The Simpsons is an arcade beat 'em up developed and published by Konami released in 1991. It was the first video game based on the Simpsons franchise to be released in North America. The game allows up to four players to control members of the Simpson family as they fight various enemies to rescue the kidnapped Maggie. It was a commercial success in the United States, where it was one of the top three best-selling arcade video game machines of 1991.
The game was ported to the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS soon after its launch in the arcades, and was released as The Simpsons Arcade Game on those platforms. It was also released under that title on Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3 in February 2012, however it has since been removed from both services. In 2021, Arcade1Up announced that it would be releasing a 30th anniversary edition home arcade cabinet.
While walking through downtown Springfield, the Simpsons collide with Smithers, who has just stolen a large diamond from a jewelry shop for Mr. Burns. The diamond goes flying and lands in Maggie's mouth, and she begins sucking on it like a pacifier as Smithers kidnaps her. The rest of the Simpsons give chase across the city, fighting off hordes of enemies (hired by Mr. Burns) to reach the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The pursuit covers eight stages, each of which ends with a fight against a strong boss character. In the final stage, the Simpsons must defeat first Smithers and then Mr. Burns, who uses a mobile battle suit equipped with a variety of weapons. Once Mr. Burns is defeated, Maggie puts her pacifier in his mouth and the Simpsons take her home, with Homer throwing the diamond away.