Archive for the 'Reading Digest' Category

17
May
13

Reading Digest: Missing Canadian Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 4 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

The PTA Disbands12

“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.)

10
May
13

Reading Digest: Audio Visual Club Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 8 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Homerpalooza9

“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:

Sir Benfro’s Big Adventure by Tim Fishlock & Josh Weinstein

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.

03
May
13

Reading Digest: Quantifying Zombie Simpsons Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 13 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Lisa's Sax9

“Lisa, if I have five apples and I take away three apples, how many apples do I have left?” – Dr. J. Loren Pryor
“Two apples.” – Lisa Simpson
“Wait a minute . . . she’s right!” – Homer Simpson

This week we’ve got several links that note just how bad Zombie Simpsons is, including one that basically confirms the analysis I did for the mini-book.  There’s also lots of lists with little to no Zombie Simpsons, countdowns that penalize the show for Zombie Simpsons, and even Zombie Simpsons making a list it isn’t even on!  In addition to all that, we’ve got several excellent pieces of fan art (including two cool posters and a potential T-shirt that could use some votes), a Marge skateboard, Hitchcock, and plenty of substance abuse. 

Enjoy.

Kalkalash! Pinpointing the Moments “The Simpsons” became less Cromulent – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is someone who agrees with us so completely that s/he may be my long lost twin or something:

For me, and most others, the latter episodes bear little resemblance to older ones. The current incarnation of the show is stale, and has been for a long time. I haven’t watched a new episode in over ten years, and don’t intend to any time soon. When did this decline begin? Was it part of a slow secular trend, or was there a sudden drop in the quality, from which there was no recovery?

To answer these questions I use the Global Episode Opinion Survey (GEOS) episode ratings data, which are published online.

I’ve never heard of GEOS, but it’d make a nice addition to Chapter 1, because it confirms pretty much everything we’ve been saying here for the last four years, right down to the stages of decline.  Click through for the full data, which is presented in easy to understand graphical form. 

5 Fitness Lessons I Learned from The Simpsons – A personal trainer discusses her profession through her love of the show.  Plus you can see her kickass “Homer Defined” tattoo! 

Olly Moss Pays Homage To The Simpsons With His “Stop The Planet of The Apes, I Want To Get Off” Musical Poster – Click this.  It is awesome. 

Simpsons Army of Darkness – Not sure of the original source here, but it is only slightly less awesome than the above.  The tagline is perfect: “Trapped in Time.  Surrounded by Evil.  Low on Duff.”.  Well done, somebody. 

A Pocket Companion to Books from The Simpsons, by O. Lebrun – The things you find in Museum shops these days.

Score Marge Simpson – A Threadless T-shirt vote with six days left for Marge as a smoking, pissed off looking middle-aged woman. 

Dial H For Hitchcock: An In-Depth Discussion About ‘The Master of Suspense’ – Someone who knows more about Hitchcock than I do has a list:

The Simpsons have constantly paid homage to Hitchcock over the years with references to The Birds, Rear Window, Sabateur, Psycho, Spellbound, North by Northwest and most recently, Strangers on a Train for their Halloween special, “Treehouse of Horror XX”. The segment was called “Dial M for Murder or Press # To Return To Main Menu” but had a plot that parodied Strangers on a Train and pushed a Hitchcock looking character off Mt. Rushmore, where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint scramble for freedom in the film, North by Northwest‘s final scene.

That first link leads to Category:Hitchcock references in The Simpsons at a Hitchcock wiki.  Warning: bit of a time suck. 

The Simpsons’ Craziest Example of Drug Abuse – Hmm, I’m not really sure what would happen to a grown man taking estrogen pills, but I can’t imagine it would be fun:

The Simpsons’ Season 4 episode the “New Kid on the Block” contains what has to be the most insanely casual depiction of drug abuse in television history.  In the episode, Homer goes through the neighbors’ trash, steals prescription medication, and binges on it while relaxing on the couch. Zero repercussions, repeat none, are shown or even implied by this unbelievably irresponsible behavior. All that happens is Marge barely registering her concern with Homer’s behavior and Homer remarking that he is not getting enough Estrogen.

I dunno, Fry’s “So I stayed home and got trashed on Listerine” in Futurama’s “A Head in the Polls” has always struck me as pretty casual. 

Top Ten Alcohol Moments in Media- A Mexican Standoff – And while we’re on the subject of substance abuse, a list of TV drinking that, by necessity, includes Moe’s.

10 of some of the best classic Simpsons episodes (According to me). Emphasise on the word ‘SOME’, I know most have an episode that you hold dear in your heart, but considering the structure of most lists, I had to choose 10, which was a daunting task for me. It’s a daunting task for any kid who grew up with this legendary show. – Yes, that is the whole link, but it is a perfectly cromulent list, with nothing past Season 9.

The Top 9 ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Segments – There’s one from Zombie Simpsons (Season 13) here, but overall it’s a very solid list.

Top 10 Cameos in ‘The Simpsons’ (Round 1) – There’s also one from Zombie Simpsons here, but just one and there’s shakycam YouTube of Bette Midler’s aggressive environmentalism. 

Best. Episode. Ever. (Round 18) – The elimination bracket continues.  This one is “Treehouse of Horror IV” versus “Marge on the Lam”, which is a good example of why I will never do a favorite episodes list.  How the hell do you pick between Homer selling his soul for a donut and Lionel Hutz babysitting?  I feel conflicted just asking the question.

My Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons Part V: 20-16 – Still clean of Zombie Simpsons . . .

My Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons Part VI: 15-11 – . . . and this one has an animated .gif of Grimes killing himself. 

Stuart’s Top 30 Sitcoms of All Time: Part 4 (#15 – #11) – The show checks in at #11 here, with Zombie Simpsons being an explicit penalty:

If they’d stopped around the 200 mark it would have been a strong contender for the top 5.

Futurama Canceled. Again. Along With Ugly Americans and The Cleveland Show. – I missed this:

Ugh. Comedy Central did it again. I’m sure most people know by now, but Futurama is canceled. Again. By Comedy Central.

So is Ugly Americans.

I liked Ugly Americans.  It never seemed to quite find it’s footing, but it could produce some pretty funny episodes. 

Remember the (Awesome TV Day That Is) The Sabbath and Keep It Holy – In which an intrepid blogger describes how The Simpsons got him started on a lifelong habit of watching TV on Sunday. 

The Simpsons: Tapped Out – Sadly, since I now almost exclusively watch ripped DVD copies on my computer, I’ve gotten pretty rusty at this:

Anyone who knows me will know I’m a pretty big Simpsons fan. I’m one of those people that will randomly quote it and crack myself up doing so and I can pretty much tell you which episode is playing after watching the first 30 seconds.

Back when only first few seasons were in syndication I could get a lot of them on the opening establishing shot alone.  Ah, memories. 

THE SIMPSONS – Hmm, art project or cassette release of “Do the Bartman”?  I don’t know.

Marge Simpson Skateboard Deck – Pretty much what it says, and she’s definitely got the hair for it.  I’m not a skateboarder, but it does look a little odd that the thing follows the shape of her head and hair rather than being the usual skateboard shape with an image. 

Reverse product placement? whats that? – Some examples of fictional products that became real, including the license challenged Duff. 

I Know It When I See It: Scrimshaw and Whale Bone Porn – Seems someone went Helen Lovejoy over some mildly racy ye olde tyme drawings, ignoring the real problem with scrimshaw: Sideshow Bob wants to revive it.  And he’s an evil genius.

Burgos…. – Your 2010 World Cup champions drawn Simpsons style. 

Pain & Gain…In 10 Words – Now step over to the abdominator and I will shout slogans at you.  (On a related note, that movie was – to my complete surprise – rather good.)

A Talking Cat?!…In 10 Words – The cat?  What’s the point? 

Candy Crush Saga…In 10 Words – Because, a lot of workers really like candy.

Yeardley Smith On Comfort, Style and Reinventing Women’s Shoes – An interview with Smith about her shoe line. 

Universal Orlando Transformers readies to open as Summer approaches – There’s a Flickr slideshow here of the Simpsons area under construction.  That is all.

‘Under the Dome’ to give ‘Simpsons’ shout-out – CBS is making a mini-series based on the Stephen King book about the town that gets trapped like carrots.  It will contain a brief mention of the movie.

Style Inspiration: Marge Simpson – How to dress like Marge without it being a Halloween costume.

Found this so COOL.=) – A drawing of famous fictional female haircuts. 

Moleman In The Morning. – I have no idea what this is or is going to be, but the subtitle is “A Simpsons blog about the agonizing pain in which I live every day.”.  It’s got a good title, that’s for sure. 

Cod aren’t coming back — yet – Moderate usage:

Under the sea

there’ll be no accusations,

Just tasty crustaceans.

— Homer Simpson

The baldheaded buffoon of the popular cartoon (The Simpsons) could have been talking about the Northwest Atlantic.

Homer actually calls them “friendly” crustaceans, but other than that it’s dead on.

5 Cancelled TV Shows That Got Given A Reprieve – Just another reminder that, fan wise, people don’t care about the continuation of Zombie Simpsons:

You know, I find it kind of humorous that Matt Groening has two shows that will appear on two separate lists on these kinds of websites. The Simpsons will frequently pop up on people’s lists of shows which need to be mercifully killed off. Then there will be Futurama, which will pop on lists like the one I’m writing here, about shows which were killed off and eventually brought back to life.

That’s how low Zombie Simpsons’ reputation has sunk, it’s cancellation gets mentioned even on lists it isn’t on. 

26
Apr
13

Reading Digest: Futurama Gets Cancelled Again Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 3 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Bart Gets Famous9

“What’s gonna happen to me?” – Bart Simpson
“And now it’s time for Match Game 2034!  With Billy Crystal, Farrah Fawcett Majors O’Neil Varney, the ‘I Didn’t Do It’ boy, ventriloquist Loni Anderson, Spike Lee, and the always lovely and vivacious head of Kitty Carlisle.” – TV Announcer
“Hi, everybody!  Let’s start the game.” – Head of Kitty Carlisle

Since you’re reading this Simpsons website, you’ve probably already heard that Futurama got the ax (for a second time) this week.  It wasn’t entirely unexpected news since Comedy Central clearly wasn’t putting much into the show in terms of scheduling or promotion, but it’s a bit of a bummer nevertheless.  I thought last summer’s episodes were a noticeable improvement over the other “new” episodes, and it’s too bad that this summer will be the last of them.  (For now.)  But this does mean that we have lots of links about the second death of the quirky and much beloved spin-off. 

In addition to the Futurama eulogies, we’ve got two different Simpsons alums starting new shows, a new Simpsons best episode countdown to add to the tournament one, Harry Shearer remaining funny in the face of radio cancellation, an update on the Simpsons/Akira project, some more Bart themed clothing, and another scientific study involving the show.

Enjoy.

TV Guide – Watch My Show: Wendell & Vinnie’s Jay Kogen Answers Our Showrunner Survey – Kogen knocks these dull questions out of the park.  Some examples:

TV Guide Magazine: Who should be watching Wendell & Vinnie?
Kogen: Our show is mainly designed for prison inmates and their children.

And:

TV Guide Magazine: Tell us something fun about your cast.
Kogen: They can survive in the forest with only a buck knife, a rope, and a team of hair & makeup artists. Jerry Trainor, who plays Uncle Vinnie, is not only the most gifted comic actor working today, but he’s also one of America’s foremost clog dancers. For him it’s not dancing unless there are wooden shoes pounding the ground. Buddy Handleson plays 12-year-old Wendell and he’s insanely talented for his age, which is a very young 63. He keeps his skin so young by never chewing his food. Haley Strode, who plays Taryn, was at one time going to become a heavy weight boxer but during her road to the Olympics, fell in love with both acting and not being punched unconscious. Nicole Sullivan plays Aunt Wilma and she’s famous for being able to communicate with the dead. She has the "voice from above" which allows her to talk to the deceased relatives of our cast and crew. She says mostly they complain about the weather and wish Lena Dunham would cover herself, for heaven’s sake.

The Learning Days’ 1 year anniversary – A look back, track by track – pt. 3 – It seems “Summer of 4Ft. 2” inspired a song:

Sometimes the genesis of a song will be a single freeze frame in my mind’s eye. Either one I make up or one I’ve experienced. In the case of “The Fair’s in Town Tonight” it was a sad one I had seen…..from The Simpsons:

This poignant moment of cartoon gravity came after a scene at a carnival/fair thus planting the seed of a song whose theme was the deception of appearances: sad people can be at fair, adult males can watch cartoons…

Futurama cancelled for the second time – Our first Futurama link contains this helpful reminder about how poorly that show’s network overlords treated it:

It never got the same love from the network as it did for Groening’s more famous creation; being subjected to that awful American habit of “let’s just show this whenever” – usually being dropped from its Sunday night schedule when a sporting event overran its allotted time, or moved to Tuesdays then quickly moved back and pre-empted by sport again. This happened so often that at one point, the time between completion of an episode and its airdate was a whole year.

It still mystifies me that Futurama was still broadcasting new episodes in 2003.  It sure seemed like FOX cancelled it in 2001.

No More Futurama, Halle Berry’s Back, and North Dakota TV Cussin’ – Yup, it’s over again, and even Simpsons alum David S/X Cohen wasn’t surprised:

I felt like we were already in the bonus round on these last couple of seasons, so I can’t say I was devastated by the news. It was what I had expected two years earlier. At this point I keep a suitcase by my office door so I can be cancelled at a moment’s notice.

Farewell Futurama: Here are 5 Reasons we’ll miss Zapp Brannigan – Yeah, it’s sad and all, but nothing cheers me up faster than some Zapp Brannigan YouTube. 

My Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons Part I: 40-36 – It’s a countdown . . .

My Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons Part II: 35-31 – . . . so far, so good, no Zombie Simpsons . . .

My Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons Part III: 30-26 . . . still clean . . .

My Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons Part IV: 25-21 . . . and we’re clear.  Lotta good animated .gifs in these posts, by the way.

Best. Episode. Ever. (Round 12) – In which “Bart Sells His Soul” crushes some piece of crap from Season 20.

KCRW gets ‘Le Show’ off the road as part of new strategy – Harry Shearer remains the Earth’s greatest living human being:

As for "Le Show," "I’m changing nothing, except it won’t be on the radio in Los Angeles. People in any city other than L.A. won’t notice any difference."

Heh. 

IT Crowd star for Simpsons writer’s show – Josh Weinstein has a new show in Britain:

The show has been created with ‘hypervynorama’, a new animation technique that combines Japanese vinyl toy design and puppetry with stop-motion animation and CGI.

Strange Gill High is based at an "all-but-forgotten inner-city school filled with fantastical secrets and outlandish mysteries" and will centre on the quick-witted and street smart Mitchell Tanner (Doc Brown) and his friends Becky Butters (Emma Kennedy) and class nerd Templeton (Richard Ayoade).

I’d give that a shot.

Product Development Co-ordinator (Maternity Cover) – A job posting:

Working for Twentieth Century Fox means working on some of the biggest brands in the business; “The Simpsons”, “Ice Age”, “Family Guy” and “Rio” to name but a few. Keeping track of European-wide product development of these brands requires a commitment to the very highest standards.

Ha! 

Crunchyroll – Project Aims to Redraw "Akira" Manga Using "Simpsons" Characters – Some more art from the Bartkira project.

Discussion is over: We are ‘The Simpsons’ Springfield – Springfield, IL – Local columnist looks at that Yeardley Smith video I linked a couple of weeks ago and determines that the real Springfield is in Illinois. 

Stanley Chow Illustration of Manchester England – A great fan made drawing titled “Marge Simpson Barbra Streisand Mash-up”.  Oh, Yentl, I might have known. 

Inspiration for cartoonists? – Does this tree look like Marge?  Enh, kinda.

On Conan O’Brien’s 50th birthday, here are his best episodes of The Simpsons – Lots of good YouTube here.

Clown of Steel – I don’t know Spanish, but this would appear to be about the idea that, based on the third Man of Steel trailer, Krusty may in fact be Superman. 

One Shot: Street Art Inspired By The Simpsons: Chicagoist – I don’t get it either, maybe it’s a Hunger Games thing? 

Trip to Springfield’s Kwik-E-Mart | July 2007 – Scrapbooking that time when 7-11s became Kwik-E-Marts. 

Guys and Dolls…In 10 Words – The important thing is that Luke Skywalker was electric as Nathan Detroit.

Writer Wednesday: Book Apocalypse? – Excellent usage:

“Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”

I couldn’t resist quoting Helen Lovejoy; partly because it’s also the title of my latest publication to appear in the mail (yay) but also because of this bizarre advertisement James Patterson placed in the New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly recently.

Pinky Promise: Yellow Bart Simpson – Young lady models her Bart Simpson shirt and excellently matching yellow skirt. 

The Bart Trend – Yet more fancy Bart threads. 

Answering The Simpsons public telephone at Universal Studios Florida – There’s apparently a fake payphone outside of the fake Kwik-E-Mart at the Florida theme park.  This is a YouTube video of some of the things it says. 

Chocolate and Ginger Muffins – Ah, childhood:

This has happened for as long as I can remember and when I was a child, Fridays after school went as follows: tennis practice from 5 until 6, then home to eat spaghetti and sausages on toast while watching The Simpsons, followed by a chocolate muffin. (I miss those days!!) Now I just eat the ‘Friday cake’ (I gave up tennis when I was about 15 to concentrate on music, I never get home in time from work to watch The SImpsons, and I’m probably now too health conscious to eat spaghetti and sausages out of a tin on a regular basis.)

What David Lynch And Tylenol Can Tell You About The Brain – Research is always about how you write it up:

About a half-hour after receiving either 1,000 milligrams of Tylenol or a sugar pill, volunteers were asked to watch a couple of minutes of a Donald Duck cartoon to loosen up.

Then they got to see one of two very different clips. One group watched a clip from Rabbits, a 2002 Lynch film that IMDb "a story of a group of humanoid rabbits and their depressive, daily life." Yep. The others watched a clip from The Simpsons.

Both groups then watched a few minutes of a Snoopy cartoon to distract them.

Still with me? The researchers then asked the volunteers to pass judgment on after the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup in 2011.

The people who got a placebo and watched Rabbits meted out greater punishment than those who’d kicked back with The Simpsons (Tylenol or not) and those who’d had the benefit of Tylenol while squirming to the surreal Lynchian clip.

Screw the Tylenol, it may just be that The Simpsons makes people nicer. 

John C. Moyer, 50, musician-hairdresser – A useful reminder that lots of unknown people do the grunt work:

John C. Moyer, 50, of Mount Airy, a piano player and recording engineer who later became a hairdresser, died Thursday, April 4, of liver disease at his home.

After playing in local pop bands in the early 1980s, Mr. Moyer shifted his focus to recording and opened Warehouse/J.E.M. Sound Recording Studios on Delaware Avenue in Northern Liberties.

He worked with such artists as Bon Jovi and DJ Jazzy Jeff, said his brother, Don. He also recorded works for an album, The Simpsons Sing the Blues, featuring the cartoon family.

Condolences. 

House of Cards indeed: does the ‘Netflix model’ diminish television as art? – I can’t say I agree with the basic idea here, that House of Cards (which is fantastic, if dumb, fun) is somehow diminished because people on the internet don’t write about it enough, but this is certainly true:

One of the reasons The Simpsons will prove to be, in this writer’s haughty, look-at-me-I’m-a-TV-blogger opinion, television’s greatest achievement is because it’s almost impossibly enduring. Those classic seasons just don’t age; even a generally under-appreciated episode like “A Streetcar Named Marge” only increases in stature the more I revisit it (if you don’t cackle hysterically at this The Birds reference at The Ayn Rand School for Tots — genius in itself — then I can nought but pity you).

The really don’t age.  It’s amazing. 

19
Apr
13

Reading Digest: Tapped Out Is a Bottomless Money Pit Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 10 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Homerpalooza8

“And to think, Smithers, you laughed when I bought Ticketmaster, ‘Nobody’s going to pay a hundred percent service charge’.” – C.M. Burns
“Well, it’s a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir.” – Mr. Smithers

The Tapped Out game continues to be a runaway hit for FOX and EA.  Freemium games that dribble out content in exchange for cash have proven to be goldmines, and the Simpsons one is at the head of the pack, which means that there’s quite a bit of internet discussion about it.  We’ve got a review of the latest expansion, an interview with an EA executive, and an article about the sneaky nature of freemium.  In addition to those, we’ve also got a couple of links to ye olde Simpsons video games, some great fan made stuff, excellent usage, and discussion of television pets and gimmicks.

