“Now put your left leg into the left side of the pants, and you’re done.” – Lisa Simpson
“I dress myself.” – Ralph Wiggum
Author Archive for
22
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Hi, kids! . . . What the . . . is this Saturday?” – Krusty the Klown
I’m still going to do Behind Us Forever for this week’s episodes, but the last two days have not been kind in terms of free time. In the interim, how about a little ratings schadenfreude?
Sunday’s episodes both scored dismal ratings, with the first one (“The Saga of Carl”) coming in at just 4.01 million viewers, and “Dangers on a Train” bumping up a bit to 4.52 million. The former is good for #2 on the all time least watched list, with even the higher rated second episode coming in at #10. Here is the current bottom twenty in terms of viewers:
|
# |
S-Ep |
Airdate |
Viewers |
Episode Title |
| 1 | 23-21 | 13-May-12 | 4.00 | Ned ‘N Edna’s Blend |
| 2 | 24-21 | 19-May-13 | 4.01 | The Saga of Carl |
| 3 | 24-20 | 12-May-13 | 4.05 | Fabulous Faker Boy |
| 4 | 24-17 | 14-Apr-13 | 4.07 | What Animated Women Want |
| 5 | 24-12 | 10-Feb-13 | 4.19 | Love Is a Many-Splintered Thing |
| 6 | 23-13 | 12-Feb-12 | 4.33 | The Daughter Also Rises |
| 7 | 24-8 | 16-Dec-12 | 4.41 | To Cur With Love |
| 8 | 24-19 | 6-May-13 | 4.43 | Whiskey Business |
| 9 | 24-18 | 28-Apr-13 | 4.48 | Pulpit Friction |
| 10 | 24-22 | 19-May-13 | 4.52 | Dangers on a Train |
| 11 | 24-13 | 17-Feb-13 | 4.57 | Hardly Kirk-Ing |
| 12 | 24-14 | 3-Mar-13 | 4.66 | Gorgeous Grampa |
| 13 | 23-20 | 6-May-12 | 4.75 | The Spy Who Learned Me |
| 14 | 23-22 | 20-May-12 | 4.79 | Lisa Goes Gaga |
| 15 | 24-15 | 10-Mar-13 | 4.85 | Black-Eyed Please |
| 16 | 23-18 | 15-Apr-12 | 4.86 | Beware My Cheating Bart |
| 17 | 24-16 | 17-Mar-13 | 4.89 | Dark Knight Court |
| 18 | 23-16 | 11-Mar-12 | 4.96 | How I Wet Your Mother |
| 19 | 22-18 | 10-Apr-11 | 5.00 | The Great Simpsina |
| 20 | 23-19 | 29-Apr-12 | 5.00 | A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again |
Of those twenty, nineteen are from Seasons 23 or 24, with the lone exception being from Season 22. Every single episode broadcast since February of this year has made the list. And not a single episode in all of Season 24 was viewed by more than 10 million people, the first time that’s ever happened. (The only one even close came after an NFL playoff game.)
In terms of average viewership, Season 24 ran away with the title of least viewed ever. After bumping along in the low seven million range from Season 20 through 22, last season fell down to just 6.13 million viewers on average. Season 24 sunk even further, averaging just 5.47 million viewers over its twenty-two episodes.
Now, the usual caveat about these ratings: these are just the overnight numbers. When there are significant changes to them (usually because a sporting event runs long), I make those updates, but these are not the fancy pants final numbers that take into account demographics, DVR viewers, and whatever else advertisers complain about. Nielsen only makes very limited data available to the public (at least, as far as I can tell), so these are the numbers I use, but don’t try reading anything into these in terms of “Will the show get cancelled?”.
The thousand monkeys at a thousand Blackberries who run FOX will be looking at those more detailed ratings as well as factoring in all kinds of things like whether or not a replacement would provide the same lead-in numbers for the rest of the Sunday lineup, how expensive said replacement would be, and how much Jean and company react when feces are thrown at them during meetings. (MacFarlane doesn’t even flinch.) Given the production lead time, we should be hearing something about a renewal beyond the current contract (on which there are 29 episodes left) sometime in calendar 2013, but that’s about all that can be said right now.
