Seriously. The whole 'evil dolphins previously ruled the world and don't like humanity' concept was done back in Treehouse of Horror XI, which was shown about 7 years before Master of Disguise was released. So there's definitely time for the team to have taken inspiration from the episode.
And while the Simpsons one was influenced by a fairly obscure old movie called 'Day of the Dophin' (no I kid you not):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dolphin
I find it kind of interesting that the Master of Disguise version was closer to the Simpsons parody with a dolphin king leading the others to declare war on humanity than the original with its mad science and political assasination plotline.
So were they influenced? Cause they obviously took a lot of inspiration from Western media when coming up with some elements (the Silver Zephyr is obviously a parody of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the boss theme is apparently even called 'The Unfab Four'), so I wonder whether Suzak had a few Simpsons fans on the development team when coming up with this chapter...
And while the Simpsons one was influenced by a fairly obscure old movie called 'Day of the Dophin' (no I kid you not):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dolphin
I find it kind of interesting that the Master of Disguise version was closer to the Simpsons parody with a dolphin king leading the others to declare war on humanity than the original with its mad science and political assasination plotline.
So were they influenced? Cause they obviously took a lot of inspiration from Western media when coming up with some elements (the Silver Zephyr is obviously a parody of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the boss theme is apparently even called 'The Unfab Four'), so I wonder whether Suzak had a few Simpsons fans on the development team when coming up with this chapter...