Enjoy.

National Library Week!! – Excellent:

In the meantime, I did a few Instagrams through some old translucent Simpsons trading cards, at a local library. I now share here, to better show how some of us (represented by familiar cartoon icons) relate to our libraries.

Click through for the pictures.  They’re quite clever. 

The Simpsons Season 24 Review "What Animated Women Want" – This is a pretty fair summary of last week’s episode:

It’s a real feat for the late-era The Simpsons to feel even lazier than usual, but, alas, sometimes we still get episodes like “What Animated Women Want,” which rests largely on Lisa acting completely out of character, and a hacky Fifty Shades of Gray reference. It just all felt shapeless. Each side of the episode even got a guest star, neither of whom did much of anything.

Well put. 

The Simpsons’ Cupcake Mistake – And this is just a great way to describe Zombie Simpsons:

I have a habit of spotting continuation mistakes in TV programs, especially ones that are so blatant and sometimes it happens in cartoons/animation, but those aren’t so obvious… unless you’re the increasingly unfunny, hipstertastic Simpsons.

Heh, “hipstertastic”.  And that would explain all the sushi restaurants.

The ‘Malibu Stacy with new hat effect’. – Excellent usage:

Chiefly, what I’m going to pick on is Apple here, as they are the brand I am most familiar with that is guilty of producing these kinds of displays.

Drawing from that endless pool of Simpsons’ analogies, do you recall an episode where Lisa endeavours to make a doll that does not conform to female stereotypes? Shortly before this doll  (Lisa Lionheart) was released, a stand of dolls from monopoly brand Malibu Stacy is wheeled out, diverting the crowd of crazed girls.

“Look, cries one girl, “it’s Lisa Lionheart!”Another encourages them, “Keep running!  We’re almost there!”

They almost make it, except an employee pulls a cart full of Malibu Stacy dolls “with NEW hat” in their path.  They all stop: “They changed Malibu Stacy!” one exclaims.  “She is better than ever!” says another. Lisa tries to point out that the only difference is her stupid cheap hat. “She still embodies all the awful stereotypes she did before!” Smithers is quick to point out, “But she’s got a new hat.”

Perfectly quoted and very astute. 

Uruguay – U R GAY – Lots of people noted this connection when Uruguay went for marriage equality last week, but this one has YouTube. 

Feature: Retro Vault: Castle of Illusion and Bart vs The Space Mutants – Check out this awesome 1992 print ad for Bart vs. The Space Mutants on Genesis.  The copy is . . . unsubtle:

So help me save the earth!  BUY MY GAMES!  Thanks, man.

Month of Nostalgic Video Game Reviews 2 – The Simpsons: Bart’s Nightmare – Speaking of games from the early 90s:

Man, The Simpsons: Bart’s Nightmare was probably the first Simpsons game I played and was the strangest one. When I was younger this game used to freak me out a little, I think it was due to the strange nature of the dream universe that Bart was cruising through, some of the locations in the mini games were right weird and the music didn’t help either.

Email Roundtable #21 – No One Likes the Monkey – A Crazy Noises style discussion of TV pets which naturally includes lots of Simpsons discussion, everything from Blinky to Mojo. 

The Simpsons: Tapped Out and the popular world of currency hacks – This is about right:

Many free-to-play games these days do suffer from “unseasonable design.” The Simpsons: Tapped Out is an offender of this. EA only gives away a negligible amount of donuts as a reward for raising your level. This generosity is offset when EA raises the amount of donuts needed to complete a task. Some things can take six donuts to complete instantly. When the game first released, two donuts could be used to speed up the majority of tasks. The Simpsons: Tapped Out is not a player-friendly game. It’s a money pit that takes advantage of Simpsons fans.

Indeed it is. 

We talk to EA about The Simpsons smartphone game and mobile gaming in general – From an interview with an Australian/New Zealand EA executive:

One of EA’s biggest hits recently has been The Simpsons: Tapped Out. What do you think has enabled the game to become such a hit?

MF: There have been a number of contributing factors to The Simpsons: Tapped Out success. The game has been popular as it let new and old fans connect with the show; create their own Springfield with such a great history of characters; receive monthly content updates with tie-ins to episodes and iconic events like Treehouse of Horrors; and it is free to play. The Simpsons is an extremely popular show and has been over its 23 and counting year run on television. Everyone has a favourite episode.

Which episode of The Simpsons is your favourite one?

MF: Personally, mine is the eight episode of season four [“New Kid on the Block”] where Homer gets thrown out of the All-You-Can-Eat Seafood restaurant.

Well, he’s got good taste in episodes, and his ability to switch from execu-speak in the first question to normal English in the second is pretty impressive.

The Simpsons Tapped Out: Whacking Day – About the latest update:

Premium items are pretty bland this time, consisting of mainly vanity items.  There’s a basket of snake eggs, which won’t benefit you, but also an elite Whacking License (up to 10 snakes per friend).  Lumpy is also up for sale at 55 doughnuts, but I’m not sure if he/she/it is a character that just walks around or will be an inanimate object.

Why Bart Simpson Drives the Venezuelan Authorities Nuts – Click through for the picture:

Consider the little-known case of Miguel Ángel Hernández Souquett, a 51-year-old Venezuelan auto mechanic.

On February 5, 2010, at a baseball home game between Venezuela and Mexico, Hernández was arrested by agents of Venezuela’s military for the alleged crime of "offenses against the head of government." His crime? Hernández was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned with the cartoon character Bart Simpson, depicted with his trousers down and exposing his buttocks. Printed in black capital letters it read "Hugo, I shit on your revolution."

Ha.  Well done, sir.

Harry Shearer’s Radio Show Taken Off Air – Lame:

The funnyman has been hosting Le Show on Santa Monica’s Kcrw-Fm since 1983, but station executives have now decided to ditch the programme as part of a massive scheduling overhaul.

Bosses hope to continue distributing the programme as a podcast and for national radio syndication, but Shearer is angry he will no longer be heard on the station which launched the show.

He has even appealed for another local station to take him on, writing in series of posts on Twitter.com, "Any radio station in La want to carry Le Show?… Well I guess that’s the end of my Kcrw affair."

Shearer goes on to encourage fans of Le Show to express their thoughts to station bosses, adding, "Thjx (thanks) to La Le Show listeners for weighing in on Kcrw decision. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time."

Should you be so inclined, this is their contact page and this is their Twitter account.

Our Favorite Simpsons Episodes (with Pics) – A touch of Zombie Simpsons here, but nothing past Season 12.

Do You Only See Homer? – A college student writing about media crams in an impressive number of citations in just a few paragraphs, including this, which I’d never seen before:

As Turner muses, The Simpsons ‘‘has become the new repository of the West’s common metaphors’’ (Turner via Smith 2005).

Indeed.

Full Faith and Credits* – A post about the ways shows modify their opening credits, which naturally includes “the real grand-daddy of the constantly changing credits has to be The Simpsons”.

Best. Episode. Ever. (Round 10) – The 256 episode Simpsons bracket continues.  Here “Lady Bouvier’s Lover” beats “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”.  Elsewhere, “Sideshow Bob Roberts”, “Homer and Apu”, and “The Trouble With Trillions” all advance.   “The Homer They Fall” beat the undisputed king of Zombie Simpsons, “Eternal Moonshine of the Spotless Mind”:

I don’t want to be mean-spirited. I really do think “Moonshine” deserves praise, for its creative plot, elaborate animation and a few good jokes (like the “Ice Age” parody). But this tournament was set up to determine my favorite episode of my favorite TV show, and there are things here I just can’t overlook. The voice acting bugs me, too many of the jokes don’t land, the gimmicky plot is not strong enough to distract from its many holes.

That episode is way more inventive than typical Zombie Simpsons, but it definitely still sucks.

Here’s Conan O’Brien And A Bunch Of Old Writers Talking About The Simpsons – This is just a link to the O’Brien discussion from earlier this week, but it does contain a rather awesome animated .gif of O’Brien and Bart dancing before Bart is told to sit perfectly still.

“The Simpsons” Writers Reunion – Serious Jibber Jabber on Team Coco – This gets it about right:

It’s basically an extra-long DVD commentary (over 80 minutes long!) but for geeks of the show, it’s never dull.

I think Jean was relieved not to have to shoulder the entire discussion like he often has to on the Zombie Simpsons commentaries. 

Video: “The Simpsons” Writers Reunion on Serious Jibber-Jabber w/ Conan O’Brien – I had no problem watching it all the way through:

This may not get too many views and few will sit through the entire 80-minute video (I did) but this is up simply because it’s awesome. For fans of The Simpsons, the world of comedy, and the process and history behind legendary works in entertainment, this is gold.

It is.  (There’s a YouTube version at the link, if you want it.) 

The Simpsons Top 10- Number 9-Mr Plow – Lots of good YouTube here.

Doctor Who Monday: Cold War…In 10 Words – I sure could go for a hundred tacos right about now.

42 (movie)…In 10 Words – I never realized how boring this game is.

Scary Movie 5…In 10 Words – Instead it’s been weird and scary like that movie Police Academy. 

A 10 Word Tribute to Pat Summerall – He was always better than Brent Gunsilman. 

Today Calls for Some of This – Heh:

Yes, it’s Colonel Kwik-E-Mart’s Kentucky Bourbon.

Enjoy responsibly.

The Raven | Dec. 30, 1334 – Even I wouldn’t go quite this far:

A nostalgic read, reminding me of my days at Worthing Sixth Form College studying A-level English literature and great for me to pick-up anytime I want to read a short horror story or poem. It contains the poem The Raven as made famous by The Simpsons.

It was famous before the show, though it does seem that no one can talk about it now without mentioning “Treehouse of Horror”. 

50 most influential TV shows: Coronation Street and Columbo in, but no Mad Men or Sopranos – Unsurprisingly, The Simpsons makes the list.

15. Marge and Homer Simpson on The Simpsons – This is from a clickbait article on the “25 Most Sexual Sitcom Couples”.  That is all.

Homer and Marge Simpson: Greatest TV couple ever – The staff at EW.com gushes over Homer and Marge.  That is also all.

Journey to Double Jaw Surgery – This sounds terrible, but there is relief to be had:

Despite the horrendous nature of my recovery, it was brightened by having movies, lots of The Simpsons to watch, and Legend of Zelda to keep me busy

At least no one can drive her around the South and charge two bits a gander. 

Five Reasons Tina Belcher is the best thing to happen to Animated Televsion in Years – Yeah:

Let’s face facts: Animated Television for grownups is a bit of a barren landscape. Sure, Archer is still going strong into its fourth season and Adventure Time, while not strictly a grownup show, has real emotional moments underneath its absurd hilarity, but The Simpsons is a fraction of the shadow of its former self it used to be

A very small fraction. 

Does Sideshow Bob constitute true artistic excellence? – And finally, I get to end with someone who concisely agrees with us.  Asked for “true artistic excellence”:

Guante, hip-hop artist and educator, went back in time: "Honestly, what comes to mind right away — one of the reasons I am such a big critic of everything — is because I remember Seasons 3 through 10 of ‘The Simpsons,’ which is so well-written and well-constructed and incredible that it is hard to like anything else."

Amen.

29
Mar
13

Reading Digest: President Wolfcastle Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 7 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious6

“Welcome back to Before They Were Famous.  We all know Ranier Wolfcastle as the star of the blockbuster McBain movies, but here’s his first appearance in a commercial in his native Austria.” – Before They Were Famous Host
“Mein bratwurst has a first name, it’s F-R-I-T-Z.  Mine bratwurst has a second name it’s S-C-H-N-A-C-K-E-N-P-F-E-F-F-E-R-H-A-U-S-E-N.” – Ranier Wolfcastle

We’ve got two links about President Schwarzenegger in the movie this week.  Those were some of the best parts, but to this day it remains a mark of how timidly they made the thing that they didn’t have him named President Wolfcastle.  Did someone really think that people – who are paying to see a damn Simpsons movie – wouldn’t understand who the giant dude with the Austrian accent was?  Weird.  In addition to that we’ve got a FOX promotional video that is funny both intentionally and unintentionally, more about Bartkira, a video game video, more Simpsons college mascots, an unusual comparison of Edgar Allen Poe and the show, and someone who specifically agrees with us.

Enjoy.

(Today is also the release of issue #3 at the spinoff site.  Lotta good articles about television this time: Community, Bates Motel, and House of Cards all get looked at, and our cover image is an exclusive peek at Game of Thrones as it appeared in 1635.)

A Day in the Life with Yeardley Smith – This is a promotional YouTube video put out by FOX:

A few fun things:

  • They had to blur out the Toyota logo on Smith’s steering wheel, you know, in case the world thought Toyota paid for this or something.
  • Is that a Windows XP screen saver in the writers room?  Nice.
  • Jean’s deadpan delivery is excellent.
  • Matt Selman, funny guy: “We try not to do cliches on the Simpsons”.  Ha!  Good one, Matt!
  • Yeardley Smith, actually funny: “This is my office, where some days I just feel like I’m pretending.”

Akira-Meets-The-Simpsons Gets a Full Cast. It Might Surprise You. – The cast of the Simpsons-Akira thing from last week laid out in convenient graphical form.

‘The Simpsons’ voice actor Harry Shearer talks at Loyola April 8 – If you’re in New Orleans, this’ll probably be fun:

Harry Shearer, the legendary bassist in the 1984 rock and roll mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” and the voice of more than 20 characters on the hit animated sitcom “The Simpsons,” will discuss the evolution of his career at a forum at Loyola University New Orleans Monday, April 8 at 5 p.m.

[…]

the forum will feature clips from Shearer’s iconic television and film performances, including “This is Spinal Tap,” “Saturday Night Live” and “A Mighty Wind.” The event will also include never before seen footage from “Unwigged and Unplugged,” the 25th anniversary Spinal Tap concert tour film that was produced and directed by Gabour.

Every Videogame from The Simpsons – This is a College Humor video that charts video games in the show.  (Though it doesn’t actually have “Every” one.)  It’s amusing on its own, but more so when you notice that it’s a three minute video that runs to about the two minute mark before it gets to Zombie Simpsons, of which there are more than twice as many episodes.  (And that doesn’t change the fact that they play Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge over the credits.)  I don’t think Zombie Simpsons has that many fewer games in it, I just think the College Humor people didn’t want to bother slogging through it.  (Thanks to @PepCulture!)

Gary Panter Draws Bart Simpson – Cool:

So I apologize for the size of this image but I thought it was so cool it deserved posting anyway: this is a drawing of Bart from “The Simpsons” by the astonishing Gary Panter; part of a subset of “Arty Art” chase cards from one of the Simpsons trading card sets. By far the best one, in my humble opinion. Thought you’d enjoy.

Little-known fact: Panter and Matt Groening are great friends;

Click through for the image and the full story.

The Simpsons Couch Gag Supercut – I will let the link explain itself:

This is the Supercut I made for University, displaying a small portion of the good old episode of The Simpsons. I did have more material to use, but I didn’t want it to be too long.

It goes through what looks like about the middle of Season 4 with couch gags, and it’s strangely mesmerizing.

The Simpsons – drawing time lapse – What it says, gets more fun to watch near the end as your eyes have to hunt for the little changes in shading and color.

LEGO The Simpsons coming in 2014? – The Simpsons-Lego thing is still just a rumor, but a Lego blog has helpfully scrounged up some images of what they might look like.

Which Simpsons character is your alma mater? – In addition to the Big Ten, there’s now similar lists for the ACC and Big XII, and a gag one about the SEC.  West Virginia and TCU are pretty good, but why on earth is Frink Duke?  Duke should be the blue haired lawyer or possibly Burns.

MMV: Do the Bartman – A short dissection of the Bartman video.  I never noticed this:

The animation directors who normally worked on the show did not want to do the video; they needed to remain focused on episodes. So it was given to a relative newcomer, a man who had only one TV episode to his directing resume at the time: Brad Bird. Bird, of course, would go on to direct the feature films The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille.

Brad Bird, is there anything he can’t do?

Don Payne dies at 48; ‘Simpsons’ writer and producer – Payne was on board for the last year of the show, worked on Zombie Simpsons for a while and then wrote movies.  Condolences.

17 Times The Simpsons Copied Famous Movies – This is just a comparison, and for some reason includes one image from Zombie Simpsons, but it’s a pretty good one and comes with several neat animated .gifs.

Books to read when you are in a funk – A discussion of Poe that mentions the show without mentioning “The Raven” segment:

I am sure that when these stories were written in the 1840s, they probably were quite shocking and disturbing, but I didn’t find them as grisly as I expected them to be. This could be for a number of reasons.

A) I think that, generally, we are less sensitized to violence these days. For example, I watched ‘An Interview with a Vampire’ for the first time the other week (I know, where have I been). It is rated as an 18, but to be honest the violence (a bit of blood trickling from a bite and the odd decapitation) is no worse than that seen on ‘Itchy and Scratchy’ on ‘The Simpsons’.

I guess people really were easier to scare back then.

We Need to Talk About Sidewalks – True:

This is a phenomenon—you might have seen it—when a pack of young scallywags walk in a perfectly straight line across the sidewalk, taking up the entire path.

This can lead to two things.

One, I or another unsuspecting victim could end up stuck behind said group, likely walking at a pace comparable to a snail dragging a giant shame rock behind him [like Homer’s when the Stonecutters got all up in his grill] and forcing me to either go off roading or draft behind the slowest peloton in history.

Sidewalk’s for regular walking, not for fancy walking.

The Simpsons Family- A Drawing – Remember that kid who had only watched Season 11 and after from last week?  Well, he can draw pretty well.

3 of the Best vs 3 of the Worst – Fictional Movie Presidents. – President Shouldabeen-Wolfcastle makes both lists!  Well done.

The Nine Best Television Butt Antics – This is a pretty solid list, with Bart’s Nixon impression included in the title image.  I don’t know if it was limit one per show, but I’d definitely have included Homer’s impression of Mr. Burns.

The Croods…In 10 Words – Look, Maggie, they have a baby too.

Luigi’s Mansion…In 10 Words – Probably just Tim Conway.

Email Roundtable #20 – “I Take Thee, Rachel”: Our Favorite TV Weddings – Homer and Marge’s is on here, though I’ve always enjoyed Selma and Sideshow Bob’s too.  Where else can you find a loaded police revolver by the cake?

5 Great Fictional Bands – The Be Sharps handily make the list.

3/26: Some favorite things – Pretty much:

3. The Simpsons. When you can say, “Moe is their leader,” and get a good chuckle back, you know that a) you have an inextricable bond, and b) you have watched season 2 too often.

Also, there’s YouTube of Leonard Nimoy singing about Bilbo Baggins, which will never get old.

Internet Win of the Day: March 26 – Heh:

Just something I thought was awesome for reals …

I think Planters should Poochie up Mister Peanut & turn him into a rapper called P. Nutz

— Michael Kupperman (@MKupperman) March 26, 2013

As someone who has devoted his entire life to making Seinfeld references, I respect anyone who plies that craft in the service of the other great comedic television masterpiece of the ’90s, The Simpsons.

Pop 5: Cinematic Presidents – I’d agree with pretty much all of this:

While technically a real person, this is pretty much a fictional character. And while I think this concept is hilarious, I don’t understand why the President wasn’t fictional film actor Ranier Wolfcastle. As all Simpsons fans know, Ranier Wolfcastle is basically Arnold Schwarzenegger. In The Simpsons Movie, Shearer is doing the exact same character, but for some reason they decide to call him Arnold Schwarzenegger. Was this to relate more to an main stream audience? Whatever the case, he’s still really funny. And even though he has little screen time, Schwarzenegger makes his moments stick. His scenes are also enhanced by the villain, Russ Cargill, head of the EPA and voiced by Albert Brooks. There’s a lot that works about the Simpsons Movie, and a lot that doesn’t work. The scenes with President Arnold definitely work.

As mentioned above, he should’ve been named Wolfcastle, and his parts were among the better ones in the movie.

Bonestorming Your Way Through Life – And finally, not only do I get to end with someone who agrees with us, I get to end with a brand new Simpsons blog that really specifically agrees with us:

The Simpsons took their shot at the long-running series in “Marge Be Not Proud” –an episode that I have more familiarity than most other episodes due to it being, in the era preceeding Netflix and rampant DVD release, one of like three episodes that I had managed to record off of TV during the show’s nightly airing. The episode is an oddity in The Simpsons’s history. Situated in the middle of seventh season, “Marge Be Not Proud” is right in the middle of the series’ tallest years –arguable, but in this writer’s estimation, we’re talking seasons 3-10, here –yet seems to, rather suddenly, get extremely moral-centered –i.e stealing is bad. Considering you have Homer Simpson wailing on former president George H. W. Bush just two episodes later, this heavy-handed inclusion can leave you with the same confusion you might have if Rayden started shooting unicorns from his fingertips instead of lightning.