[Update 6:45pm EDT: Just saw this: CBS Takes Key Ratings Crown for First Time in 21 Years. FOX lost the battle for the nuts and gum people to CBS this year and their overall viewers were third at 7.0 million. No idea what the monkeys will think of losing to the old people network and having Zombie Simpsons dragging down their overall number, but it seemed worth mentioning.]
21
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Mom, there’s nothing to be alarmed about . . . but could you take one last look at the family and join me in the kitchen?” – Homer Simpson
Happy birthday Richard Appel!
20
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Keep up the roughhousing, son. Without a strong male presence in the house, you could turn sissy overnight! Oh, these stubborn grass stains.” – Homer Simpson
19
May
13
Quote of the day
“I don’t need a card, you live in the room next to me.” – Lisa Simpson
“Note: next year, order fewer cards.” – Bart Simpson
18
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Okay, Homer, bases loaded and you’re up. Where’s that secret weapon?” – Carl
“Check it out, boys, my magic bat.” – Homer Simpson
“That’s it?” – Carl
“Yeah, I got a magic bat, too.” – Lenny
“And I got an enchanted jockstrap.” – Carl
“It took the children forty minutes to locate Canada on the map.” – Marge Simpson
“Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there.” – Homer Simpson
Whenever Zombie Simpsons hitches its fading star to a currently popular celebrity, your Katys Perry and Ladys Gaga, the internet throws a brief but mild fit wherein huge numbers of pop culture sites that normally couldn’t give a fuck about the show write about how Celebrity X is gonna be Simpsonized. That very thing happened this week in regards to Justin Bieber’s brief and pointless cameo, so it’s a bit of a clipped Reading Digest. Bieber clogged the tubes, and once you’ve read one blog post lamenting the brevity of his appearance, you’ve read all several thousand of them. Besides that deliberate omission, we’ve got some cool fan art, a statistical analysis of other celebrity guests, some excellent usage, several people who agree with us, some (possibly dubious) statistics about Duff, and a plastic donut.
Enjoy.
Oh, and this is basically obligatory today:
The Curse of the Simpsons! – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this statistical look at whether or not guest voicing on The Simpsons is bad for your health. Short answer, no:
So there is no curse, celebrities who appear on the Simpsons live about an extra 3 years (on average at least). If we look at the ages Simpson guests have been dying, the average is 76 years, with some folks pushing 100.
No wonder they keep having pointless cameos like Bieber and Captain Picard, it makes people live longer. Jean’s probably got a lucrative, off the books sideline in selling guest spots. (At this rate, Bieber’s going to be alive until 2130.)
Went to get my oil changed and found this… – This is a reddit link to a positively amazing set of images of styrofoam cups with elaborate drawings, including the Simpson family on the inside of one.
Bizarro Baseball: the Isotopes – Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made:
Perhaps the strangest, most incredible part of this origin story lies in the annals (or lack thereof) of subsidiary rights:
In the three months after the team’s name was announced in September 2002, before the team ever took the field, the team sold more merchandise than the Albuquerque Dukes sold in any single season, and led minor league baseball in merchandising revenue in 2003.
The real life Simpsons: The Groening family tree – This is what happens when you have to come up with characters in the waiting cubicle at 1987 FOX.
Canadian ‘couch gag’ a dream come true for ‘Simpsons’ fan – So that couch gag contest they’re running isn’t just a desperate ploy for attention, it’s an internationally desperate ploy for attention:
Savaya, 22, earned the trip to Hollywood by coming up with a “couch gag” for the opening credits of the season 24 finale of The Simpsons. It airs Sunday at 8:30 p.m. on Global.
Savaya’s couch gag will air only on the Canadian broadcast of the show.
“I’ve never seen a Canadian couch gag before so I figured I might as well make it as Canadian as possible,” he says of his decision to include Sir John A. MacDonald, a hockey player, a loon and a beaver — and Maggie replacing her pacifier with a hockey puck.
