crew has a friendly relationship with South Park, which they demonstrated several times, going as far as sending flowers to the South Park studios when South Park parodied Family Guy in the season 10 episodes "Cartoon Wars Part I" and "Part II". In 2010, The Simpsons crew congratulated South Park for reaching 200 episodes, with a message reading "Congratulations on 200 Episodes. (We Already Did It.) (Twice.)", referring to The Simpsons' run of more than 400 episodes at the time, and alluding to "Simpsons Already Did It". Soon after, in reference to the controversies and terrorist threats surrounding depictions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in the South Park episodes "200" and "201", the chalkboard gag on that week's Simpsons episode, "The Squirt and the Whale", read "South Park – We'd stand beside you if we weren't so scared". South Park was parodied in a 2003 Simpsons episode, "The Bart of War", showing a scene with the four South Park boys Stan, Kyle, and Cartman drawn in Simpsons style, with Marge disapproving of Bart and Milhouse's apparent enjoyment of "cartoon violence", and the latter two contemplating about adults voicing children's characters. The 2009 Simpsons episode "O Brother, Where Bart Thou?" has Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph dressed up as, standing at the bus stop – similarly to the iconic bus stop scenes of South Park –, and Otto using the catchphrase "Oh my God! I killed Kenny!" when he hits Ralph (dressed as Kenny) driving the school bus.
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“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)