Amen.  It is, as I’ve said many times, a true oddity in Season 7.

22
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Great (And Not) Songs Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 8 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

All Singing, All Dancing1

“Singing is the lowest form of communication.” – Homer Simpson
“Homer, you sing all the time.” – Marge Simpson
“No, I don’t.  I hate to rhyme.” – Homer Simpson

The first item this week isn’t even a link, it’s just a cute dog sent in by reader David:

I just got a new French bulldog puppy not too long ago and of course named her “Beatrice Simmons” after my 2nd favorite episode next to “Lisa’s Substitute”.

Aww:

Bea Simmons

I bet Audrey Meadows would love that.  (Good work, David.)

In terms of regular stuff this week, we’ve got musical entertainment all over the place.  There’s a fan made song about Milhouse, plus a list of some of the current show’s writer’s favorite songs (unsurprisingly, there is way too much Zombie Simpsons), and someone who was inspired by that to break out two old Simpsons CDs.  In addition to all that, we’ve got a Simpsons sand sculpture, Vulture magazine trolling the internet, a poor soul who’s mostly seen Season 11 and later, and an interview with Jay Kogen that would’ve been longer except that the Huffington Post is run by monkeys.  

Enjoy.

Artist organizing ‘Simpsons’ and ‘Akira’ mash-up – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this call to action:

“Milhouse is Kaneda. Lisa is Kei. Bart is Tetsuo,” Harvey posted on his blog. “Let’s do it.”

The idea all started when artist Ryan Humphrey posted an impromptu short mash-up of the two, provoking Harvey to take that errant idea and turn it into a full-scale project with different artist drawing different portions of the book. Harvey is taking submissions from artists at bartkiracommittee@gmail.com. He’ll choose the artists, and give each a five-page segment of the story and guidelines of which Akira characters match up with which Simpsons characters.

As for the $64,000 question that all of you are no doubt asking, Harvey was upfront about the legality. “Since it’ll be non-profit, parody/satire, crowdsourced and distributed peer-to-peer, I feel like it’s juuust on the right side of the legal grey area it inhabits,” Harvey explained. “If not — let’s do it anyway. I’ll take the rap.”

I cannot draw, and I’ve only ever seen the Akira movie, but many of you who read this site can draw and have read the books, so there you go.  Click here to see the original images.  Damn good idea.

This song about Milhouse from The Simpsons will bring a tear to your eye – This was making the rounds earlier this week, and deserves the full embed treatment because it is awesome:

The young lady on the left there has an album coming out soon, and (h/t to @dailysimpsons) also has a song about Grimes:

Excellent.

My Favorite ‘Throwaway’ Simpsons Joke – While we’re on the subject of Milhouse, YouTube of “guess who likes you”. 

Playwrights Horizons Season To Range from Simpsons to Kama Sutra – Everybody’s favorite post-apocalyptic Simpsons play is coming to New York City:

The season will begin with “Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play,” a post-apocalyptic tale by Anne Washburn about a future in which the “Cape Feare” episode of the “The Simpsons” is all that remains of Western literature. The play was unveiled last year at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, D.C., to good reviews. The New York production will have the same director, Steve Cosson, and previews start Aug. 23.

It’ll probably make it out here to the provinces shortly before the actual apocalypse. 

‘Simpsons’ Writer Reveals Origin Of Bart’s Hair – A short video interview with Jay Kogan about James L. Brooks.  There’s a link to a longer (30 minute) interview that I couldn’t get to work in Firefox or IE because – holy shit – “Huffpost Live” is the worst designed video site I’ve seen since about 2003.  It’s cluttered, confusing, plays something (not necessarily the video you want) as soon as the page opens, and has all kinds of other problems I thought the internet had overcome a long time ago.  Jebus. 

Ned Flanders – It’s Pronounced SHAH-DAY ep by Llama Farm Recordings – There’s someone calling himself Ned Flanders putting pretty decent house music on Soundcloud.  That is all. 

The Big Ten Conference (2014 version) – From reddit comes this rather good image:

Simpsons Big Ten

Barney as Wisconsin is my favorite, though the whole thing is a bit spoiled by using that lame Zombie Simpsons turtle instead of, say, the one Homer kicks in “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer”.

There is no flaw in the Simpsons – Speaking of reddit, Bill Oakley tweeted this earlier this week.  It’s true, there is no flaw. 

Hallelujah. S1 – Best door ever. 

Steve Hummer: So many Halls of Fame to visit – Excellent usage:

“The Simpsons” has taught us so much through the years. On the big subjects such as child-rearing, work ethic and diet. And on matters as seemingly trivial as appreciating our nation’s obscure sporting shrines.

“Homer,” Marge Simpson asked her husband in one episode, “do you remember our last family vacation when you made us go to the Bowlers’ Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Mo., so you could see that car shaped like a giant bowling pin?”

“Remember?” Homer answered. “Who could forget?”

I am proud to say I, too, have made that pilgrimage, and thrilled to the story of the late Don Carter’s rise from humble pinsetter to champion to Paula Sperber’s husband.

Perfectly quoted and highly apt. 

If I could turn back time… – Don’t think I’ve ever seen the episode, but that’s a pretty decent joke:

As Lisa Simpson said to Professor Frink’s Dad when he was brought back to life in Treehouse of Horror XIV, ”Sir your son has brought you into the twenty-first century. It’s a lot like the twentieth but everyone’s afraid and the stock market is much lower.”

It’s even aged well.

Bubble Bath Decapitations • Bart Simpson – Heh. 

"Mr. Burns" Presides Over Trial of "Bart Simpson" – Via @rubbercatsimp comes this amusing real life crime story:

But given enough time, at least some subset of all possible events will obviously happen, and some of them will be extremely unlikely. And so it was that on Monday, "Barton Simpson" stood trial before "Mr. Burns":

Few details were available, but according to this report Simpson was charged with possessing a prohibited firearm at Birmingham Airport last year, but pleaded not guilty. (So this may have been only a preliminary hearing, not a trial.) A court worker was quoted as saying, "It’s a bizarre coincidence that Bart Simpson is actually on trial in front of Mr Burns but it’ll proceed as any other criminal case would." Did a reporter actually ask something like, "How will the proceedings change given the fact that two of the participants share names with characters in an American cartoon?"

I guess that’s not impossible, it just seems really unlikely.

Sitcom Smackdown Finals: Cheers vs. The Simpsons – Vulture decided that The Simpsons was the best sitcom.  I did not need to be told that.

The Simpsons’ Writers Pick Their Favorite Songs – And then Al Jean showed up at Vulture to take victory lap and try to slip some Zombie Simpsons songs into a list of best Simpsons songs.  Nice try, Al, and while it’s not scientific or anything, this reader list that comments on yours doesn’t contain anything from Zombie Simpsons. 

Songs in the Key of Springfield & Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons – This is short, so I’m going to quote it in its entirety:

Yesterday, The Ten Best Simpsons Songs, As Picked by the Show’s Writers showed up in my Twitter feed. There are some fine songs in that list, but there are also some fine songs mentioned in the comments section to the story that were left off of the list, too. So, I pulled out my Simpsons CDs for my drive today. It was a pretty good time. I’d like to tell you that I am embarrassed that I know the words to all of the songs, but I’m not. Not one bit.

Neither is anyone else here.  The track lists are just a murderer’s row of stuff from the show, and you get things like that demo singer version of the garbage man song with the extra verse about Milhouse’s parents getting divorced.  

18 Academic Papers About ’90s TV Shows – There are two about 9the show on here, one titled (via) “From the Simpsons to the Bundys: A critical analysis of disrespectful discourse in television narratives”.  Now that’s my kind of science. 

The Best Sitcoms of the Past 30 Years – And as always, the Cost of Zombie Simpsons is borne by the young:

The past few weeks, Vulture has been has been having a bracket-style “Sitcom Smackdown” to determine the best sitcom of the the past 30 years.  Yesterday, The Simpons was chosen as the winner.  Today, however, Arrested Development was crowned in the readers’ bracket.  Here’s how I how I would have ranked the shows that were in contention.

[…]

4. The Simpsons (started watching regularly in season 11, seen a handful of episodes from before then)

That’s just tragic, like watching the Star Wars prequels only or something. 

You’re running a marathon! Ha! Ha! – This sign is exactly what you want to see around Mile 20 or so.  (Thanks, Jill!)

Simpsons: Tapped Out…In 10 Words – I have selected power drive.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone…In 10 Words – So much nicer than the savagery of the jungle, ja? 

Leprechaun (movie)…In 10 Words – He tells me to burn things.

“Numero Uno” and “Due” – Excellent Simpsons art of Homer made from . . . words, or printing press letters, something.  Credited as “Mixed media by Barbara Guolo”.  Well done.

The Mercedes G63 AMG 6×6 vs. The Simpsons’ Canyonero: Which Is the Badass-est? – Mercedes has created a six wheeled monstrosity, this is a comparison.  They should’ve made it two lanes wide. 

Horror Story – An unfortunate bathroom encounter punctuated by a great YouTube of Homer’s screams set to the Simpsons tune. 

UltChart Tweets For 16 March 2013 – UK/US/Aus No1s on this day – Here’s something I didn’t know:

22 years ago this week (1991) ♫ The Simpsons – Do the Bartman♫ topped the Australian Chart

Click through for YouTube of that and other hits. 

Cake Bart Simpson – Lini Geriana – No idea what language this is, but it’s a rather cute Bart cake, and that needs no translation. 

Diary of an Arts Graduate #16 – Heh:

- A local Toronto resident is in the news because his name is Francis Pope. Reminded me of the episode where Homer Simpson becomes famous because he shares the same name with a popular television character, also named Homer Simpson. Never thought I’d see the day where instead of art imitating life, its life imitating The Simpsons.

Homer Simpson on the beach in Barcelona – Sand sculpture of Homer.

The Shining (1980) – A discussion of the movie that includes shaky cam YouTube of The Shinning with subtitles some language I can’t even identify. 

The Five Worst Musical Guests In Simpsons History – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us.  After listing four pointless musical cameos from Zombie Simpsons, Kid Rock showing up in “Kill the Alligator and Run” checks in at #1:

Not only is the episode absolutely dreadful, and Kid Rock’s cameo completely pointless, but it marks the turning point when I personally realized that The Simpsons was never going to be a great show again. It came on the heels of a wildly successful run for the first nine seasons and even if Season 10 had its ups and downs, it seemed like the show could still rebound.

This episode, however, ended up being unwatchable. So congrats, Kid Rock. Whether you meant to or not, you will forever be associated in my mind with the day that one of the greatest shows of all time started to suck.

Amen.

15
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Sam Simon Rocks His Cancer Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 9 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags: ,

One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish9

“Now, a little death anxiety is normal.  You can expect to go through five stages.  The first is denial.” – Dr. Hibbert
“No way, because I’m not dying!” – Homer Simpson
“Second is anger.” – Dr. Hibbert
“Why you little!” – Homer Simpson
“After that comes fear.” – Dr. Hibbert
“What’s after fear?  What’s after fear?” – Homer Simpson
“Bargaining.” – Dr. Hibbert
“Doc, you gotta get me out of this.  I’ll make it worth your while.” – Homer Simpson
“Finally, acceptance.” – Dr. Hibbert
“Well, we all gotta go some time.” – Homer Simpson
“Mr. Simpson, your progress astounds me.” – Dr. Hibbert

The big, endlessly repeated Simpsons story this week was a piece of non-news: that there still isn’t a movie sequel in the works.  Groening and Silverman made an appearance and basically said that there are no plans right now for a second movie.  Since the pop-culture internet is often an inch deep/mile wide kind of affair, that became countless misleading headlines like this “The Simpsons Movie ‘ Sequel Should Be Here In ’10, 15 Years’”.  That’s not what they said at all, but run through copy & paste long enough, that’s what it becomes.  They said they weren’t working on a new one, which is unchanged from last year, and the year before that.  Carry on.

There was another piece of Simpsons news this week, though it didn’t get picked up in near as many places: Sam Simon has cancer, the really bad kind.  He announced it publicly on a radio show hosted by one of Howard Stern’s acolytes, and . . . well, you can listen for yourself.  Suffice to say, if cancer is what ends up getting me, I hope I handle it half as well as he is.  All the best to him. 

On more usual topics, we’ve got a beer review, the intentionally broken downside of “freemium” games, a great Homer cosplay, a Simpsons joke I’d never caught before, some Simpsons related roommate love, and a kid who wants to try out The Simpsons and needs some advice. 

Enjoy.

(Oh, and today is Issue #2 of the Ann Arbor Review of Books.  Get ’em while the pixels are still wet.)

Sam Simon announces he has colon-cancer on HOWARD 101 – The cancer part starts at the 6:30 mark:

I started to transcribe some of what he said, but it really doesn’t come across in print.  The radio guy is kinda flustered and screws up a few times, but Simon is laughing, bullshitting, and as at ease as it is possible for someone in his situation.  Sam Simon fucking owns. 

Matt Groening: ‘Simpsons’ Movie Follow-Up is Far, Far Away – No new movie is in the works.  We can all breathe easy, but if they wanted to make some more theatrical shorts, I’d be okay with that. 

Top 10 Simpsons Episodes – A great opening to a great list:

My forehead is creased beyond measure. Sweat pours of out my…uhh, pores. I grunt in frustration and viciously bite the end of my already well-chewed pen. I am trying to achieve the unachievable: narrow down my favourite Simpsons episodes.

It is very difficult, but this is a good one.  There’s is nothing from after Season 9 and it comes with quotes.  Bravo. 

Help Needed On Which Simpsons TV Series To Buy!!! – A young man asks a question:

I’ve been reading some Simpsons comics lately, and I was thinking that maybe I’d get a Simpsons DVD with some of my leftover birthday money (£40). I never knew there were over 30 series tho :eek:

Now, maybe the obvious thing to do would be to start with 1 and work my way through the series :roll: , but from a few reviews I’ve read, the first 5 or so series aren’t all that :neutral: . I thought that maybe I’d start with Series 11 or 12?!

Which series do you advise I purchase? Which series was best in your opinion?

Fortunately several commenters over there already pointed him in the right direction (far, far away from “Series 11 or 12”).  Amazon UK would appear to have Season 2, Season 3, and Season 4 for £12 each, and that’d be my recommendation. 

Meme Monday: Milhouse is Not a Meme – Is Milhouse a meme?  Click through for the mildly amusing answer. 

Krusty the Clown and the Star of David – I never noticed that before either.  Well done, animators. 

Steve Carell’s Disappearing Act – A review of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone:

The movie is structured as though it’s an expanded Krusty the Clown episode of The Simpsons. At the start, Wonderstone stands near the top of his magician world. Thanks to hubris and bad investments, he loses everything, and then he has to claw back. This being a mainstream Hollywood comedy, there’s also a redemptive arc even more rote than the soundtrack cues, which include Us3′s "Cantaloop" and C+C Music Factory’s "Everybody Dance Now" with no apparent irony.

What is it with big studio comedies screwing up their third acts?

Homer fought bums. – I’m not a big fan of that episode, but this is damn true:

I love the moral at the end. It totally makes you forget how the episode was entirely about Homer fighting homeless people while Moe made bets on the side and attempted to get rich off the physical harm of a friend. As long as there is a moral at the end, you can do anything. Had it been real life? Moe would have let Homer get beaten to death and went on living his life rich as fuck.

That would’ve been a much better ending.

Kristen Stewart’s Twilight character, Bella Swan, beats Marge Simpson as she is named favourite movie mum! – Someone did a survey about movie mothers.  Marge did win funniest and come in second on “Most Embarrassing”.

Isotopes Slammin’ Amber – A review of the beer on sale at the Isotope’s park in Albuquerque. 

Cosplays da Semana #5 – Scroll about halfway down for a great Homer costume.  Scroll further down for a fantastic “Sims” costume. 

Roomie – Heh:

4) Shared values, beliefs and endless conversation: Bri and I literally never run out of things to talk or laugh about – a sign of the truest true friendship. We go from talking about our day, to clothes, to ingrained sexism and feminist theory, to travel plans to guys to referencing Simpsons. There is a lot of Simpsons references that go on in our house.

A short and stylish Simpsons webcomic set in a post-apocalyptic Springfield – The comic that got started as a part of that Tumblr about drawing the Simpsons continues.  My only question: if you’re going to have a post-apocalyptic Simpsons comic, where’s the guy who drives a school bus by day?

Exclusive: Images From SXSW Doc On Branson, Missouri ‘We Always Lie To Strangers’ Plus Trailer – You can’t make a documentary about Branson without someone bringing up The Simpsons:

For a certain generation, their only knowledge of Branson, Missouri may be from a quip by Bart Simpson who once said that Homer described it as "Las Vegas if it was run by Ned Flanders." Indeed, known for its own brand of colorful nightlife and entertainment, the city is far from a punchline, and has become one of the top tourist destinations in America. And starting this weekend at the SXSW Film Festival, you can take a closer look at Branson and what it means to live and perform there.

Boy Racks Up £980 Virtual Donut Bill In The Simpsons: Tapped Out – That there is no automatic cutoff well before you get to a thousand dollars speaks volumes about what a rip-off most of these systems are:

Just like how oil and water do not mix, so too, do 8-year-old boys and an iPad (or tablet). Sort of, anyways, especially when you hear of Theo Rowland-Fry who hails from Bristol, UK, and actually racked up £980 worth of online transactions to purchase virtual donuts while playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out on his father’s iPad. It could easily have happened on an Android-powered tablet, too, so do take note!

It is nice to hear that Apple did refund their money – every single shilling of it, after taking into consideration their unique position in this case. It is also comforting to know that Apple has a heart, considering such incidents on a case-by-case basis.

Don’t you think you’ve spent enough?  No.  Okay, we’re required by law to ask every seventy-five hours.  Get the kid another free milk. 

Once Upon and Engagement… – Mulling over wedding themes comes this storybook tale:

I think one of the first “he’s my soul mate” moments was when we realize that our Simpsons collection matched up perfectly. I had seasons 1, 3, 9, and 10 and he had 2, 4, 5, and 7. When we realized we had no overlapping seasons for our favorite TV show, we bought seasons 6 and 8 together. It was a perfect nerd romance story.

Who says that romance is dead after being acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece?  That’s beautiful. 

The Things That Make Me Go Hmmmm…. – Kids can be so cruel:

In 1991, I was in Grade Six at Stuart Park Primary School in Darwin.  The Simpsons craze had just hit and for my birthday, I got a Bart Simpson figurine that gave me hours of joy, regardless of the fact that I couldn’t move his arms or legs or turn his head.  In a kerfuffle with Ames and Josh one day, the siblings took Bart Simpson hostage, gave him a haircut (by chopping off his rubber spikes) and amputated all his fingers.

Those bastards!

Television – The show as viewed from Spain, including a picture of “La Taberna De Moe II”.  Viva life! 

Remembering A Chicken & A Baby Differently – It took me a very long time to get this joke:

From “Thirty Minutes over Toyko“, the season finale of The Simpsons 10th season,

Marge: “You liked Rashomon.”
Homer: “That’s not how I remember it.”

[…]

I love the first one because it’s a joke utterly in-keeping with Homer’s character. He says nonsensical and utterly random things, so his saying “That’s not how I remember it” doesn’t have to mean anything more than Homer being Homer. Its meta reference and next level of joke are ramped up by understanding that Rashomon is a story about differing perceptions and accounts of the same events.  In the film version, all three characters remember the same day and same events differently. Homer, thus stating he doesn’t remember the movie the same way Marge does is an homage to the Rashomon Effect itself.  I believe it was (but can’t quite remember, as I’ve read at least three books about The Simpsons) Planet Simpson that cited this sort of joke as being the cornerstone of the Simpson universe. They’re jokes that work as one-offs but to the person examining them at a meta level they work amazing wonders.

They do.

Five of the best posts from our new favourite Twitter account, Simpsons Quote of the Day – This is about a relatively new Simpsons quote Twitter account, but it’s pretty good.

Hypnotoad evolved from the frog Bart Simpson introduced to Australia – This is from a subreddit called “Fan Theories”, so set your internal geek-o-stat to 11, but the first entries are a discussion over whether Futurama is a show within The Simpsons, vice versa, or both.  For sheer fan panache, that is impressive. 