Not now, Ralph.
Top 8½ Overlooked Games – Video game nostalgia that agrees with us:
lots of people bought it but many dismissed it as another crappy licensed game. And those who did so were wrong. Sure, it’s a GTA clone without the violence, but it’s also some of the best ones out there. Good gameplay, good Simpsons-esque humor (not nearly as good or daring as in the golden age of Simpsons, but still), voice acting by the original cast and so on.
The Simpsons writer hails North West talent – More about that new British show Weinstein is doing.
Voice to Vexed – Perfectly quoted excellent usage:
This is a verbatim message I recently spoke to my brother’s Voice-to-Text service, quoting Chief Clancy Wiggum from The Simpsons: “This is Papa Bear. Put out an APB for a male suspect, driving a . . . car of some sort, heading in the direction of, uh, you know, that place that sells chili. Suspect is hatless. Repeat: hatless.”
I can’t wait till they throw his hatless butt in jail.
Huzzah! – Because all dictionary entries should reference The Simpsons and be written on bar napkins.
“Mad Men” accidentally includes anachronism, sets Internet ablaze – Quoted at length because, yeah:
As aforementioned, “The Simpsons” provides an excellent send up of this. But Comic Book Guy does not only pick apart fictional TV shows and comic books of the “Simpsons” universe. In thinly veiled moments of meta-commentary, he pokes fun at the “Simpsons’” devoted fan base. This is done beautifully in an old episode when the Simpson family obtains a pet horse. Comic Book Guy references a previous “Simpsons” episode with a similar plotline. To a crowd of surrounding people, he cattily insinuates the series’ laziness. The “Simpsons” writers proceed to throw shade at obsessive fans such as Comic Book Guy, as Homer asks aloud: “Anybody care what this guy thinks?” The crowd resoundingly replies: “No!”
In the past weeks, some voices in the media have played Comic Book Guy to “Mad Men’s” “The Simpsons.” In a recent episode of “Mad Men,” Joan Holloway referenced eating at New York restaurant Le Cirque. Upon fact checking, people discovered that there was no Le Cirque in 1968 New York. Ostensibly, this quibble seems reasonable; historical authenticity is a vital part of “Mad Men’s” mojo, and to let if fall by the wayside seems a disregard for what the viewers love about the show.
Joan has the Wizard Key, I knew it!
Childhood Nostalgia: Mmm Donuts. – Eat it, Freeman and Nicholson:
Around the time the Simpsons Movie came out, 7-11 came out with these pink sprinkled donuts, identical to the one from the character. Of course I immediately bought it when it came out and man did I fell in love with it. It wasn’t the best donut I have ever eaten, overload on sugar and frosting and mediocre dough. But the fact that I accomplished a childhood dream (to eat that little pink donut), the taste didn’t really matter to me. Besides that feeling where you eat that little pink donut alongside the POP! Homer Simpsons figurine that has the same little pink donut in his hand, priceless.
Bucket List: Eat a Homer Simpsons donut – CHECK
Your childhood dream was to run out onto the field during a baseball game, and you did it last year, remember?
Dag 097 – Yet more t-shirt.
Best. Episode. Ever. (Round 25) – In a competition between “Homer the Heretic” and “Lost Our Lisa”, I must respectfully disagree.
7 Pensamentos de Homer Simpson – You know it’s a good joke when you can recognize it even in a foreign language:
5. Lisa, vampiros são faz-de-conta, como elfos, gremlins e esquimós.
♫♫ I don’t care, I love it ♫♫ – Speaking of languages I don’t speak, I have no idea what’s going on here, but there are two ladies painting Homer on a wall. Cool.
The Great Gatsby…In 10 Words – And then I saw the lighthouse, and I remembered how you love blinking lights.
Doctor Who Monday: Nightmare in Silver…In 10 Words – Oh, I forgot to, uh, carry the one.
Randy Jackson Leaving American Idol…In 10 Words – I wouldn’t.
