This Week, 'The Simpsons' Featured a Reenactment of a 1936 Game Between Legendary Jewish Grandmasters
There was a time when chess was all the rage in American—in my mind at least. A time when regular people played the game with regular purpose and looked up to chess’s best, like Bobby Fischer or Garry Kasparov or Paul Morphy. I like to think that we are living in a bit of a renaissance for one of the world’s most ancient and complicated games, thanks in large part to the rise of Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion.
Carlsen, a handsome, brilliant, and sometimes unevenly tempered grandmaster from Norway, has a ton of sponsorships to his name and even his own app. But his appearance on The Simpsons this week is maybe the top of his fame pile. (Riddle me this: What other life apex exists outside of an appearance on The Simpsons? That’s right. There is none.)