In the naughty corner: online gags flow over cricket’s ‘homework’ debacle – This is about Australia’s cricket team, so forgive me if I’m misunderstanding this, but it would appear that there’s a bit of a spat between the coach and some players, and that someone used the Bart chalkboard generator site to make fun of the coach, which then got picked up on Twitter.  I love living in the future. 

The Papal Conclave…In 10 Words – Now let’s all get drunk and play ping-pong!

Pope Francis I…In 10 Words –Buenos noches, mein fuhrer.

Things I Really Hate To Admit – Ha:

6. I didn’t know only women have ovaries until I was 15. It didn’t help that on an episode of the Simpsons, Bart once faked a stomach ache to get out of a test, yelling “Ohh! My ovaries!”…I thought they were stomach muscles.

“Black Eyed, Please” | The Simpsons – I don’t usually read reviews of Zombie Simpsons episodes, but I’m glad I didn’t watch last week’s:

When Principal Skinner tells Homer and Marge that he can’t get rid of Ms. Cantwell due to union rules, Homer growls, “I hate unions. There’s a guy at the plant, caused three meltdowns, and he still keeps his job.” That should have been the end of the scene, but Marge answers, “Homer, that’s you.” And Homer says, “Oh, yeah. I say ‘union,’ you say ‘power!’” That’s still not the end of the gag, but you’ve suffered enough.

Dag 034 – A great Barney shirt.

Dag 033 – A “Springfield Choppers” t-shirt. 

Death of The Simpsons – Yes:

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and all the other memorable characters are always going to remembered and thought of as a legendary piece of American TV history. All great things have to come to an end and it has been due time for The Simpsons to be put in the TV Hall of Fame and off of normal broadcast television.

Let’s remember The Simpsons’ greatness of the past but not diminish it anymore than it already has been with a bad product no one is watching. It’s time for the The Simpsons’ tombstone to be chiseled.

Fox Can’t Handle Nice Things – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us, in this case, very succinctly:

They cancelled Firefly before its time and let The Simpsons go on long after it jumped the shark. In other words, they all have whacked-out poo brain

Indeed they do.

08
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Overpriced Video Game Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 13 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Waterworld Game

“Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty quarters, this better be good.” – Milhouse van Houten
“Game over.  Please deposit forty quarters.” – Waterworld Game
“What a rip!” – Milhouse van Houten

This week we’ve got four different links about the Tapped Out game.  Three of them are about how damned annoying and greedy it is when it comes to squeezing you to keep putting in virtual quarters after a minute or two of gameplay.  We’ve also got a couple of great pieces of fan made photography, the Bill Plympton opening from this Sunday’s episode of Zombie Simpsons, a boss Bart tattoo, two different respectable media outlets mocking the show for their Harlem Shake entry, a rather obscene car decal, and a truncated Wall Street Journal article that says the Simpsons are about to go Lego.

Enjoy.

House of Simpson family – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this fan made drawing of the Simpson home.  Reader Sam, who sent this in, described it as “lovingly detailed”, and that it is.  The attention to detail is just wonderful, and you can buy prints.  Thanks, Sam! 

60/365 – Close up artsy picture of Lisa and Bleeding Gums figurines jamming under a starry sky.  The musical notes in the air are a nice touch.

Be Who You Feel You Are – From a different photographer (assuming that’s not photoshop) comes this picture of Homer imagining himself with Herb’s hair and Flanders’ stomach.  Damn well done.

Mega Homer – Fan made drawing of Homer as Mega Man riding Santa’s Little Helper as Rush.  Cool.

Exclusive Sneak Preview: The Simpsons Go Noir – Sunday’s episode of Zombie Simpsons is getting a nicely stylish opening courtesy of Bill Plympton.  You can watch it here on-line so you don’t have to watch in on TV.  The future!

Matt Groening’s Artwork for Apple – Groening’s Life in Hell style brochure for Apple from 1989.  (I’ve linked it before, but it makes the rounds every now and again, so why not link it when it does?)  (via)

Dag 030 – A joke t-shirt with Homer sitting on a chair captioned “Perseverance” with the punchline “If something is hard it’s not worth doing”.  The actual quote, of course, is “If something’s hard to do, then it’s not worth doing”, but it’s still a cool shirt.

Missed Opportunities: Freemium Subtlety – A less than enthusiastic report from the Tapped Out game:

When creating a freemium app game, where you need to encourage players to spend money, it’s important not to beat them over the head. The Simpsons Tapped Out doesn’t seem to get this, and constantly badgers the player to cough up some dough.

Poorly made micro-transactions are killing gaming. – More in that vein:

To speed this up, they include the use of “doughnuts” a form of premium currency in the game and the thing that irks me the most has to be the fact that they don’t even state a price before you buy it, the game pushes you to buy them through impulsive purchases because they know that people will buy them because the game takes so long for everything to even happen you’re forced to through pure impatience, this means less gameplay and more sitting around and waiting unless you choose to buy their premium currency, what’s the point in that? I’d rather you not let the game go free-to-play if you’re just going to cover that up through a horrible form of in game currency which we are forced to buy.

The future of gaming, micro-transactions – And why they do it:

Star Trek Online, Lord of Ultima, Dungeons and Dragons online and The simpsons What’s the common thread? You can play them but if you want to see the closing credits you’re going to need to peel off some green.

It’s become a very lucrative space with $25 million made by EA in the last quarter of 2012 just on their  Simpsons mobile  game alone.

[…]

Of course you don’t have to purchase the extra content but your experience will be diminished compared to those that do.  EA’s Blake J. Jorgensen thinks that’s where the money is.

“The next and much bigger piece is micro transactions within games…  we’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever… and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business“

I’m not so sure consumers are “enjoying “micro-transactions as much as they’re just tolerating them at this point.  The model  can work if your upfront investment is minimal but the future may not be so certain if we’re still paying triple-A prices.

Indeed.  And let’s not forget that EA’s SimCity release is going about as poorly as it is possible for something to go.  (Also, nice WordPress theme.)

The Simpsons Tapped Out Android Hack | Unlimited Money & Doughnuts – Should ye be as frustrated as the above three, I present this without comment as I do not own an Android device on which to test it.

Lego Eyes Tie-Up With ‘The Simpsons’ – Speaking of merchandising money, this is behind one of Murdoch’s idiotic paywalls, so you can’t read the whole thing, but here’s the opening:

COPENHAGEN – Lego, looking to expand its string of partnerships with media franchises, is in talks with 20th Century Fox about making a toy set based on TV show The Simpsons, a spokesman said on Thursday.

A deal would pair the fast-growing Danish toy maker with what is believed to be the longest running scripted show in U.S. TV history.  The Simpsons has a cult following and appeals to younger audiences as well as adults who have followed the show since they were children.

We’re getting ever closer to Simpsons the flame thrower.

Homer Simpson’s Poker Face – A nice little writeup of a small talk Simon gave to some students at Old Dominion last week.

Talk of the Town: These folks love animals! – A retired school teacher named Sue Simpson has dogs named Bart and Ralph.  Ha!

100 More Simpsons Quotes, In Order Of Importance – Lotta good quotes here.

Quick Reviews: Oscar Nominated Shorts – Well, the Oscars are gone, but how about one more review:

Filled with visual gags and recognisable faces, Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” manages to impressively entertain audiences even whilst feeling no more original than an episode of The Simpsons. The choice to create the film from Maggie’s point of view with no dialogue is a respectable one, and the film’s plot is solid and witty enough to maintain laughter. The ending is surprising and you root for Maggie throughout, but this film ultimately falls flat and one can’t help but feel that a webisode is a more suitable format (legitimacy of web videos for this category aside) and one where the film would fit in with it’s peers much better.

Homer Simpson Bape Character – Just what it says.

“Die Bart Die” from the Tattoo Shooting Gallery – Awesomely grotesques tattoo of Bart with a knife through his head.

BOO-URNS – It’s another Simpsons Tumblr with lots of images and .gifs (and very little Zombie Simpsons).  It’s maintained by this young lady:

When I was younger I could relate to it because my family was pretty similar. I was the (pardon my lack of modesty) smarty-pants little sister, my brother was more similar to Bart than anyone I had ever met, my mother was super-maternal and maybe a little traditional-housewifey. I can’t stress how different my Dad is from Homer, but you get the point.

I do.  Well done.

Andy Wilson: Rich Moore: From The Simpsons to Wreck-It Ralph – Jebus, the Huffington Post sucks.  This should’ve been an interview with Rich Moore, instead it’s mostly filler.

Homer Simpson: Trolling Jesus – I don’t think this really counts as trolling, it’s just a subtitled screen grab of Homer’s joke about Jesus needing better arch support.  Still cracks me up every time.

Top 5 Best Beatle Album Covers – Includes the Simpsons parody of Sgt. Pepper’s.

My favorite TV shows, pt. 1: The Simpsons. – A fan of Zombie Simpsons writes:

The Simpsons will always have a special place in my heart. It is one of the most impressive shows on the air. It is in its 24th season with no end in sight. It isn’t quite as popular as it was during the first 10 or so seasons, but with its ability to poke fun at any current event without being quite as offensive as a show like South Park (love it, but it offends many), it is able to appeal to adults who want a bit more grown-up humor, as well as to their teenage kids. As such, it’s one of few shows that are still on the air that are viewed by the whole family together.

Obviously, I don’t agree, but that’s okay, everybody gets their own opinions.  Here comes the funny part: the blog is titled “Zombie Love is Forever”.  Oh, the irony.

Feeling Old? Ages of 90s T.V. Characters Today – They’ve got everything from Friends to Full House on here, and they’ve got the Simpsons at:

This doesn’t work so well, because the characters ages are constant, but as with Rugrats, I’ll act like everyone has aged in real time since season one. Bart: 33, Lisa: 31, Maggie: 24, Homer and Marge: 58-ish.

Seems about right.

21 & Over…In 10 Words – What better way to spread beer fueled mayhem?

Dallas…In 10 Words – That’s right, I shot JR.

The 2013 Sequester…In 10 Words – Looks like those clowns in Congress are at it again.  What a bunch of clowns.

Fare thee well gym! – Quitting the gym with help from YouTube of Homer discovering what a gym is.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but ever since that episode I mentally pronounce gym “gime” pretty much every time.

Introducing the blog to IE business school… – Well done:

Also check out my twitter @chizwozla

The word ‘chizwozla’ came from an episode of The Simpsons when I was 10 years old and making my first email account. Now that I have 5 email addresses, a twitter, a facebook page, (previously myspace and bebo and even more previously an Angelfire blog), a fantasy football team, 2 wordpress blogs, a flipboard account, a skype account, etc etc it has come in very handy in using one, common word that is never previously taken. I’ve never had to use Roboconnor123456 or similar because I was a visionary 10 year old…

The Simpsons – It’s a car decal on a gas tank cover of, I am not making this up, Maggie sucking Bart’s dick.  The hell of it is, it looks like a real picture, as in that’s actually on the side of somebody’s car and they drive around with it like that in public.  Huh.

‘The Simpsons’ voted Britain’s favourite TV family – This is about as meaningless as it’s possible for something to be, but it’s nice, I suppose:

The Simpsons have been voted Britain’s favourite TV family in a new survey from Channel 4.

Homer, Marge, Maggie, Bart and Lisa collected 45% of the vote, finishing above The Flintstones and The Royle Family.

So it’s come to this: The Simpsons do "The Harlem Shake" – The A.V. Club has it about right:

It seems like everybody short of the Vatican is sharing their take on the ubiquitous dance sensation that’s sweeping the nation. That now includes The Simpsons, who have entered into the fray with an exuberant clip that will undoubtedly age like a fine wine and not be something that everyone involved will be embarrassed by a week from now.

The Simpsons Attempt The Harlem Shake, Fail Miserably – The Mary Sue piles on as well:

I guess this means this whole thing is done now, right?

Heh, they wish they were relevant enough to make something uncool.  Regardless, I’m confident something else will be along shortly.

SimpFail – And finally, I get to end the way I prefer, with someone who agrees with us:

Recently the Simpsons, my beloved and favorite show of all time, has been making me upset and disappointed. Since about season 10 the quality of the show has gone down. However within the last 5 seasons I will say it has really sunk quickly and I don’t know how much longer they can keep it up. Last Sunday’s episode featured an opening scene of the Simpsons doing the Harlem Shake, A fad that has really gone way overboard allowing people to go full retard for a minute.

Sadly, they’re not going to run out of hapless stabs at relevance anytime soon.

01
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Late Scratch Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Lisa the Greek12

“After  evaluating millions of pieces of data in the blink of an eye, the Gamble-Tron 2000 says the winner is . . . Cincinnati by . . . two hundred points?  Why you worthless hunk of junk!” – Professor Frink

Sorry for the late Reading Digest, everybody.  I hope your Friday at work/school/whatever wasn’t too dull without it.  This post was originally going to contain a link to the first Kindle issue from the spinoff site, but Amazon appears to be having some difficulties and it looks like it’s not going to be ready today.  So here’s a regular Reading Digest post instead.

The good news is that the internet was bountiful this week.  We’ve got several people reviewing old episodes, YouTube interviews with both David Silverman and James L. Brooks, two different real life Moe’s Taverns opening (one licensed, the other not), fully legal video of “The Longest Daycare”, several people who agree with us, real life patented, space age, out of this world moon waffles, and, a Simpsons themed podcast featuring previous DHS guest authors Lenny Burnham and Wesley Mead.

Enjoy. 

Homer Simpson’s Patented Space Age Out of This World Moon Waffle – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this piece of internet genius wherein someone actually made Homer’s moon waffles!  Mmmm, liquid smoke.   

Podcasts – Secret Lover – Our old friend Lenny’s television podcast takes on the best show ever.  The link above is to iTunes, but you can also visit the main website here.

Top Twenty Simpsons Episodes (According to Me) – Great list with lots of quotes and context and not a trace of Zombie Simpsons. 

The Longest Daycare Now Online – Well, they didn’t win an Oscar, but you can now watch the whole Maggie short on FOX’s official YouTube account:

Bitching about the Academy Awards is a pointless as it is possible to be, but that is way better than Paperman. 

David Silverman on Guiding ‘The Simpsons’ to the Oscars via ‘The Longest Daycare’ – A twenty-five minute interview with David Silverman.  It starts with how he got started as an animator and how he got involved with the show and moves up through the short, including one of the best explanations for 3D I’ve ever heard.  (That starts around the 11:00 mark.) 

I liked this exchange:

Interviewer: So, just we’re gonna do a short, might as well do it in 3D?
Silverman: Oh, yeah, I mean, it pays well.

Heh.

James L. Brooks on His ‘Simpsons’ Journey, from ‘Tracey Ullman’ to the Oscars – The same guy interviewing Brooks.  The story about drunken David Silverman at the Christmas party comes in around the 9:00 mark. 

My Kind of Nerds. – A salute to nerds includes this cool Simpsons cross stitch from Flickr user the.barb:

Cross Stitch Simpsons Well done.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out becomes one of the highest grossing games in Google Play – Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the TV show is made:

Even though it has only been a few weeks since the game launched on Android, it has already become one of the highest grossing games in Google Play. The Simpsons: Tapped Out is currently the third highest grossing game in Google Play behind Blood Brothers and Candy Crush Saga. On Monday evening, it had gotten as high as #2. It’s also in the #6 position of Google Play’s “top free” section in the games category.

Before The Simpsons: Tapped Out came to Android, it managed to bring in over $23 million in one quarter on the iOS platform.

28 Funny Products Spotted on The Simpsons – Pretty much what it says, with only one from Zombie Simpsons.

Senators organist a fan of The Simpsons – As this game between the Canadiens and the Senators went to the first intermission, the organist played them off with the Simpsons theme, and the link has video.  

The Simpsons as First Time Buyers – Comparing the Simpsons buying a home in “Lisa’s First Word” with the actual process. 

The Simpsons Movie (2007) – A review of the movie that also agrees with us:

I have been a Simpsons fan since before the cartoon even came out. I still remember the Butterfinger commercials, announcing the “coming” of the animated show. The series started off strong and really hit its stride in the mid-to-late nineties and then, I felt, lost some of its edge with shows like Family Guy being more bold and edgy. I did notice the Simpsons start to do this but not too much (as Family Guy sometimes does).

The movie was great in the first half, but lost its momentum.

Why no TV show should go beyond five seasons – I think you can see where this is going:

That’s not to say that a show can’t have a good season past five, it’s just that I don’t know of any shows which have their best season that far into their run. Friends, one of the longest running sitcoms, peaked earlier than five seasons. The Simpsons, the longest running show on tv, is way past its best, which could be found in the first five seasons.

I wouldn’t say it’s just the first five, but that’s a pretty good rule of thumb.

The Simpsons Super Review – Another attempt to watch all the episodes:

For now I just want to say thanks for reading, buckle up, and try to enjoy the ride. I have a feeling things will start to get bumpy after about 13 seasons. We’ll have to start drinking heavily. Together.

Indeed.  (Also, thanks for the link.)

The Simpsons – “Cape Feare” – Looking back at a very good episode:

I can’t help but feel so very nostalgic while watching this episode. The 90′s was my childhood, despite the occasional grown up content, I would always park my arse on the sofa when The Simpsons came on the TV when I was a kid.

Bart’s Comet (TV Episode Review) (1995) – True:

The signs on the balloon states Big Butt Skinner, which got me laughing… I still find it funny. Today, Skinner would’ve easily got Constance Harms to do his dirty work 

Corey Hotline – Yet another review from long ago:

Lisa eventually beat her addiction as most people do by simply making it to midnight without calling. Ya hear that alcoholics? Yeah, it’s that easy. Apparantly your twelve steps should be not drinking from noon till midnight and you will be cured. You are welcome.

Heh.

Picture: Chief Wiggum and Ned Flanders were in the crowd at the Milan derby last night – Well done, Italian soccer hooligans:

AC Milan and Inter Milan went head to head in the San Siro last night and although they couldn’t be separated on the pitch, the Rossoneri won the battle in the stands with a brilliant banner featuring Chief Wiggum and Ned Flanders from The Simpsons that was passed around by the AC Milan fans.

Click through for the impressive picture.

Simpsons – Koala (gif) – Animated .gif of the stowaway helicopter koala from “Bart vs. Australia”. 

The 2013 Oscars…In 10 Words – Too bad that delightful Billy Crystal wasn’t involved.

Duck Dynasty…In 10 Words – The men of the 9th Bearded Reality Show were sunning and fluffing their beards . . .

Embiggen – Using the word to make map art (assuming that’s a thing). 

It’s Moe’s, of course | Our Springfield gets a version of Homer Simpson’s favorite bar – Springfield, Oregon is getting a bar called “Moe’s”, though one presumes that for legal reasons that’s where the similarities will end.

‘The Simpsons’ and the Birth of the Modern Animated TV Comedy – The dangers of sponsored content:

This post is brought to you by Out There, airing Fridays at 10:30/9:30c on IFC.

The rest of it reads like a poorly edited Wikipedia history of network animation.  It meanders around and doesn’t go beyond the most cursory of outlines before ending with a tease for part two.  I understand that times are tough and everybody’s gotta earn bread, and Jebus knows I’m no expert, but crappy, lowest common denominator content is never a good idea.  

MACGYVER: Paperclips, Marge Simpson’s sisters, and bringing back the mullet – A publicity interview for Richard Dean Anderson ahead of a visit to a comic convention in Australia.

‘The Simpson’s’ Nancy Cartwright Slated to Host Boys & Girls Club Fundraiser – Pretty much what it says.  They’re trying to collect enough quarters to stretch around a mall in California.

Top Twenty Favorite Opening Themes – The show checks in at #10 here, and there’s plenty of good YouTube. 

More of Springfield is coming to Universal Orlando – Restaurants inspired by ‘The Simpsons’ are being constructed – This is from “Orlando Attractions Magazine”, but it looks like Moe’s, a Krusty Burger, and possibly even the Gulp ‘N Blow are coming to Florida.  

Bart Simpson Defense – If you’re tired of playing Tapped Out, here’s a definitely unlicensed Simpsons defense game.  Basically, Nelsons are attacking and you have to stop them.  It has little to nothing to do with the Simpsons, but it’s fairly clever.

“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!” – A detailed breakdown of Ralph’s most famous quote.

Bart’s Hut – Simpson graffiti on a train station in (I think) Germany. 

The Decline Of The Simpsons – Yup:

Classic Simpsons had heart and the characters had layers, now they are all one dimensional jokes. Homer for example, used to be a buffoon but showed he loved his family. Nowadays he throws Bart into a lions pen, gets annoyed whenever he has to do even the lightest of family duties, and is very self centered and obnoxious.