The Office (US)…In 10 Words – Determined or not, that cat is long dead by now.
You’re Wrong about the Worst Draft Pick in Packers History – Excellent usage:
Everyone is feeling pretty good about the prospects picked. We’re in that afterglow period where we can imagine all the good things that our team can do without being pestered by the reality of games played, injuries suffered, potentials not reached.
As Homer Simpson would say, “that Bart is a little miracle … he reminds me of me before the weight of the world crushed my spirit.”
Homer actually says “that Bart of ours”, but close enough.
I lack direction – The show has always provided a roundabout introduction to pop culture:
I also realized that, though I had not really heard of or seen Doctor Who before then, I had glimpsed Doctor Who out of the corner of my eye; I started watching The Simpsons maybe in 2000, or thereabouts, both the new shows on Sundays and the reruns that played in the afternoons, and there was that Halloween episode where the Comic Book Guy turned into a Comic Book Villain, The Collector, and started collecting famous people, including ‘Doctor Who’ or the Fourth Doctor.
Duff Beer | Beer Of The World – Not entirely sure that this is trustworthy, but five percent seems about right:
BEER DETAILS
- Name: Duff Beer
- Brewery: Duff Breweries
- City: Springfield
- Country: USA
- Produced since: 1989
- Style: Pilsener
- ABV: 5%
- Ingredients: water, malted barley, maize, hops
TV – The Top 15 episodes of The Simpsons (Part 2) – An otherwise fine list spoiled by an entry from Season 19.
PIXIE and PIXIER: Lisa Simpson Girl Gang – A snazzy Lisa hat for the fashionable Simpsons fan.
Homer Simpson Listening to Ned Flanders – An animated .gif of Homer not caring about that rowboat of decorative geraniums.
The Simpsons/Robot Chicken Couch Gag – In case you missed it, here’s the YouTube. (It took too long and it was still the best part of the episode.)
Analog 365 Project Day 133 – Good enough:
I found this giant plastic doughnut my boyfriend has from a Simpson’s game and couldn’t resist taking a goofy self portrait with it.
Everyone loves plastic donuts.
You Don’t Make Friends with Salad! – Weight loss sucks:
Homer Simpson was right; you don’t make friends with salad.
1-800-COLLECT – I’d forgotten that the show did collect call ads. Why collect call numbers were ever worth advertising on television I will never know.
When my blog gets foreign visits: – Animated .gif of the shifty eyed dog from “Beyond Blunderdome”.
lenny loves carl – This is a new blog with the fantastic title you see at left. Also: just one week until Arrested Development!
The Simpsons Season 7 Review – Yup:
After re-watching The Simpsons Season 7 it made me realise how good the show was and how much it has gone downhill.
My Hero: Lisa Simpson – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us. And besides, who doesn’t love Lisa?:
Now, right off the bat, I have to admit that I haven’t been as much of a Simpson’s fanatic as I was as a child. When I talk about The Simpsons, I’m talking about post-the-three-eyed-crow-opening, the old school Simpsons that had obscure literary references, sexual innuendos and morally thematic episodes. It was in these early years that I first fell in love with Lisa Lionheart, the girl who never backed down from a fight.
Amen. (Also, lotta good screen grabs and YouTube there.)
17
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Leonard Nimoy, what are you doing here?” – Bart Simpson
“Wherever there is mystery and the unexplained, cosmic forces shall draw me near.” – Leonard Nimoy
“Uh-huh.” – Bart Simpson
“Hey, Spock, what do you want on your hot dog?” – Hot Dog Guy
“Surprise me.” – Leonard Nimoy
16
May
13
Quote of the Day
“You see me as a god, right, Smithers?” – C.M. Burns
“Absolutely, sir.” – Mr. Smithers
“You’d kneel before me.” – C.M. Burns
“Boy, would I.” – Mr. Smithers
“Yes.” – C.M. Burns
15
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Tonight on Smartline, the power plant strike: argle-bargle or foofaraw? With us tonight are plant owner C.M. Burns, union kingpin Homer Simpson, and talk show mainstay Dr. Joyce Brothers.” – Kent Brockman
“I brought my own mike.” – Dr. Joyce Brothers
“My hair! You chopped off my hair! Oh, God, I’m ugly!” – Homer Simpson
- Well, it was certainly nice of the Robot Chicken guys to eat up ninety seconds of screentime with that opening.
