Woo-hoo! The ‘Frinkiac’ search engine matches any ‘Simpsons’ quote with its screenshot

[A ‘Simpsons’ meme generated by Frinkiac/Frinkiac]

There are few shows on television more quotable than “The Simpsons,” and now there’s a search engine that will pair any quote from the first 15 seasons with its matching screencap, drawn from a pool of almost three million images.

That’s right, Frinkiac is the meme generator Troy McClure fans have been waiting for. Simply type in the quote you’d like illustrated and the Frinkiac will find the matching scene in a matter of seconds. It than pairs the quote with a still from the scene and adds the text in “Simpsons” font. It takes just a few seconds to create a gem like this:

[A ‘Simpsons’ meme generated by Frinkiac/Frinkiac]

The site is named for Professor Frink, the show’s highly quotable mad scientist (“I’ve re-dorkulated!”). It’s creators were inspired to develop the Frinkiac after tossing around “Simpsons” quotes and then discovering they were nearly impossible to track down online.

Wired has a solid rundown on what’s going on behind the curtain, but essentially each scene and its subtitles are broken into 100 parts. The time codes of the words and images are then lined up, and, badabing! You’ve got a Homer classic like this one:

[A ‘Simpsons’ meme generated by Frinkiac/Frinkiac]

If this all seems far to easy, there is one catch — you need to be able to think of an actual “Simpsons” quote. One of the Frinkiac’s creator, Sean Schulte, was surprised at how difficult this task has been for some people.

“One thing I wasn’t expecting—or didn’t know how to think about—was how people other than us would search for things,” Schulte told Wired. “We started from an almost encyclopedic memory of ‘Simpsons’ quotes, which is kind of the basic unit of Thinking About ‘The Simpsons’ for us. From seeing search queries, that’s not exactly common: many people seem to search for a description of the scene rather than just what is being said out loud.”

[A ‘Simpsons’ meme generated by Frinkiac/Frinkiac]

So start racking your brain for a Simpson’s quotable. If your stuck, we suggest “You may remember me from…” or “Why you little…”, just to get the ball rolling.

Doh!