Reboot Something That Matters: The Simpsons – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us:

In my life, few things have left as big a mark on me as a person as The Simpsons.  I’ve seen so many episodes and up until the last couple seasons, they’ve been incredible.  I know, everyone with a blog complains about how its “just not the same”, but hey, have you seen the last 3 seasons or so?  They’re not funny. 

Amen.

22
Feb
13

Reading Digest: Foreign Art Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Itchy and Scratchy and Marge12

“This will be the art event of the century!  The greatest masterpiece of Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo’s David, on a coast-to-coast tour, United States.” – Italian Art Guy
“Sir, which cities will be included in your itinerary?” – Reporter
“Ah, New York, Springfield, and if we have time, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles.” – Italian Art Guy

This week we have four(!) outstanding pieces of serious Simpsons art from a bunch of foreigners.  There’s a Canadian, a Frenchman, Brits, and one that I think is Brazilian, but I couldn’t tell for sure, and all of them are excellent and click worthy.  There’s also a couple of people marking Groening’s birthday last week, several others who agree with us, two mentions of “Bart’s Comet” since deadly rocks became all the rage last week, and a bunch more links about “The Longest Daycare”.

Enjoy.

Smooth Charlie’s four part Click of the Week presented in no particular order:

Happy Birthday Matt Groening: A look back at the legacy of the animation legend – A quick tour of some of what made the show so great that also agrees with us directly and indirectly.  For the indirectly, all of the examples it cites for why the show was great (with one tiny exception) come from The Simpsons, not Zombie Simpsons.  For the directly, there’s this:

Celebrity Cameos

Although this later became a hindrance due to including celebrities just for the sake of it, there is a plethora of worthwhile cameos from the illustrious kind.

Worth a read, and there’s an awesome, thirteen minute YouTube video that’s nothing but songs (none from Zombie Simpsons).

Sketchbook Feb 18, 2013 – This is just a sketch, but check out Kirk wearing a Gudger sweatshirt.

15th February 2013 – Matt Groening’s Birthday – Celebrating Groening’s birthday by watching Duffless, which itself just turned 20 on Monday.

Three (Day 47) – A woman took a picture of her son’s “Simpsons magazine” and, tsk-tsk, someone didn’t do the proof reading.

‘The Simpsons’ Oscar-Nominated Short, Starring Maggie And Baby Gerald – Warming Glow, a television blog named after a Simpsons reference, handles the delicate issue of being critical of Zombie Simpsons well here:

The short, titled The Longest Daycare, features Marge dropping Maggie off at daycare, and the butterfly-related adventure she goes on while she’s there. In four dialogue-free minutes, it manages to be both funny and charming, which [fill in complaint about newer seasons of The Simpsons versus the golden years].

Yes, Apatow’s Simpsons Script Will Be Rewritten – Confirmation from Mike Reiss that yes, they are going to make Judd Apatow’s script:

"We never got around to it, and decades went by," Reiss said. At one point, ten years or so after receiving Apatow’s idea — a hypnotist regresses Homer to childhood, enabling him to pal around with Bart — The Simpsons did an episode with a hypnotist, 2001′s "The Blunder Years," where Homer was hypnotized and discovered repressed memories, "so we had to wait another ten years," Reiss said.

Meh.

Your Top 20: Television Cartoons of All Time – This is from the same site that had the shown down at #10 for all time best shows, but it’s #1 here for cartoons.

Festival of Animation welcomes ‘Simpsons’ Producer David Silverman to La Jolla – The possibly-soon-to-be-Oscar-winner Silverman stopped by a San Diego animation festival and earned this nice writeup.  Not much news, but Silverman does appear to be wearing a Homer T-shirt where he’s wearing 3-D glasses.

Dress up or dress down with a classic bow tie – Excellent reference:

Sporting a bow tie in broad daylight – or really anywhere other than a horse race — may seem the sole domain of uppity pricks. Donald Duck and the Cat in the Hat gave bow ties a comedic reputation, and Krusty the Clown didn’t exactly help the professionalism of bow ties either.

The article is actually in favor of rocking the bowtie, but the truth is, you should never trust a man who wears a bowtie.  A cravat’s supposed to point down to accentuate the genitals.  Why’d you want to trust somebody whose tie points out to accentuate his ears?

Oscar Shorts: Animated nominees – Comparing and discussing all the nominated movies, goes with “Fresh Guacamole” as the predicted winner.

Maggie Simpson’s Oscar dress – The show put out some drawings of Maggie in snazzy looking Oscar dresses this week.  Cute.

David Silverman on Guiding ‘The Simpsons’ to the Oscars via ‘The Longest Daycare’ (Video) – Some fluff background on Silverman’s career and how “The Longest Daycare” got started.

Maggie Simpson Stars in ‘The Longest Daycare’: Where Babies Face Off – Still more praise:

the The Longest Daycare uses Maggie’s silence to reinvent the sort of irreverent comedy and affable charm that has made the series so enduring.

Review: Oscar Nominated Shorts – An animator’s take on the short:

The film is funny but it’s also very touching and it isn’t afraid to mix the two to get the desired effect. This again, is why the Simpsons has been on for so long, because of its ability to have such empathy in its characters. The animation itself is a blend of 2-D animation with 3-D elements, which is quickly becoming the standard today and it was used very effectively. I think the fact that these people have been working with these characters for so long just gives this short a certain level of polish that only comes with time and the 3-D elements are well integrated and don’t feel in any way added unnecessarily. So how have they readapted to their original format: with humorous elegance.

And the Oscar Goes to…D’oh – Seeing “The Longest Daycare” rekindles the Simpsons spark for someone who lost it around Season 10.

HOMER SIMPSON – It doesn’t quite qualify as great art, but here’s Homer as done in snow.  They even got the hair, bravo.

Five Best Fictional Meteor/Asteroid/Comet Moments – Bart’s Comet ranks at #2 here.  Great list idea.

I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that – Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time and finally getting all the references.  Don’t forget the Dawn of Man thing at the beginning of “Lisa’s Pony”.

Happy Valentines Day Part Deuce! – A (fan made?) choo-choo valentine that reverses the syntax.

I Got the Job! – Celebrating the acquisition of employment with YouTube of Homer doing the same.  Congratulations.

Simpsons – Oink (gif) – Animated .gif of Homer meeting Old Zeke.  Heh.

A Good Day to Die Hard…In 10 Words – Don’t worry, boy, you don’t have to follow in my footsteps.  That’s okay, I don’t even like using the bathroom after you.

That Meteor That Struck Russia…In 10 Words – At least it landed in a lake and not on someone’s bomb shelterini. 

Beautiful Creatures…In 10 Words – Must . . . drop . . . pantaloons. 

‘The Simpsons’ Perfectly Sums Up U.S. Politics In Less Than A Minute – Shaky-cam YouTube of the epic PTA meeting from “The PTA Disbands”.  The finger thing means the taxes.

Mississippi looks like Bart Simpson – I’ve seen this comparison before, but this one does have a nice image to go with it.

The Simpsons Might Win an Oscar! – A brief discussion of “The Longest Daycare” that agrees with us:

I rather enjoyed this little cartoon. The ending is especially fun. And it would be delightful to see The Simpsons win an Oscar. I’m a long-time Simpsons fan, though, of course, I haven’t seen a new episode in years.

Of course.

Area Man Has Opinion On Oscar-Nominated Short – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us, rather epically, it turns out:

Maggie Simpson’s animated adventure “The Longest Daycare,” screened before last year’s Ice Age: Continental Drift, has been nominated for an Academy Award. I didn’t see the thing until five minutes ago, and my reactions are thus: Thank Jeebus a cinematic “Simpsons” product of merit has come along to atone for that deflated mess in 2007 they called The Simpsons Movie. Let me also jam in the requisite complaint that “The Simpsons” tv show hasn’t been able to do anything with a fraction of this much soul since Dikembe Mutombo played for Atlanta.

Where is the soul, “Simpsons” brain trust? Where is the love? Must you give us irony in place of balls, balls in place of brains, and brains in place of soul?

Well said.

15
Feb
13

Reading Digest: Most Everyone Loves Maggie Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 10 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Lady Bouvier's Lover7

“Everybody get ready, here comes the birthday girl in her very first dress.” – Marge Simpson
“Awww.” – Everybody
“She’s a little angel.” – Patty Bouvier
“Yeah, I want to put a hook in her and hang her from our Christmas tree.” – Selma Bouvier
“What smells?” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“Uh-oh.” – Marge Simpson

There were so many links about “The Longest Daycare” and the other award nominated animated shorts this week that I’ve set them aside in their own special VIP section.  (I came across so many that I initially thought the ceremony was this Sunday, not next Sunday.)  Almost everyone seems to like or love “The Longest Daycare”, though it also seems like nobody has any idea who’s actually going to get to read an awkward thank you speech on stage while most of the audience wonders when they’re going to get to the good awards.

Beyond that there are also a bunch of Valentine’s Day links, including not only the usual assortment of “I Love Lisa” stuff, but also one taking Valentine’s Day to task for being oh so much like Love Day from “Trash of the Titans”.  And beyond even those, there’s also a great animated .gif of one of Homer’s more epic nights out, a homemade Simpsons blanket, awesome looking Simpsons cookies, someone who thinks the show peaked in Seasons 6 and 7, and some fashionistas who take some of those couture Bart clothes for a spin. 

Enjoy.

(BEGIN “The Longest Daycare” Section)

The Simpsons: The Longest Daycare – People of Australia, you’ll be able to see the Maggie movie at 6:25pm this Sunday on TEN.

FOX to Broadcast Oscar Nominated Short Film MAGGIE SIMPSON: THE LONGEST DAYCARE, 2/17 – People of America, we will be able to see the Maggie movie after Zombie Simpsons this Sunday.

Watch All Five of the 2013 Best Animated Short Film Nominees in Full – Or the people of Australia, America and everywhere else can just click through here and watch all five of the Oscar animated shorts on the internet.  (via Animation Fascination)

‘The Simpsons: The Longest Daycare’ review by Javier – A short review which I will quote in its entirety because it agrees with us:

I enjoyed this mini Simpsons episode, heck, it could be the best episode I seen from the Simpsons in 7 years, actually, now that I’am thinking about it, they should make the Maggie Simpsons adventures, I be down for that.

Back to the short.. ‘The Longest Daycare’ is fun, well pace. The comedy is classic Simpsons but with the class of a film from the 1930′s.

Indeed.

Maggie Simpson in: The Longest Daycare (2012): Academy Award Nominee Best Animated Short Film 1 of 5 – More kind words for Maggie:

This short film is certainly the funniest of this year’s nominees, and with its success I am sure we will see more Simpsons short films in the future. Let’s just hope they are all this entertaining.

Fingers crossed.

Oscar-nominated animated shorts: The Simpsons spin-off The Longest Daycare – And a rather more negative review:

This five-minute Simpsons cartoon played before the most recent Ice Age feature; and while it features a couple of satirical gags worthy of a good Simpsons episode, it feels closer in spirit to the kid-friendly entertainment of the Ice Age movies. The plot has baby Maggie enrolled at the "Ayn Rand School for Tots," where toddlers are divided into a "Gifted Area" and a grim-looking room marked "Nothing Special." Apart from the appearance of "Raggedy Ayn Rand" dolls, the filmmakers never advance on the satirical promise of that set-up.

Could they have done more?  Sure.  On the other hand, the Ayn Rand School for Tots is from Season 4’s “A Streetcar Named Marge” and has all of the things this review is looking for in terms of satire (The Fountainhead Diet, Helping Is Futile), so something that was just whimsical and funny worked well.

[F the] Oscar Nominated Shorts: The Ghost of Nominees Past – And a more positive one:

As far as I’m concerned, Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare was the best (read: least annoying) short that the collection had to offer. In tribute to the short movie convention of actually being a SHORT movie, it was only five minutes long. Those five minutes were filled with humour, brilliant sight gags, and a sense of completion for which every film should aim (call me a traditionalist).  Yeah, Fox has the budget to make all of their wildest dreams and ambitions into animated reality, but you know what? Money works. Sorry. I feel like this film will win.

I guess we’ll see.

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts – A take that liked it, but not to win:

While it is the second shortest nominee it’s stil an example of The Simpsons at their finest, it’s a little bit crude, but it’s funny, and packed full of pathos. I’d probably rank it as my least favorite of the five, but that’s a tribute to the competition, rather than a slight to this fine film.

Five Animated Shorts, Only One Oscar – People do seem to enjoy this film:

Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare, directed by David Siverman displays the still relatively sharp and wiry humor that the show is known for. Set in “Ann Rand’s School for Babies” we get Maggie battling her arch nemesis to save a hapless butterfly. Entertaining and even a tad suspenseful, I liked how clever this short was. 8.5/10

Oscars 85.0: Best Animated Short Film – Though not everyone thinks it’s worth of the golden phallus:

Finding its place somewhere between a rejected minor subplot for an episode of The Simpsons and a cheap short to simply capitalize on 3D technology, Maggie Simpson’s antics in The Longest Daycare are fun but nowhere near Oscar-worthy.  The short is simple and full of the satire and subtle humor that has made The Simpsons beloved for so long, but the multiple decisions that were clearly made simply for the purposes of 3D are hard to overlook, as are the choices of humor and satire that seem poorly out of place in a short like this.

And we’re done.  Good luck next Sunday, Maggie! 

(END “The Longest Daycare” Section)

Beckerman Bite Plate: Bart Simpson + Layering – The Bart Simpson scarf and hat in the wild, photographed for a sisterly fashion blog.  Cool.

The Simpsons and ‘Moneyball’ – This seems about right:

I clicked on it expecting to hate it, but like Scott Hatteberg fielding grounder after grounder, it worked and worked and worked at its goal, and I think it succeeded. A Simpsons/Moneyball mashup worth about 120 seconds of your time:

Brad Pitt as Mr. Burns and Jonah Hill as Smithers works pretty well.  (Incidentally, the YouTube account there is called “simpsonstrailers” but this is the only one on there.  It was posted last year when Moneyball came out, and if you look at the stats the video had just a few views until earlier this week when it went nuts, so maybe they’ll finally get around to making some more.)

39/365 – From the same blog that brought us the image of the three Homers last week comes this very cool, double exposure ghosted Otto.  Bravo.

Blankets!!! – A homemade Simpsons blanket for a friend’s daughter.  Aww.

Simpsons Challenge – Another blogger contemplates taking the leap and watching every episode:

One idea I have is a review based one. And what do I feel like reviewing? Every episode of The Simpsons. Yes, even terrible ones.

I thought this would be an interesting one, as I’ll be honing my reviewing skills and I know that I’ll get a chance to review some fantastic episodes and some lousy episodes. It would take me over 500 days to do them all… I think I’m okay with that.

I still don’t know if I will or not, but it’s an idea that’s bouncing around my head.

Would you, O grand Internet, be interested in something like that?

Of course!  But having seen people both succeed and struggle with it, I’d strongly recommend calling it quits around Season 11.

Simpsons Reviews – From the same blog as the above:

The more I think about reviewing every episode of The Simpsons, the more I really, really want to do it.

It just sounds like a cool idea to try! I love the golden years of the show (and who doesn’t) and I’m honestly baffled by how far the quality has declined. By watching every episode, I’d have a complete understanding of the show… Kind of.

What do you need to know?  The show grew up, got married, and became cheap TV.

From Fuzz, to Clarity, to Convenience: The Revolution of Television – From a college course blog about the evolution of television:

Being a child of the broadcast waves I gradually started to recognize advancements and transitions in the Television Industry. Everyday when I was young I vividly remember rushing home to watch the Simpsons, which aired at 5:00 on the fuzzy, off color living room TV set. This meant that everyday at 5 o’clock I was at the same place, doing the same thing. It didn’t take long before I found myself following a pretty strict schedule, never missing an episode.

She goes on to discuss how with all the silicon chips and such these days you can watch it whenever you like, which means you can also watch more stuff.  Hooray!

TV’s Best Valentine’s Day Episodes: The Office, Modern Family, Glee and More! – According to E! Online, “I Love Lisa” is the #2 Valentine’s Day episode. 

Valentine’s Day: A History – Taking a look at the opening of “Trash of the Titans” as a way to get into the true spirit of Valentine’s Day: figuring out how it got this out of control.

The Simpsons Valentine’s Day Cookies – Deliciously sugary looking Valentine’s day cookies featuring various Springfield twosomes.

Is It Bacon Day? Happy…Valentine’s Day! – Just a screen grab of Homer’s love letter from “Bart the Lover”, but at least someone remembered that yesterday is also Bacon Day.

Vege-might – “Lisa the Vegetarian” holding its own in a serious contemplation of vegetarianism with George Orwell and Peter Singer:

A familiar – and more possibly revealing than was intended – portrayal of the meat industry broadcast to my generation can be found in an episode of The Simpsons. In the episode Lisa the Vegetarian , students at Springfield Elementary are shown the Troy Mclure (who you may remember from other such educational films as “Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun” and “Firecrackers: The Silent Killer”) fronted student education film Meat and You. Following a tour of a meat processing plant, the film’s protagonist, Jimmy, asks “Mr McClure? I have a crazy friend who says its wrong to eat meat. Is he crazy?” to which McClure responds “Nooo, just ignorant. You see, your crazy friend never hear of the food chain”. The image then presented to the viewer is a telling and brilliantly  satirical representation of our perceived relationship with the animal kingdom:

simpsons-food-chain

That image remains hilarious.

An Engagement with a Tiny Box – Discussing Homer’s onion ring proposal among many other television propositions:

The poverty-stricken Homer, now a lowly trainee at a fast-food outlet, puts an onion ring on pregnant Marge’s finger before she asks him to take it off before the grease burns her. Homer, of course, eats the onion ring seconds after removing it. The poignancy of The Simpsons can make unglamorous moments like these seem like the ending of Casablanca,

Well put.

3 episodes of The Simpsons students in blizzards should watch – I’d replace “Skinner’s Sense of Snow” with “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”, but that’s just me.

DR ZAIUS, DR ZAIUS – Somebody just discovered Eye on Springfield:

for those of you who know each joke off the top of your head, it’s still an entertaining way to kick back, ignore that lingering deadline, and indulge in some eye candy.

viva la simpsons!

Viva!  (And bonus points for naming the blog Glower Power.)

Winter Storm Nemo…In 10 Words – Lisa, these men are professional meteorologists.

The 2013 Grammys…In 10 Words – It really shouldn’t be considered an award at all.

The Pope’s Resignation…In 10 Words – Feh.  I’d rather watch the baby goat drinking from the bottle.

Identity Thief…In 10 Words – Hello, my name is Mr. Burns.

28 More Funny Signs From The Simpsons (2.11.13) – A great list with some fantastic sign gags.  There’s one or two from Zombie Simpsons, but that’s it.

Simpsons – Homer’s Night Out (gif) – Awesome animated .gif of Homer’s “Scene Missing” evening on the town.

Valentine’s Day is no joke – Just YouTube of Skinner’s Valentine’s Day Vietnam flashback.  Johnny! 

The Vacuous Love of Valentine’s – A defense of Ralph from “I Love Lisa”:

How should we think about love? Ironically, Ralph Wiggum – one of the dumber characters on The Simpsons, a character who may be accused of not thinking at all – answers this question. Walking Lisa home from school he explains that he picks his nose too much, so much in fact that he must see a doctor because it frequently bleeds. If that’s not being yourself I don’t know what is. Have you seen that episode? Ralph Wiggum gets his heart totally annihilated, on live television no less. And yet, Ralph Wiggum demonstrates something profound,  something he may not entirely comprehend: there is nothing romantic or loving or compassionate or chivalrous or true about taking a girl on a date and acting like someone else. That is the real selfish behavior.

I never thought of it that way, but Ralph certainly is incapable of jerking anyone around.

Was 1995 The Greatest Year In The History Of The Simpsons? – Maybe?  There’s some good discussion here about why Seasons 6 and 7 are incredibly fantastic.

Top 10: Television Shows of All-Time – The show checks in at a shockingly low #10 here.

It’s 6 o’clock! – That episode where Marge briefly gets breast implants comes in for a lot of well justified criticism here. 

30 Day Book and Literature Challenge: Day 25 – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us.  Reviewing “Planet Simpson” by Chris Turner, Mrs. S. writes:

Given what the show has become this book is already like a time capsule of a happier, more intellectual and richer time.

Indeed.