- And it’s a good thing they did, because if this scene with Marge and Skinner is any indication, we’re mostly in for filler here. Skinner is now playing a guitar he pulled from behind his desk as surely as if it was a rabbit from a hat, and this goes on until well after Marge had left the building.
- Sideshow Mel is now giving Bart music lessons, why?
- And then Frink and Comic Book Guy because . . . oh, the hell with it.
- What’s with the licorice thing?
- “Let’s drink vodka” – Good advice for anyone watching this episode.
- The scene where Bart walks across the playground to deliberately run into the bullies made very little sense, then they topped themselves by having Marge and this Russian guy sitting in her car in her driveway. Impressive.
- I’m confused by the Russian Makin’ Whoopee montage, though I really shouldn’t be. It’s 30 seconds long, the entire episode (credits to credits) is only 18:30, so that ate almost 3% of the runtime right there. And it was only the first of two montages.
- Krusty and Captain McAllister sure had valid reasons for being at that recital we never learned anything about. Someone in comments pointed out that this one was heavy on people just showing up for no reason, and they were correct.
- Uh, is that going to be the whole Patrick Stewart thing? [End of episode note: Yes, yes it was.]
- Whoa, Helen Lovejoy really doesn’t sound like herself anymore.
- Hey the Russian guy is back to exposit the end for us. That was nice of him.
- “It was wrong of me to force my dreams on you”, where did that come from? Marge made Bart take up music because Skinner suggested it, not because she wanted to be a piano player. Is it possible that by the end of these they’re phoning it in so badly that no one remembers the beginning?
The incoherence of this episode cannot be overstated, and yet I also cannot use any extreme superlatives because, let’s face it, it’s no more or less incoherent than most episodes these days. Characters appear out of thin air, stories are dropped for no reason whatsoever, the plots (such as they are) get resolved with single scene twists instead of having anything to do with what came before.
To take but one example from this episode, here is the entirety of Homer’s plot:
1. Homer’s last two hairs fall out (note that this has happened before).
2. Homer goes to the Kwik-E-Mart where he gets atrocious jokes spat at him by Apu, Flanders’ Dad (for some reason), and the Rich Texan.
3. Homer goes to Moe’s where Moe rips off his own hair and gives some to Homer.
4. Homer goes to work where he talks to Patrick Stewart, who tells him being bald is okay.
5. Homer reveals his baldness to Marge, who doesn’t care, which in turn causes his hair to grow back.
That’s it. That’s the entire story. Homer doesn’t do anything, he isn’t in any way affected by his brief loss of hair, and then it’s over. And this was – by far – the most put together of the various goings on here. It certainly made more sense than the Russian guy learning to drive, or Bart’s story, which started with him wanting to impress his teacher and then abruptly switched gears mid-episode to him being afraid to disappoint Marge.
Anyway, the ratings are in and they are just as bad as the episode itself. On Sunday, just 4.05 million viewers wished they had bootleg Russian vodka to make the time go faster. That dismal total is good for second worst on the all time list. Next week is the two episode season finale, which appears to be just two random episodes crammed together and not an actual two-parter, though the descriptions FOX has released are so vague and pointless that I really can’t tell. Oh well, we’ll find out soon enough.
14
May
13
Quote of the Day
“You have to start putting money back into the school. You’ve cut back on everything, salaries, supplies, the food! I don’t care what you say, I can taste the newspaper.” – Mrs. Krabappel
“Bosh, shredded newspapers add much needed roughage and essential inks. Besides, you didn’t notice the old gym mats.” – Principal Skinner
“There’s very little meat in these gym mats.” – Lunchlady Doris
13
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Well, you’ve been on TV longer than I have. I’m sure you’ve saved up quite a nest egg.” – Johnny Carson
“Uh, yeah. Do they still buy human hair down at the wig shop?” – Krusty the Klown
Happy 20th anniversary to “Krusty Gets Kancelled”! Original airdate 13 May 1993.
12
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Like the cleaning of a house, It Never Ends.” – Soap Opera Announcer
11
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Yeah, it’s a lazy, dog dangling afternoon.” – Homer Simpson
10
May
13
Friday Evening Cartoons
“My name is Homer, and I’m just here because the court made me come.” – Homer Simpson
“Homer, with our help you’ll never touch a beer again.” – Reverend Lovejoy
“Ahh!” – Homer Simpson
I had a rather exhausting and awful week; but it is at an end now, which means I can sit on my ass and watch TV like a civilized person. In doing so, I noticed something I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before. At his first AA meeting, Homer bails out the window. At his next meeting, there’s this:
That shot is only on screen very briefly before they cut to closeups of Lovejoy reassuring Homer and then Homer confessing that he ate the dirt under the bleachers. But you can see that Homer’s escape window has now been boarded up. Not repaired, just boarded up. Twenty years and Jebus knows how many viewings, and I’m still catching things. Gotta love The Simpsons.
“The hometown show’s the big one, Homer.” – Jimmy Chamberlin
“Yeah, people who called you a weirdo in high school get to see what a successful freak you’ve become.” – James Iha
“Hey, I wasn’t a weirdo. I was in the audio-visual club.” – D’arcy Wretzky
“Really? Me too. But I got kicked out cause of my views on Vietnam . . . also, I was stealing projectors.” – Homer Simpson
Happy Whacking Day everybody! This week we’ve got two links to those cool geeks at the A.V. Club, and while both take specific episodes (“Homer’s Enemy” and “Lady Bouvier’s Lover”) as their starting points, they also both end up in broader discussions of the show and television in general. In addition to that, we are positively swamped with cool fan made stuff this week, from arts & crafts projects to drawings to a simple Star Wars/Simpsons sketch that I can’t believe someone hasn’t turned into a painting yet. And, of course, we’ve also got the usual assortment of lists and random stuff, from usage to the widely linked obituary for Groening’s mom.
Enjoy.
Wacking Day! – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week (Whacking Day Special Edition) is this fantastic fan knitted . . . you know what? Just click the damn thing. It’s not quite hat, it’s not quite a scarf, but it is damned cool.
Works In Progress: “Portraits Of Awesomeness” solo show. – This is just some sketches, but scroll down for the one of Chief Wiggum, as Darth Vader, telling Luke/Ralph that he’s his father. I’m going to have Mark Hamill’s voice screaming, “That’s unpossible!” in my head for the rest of the day. Bravo.
Don Draper vs. Principal Skinner – I put this on Twitter yesterday, but it’s worth linking twice. (And when you think about it, one of Draper’s early sexual conquests could’ve been Agnes.)
The Simpsons, the Welsh designer and the new book celebrating Pembrokeshire – Josh Weinstein has a Kickstarter set up for a Welsh kids book:
For £15 you get a signed copy of the book.
D’oh(nt) Cancel Them Just Yet – Take this as a sign of just how low Zombie Simpsons has sunk on the pop culture totem pole. This is a defense of the show, and even it contains this:
I know, of course, that the show is not as good as it once was. And ratings are showing this. Season 2 of the show, brought highs of 33 million viewers, whereas season 24 brought lows of 3 million.
I’ve got the current all time low at a flat 4.00 million (for that vile episode where Flanders and Krabappel start dating), but the point stands.
The Simpsons Season 9: The Beginning of the End. – A detailed breakdown of Season 9, including best, worst and one underrated episode.
FULL MCBAIN MOVIE HIDDEN THROUGHOUT ‘THE SIMPSONS’ – Hey, that McBain mashup is back from copyright hell.