08
Feb
13

Reading Digest: Celebrities Behaving Well Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Radio Bart15

“But this isn’t about show business, this is about some kid down a hole, or something.  And we’ve all got to do what we can.” – Sting

Dead Homer Society is coming at you live from my new and pointlessly overpowered PC; the laptop is dead, long live the laptop.  (Windows 8 is not nearly as terrible as advertised once you install Classic Shell so it can actually work with a mouse and keyboard.  Jebus, Microsoft, do you enjoy creating headaches for yourselves and everyone else?)  This week we’ve got two Simpsons mainstays both being their naturally awesome selves, one by being nice to a fan, the other by cross dressing.  Try to guess which, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.  We’ve also got three links to long and thoughtful articles about the show.  There’s one about the “Terror at 5 1/2 Feet” Halloween segment, one about “Marge Be Not Proud”, and one about how the show can’t string a story together anymore.  In addition to all that, we’ve got some awesome fan made Bart shoes, a newfangled bootleg t-shirt, a fantastic rendition of the theme song, and some excellent usage.

Enjoy.

The Simpsons Theme Song – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this epically excellent one-man, multi-instrument rendition of the theme song:

He even did the elongated circus version complete with whistle!  Well done.

The One Where Bart Sells His Soul – Self examination through The Simpsons:

In the past few years there has been a rekindling of the relationship I once had with my spirit. One of my treasured activities is going on long walks where I find peace in my thoughts. I also enjoy time spent with friends and family. When I caught The Simpsons re-run it was an epiphany. “That was it,” I thought, “that was exactly how it felt”.

Comic collage – Exactly what it says.  There’s quite a few Simpsons characters mixed in with everything from the Smurfs and Peanuts to stuff I don’t recognize at all.

Games Go To Hollywood: The Simpsons, “Marge Be Not Proud” – An article about how “Marge Be Not Proud” showcases something new in Bart, from which I’d like to highlight two things:

Bart Simpson is the quintessential bad kid. He talks back to his teachers, picks on his sister, and (at least in early seasons of The Simpsons) he’s quick to tell any figure of authority, “Don’t have a cow, man.”

Among the many, many things Zombie Simpsons has lost is Bart’s reflexive disdain for authority.  It just isn’t something they do anymore because Bart, like Homer and many others, seems to understand now that there are no consequences and that he can get away with anything.  Which leads to this:

Bart realizes that he’s capable of stealing—capable of carrying out a bad act. And of all the things to take, he chooses a video game. He’s using his newfound nefarious powers to grasp desperately for an escape. The powers work, but the escape doesn’t happen. For a minute, this bad kid realizes he’s bad.

And while that’s all well and good for character development and hugging, it’s a real departure from what the show used to be.  The whole thing’s worth a read. 

pale division: bart simpson – More high fashion clothes with Bart on them.

In Character: Krusty the Clown – Speaking of fashion, here are the high end clothes you’d need to dress just like Krusty.  Presumably the nicotine patch is sold separately.

Terror At 5 1/2 Feet – Discussing “Treehouse of Horror IV”’s middle segment:

I love the role of Principal Skinner in this Treehouse of Horror piece as well – he borders humourously on Nurse Ratched territory at times. “I’ve gotten word that a child’s using his imagination, and I’ve come to put a stop to it,” is one select quote. “Right or wrong, young man, your behaviour was disruptive. Perhaps spending the remainder of your life in a mad house will teach you some manners,” is another one that hits the spot particularly well.

And perhaps that’s the most chilling thing about this story. Firstly, that Bart’s apparent madness was in fact rational, revealing everybody else’s sane desire to remain calm as totally irrational given the circumstances. That’s ultimately what he gets sent to a mental institution for as well: disturbing the routine way of things rather than actually being mentally ill. Oh, how the mental health care sector has a chequered past in that regard which The Simpsons, as ever, satirises brilliantly.

Classic Halloween segments tend to get more disturbing the more you think about them. 

Dan Castellaneta – Good dude, that Dan Castellaneta:

I mailed a drawing (with stamped return envelope and request letter) to Dan Castellaneta on December 13, 2012.
It was signed and mailed back to me on Saturday, February 2, 2013; 51 days later.

Click through for a picture of the (now signed) drawing.

February 4 – Lounge Lizard #2 – A list of great fictional bars includes Moe’s.

36/365 – Fantastic fan photo of three Homer figurines all lined up and lit well.

Universal and IOA Update for February! – More information about the construction being done around the Simpsons ride down in America’s wang (emphasis in original):

Last September, I started seeing rumor mill about The International Food and Wine Festival restaurant closing to make way for a new Simpsons themed eatery. Well rumor turned to truth and then grew to rumor…AND EXPLODED!!! Now we sit at beginning of February and all sorts of construction is going on. Rumor mill says you have this to look forward to: The Krusty Burger, Moe’s Tavern, Kentucky Fried Panda, New Simpsons Flat Ride near MIB, and Other Facades.

Springfield, here I come – Man decides to rewatch the whole series:

The Simpsons has always been one of my favorite shows, and I know I’ve missed a ton of the more recent ones. I’m especially excited because there are so many pop-culture references in the show that I’m sure I didn’t get the first time through as a kid. I really think watching through them again is going to be a blast.

Sounds fun, though my strong advice would be to quit sometime early in the double digit seasons.  Nobody needs to torment themselves like that.

My Rejected Scripts #3: Deadli-er Catch – A fake show pitch ends with a related Simpsons reference to poor Pinchy the lobster.

How to draw Krusty the Clown from The S – A step by step tutorial for MS Paint (or something similar).

Album Review: Alice Russell/To Dust – Not that we needed any, but further proof that Harry Shearer is as fantastic as it is humanely possible to be:

(Check the video for the single on YOUtube. It stars long-time Russell fan Harry Shearer from The Simpsons and Spinal Tap, and is a beautifully touching little vignette/short story. Worth a watch all the way through, you ADHD kidz).

I have now seen Mr. Burns put on makeup and pad his bra.  The look on his face when room service shows up is hilarious. 

Broadcasters take The Simpsons short film – “The Longest Daycare” is coming to TVs in Britain, France and here in the States.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out finally available in Google Play – The Tapped Out game is now available for Android.  That is all.

El Barto sneakerz – Fan made El Barto shoes.  Bravo.

[News] Jung Yonghwa’s Playful Homer Simpson Impression Selca – This is a fan site for a Korean band that I’ve never heard of, but their lead singer apparently likes him some Homer.

D’oh!: Driver with parking boot apparently asks, ‘What would Homer Simpson do?’ – Yeah, there’s a reason you’re not supposed to drive with the boot on.

Play game Lisa Simpson Dress Up Flash online free games at Y8.com – I can’t entirely recommend you click on this as it is a hacktacular flash “game” where all you do is click through different outfits and accessories for a completely static image of Lisa.  I just find it amusing because the background music is the piano song from the old Incredible Hulk TV show.  It’s such an odd confluence of unlicensed pop culture.

Movie Review: No 74. Cinema Paradiso – Excellent reference:

To me, however, the job of the filmmaker is to effectively tell a story, and I really feel like we were let down on that one. Fundamentally, it’s a great story, but there is so much going on (much of which is irrelevant to the story) that it loses its cohesion and starts seeming less like a good film and more like an “onion on my belt” rant.

Heh.

2 meals 1 Chicken – Excellent usage:

So what do you do when you open your fridge and all you see is -

  • 2 limes
  • half an onion, 1 jalapeño
  • and a delicious local organic chicken from Richardson Farms Rockdale, Tx (purchased at in.gredients my fav grocery store)

I’ll tell you what – you MacGyver 2 delicious paleo meals *no need for paper clip, ballpoint pen, or tweezers

[…]

“Don’t thank me. Thank the moon’s gravitational pull”

Editor’s Chair: Let’s Destroy the Sun – A Simpsons based cure for writer’s block:

A friend of mine–and one of my favorite pessimists–has said that she cures writer’s block by placing one simple sentence at the top of her page and going from there.  So here goes:

Since the dawn of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

There.  Maybe that will help…

Couldn’t hurt.

Sleaze Factor – Most of the “black Bart” bootleg t-shirts are from the dawn of the show, but this is brand new.  Cool.

Super Bowl XLVII…In 10 Words – What you got riding on this game?  My daughter.  Whew, what a gambler.

RuPaul’s Drag Race…In 10 Words – At last, an excuse to wear makeup!

Bullet To The Head…In 10 Words – If you want results, you’ve got to go to the Schwarzeneggers, the Stallones, and, to a lesser extent, the Van Dammes.

Why being a Vegetarian DOES NOT mean you are Healthy – We’ll never know just how many real life vegetarians were influenced by “Lisa the Vegetarian”, but it’s lot:

I’m 31 years old now and I’ve been a vegetarian since I was in 6th grade or so.  There were certainly different degrees of vegetarianism as I got older and as I learned more about what that really meant.

I have to admit that when I saw the episode of the Simpsons when Lisa became a vegetarian I felt her pain.

I came from a household that was strictly meat and potatoes.  And that may be why I became the type of “vegetarian” that I did at an early age.

What is the Appeal of The Simpsons? – This is dead-on correct, and it’s no coincidence that all the examples she cites are Zombie Simpsons:

I mean, it’s not the inconsistencies of characters (In ‘Please Homer Don’t Hammer ‘Em’, Bart is revealed allergic to shrimp. Who knew?) or the amount of injuries sustained over the years that are never mentioned. The writers probably do this to mock one thing or another, as is often good about The Simpsons.

It’s the fact that, as writers, it promotes flimsy plotting and a ‘happy ending’ that real life cannot give. It gives watchers the wrong idea that something can be fixed like that *clicks fingers* and gives non-writers the idea that all stories must end on a high note.

When The Simpsons was still itself, they always had a way of ending that was both happy and still mean and/or cynical, like Bart and Homer taunting Nelson after the soap box derby race, Selma describing Jub Jub as a “little version of me”, and Maggie calling Homer “Daddy” when he’s out of the room and can’t hear her.  These days?  Not so much.

Looking Ahead To A Fourth Season Of Community – And finally, an aside about Community agrees with us:

I’ve written before about 30 Rock, Parks & Rec, and Community.  For a while there, I had a real hard time distinguishing between the three which one was my favorite.  Usually, it was whatever show I’d seen most recently.  But, with less-than-stellar 6th and 7th seasons, I’d say 30 Rock has diminished in my eyes (much the same way the Simpsons fell from grace after season 9).

Fell from grace, I like that. 

01
Feb
13

Reading Digest: Limits of Monolingualism Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Inner Peace

This week we’ve got three rather excellent foreign links, which means that I have to put my faith in the always dubious efforts of Google Translate.  There’s what I think is someone trying to learn Swedish, as well as two links to homemade Brazilian video games.  (God, I love the internet.)  In addition to that, we’ve got an article about the show from 1990, an original top ten list, lots of good YouTube, a couple of people who agree with us, proof that the kids at the University of Kansas are alright, and some great pieces of Milhouse fan art. 

Enjoy.  

Milhouse: Phase 1 – This is step one of our five part Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week, it’s a fan made piece of Milhouse art, and you can see it go from humble beginnings to two different completed versions:

I did this just for shits and giggles. Nothing really to do, so why not do a sexy Linocut/Mixed Media print of one Milhouse Van Houten.

Milhouse: Phase 2 – Here comes two:

Milhouse, getting closer to show time! Maybe 45 minutes later.

Milhouse: Phase 3 – Part the third:

Sexy proof of Thrillhouse. Not too shabby!

Milhouse: Phase 4 – Completed #1:

Here is one of the prints I did. I added a rainbow oil paint stick background to the piece. Just to try something different.

Milhouse: Phase 5 – Completed #2:

“The House always wins!”

Milhouse done in red. Because he is ferocious. Boom. Sexy.

Excellent. 

Important Bonus Material From ‘The Simpsons’ – This was making the rounds on Twitter yesterday, but it’s still pretty cool to hear Shearer’s original, unaltered nonsense recording from “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer”.  According to this:

In particular, Ned Flanders’s usual friendly gibberish is heightened to an absurd degree and pitch-shifted. What we didn’t know is that Harry Shearer, who voices Flanders, had to record this nonsense very carefully, as though it were a real line, and not improvise one whit.

Granizo, fuerzas de Coriolis, Bart Simpson y Australia – I’m leaning very heavily on Google Translate here, but this appears to be a Spanish speaker learning Swedish, and it includes Spanish language YouTube of the device that makes the toilet swirl the correct, American way.

Bart For President – The New Republic recently got a bunch of Facebook money to try and dig itself out of the vacuous, contrarian, militaristic and racist hole it dug itself over the past thirty years.  Today their shiny new website re-ran this piece on Bart  and Roseanne from July of 1990.  There isn’t a whole lot of new information or anything, but it’s a nice little piece of context for how much the show was hated.  Also, William Bennett has been a hypocritical asshole for a very long time. 

TOP FIVE SONGS I DISCOVERED THANKS TO THE SIMPSONS – Murphy McLachlan. – No doubt about it, the show exposed me to a lot of music from before I was born that I otherwise never would’ve heard, Mason Williams especially.  Lots of good YouTube here. 

Inanimate Carbon Rod #1 for NUS President – This one comes from commenter Hannah, would you vote for the Rod? 

some pig – A detailed analysis of old animation, everything from Disney to Tex Avery and Ralph Bakshi, complete with an animated .gif of Homer, Burns and their snowmen. 

My Top 10 Simpson Episodes! – There’s one episode from Season 12 here, but other than that it’s all solid.  Good list, and some well deserved love for “Homer the Heretic” at #1. 

Chapter 3-It’s The End Of The World As We Know It – A literary analysis of the apocalypse that touches on the show, Family Guy and a bunch of other pop culture stuff. 

Some cool things from my other blog – From the same author as the above, a cool, albeit unfortunately low resolution, image of Homer at Moe’s in the style of The Last Supper. 

MCB REMAKES: Bart’s Nightmare Remake (NES) – Reader Marcelo sent in this recreation he did of the “Bart’s Nightmare” title screen in an NES emulator.  Even working with more limited resources, he’s got all the important stuff.  Bravo. 

MCB REMAKES: The Simpsons – Return of the Space Mutants (NES) – Even more impressive from Marcelo is this YouTube video of an unofficial sequel to “Bart vs. the Space Mutants” he did.  I kinda want to play that. 

Letter To The Editor: “The Simpsons” much better than “Family Guy” – This is a letter to the student paper at the University of Kansas objecting to a column that said Family Guy was better last week.  I actually came across that column and didn’t link it.  This letter does what I was too lazy to do, point out all of its factual problems.  Well done, Glenn Schongar, sophomore from Lenexa. 

El Barto – Someone visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles and got their picture taken with Bart and some of his fake graffiti. 

Construction still on the horizon at Universal Studios Florida: Transformers, Simpsons, and WWOHP – Speaking of theme parks, the Simpsons Ride in Florida is under construction, here are some (not terribly interesting, actually) pictures. 

Bart´s Life – Just a quick, subtitled image of Bart and his awful kindergarten teacher. 

Online Auction Offers ‘Simpsons’ Read-Through, Homer Voicemail Message – Castellaneta is doing a little charity giveaway for L.A. Theater Works.  I could do without the tickets to a Zombie Simpsons read through, but having him do the outgoing message on my voicemail would have some appeal. 

Director David Silverman on Oscars bid by Emmys favorite ‘The Simpsons’ – People who obsess over the Academy Awards think “The Longest Daycare” has a good shot:

Our odds have the ‘Simpsons’ short in second place with the backing of two Experts, three Editors and about 20% of our Users. That support translates into odds of 10/3, putting it well behind frontrunner "Paperman." That fusing of handrawn animation and CGI is predicted to win by 11 Experts, three Editors and 80% of our Users and has odds of 17/10

Does anyone know approximately when they give this award so I can just fast forward to that and not have to watch the rest of that boring and bloated infomercial?  

What’s With The Following’s Poe Obsession? – Damn straight:

To find out how actual Poe scholars feel about this interpretation, we got in touch with renowned Penn State professor Richard Kopley, who says he’ll take The Simpsons’  “Treehouse of Horror” over The Following any day.

[…]

So it’s safe to say that The Following gets Poe wrong. In terms of film and TV, have you ever seen Poe done right?
I think in the popular culture where we have done better with Poe is in the comedic vein. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Simpsons episode with “The Raven”? My students always go up to me and ask if I’ve seen it; they’d give me VHS tapes of it in the old days. To them, it’s, “This is Poe; isn’t this great?” And it is great.

Indeed. (via Small Screen Silver Surfer)

Homer Simpson : The Last Renaissance Man – In praise of Homer Simpson:

Someday in the distant future, anthropologists will stumble across old box sets of DVDs, and after raiding the local museum for a player, wonder aloud why Christopher Columbus got a national holiday after enslaving and murdering Native Americans, while Homer Simpson was shunned despite winning a Pulitzer, going to space, and saving Springfield from a nuclear meltdown… twice.

Decemberisty-Ramblings and A Dose of Simpsons Pop Culture – Agreeing with us while discussing the band:

Bands and the like don’t always come out of that valley. The Simpsons –which housed a recent Decemberist guest appearance– has basically struggled with the same predicament. The major difference being that after you move beyond the middle of the show’s existence (usually somewhere between seasons 11-14, depending on who you ask), it is a cliff. Rather to the point we’re at (midway through season 24), the valley hasn’t turned upward yet. And along with about 99.8% of Simpsons fans, I can’t say I’m holding my breath.

This also contains a nice link to us, thanks for that!

Why clowns are scary – Why can clowns be so creepy and scary?  A partial list:

Possibly The Best Simpsons Episode Evahhhhhh!!!! – This is just YouTube of Homer tearfully eating Pinchy the Lobster, but that is a funny scene.

WHO’S NELSON? – The joys of parenting:

Anyway, usually within half an hour of putting him to bed the hubby and i will be relaxing downstairs when the little monkey will call me from the bed hes been told to stay in….

‘muuuuuuuuuuuuuum!’..

*the tv gets paused, hubby opens the door*

‘Whhhhhaaaaaaaaat?’

and it goes on…

This always reminds me of the scene from the simpsons where Homer talks/calls to Milhouse from his kitchen window (see video below) and recently I have started adding in ‘whoooooos neeeelllllsssooooonnnn?’ to our version which always gets a giggle from the little man despite not understanding why I’m saying it

Heh.

Movie 43…In 10 Words – The romantic subplot felt tacked on.

The Words With Friends Board Game…In 10 Words – I’d rather play Good Samaritan. 

Pepto Bismol…In 10 Words – You know that feeling you get when a thousand knives of fire are stabbing you in the heart? 

The Simpsons Tapped out gets valentines update – Read all about it, if that’s your thing.

Maxwell’s Return Reflects Well On Both Him And Morrell – And finally, I get to end with a soccer discussion that agrees with us:

Generally, going back to the scene of your greatest successes is fraught with danger. Expectations are too high, players are often older and a little over the hill when they rerurn, and it just doesn’t turn out right. Turning up expecting a repeat of great things can simply set you up for a fall. Have you seen “Godfather 3″, or “The Simpsons” in the past ten years? Then you know what I mean.

Sadly, I do. 

25
Jan
13

Reading Digest: Personal Inspiration Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 4 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Lisa's Substitute8

“You’ll never go broke appealing to the lowest common denominator.” – Lisa Simpson
“You’re going to miss your brother’s antics.” – Mr. Bergstrom
“When?” – Lisa Simpson
“When?  When your life takes you places the rest of us have only heard about.” – Mr. Bergstrom
“Places where my intelligence will be an asset and not a liability?” – Lisa Simpson
“Yes, there is such a place.” – Mr. Bergstrom

[Quick Note: Sorry for the erratic posting this week.  I actually have three concurrent excuses: work, weather and illness, feel free to accept or disregard any or all of them.  I’m just glad it’s over.]

This week we’ve got two links to young women who love them some Lisa Simpson for all the usual reasons that everyone loves Lisa, plus we’ve got another way in which life has imitated The Simpsons, a revisit with the fake dead girlfriend story, an awesome Simpsons sculpture made out of snow, some love for the Simpsons comics, a couple of people who agree with us, and a new Simpsons podcast.

Enjoy.

Snapshot Into My Childhood: Simpsons Quizzo at Drinker’s – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this Q&A with some guys who put together a Simpsons podcast by a guy lady [note to self: always check your gendered pronouns] they met at yet another classic Simpsons trivia night, this one in Philadelphia:

Circling back, a friend who works at Drinker’s sent out the official Facebook invite in November for an impending Simpsons Quizzo event. The questions would be from seasons one through 10, and it. was. on.

The podcast, which is called “The Jerks from Tower One” and of which there are so far five episodes (none of which I’ve listened to due to above mentioned excuses) can be found here.