Today in Period #3 (Wednesday, May 8) – You can’t discuss Tennessee Williams without Llewellyn Sinclair:
We finished reading/watching/discussing A Streetcar Named Desire – there will be a final quiz on the entire play tomorrow.
We also discussed parody and how an episode of the The Simpsons (“A Streetcar Named Marge”) so effectively parodied the play.
Was The Simpsons Arcade the best of all? – Some nostalgia for the arcade game includes YouTube of the ending that I never even got close to seeing in the arcade.
Maggie Simpson | Hama Bead Patterns – The whole family done in those little beads, with guidelines on how to make them yourself.
Style Inspiration: Homer and Bart Simpson – From the same blog that brought you how to dress like Marge without it being Halloween, here’s Bart and Homer (provided you’re a lady).
Springfield is about to E X P L O D E – Bartkira rolls forward.
15 Common Struggles For Music Lovers (As Told Through Simpsons GIFs) – Pretty much what it says, and except for the first one there isn’t any Zombie Simpsons.
Homer Simpson’s Thought Bubbles: A Collection – Also what it says (and most of them are .gifs).
27 Things "The Simpsons" Taught Us About Love – Buzzfeed does good with a Zombie Simpsons free list. Some good animated .gifs here as well.
This Week in Music History (May 8th-May 14th) – I like how this is important enough to count as music history:
5/13- On this day in 1993, Fox aired the season 4 finale of The Simpsons, “Krusty Gets Kancelled”. Guest voices on the show included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Barry White and Bette Midler.
Patented Skinner Burgers – Heh.
Movie 99 Plump Fiction (1997) – Apparently Castellaneta was in a Pulp Fiction spoof so atrocious that it’s currently #98 on IMDb’s Bottom 100. This is a rather amusing write up of it.
10 marvelously funny cartoon scenes – Just some screen grabs and .gifs from various cartoon shows.
Peaceful Tuesday – A tale of ditching cable includes this excellent reference:
Also, don’t you just think that the very idea of stating things like “I’ve got to catch up on my shows” not only sounds like its work, but also kinda like “I’ve gots to get ma dialin’ wand” or “I wash ma self wit a rag on a stick.” And yes, those are both references to The Simpson, where Homer gets really fat and wears a muumuu.
I haven’t had regular TV in a while, and I really can’t complain.
A classic Simpsons episode explores the universality of being Frank Grimes – A long A.V. Club discussion of “Homer’s Enemy”, including how dark it is or isn’t and how it makes Homer relate to the real world.
Play It Again – Westworld – Agreed:
The malfunctioning robots at Itchy & Scratchy Land in The Simpsons prove to be more entertaining than their aged source material, Michael Crichton’s 1973 sci-fi western Westworld.
I hadn’t seen Westworld until a couple of years ago, but it definitely hasn’t aged well.
TV – The Top 15 episodes of “The Simpsons” (Part 1) – Nary a trace of Zombie Simpsons at spots 15-11.
Everything I Need to Know, I Learned From Marge Simpson – Ten things Marge taught us, with little to no Zombie Simpsons used as examples.
Bringing The Simpsons to North Korea – Presumably kids getting taught by an Aussie aren’t among the nation’s downtrodden, but still:
From 2010 to 2012, Lone, a history professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, traveled every six months to North Korea to teach high-school boys (and occasionally girls).
“I wanted to explain that there is a variety of experiences,” he said. “My experiences were different.”
For instance, when Lone brought an English-language comic book of The Simpsons for his classroom, he was surprised to learn that everybody was already familiar with the American cartoon.
Whacking Day…In 10 Words – No, it says here Larry White.
Iron Man 3…In 10 Words – Professor Frink has really pulled himself together.
Nancy Grace…In 10 Words – Of course, this is just a television show, which is not legally binding, unless proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.
I’m pretty selfish – Kicking off a new travel blog with some excellent usage:
As it’s a self-confessed obnoxiousness, I’m reminded of Troy Mcclure:
Selma: Is this a sham marriage?
Troy: Sure baby, is that a problemo?
Selma: But… don’t you love me?