My 5 Favorite Simpsons Episodes – A great list from a blog that’s almost named after an episode:

I am absolutely obsessed with The Simpsons. I have been for about five months straight. Usually I’ll become bored with a show after maybe a month of hardcore obsession, but I truly believe Homer and the clan are here (I’m pointing to my heart) to stay. No characters are more perfect, well-developed, hilarious, or yellow than these guys. By no means are these five episodes my only favorites: I have so many more, but it’s almost 1 a.m. on this side of the world and I’m a tad delirious.

No shame in that, and no Zombie Simpsons episodes make the list.  Well done.

Welshman’s stunning snow sculptures of The Simpsons and Gandalf draw the crowds – He made the whole family on the couch out of snow.  That’s damned impressive.

Lisa Simpson: Teacher’s Pet Icon [Saturday Flashback] – Everybody loves “Summer of 4ft 2”:

The episode is one of my favorites now, because it’s presents an always timely question about any generation’s youth: Why is acting indifferent toward everything cool? It was my favorite at seven years old because, although I wasn’t a teacher’s pet, I was quite the overachiever and knowing “big words,” having cultural references and trivial knowledge wasn’t exactly winning over my peers who were  more interested in Barbie dolls than writing horror stories.

How Lisa Simpson Taught Me To Be Myself – More love for Lisa:

But she’s also cripplingly self-conscious, shy, and unsure of herself. The fact that she can be both sure of herself and terribly insecure shows that she is just a little girl. But the point is, she inspired me. She literally gave me the courage to say that I wouldn’t ever fit in but never mind. She made me sure that voicing my opinion might not make me popular, but that if it was necessary, I should do it anyway. She taught me to find my principles and stand on them no matter what people say, she taught me that something you believe in is something worth fighting for. All this from a little cartoon girl in an orange dress. That’s a lot to absorb. But Lisa Simpsons, thank you for making my life a little easier every day.

Real Life Imitates The Simpsons – First it was the trillion dollar coin, now it’s Whacking Day down in America’s Wang.  Next week Tom Jones will probably disappear and then the world’s largest cubic zirconia will vanish.

Duffman Runner – A guy running a marathon in a kick ass homemade Duffman costume complete with Duff Beer cans.  Bravo.

More Simpsons – More recreations of Simpsons frames as animation practice, including a link through to Reddit where they’re all stored.

Top Ten Thursday #2: Simpsons Episodes That Spring To Mind – Good list:

I’ve been watching The Simpsons for as long as I can remember, and am STILL planning to one day write the biggest blog post in the history of the world about what it means to me/what it’s taught me etc. :)

I can’t decide on ten definitive episodes that summarise the show (not attempting it today, anyway), but I’d like to have a think about the top ten episodes that spring to mind…because there are some that definitely just pop up in my brain (whether because of frequency of broadcast, frequency of viewing, funniest jokes etc).

And there’s nothing past Season 11.  Bravo.

GeekIt! Top 5 Defining Kids’ Shows – I watched a lot of TV and I turned out TV:

The writers of the show continuously pokes fun at the American lifestyle, culture and human condition, and this is mainly epitomized via the Simpsons family and the Springfield neighbourhood. According to Harry Potter‘s Daniel Radcliffe, we learn approximately 90% about life from just watching Simpsons.

She’s a little easier on Zombie Simpsons than we are, but that’s okay.

Top 5 Cartoons On TV – The show comes in at #5 here, more or less entirely because of what it used to do rather than what it does now.  Sounds about right.

comics: yeah! – Nice reference:

I love Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. It was the first comic I ever read. Like millions of others I was sucked in when Batman Begins came out. This was followed by Year One, Killing Joke, Long Halloween and all the other Batman collected edition listed on Amazon’s top 100 graphic novels.

After I finished TDR I felt like I had unlocked a new media, comics! Before then, comics were things that cartoon characters talked about. I’m thinking of Bart and Milhouse reading Radioactive Man in the treehouse before Samantha Stanky came along to ignite Milhouse’s interest in girls (remember that episode? It’s the one that starts with the amazing Raiders of the Lost Ark parody).

I never got past issue two of Bonnie Crane: Girl Attorney.

Snowy Pentlands – Scroll to the bottom for a look at a Mr. Plow windshield cover.  I’m honestly not sure if it’s homemade or not.

Downton Abbey Review: “Episode Three” (Episode 3.03) – A little aside that agrees with us:

In a long-running American show, it’s usually a treat when an old supporting character returns and we get to see how they’re doing with their lives. Sideshow Bob was a longtime favorite until he went the way of the rest of The Simpsons, and it’s easy to see why.

It was pretty depressing when even the Sideshow Bob episodes weren’t any fun any longer.

COFFEE TABLE fourth fix – Want to see some Simpsons soccer figurines and the Comic Book Guy comic book cover that’s the same as the first one for the Fantastic Four?   Here you go.

The Simpsons @ Universal Studios Hollywood – Just some pictures of exactly what the title says.

Death of a Saleswoman – Interviewing for jobs sucks:

I thought all of the best things to say as I was driving away. It’s like I was insulted and 10 minutes later I came up with a comeback. I hate being nervous, but once on the floor, I can sell.

I know they’re hesitant because I am a girl, but I’ve sold everything but cars. I’ve been Al Bundy, climbed up ladders in skirts, and now it seems like I’m gonna be ol Gil from the Simpsons.

This will be the death of me.

Congratulations.  Don’t forget to push the rust proofing.

Is That You, Martin? – MLK clip art that kinda looks like Lisa Simpson is standing behind him.

DVD: Simpsons Season 15 – This is much more generous to Zombie Simpsons than we are here, but it’s pointed in the right direction:

I think by this point in the seasons DVD releases only the truly obsessed fans will still be buying, so of course I received it as a Christmas gift. While the series began to decline a few seasons back it still has its moments, and is generally funnier than Family Guy.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Friday 11th January 2013 – A nice reference for an image where the feet don’t quite fit the slippers:

This just reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Lisa and Bart figure out that Krusty was framed by Sideshow Bob

At least you’ve got little feet like all good hearted people.

Trolling the media down under: Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? – This is that picture with monorail comments from The Newcastle Herald I linked a few weeks ago.  This one comes with bonus quotes:

And that was the only folly the people of Sydney ever took on… Except for the popsicle stick skyscraper, and that 50 ft magnifying glass, and the escalator to nowhere.

Double bonus points because the tagline of the blog is “You know me, and I’m a superstar at the cracker factory”.  Well done.

The Last Stand…In 10 Words – Maria, my mighty heart is breaking.  I’ll be in the Humvee.

Manti Te’o’s Imaginary Girlfriend…In 10 Words – When I read your tweets, I feel as if you are right here watching me.

The Simpsons is Weird Now – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us:

I don’t really watch The Simpsons any more. I have it favorited on Hulu, so the episodes pop into my queue, and generally they pop out again when they expire without me having watched them. I think I watched a couple episodes last season. I haven’t watched it regularly since I was in college, probably, in the early aughts.

Yet, I had a spare 20 minutes recently, and so I watched an episode called “The Day the Earth Stood Cool.” It was the episode that had the cameo from The Onion and Onion AV Club in it, and featured hipster characters voiced by Portlandia’s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. I watched the episode and I was so creeped out by it that it sent shivers down my spine.

Zombie Simpsons will do that.  The whole thing is worth a look.

18
Jan
13

Reading Digest: Imaginary People Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Miracle on Evergreen Terrace3

“Any words for the Christmas thief, if he’s watching?” – Kent Brockman
“Uh, yes, Kent.  Hello, jerk, we may never find you, and we should probably all stop looking.  But one thing’s for sure, you do exist.” – Homer Simpson
“Strong words.  Strong, bewildering words.” – Kent Brockman

The American media is having a small meltdown at the moment over the fact that it got rolled by one or possibly two not very bright football players at well documented bullshit factory Notre Dame.  As usual when something bizarre happens, there’s a way to connect it to The Simpsons, in this case the time that Bart, long before the internet, Te’o-ed Mrs. Krabappel, and we have two people who did just that.  In addition, there is a cornucopia of great links this week, with lists, YouTube, some excellent fan art, a behind the scenes look at “The Longest Daycare”, another site embarking on a “watch them all project”, and lots more.  There’s also your chance to voice your opinion on which episode of the last three seasons has been the most wretched. 

Enjoy.

Maggie Simpson Takes a Bow – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this article about the long and somewhat tangled creation process for “The Longest Daycare”.  It was worth the effort; they did a great job.

Illustrator practice – Learning computer drawing techniques by imitating scenes from “Kamp Krusty”, “Last Exit to Springfield”, and “Selma’s Choice”.  Well done. 

100 Greatest TV Episodes: You Only Move Twice (s8 ep2) – Praise for Hank Scorpio as perhaps the greatest episode of television ever broadcast.

Monday Funday: The Simpsons and NBA Players – Comparing Simpsons characters to NBA players.  Russell Westbrook to Milhouse is genius. 

The Simpsons Did It First – Going beyond the trillion dollar coin and looking at some other events that the show mocked even before they happened.

Google Translate: English to Ned Flanders – Heh.

Something I wrote for Sound on Sight for Christmas 2012 – A list of twelve awesome pieces of Christmas television that rightly puts “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” at the top.  And it agrees with us:

This is a good one to watch as many people may have lost hope with The Simpsons (as they move onto season 25 next year) and forgotten how excellent the old episodes are. It is also great to notice how not much has actually changed in terms of locations, and dynamics, just the writing now is pretty weak.

It is very weak these days.  Not so much then.

Inkbot TV — Zombie Simpsons: A Book Review – Aww, somebody said something nice about my extended internet ramblings.  Bonus points for the awesome fan made Zombie Homer, which appears to have originally come from an artist named Jared Wright.

Simpson Says Safe – We’re not the only ones going through Season 1 right now:

The Simpsons was deliberately written as the antithesis of the All-American Family seen in the 1980s. Homer losing his job and considering suicide is not only dark subject matter for prime-time animation, it is also quite dark for a sitcom.

When the old people laugh at him, in particular, strikes me as something that was really out of bounds for the time.  And here’s “Bart the Genius”.

Geek Pic 1/15/13 – Anime style fan made drawings of everyone from Marge and homer to Lenny, Carl and Sideshow Bob.  I’m pretty sure I’ve linked this before, but it’s cool enough to merit a second go round.

Some Of What I’ve Been Eyeballing From My Spot On Makeout Point – Reading the Ortved book:

The Simpsons book was, objectively, a bad book. It was littered with typos and grammatical cock-ups, it was scattershot storytelling at it’s worst, and it got bogged down in very mundane details in numerous places. Despite all that, I ate it up. I couldn’t resist all the Simpsonian goodness. I would recommend reading the chapter that focuses on George Meyer and John Swartzwelder, two staff writers who really defined the comedic tone of the show. I was laughing out loud reading that chapter, and I normally read books with a stony gaze filled with sorrow and thinly-veiled anger.

I liked it overall, but it’s definitely uneven.  And the chapters about the writers during the good times are indeed laugh out loud funny in places. 

2013 TV Predictions Roundtable: The Biggest Story of the Year – Sadly, this is very unlikely:

Fox’s combo of few hours, early orders for animation, and major hours for singing reality series leave few bubble shows, but final season news would not be shocking for Bones (which was just renewed) and The Simpsons (which, after a major contractual dispute, is renewed for last season).

I don’t see anyway they don’t get to Season 26 at the minimum.

Psycho: A retrospective – Seeing the movie the first time having seen plenty of it in The Simpsons  and other sources, complete with side by side pictures. 

I hate the metric system – Moderate usage:

Perhaps I am already crotchety and set in my ways:  In the immortal words of Grampa Simpson, “My car gets thirty rods to the hogshead..and that’s the way I like it!!”

Grampa actually says “forty rods” and “likes” not “like”, but that’s close enough.

Best Supporting Characters in TV Shows – Moe and Hans Moleman make the list here, even if the Moe YouTube is from Zombie Simpsons. 

The 365: Jan 15th “Yeah Yeah Mmm.. Okay Then” – Nice reference:

Some have said they’re happy that CDs are becoming obsolete as they don’t have to see it when they purchase it. Others are wondering where they could get some of the stuff the band have been smoking so they could also go on a “trip to the desert” (PG blog but you know what I mean, they will be a talking coyote and everything! Simpson reference! Boom!).

Now look at her records, they stink!

Guy N. Cognito – Homer Simpson’s Doppelgänger – In praise of Guy’s moustache.

Why I don’t like bubbles – Citing Burns from “The Old Man and the Lisa” as an example of how not to run an organization.

Cosmo’s Story Within a Story by George MacDonald – Great usage:

I am not certain why—perhaps because of my years watching Itchy and Scratchy on The Simpsons—but I have always been attracted to the Story Within a Story technique.

That leads to Melville and Dostoyevsky.

My saviour, Mr Plow – A salute to the real life Mr. Plows.

Another One Of Those Days – Excellent reference [BOA is Bank of America]:

So, if you’re a BOA customer, it’s kind of like that old Eagles song “Hotel California” in that you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.  Or that episode of The Simpsons were they join a cult, but when someone wants to leave, they get a spotlight thrown on them and tell them they are free to leave if they divulge why they want to.

Credit unions, people, they exist for a reason.

LISA SIMPSON – From a Tumblr about fictional characters reading books, it’s Lisa enjoying the copy of Ethan Frome she can finally call her own.

The Simpsons Episode That Scared The Crap Out Of Me – Further proof that Zombie Simpsons is terrible, the endlessly awful episode with NSYNC permanently traumatized this young man.

She Just Got That Marge Simpson Weave – A serious Marge Simpson bun.

What Homer Simpson Can Teach Oncologists About Math – Here’s your interesting neurological tidbit for the day:

In future posts, I will show you some of the work I have done to make this math easier to understand.  But meanwhile, let me leave you with another quote from Brain Bugs:

    “We may have an inherent sense of the quantities one through three, but beyond that things get hazy—you may be able to tell at a glance whether Homer Simpson has two or three strands of hair, but you’ll probably have to count to find out whether he has four or five fingers.”

Obama’s Death Star…In 10 Words – I’d say this vessel could do at least Warp 5.

Gangster Squad…In 10 Words – A better title would’ve been Rex Banner: The Movie.

‘The Simpsons’ Creator and Director Highlight Thirty-Seventh Annual UCLA Entertainment Symposium – For the low price of just $350 you can see Groening and Silverman at UCLA in March.  Why is it that expensive?  It’s being run by the UCLA law school.

Oingo Boingo, “Reptiles and Samurai” – Wanna see Danny Elfman dressed up with horns from 1982?  Of course you do.

[Couch Potato Quotes] The Simpsons (Season 09 Episode 24 – Lost Our Lisa) – This is just a screen grab of Homer praying to Superman, but it’s from a blog called “Lace the Unleashed Zen Jar”, which is enjoyably nonsensical.

Top Five: iTunes Apps (Games) – The Tapped Out game makes the list and is the only one that’s free.

How ‘The Simpsons’ Explains the Manti Te’o Fake-Girlfriend Saga – A nice comparison of the most recent Notre Dame scandal and “Bart the Lover” agrees with us:

Part of the genius of The Simpsons is (well, was) its almost Dickensian ability to impart humanity and psychological depth to what lesser shows would have treated as throwaway characters.

Was, indeed.  Along those lines, reader Hender tweeted the same.

Now, because I hate myself… – And finally, our old friend (and new contributor) Mike Amato has finished his run through the show and wants to know which episodes from the last three seasons he should put himself through.  This is by no means a comprehensive or well thought out list, but just looking back through the a list of the last couple of seasons, these struck me as memorable lows:

  • 21-13 – The Color Yellow – Wherein Zombie Simpsons takes a cringe-inducingly juvenile look at slavery.
  • 21-23 – Judge Me Tender – Basically an advertisement for American Idol.  In terms of sheer pop culture embarrassment, this one is tough to beat . . .
  • 22-08 – The Fight Before Christmas – . . . though if it can be beat, the Katy Perry episode would be the one.  In its crass, unthinking stupidity I think this was even worse than the Lady Gaga episode.
  • 22-11 – Flaming Moe – Wall to wall with gay jokes that would’ve been considered dated in 1985. 
  • 22-15 – The Scorpion’s Tale – Fairly hum-drum until the eyeballs start falling out, but that’s an epic fail for the ages. 
  • 23-12 – Moe Goes from Rags to Riches – Three words: talking bar rag. 
  • 23-18 – Beware My Cheating Bart – Bart gets it on with a girl much older than him.  Very creepy.

Hit the link to offer your own suggestions.  For once, there truly are no wrong answers. 

11
Jan
13

Reading Digest: Joining the Club Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 5 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Beyond Blunderdome2

“But we’ve already bought five Golden Globe awards!” – Studio Executive
“I don’t make movies to win awards!  Especially now that I have two Oscars.” – Mel Gibson

As has been reported widely on Twitter and lesser outfits like British newspapers (synergy!), “The Longest Daycare” was nominated for one of those twinkly statues respectable celebrities are always holding.  I have no idea whether it will win or not, though David Silverman would be foolish not to already be working on a speech.  Regardless, it’s a great short, and if it’s going to get a phony accolade, why not the one with the most clout?

Relatedly, Rich Moore, one of the all time champion Simpsons directors, is up for “Best Animated Feature” for Wreck-It Ralph.  Moore’s name is on a ton of classic episodes, and he worked on The Critic and Futurama.  He also directed the Alzheimer’s episode of Drawn Together, which is about as mean and insensitive as you can be on television and the furthest thing possible from Wreck-It Ralph, so he’s a guy who can pretty much do it all.  Best of luck to the both of them.

That said, remember when the show hated awards and the awards hated the show?  Good times.

In regular old news this week, we’ve got a couple of great Simpsons song collections, an epic Russian kitchen, two pieces of excellent image usage, and some for real not safe for work pictures!  There are also interviews with Mike Reiss and Rich Moore, some cool fan art (including shoes and a table full of famous clowns), and plenty of people citing the Simpsons over that brilliant trillion dollar coin idea.

Enjoy.

Songs of The Simpsons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is part one of this collection of Simpsons songs, complete with YouTube.  It’s worth the click just for the Lurleen Lumpkin mural that’s the background picture for “Your Wife Don’t Understand You”.

Songs of The Simpsons, Part Two: Readers’ Choice – And part two, with more songs and more YouTube.

Simpsons family | : : : Paint Kitchen : : : – This is a fan made mural of Springfield done in what is apparently a Russian kitchen.  It’s got it all: monorail, beheaded statue, the soft serve ice cream place that Maggie thought might be Marge in “Homer Alone”.  Wow.

2009-2012 DIY Shoes – Scroll down about 2/3 of the way for a cool set of fan made Simpsons shoes.  Homer even appears to have a tattoo of himself on his own head.  Cool.

Doh! Don’t miss ‘Simpsons’ back story – An interview with Mike Reiss about his appearance at the Tucson Jewish Film Festival.  Apparently he’s got his act down pat, at this point:

What should the audience expect from "The Simpsons and Other Jewish Families" tonight?

I have an hour of funny stories and anecdotes about the shows. … If you don’t have a good hour of stories after 24 years, then you’re not paying attention.

[…]

Have you done this for other film festivals?

The organizer of the San Francisco (Jewish) Film Festival, he had the idea to do this. He was someone I knew in college. I went to give the speech to a sold-out 1,300-seat auditorium. It was the biggest event in the history of this festival. The box office records have sold the idea of this. As a result, every Jewish film festival in the country has invited me to come and give this lecture. We just had sold-out shows in Nashville, San Diego, New Orleans and Charlotte.

That sounds like it’d be a lot of fun.  For fans of the show there’s the usual blather about Zombie Simpsons, but there’s also this:

What are you most proud of during your time writing "The Simpsons"?

It’s not that I feel proud of it, but I co-wrote this episode very early in the series where (Bart) saws off the head of Jebediah Springfield. It was in a very offhand thing; we wrote it in three days, and it introduced 10 major characters in that episode. We introduced Eddie, Lou, Chief Wiggum, Apu, Mayor Quimby, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney in this one episode. At the time we didn’t think we were making history; it was just a summer job for all of us. We just made up these characters on the fly and named them after our friends.

It remains mind-blowing how they put that whole thing together so quickly.

How ‘The Simpsons’ Helped Launch ‘Wreck-It-Ralph’ – An interview with Rich Moore, mostly about the movie.  Count me among those who hope they make a sequel.