Troy: Sure I do! Like I love Fresca. Isn’t that enough? The only difference between our marriage and any one else’s is: we know ours is a sham.And so too is the difference between this and other travel blogs: we know this one is obnoxious.
The quote’s had some stuff excised from the middle, but it’s dead on, so that’s excellent usage.
Matt Groening’s mom dies; maiden name Wiggum, she inspired Marge Simpson – She was 94 years old, and the on-line guest log has filled up with fan tributes from around the world. Condolences.
Maggie as a Teenager – Maggie Simpson Fan Art (653742) – Pretty much what it says. Well done.
Rafa Benitez refuses to be drawn into discussing Simpsons characters in press conference – Heh:
When asked about The Simpsons character to whom Luiz is so often compared, Chelsea interim manager refused to divulge any knowledge of him.
From PA Sport:
Asked if he was aware who Sideshow Bob is, Benitez said: "I’m aware David Luiz is one of the best players in the Premier League, by miles – miles away from a lot of players. He’s one of the best, without doubt.
According to the Telegraph’s Ben Rumsby a Sky Sports reporter even produced a picture of Sideshow Bob to show Benitez, which is just a bit weird.
That’s right, professional soccer coaches are being belittled with pictures from The Simpsons.
homer simpson – An animated .gif of Homer doing the shifty eyes thing from “Beyond Blunderdome”.
Dag 089 – Another vintage Homer t-shirt.
“Lady Bouvier’s Lover” – And finally, this A.V. Club writeup includes a summation of why The Simpsons was so damned good:
That’s the thing I find when I return to these old episodes of this show. They’re crammed with gags, yeah, but they’re also crammed with gags I remember incredibly well and maybe even think about in my day-to-day life. I wouldn’t call “Lady Bouvier’s Lover” one of the finest half-hours the show ever produced—unless we’re going wide-scale and pulling in every episode ever, in which case it’s in the top 100 or so just by dint of being in this season—but it’s got so many jokes in it I didn’t even know were part of this particular episode that I’m sort of in awe of it. For instance, I remembered that the “Play It Cool” sequence between Homer and Grampa was here, because it was directly related to the plot, but not, for instance, the bit about Homer imagining the kids as looking what we might perceive as “normal.”
That was the genius of The Simpsons—likely my favorite TV show ever made—when it was on a roll. The show did lots and lots of jokes, yes, but it also did many different kinds of jokes. The slapstick of Bart getting punched in the face bumps up against Grampa lifting wholesale from old movies (and getting trouble from legal departments representing the Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Durante estates), which bumps up against a surrealistic cutaway gag like Homer’s imagination running wild. I’ll occasionally read sniffing from people who don’t like early Simpsons saying that it’s “just” a bunch of pop-culture gags, like, say, Family Guy (and even if it was that, the pop-culture gags draw from so many varied sources that they’d win just based on sheer scope), but even a less instantly classic episode like this one gives the lie to that notion. In addition to strong, heartfelt stories, the show packed in gags as far as the eye could see, then made sure that they hit so many different targets that there would be something for everyone to laugh at. I don’t suppose I need to make the argument here that The Simpsons was the birth of what we think of as much of “modern” TV, but it sure seems that way to me, and that idea gets reinforced every time I go back and look again.
Indeed.
10
May
13
Quote of the Day
“Take that snake! And you too! Snakes, snakes everywhere!” – Barney Gumble
“Getting ready for Whacking Day?” – Lenny
“What’s Whacking Day?” – Barney Gumble
Happy Whacking Day!
09
May
13
Quote of the Day
“A Simpson on a t-shirt, I never thought I’d see the day.” – Marge Simpson
Happy birthday James L. Brooks!
08
May
13
Quote of the Day
“What began as a traditional soccer riot has escalated into a city wide orgy of destruction. Reacting swiftly, Mayor Quimby has declared mob rule. So, for the next several years, it’s every family for itself.” – Kent Brockman
“Excuse me, sir, I think you’ve got my TV. Sir?” – Ned Flanders