Americain – Discussing an “American” sandwich in France, leaves us with a grease stained wrapper and excellent usage:

“And remember, if you’re not sure about something, rub it against a piece of paper. If the paper turns clear, it’s your window to weight gain.” -Dr. Nick

Send in the clowns – Fan art of clowns at the last supper, including Homie, Krusty, and three Jokers.

Guy Fieri is America’s Krusty the Clown – This is a great comparison:

Fieri has become a real-life version of the ultimate celebrity marketing strumpet, The Simpsons Krusty the Clown. As Krusty is to comedy, Guy is to food — a living cartoon, a face to be plastered on any product presented to him alongside a slow-cooker full of coin, a hollow symbol of grub for which quality is no object.

Heh.

$US1 trillion coin debt solution gains currency – Burns, Homer and the trillion dollar bill are being mentioned left and right these days.  This one is from Australia:

"While this may seem like an unnecessarily extreme measure, it is no more absurd than playing political football with the US – and global – economy at stake," the petition said.

The TV series The Simpsons could take credit for at least some of the inspiration. In an episode in 1998 a $US1 trillion dollar bill from the postwar years went missing. It was Homer Simpson’s mission to find it.

Thanks to reader David L. for sending this one in. 

Father Of Animation – Those of you more expert in animation than I will have to fill in the blanks here:

Otta Messmer was employed by the Pat Sullivan Studio in 1916.Three years later he created Felix the Cat; it was a milestone in the development of animation as an art form. Not since Gertie the Dinosaur had a cartoon character exhibited such a degree of personality animation as Felix’s brooding, ponderous walk. Indeed, Messmer probably would have take the secret to his grave had not animation historian John Cane-maker tracked him down in 1976 (the revelation produced quite a stir in animation circle…twenty years later the story was lampooned on an episode of “The Simpsons”).

The only thing I could find was this, at Wikipedia:

In an episode of The Simpsons, Dean Scungio quotes from The Encyclopaedia of Animated Cartoons on the history of Felix: "A Felix doll became Charles Lindbergh’s companion on his famed flight across the Atlantic." Another episode of The Simpsons, in which the origins of the cartoon characters Itchy & Scratchy are explored, parallels some of the disputed history Felix’s creation set forth above, and includes a spoof film entitled Manhattan Madness, presented as the first Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, supposedly from 1919, that is similar in style to "Felix in Hollywood" and other early Felix animations.

[Update 5:30pm Eastern: And we have an answer:

Studios Always Take the Credit

In case you can’t see the image, that’s a tweet from Henry Rothschild (@misterculture) reading:

Re: Felix, Sullivan took credit a la Roger Meyers Sr. in “The Day the Violence Died.”

Thanks!]

What I’ve Been Reading: January 6, 2013 – Heh:

Finally, a dolphin trainer in Ukraine has trained a dolphin to crawl on land. You can watch a video of it here. Oh my God, IT’S HAPPENING.

Films Referenced on The Simpsons – My Criterion – A good list of Simpsons movie references that only has one Zombie Simpsons entry.  (via)

The Dude abides… – YouTube of the bowling scene from “Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder” set to the “peed on your fucking rug” scene from The Big Lebowski.  Bravo.

Academy gets a few things right for 2013 Oscar nominations – There’s a reason for this:

The Simpsons catches up to South Park.  One surprise is seeing The Simpsons finally catching up to South Park as Oscar nominations go.  The Simpsons got a nomination in the animated short film category (South Park was previously nominated for best song for the film South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut).

The South Park movie was awesome.  The Simpsons movie wasn’t.  But “The Longest Daycare” was excellent, so there you go.

WordPress Wednesday – 8 New Plugins From The WordPress.org Plugin Directory – Check out number 7:

This plugin is a chance to relive your childhood. The Hello Simpsons Chalkboard Gag plugin was based on the Hello Dolly plugin that most active WordPress users are familiar. Much like the reason why Hello Dolly was created, the Simpsons Chalkboard Gag plugin was designed to bring a little light-hearted fun into every page of the admin panel.

As an added bonus, this plugin creates the [simpsons] shortcode which can be included on any page or post and, when used, will return a different Bartism each time the page is loaded.

WUB! WUB! WUB! WUB! – This is a cool fan drawing of Zoidberg, which isn’t technically Simpsons, but it’s still pretty cool.

homer simpson – This is not the first time I’ve seen a picture of Homer drawn on a woman’s naked crotch, and if you’re reading this on an employer owned computer where bare labia isn’t a good idea, it’s probably best not to click at the moment.  That said, the first image does give him a rather awesomely pensive look.  Not sure what’s with the cucumber in the others, though.

The Keys of Marinus – Story #005 – This is a Dr. Who review blog run by a couple, and anything that geeky is bound to touch on The Simpsons sooner or later:

On a personal note, I was very impressed (impressed, is that the right word?) that Jael decided to use the simple phrase “D’oh!”  My attempt to Simpson-ize her is working.  Please, dear reader, ask her what her favorite line from The Simpsons is; I know what it is, but having her say it is much more rewarding (especially given her major in college).

I’m guessing she was a philosophy major.

Television-impaired – The author is going a month without television, and she opened it with this:

Lisa: Maggie, come to the one you love best…

There’s also a picture of Maggie hugging the TV.  Excellent usage.

The Simpsons in Cameos: 6 Greatest Guest Star Appearances Of All Time – This is an unusual list in that you don’t see many of the usual suspects (Michael Jackson, Glenn Close), but there’s nothing past Season 11, so it’s okay by us.

Texas Chainsaw 3D…In 10 Words – Rustier!

A Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin…In 10 Words – The obvious Simpson joke here is already popping up in a lot of places.

Stars in Danger: The High Dive…In 10 Words – But Marge, Alan Thicke is throwing knives at Ricardo Montalban!

Bunheads…In 10 Words – Gonna go see the bear in the little car, huh?

Things I Love Thursday: American Comedy – A Brit discusses her love of American comedy with some good YouTube, including the rakes.

Simpsons – I’m Freaking Out – Just a jpg of Milhouse freaking out from “Team Homer”.

Five of Television’s Underrated Characters – Flanders makes the list here.

When I’ve had a bad day – Great line.

Welcome to my world 25 – Animated .gif of Bart become isolated and weird.

January 7: The Typewriter Patent – Some interesting history comes with monkey Simpsons YouTube:

Our need to share thoughts in a formal easy to read manner has driven much of the technology we share today, and some of the best mathematical myths. The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that if you put a monkey at a typewriter eventually they would almost surely produce the complete works of Shakespeare.

The Best Musical Guest Stars on The Simpsons – And finally, I get to end with someone who (basically) agrees with us:

It’s no secret that the series has had its share of struggles as it approaches the quarter-century mark, but if viewers can accept the unfortunate realization that, no matter the quality of the writing, characters just aren’t able to garner the same interest more than 500 episodes later, there is still plenty to enjoy about watching Springfield’s hapless first family galavanting around their quaint, and surprisingly durable, little town. I’ll admit that I am not a regular viewer of new episodes, but I religiously watch the first fourteen or so seasons.

Fourteen’s generous, but yeah. 

04
Jan
13

Reading Digest: New Year Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Itchy and Scratchy - The Movie4

“Now this is exactly what Bart’s teacher was talking about.  Our son did something wrong and you look the other way.” – Marge Simpson
“But Marge, look at that hang dog expression; he’s learned his lesson. . . . Lets’ get him a present.” – Homer Simpson

As expected, another short week on the internet led to another short Reading Digest.  For some reason, people just didn’t want to spend a lot of time between Christmas and New Year’s putting meaningless crap on-line.  (Weirdos.)  Anyway, we do have some people quoting the show, and talking about the show, and making animated .gifs about the show.  We even have two links that agree with us.  But first, it’s time for the programming note:

***

Seeing has how next week will be the first regular week in the better part of a month, including new Zombie Simpsons on Sunday, I wanted to highlight a couple of comments from the New Year’s Eve post:

mcheese

31 December 2012 at 9:51 pm

Bring back compare and contrast! Or atleast post some sort of content examining the new episodes.

And:

ecco6t9

1 January 2013 at 2:01 am

What happened here? Lightning hit the transmitter?

My original plan for Season 24 was to do Compare & Contrasts for about half the episodes, but Zombie Simpsons has been through eight episodes so far and I’ve only managed to mock two of them.  That simply will not do.  I wouldn’t call this a New Year’s resolution or anything, but those should be cropping up with more frequency here in 2013.  The spinoff took way more of my time last year than I thought it would, but now that it looks like a site you wouldn’t be embarrassed to take your family (it’s even got a Quote of the Day), it should be easier for me to get Compare & Contrasts done. 

Anyway, here’s to less neglect in the new year. 

***

Enjoy.

Eight Awesome Voice Actors and What They Actually Look Like – This is mostly Futurama and other non-Simpsons shows, but Castellaneta makes an appearance and there is a ton of great YouTube.  Maurice LaMarche’s in particular is awesome, in no small part because making fun of William Shatner never gets old. 

Jokealong: HAMMOCKS – It is possible that Scorpio’s riff on hammocks is the best hammock joke in the English language. 

The Simpsons and a Dance Party at the 2013 Tucson International Jewish Film Festival – Mike Reiss is going to be in Arizona:

Opening night of the festival kicks off at The Loft and features special guest, Mike Reiss, longtime writer/producer of The Simpsons. Reiss will share rare clips and inside stories from one of the longest running shows in T.V. history.

He’ll be at the Loft Cinemas next Thursday, January 10th.

My boyfriend is an animator on The Simpsons. This is his attempt to entertain future plane-sick passegers on Southwest Airlines. – Heh.

Are the new episodes of the simpsons not as funny as the older episodes? – Yahoo Answers has this as a “Resolved Question”:

Resolved Quesiton

The rest of the answers aren’t any kinder to Zombie Simpsons:

I’ve seen a few new episodes, they aren’t that funny anymore :(

Source(s):

Been watching Simpsons for years!

And:

Definately the old episodes are better.
Once you’ve seen Homer fall over or bash himself so many times, it just isnt funny anymore.

Siblings – Animated .gif of Bart sharing his ice cream from the end of “Lisa on Ice”.

Seems legit – Save that for court.

Poor Milhouse – A big, subtitled .jpg of nobody liking Milhouse.

[News] Sky Ferreira Has A Video For “Lost In My Bedroom” That I Found While Lying In Bed – Excellent reference:

Any video that opens with an epilepsy warning has got to be a winner, am I right? When the message first appeared I immediately thought of The Simpsons episode where the family visits Tokyo and seizes on the floor every time the flashing Japanese television shows come on.

Ned Flanders Soundboard – An Android app that appears to do little besides play Flanders sounds.  Seems neat, if quickly tiresome.

Stupid Risks – Quoting Homer’s admonition to take risks in “Lost Our Lisa”.  I’ve never really liked that episode, but Marge being the “stable type, and that’s fine in small doses” is a pretty good line.

Doctor Who Monday: The Snowmen…In 10 Words – No, we’ll make real men out of snow.

2012…In 10 Words – Somewhere, Flanders gets started on his income taxes.

Django Unchained…In 10 Words – What I’m trying to say with this cartoon is that violence is everywhere in our society, man, it’s like even in breakfast cereals.

2012 Year-End Roundup – Some Top 5 Lists – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us, in this case, our old friend ilmozart.  Zombie Simpsons came in #1 for “Things that Disappointed Me”, and justifiably so:

I feel like this is a given. Considering how important this show has been to me during my life, some of the worst episodes the series has ever done aired this year – notably “Lisa Goes Gaga” the season 23 finale. Pair that with “Moonshine River”, the season 24 premiere, and it is a wonder I still watch the show at all. It has totally forgotten its heritage and has turned its back on what made the show great in the first place. A constant and continued disappointment.

Amen, sister.  Amen.

28
Dec
12

Reading Digest: Goodbye 2012 Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 3 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Treehouse of Horror X2

“Man alive, what a stink-o thousand years: blimp wrecks, teenagers . . . then again we had two teevee shows with Andy Griffith!” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson

For the second week in a row there’s just not much cooking on the internet.  But while Simpsons fandom may take it slow from time to time, it never sleeps, and this week we’ve got two links to people saying goodbye to the last year with some very similar Simpsons flair.  There’s also a bunch of great fan art, an electronic remix of the theme song, the Prime Minister of Canada’s Twitter aide engaging in some playful banter with Homer Simpson’s Twitter aide, a couple of fine people who agree with us, a foul person who stole an inflatable Homer Santa from a church in Britain, and plenty of other little tidbits of Simpsons fandom. 

Enjoy.

Me and my friends bro tat! Click for the best… – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this set of three matching Hank Scorpio tattoos on the legs of three friends.  It’s also a great choice of Scorpio image, with his shit eating grin right after he tells Homer that he didn’t even hand over his coat.  Fantastic.  (via @DailySimpsons)

No Matter How Bad It Gets, I Can’t Quit Homer Simpson – I respectfully disagree:

I had an argument recently with a few fellow Simpsons fans—the kind that refuse to watch any episode that aired after the Clinton administration. They love this show as much as I do—the best episodes are in their bones—and yet they gave up on it over a decade ago. I’ve never been one of those. Just like Marge Simpson, I stuck by the old warhorse, through bad years and worse years and the years where they thought it was a good idea to have Lady Gaga guest star.

Yes, the show is better now than it was a decade ago.

The author goes on to praise some of the episodes from this season, but I’m still not buying it.  This is just a rendition on the perpetually misguided “it’s getting better” argument that is one of the last refuges of Zombie Simpsons defenders.  It wasn’t true three years ago, and it isn’t true now. 

Who Watches the Simpsons? by *TonyDennison on deviantART – Great drawing of the Simpsons as the Watchmen.  Lisa as Ozymandias with Snowball II as Bubastis is a great touch, as is the bloodstain on the donut in the title.  (Thanks to reader Robert K for sending this in!)

Moe -The Simpsons by ~serushins on deviantART – Manga style drawing of Moe with an awesomely angry/grumpy/spiteful look on his face.  (Thanks again to Robert K!) 

The 2012 End of The World…In 10 Words – This is the end . . . of high prices.

The Simpsons – Cool fan made papercraft Kang and Kodos.  (Also, “Homie Brown”.)

A Fresh Start – I can’t believe I didn’t see this in more places, but while I usually find Comic Book Guy images of “Worst X Ever” lame, “Worst Apocalypse Ever” is pretty funny.

The Worst – It’s another “Worst Apocalypse Ever”, and what makes it noteworthy is that it while it uses the same Comic Book Guy pose and the exact same phrasing, it’s a different picture.  That’s how you know something has reached total cultural penetration, when multiple people do the exact same thing independently.  It’s convergent social evolution. 

Successful First Generation Immigrants Go to Law School – Now this is a good way to approach life:

There is a good chance that there is a lot wrong with me. But I like to think of myself as Mr. Burns in The Simpsons: all these little sicknesses fight to cause me harm, but there are so many of them that they get entangled amongst themselves, and fail to hurt me.

Weekend Remix: Well This Ain’t Shelbyville – A remix of the theme song:

I would never expect The Simpsons theme — probably one of the most recognizable openings in television today — to experience some type of electronica makeover. But that’s exactly what happened with Kiwistar’s remix. And boy is it a fun trip.

Somehow, Kiwistar managed to blend in some neat jungle jazz with the bright original opening, almost as if it was all naturally meant to come together. The song begins with its own unique groove with no clue as to how the opening is going to fit into this audio puzzle.

But when that familiar melody does manage to slide in, you can’t help but admire how seamless the transition is.

You can listen to it for yourself here.

Holiday Bacon Summit – That official Homer Simpson Twitter account sucks ass, but apparently it and the Prime Minister of Canada (all tucked away down there) shared a love of bacon with the world.  That exchange prompted this:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took time out of his busy schedule this afternoon to discuss bacon with Homer Simpson.  I expect this to be featured on every Canadian news program or I’m leaving the country.

Heh.

Stuart’s always slacking off – I stand by my hiring practices. 

Simpsons’ Yeardley Smith Donates $25K To Group Challenging Prop 8 – The headline says it all.  Well done, Lisa.

Homer Simpson stolen from Manchester church – You bastards:

Ivy Manchester Church, on Barlow Moor Road, Didsbury, said the illuminated inflatable was last seen on Thursday.

Members at the church think the figure, which had been up for two weeks, was taken between 01:00 and 08:00 GMT.

Church leader Anthony Delaney has promised a reward of a box of mince pies for any information.

He said: "He had become a bit of a local landmark, we were starting to say that we were the church with the Homer on the roof.

"I went to check it in the morning and he had gone, so we are all feeling a bit deflated.

"We would forgive whoever it was that took it if they brought it back, in the spirit of Christian Christmas forgiveness."

I’m generally pro-stealing from churches, but that is just awful.  There is a picture of what it looked like before it got stolen at the link. 

Some wise words from Marge Simpson in 1994 – The show was always ahead of its time.

She Wears Fashion – UK Fashion blog: BART SIMPSON! – Another model wearing a shirt from that high fashion Bart Simpson line. 

While I can honestly say I’ve told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it. – I rather liked The Hobbit, but not this much:

As I write this I’ve been home for about an hour, and I’m still absorbing everything.  Plus it’s getting to be past my bedtime and I have work tomorrow.  And I kind of feel like this -

Homer always cracks me up there. 

Happy Birthday Harry – A nice little birthday wish for Harry Shearer:

Harry Julius Shearer seems to be good value for money; he was hired to provide voices for the cartoon series, The Simpsons and has since provided voices for: Mr Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, Otto, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Kent Brockman, Dr. Marvin Monroe, Lenny, McBain, Scratchy, Judge Snyder and several other minor and guest characters.

All I Want for Christmas – My Top Ten Christmas Episodes – “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” and Futurama’s “Xmas Story” both make the cut here.

TV Tuesday: The 5 biggest TV Grinches – Burns makes it at #4 here.

Boo-runs – Heh.

Welcome to my world 24 – Also heh.

TV Thursday #9: Which bag? – Don’t you want your sugar bag?

Can I Borrow a Feeling? – Someone else who agrees with us (plus YouTube):

Took me a day to remember the episode but when I did I was cracking up the whole day and night.  I like this era of Simpson’s.  The really early ones when they were on the Tracy Ullman Show weren’t that great at all and I find they’re getting desperate for laughs in the last decade.

Indeed they are.
Milking The Shark: TV As Vapid Cash Cow – And finally, someone who agrees with us by not only citing Zombie Simpsons as an example of the horrors of show running too long, but also invented a new term: “milking the shark”.  That’s as good a way to describe it as I’ve seen.

21
Dec
12

Reading Digest: Simpsons Day Celebration Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Marge Be Not Proud4

“Stealing!  How could you?  Haven’t you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church, Captain Whatshisname?” – Homer Simpson

The internet’s annual holiday/end of year ennui has set in, so we’ve got a shorter than usual Reading Digest this week.  We do have several links marking Simpsons Day (which I will see become a real holiday if it’s the last thing I ever do), including a couple of looks at other events on December 17th plus a history of the show and other cartoons.  There’s also a DJ version of the theme song, obscure animation, more about the Tapped Out game, some decent YouTube, and an awesome monorail newspaper comment section.

Enjoy.

Our first entry doesn’t really have a link, but reader RaikoLives sent in this photograph (he didn’t take it, he just found it) from Australia in response to news about the Sydney monorail:

Monorail wail

In case you can’t see the image, the introduction reads:

The Herald reported yesterday that Hunter tourism and transport representatives said it is worth considering salvaging Sydney’s aging monorail and bringing it to Newcastle.  This is what you said . . .

The first three replies:

What stupid nonsense.  There is no way this is even going to be considered.  It’s more of a Shelbyville idea. – Icanmakeupstoriestoo

Sorry Marge, the mob have spoken.  Monorail, monorail, monorail. – Terry Arki

Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook all have one, and by gum it put them on the map – jmo

Bravo, readers of the Newcastle Herald.  Bravo.

the simpsons – All the way from India, we have some sweet, self applied Simpsons nail designs to celebrate Simpsons Day.

The Simpsons Tapped Out: Christmas Update – Everything you wanted to know about the latest update to the Tapped Out game.

This Was Television On December 17 – Want to see a list of people who share a birthday with the show?  Sure you do.

On this Date in History.. – How about some famous and not so famous events that happened on Simpsons Day?  They have both good ones:

1821 – Kentucky abolishes all debtors prisons

And bad ones:

1895 – Anti-Saloon League of America is formed in Washington, DC

Boo!

10 Origins of Popular Cartoon Characters – The Simpson family is #1 on here, and I learned more about Scooby-Doo than I ever knew before.

101 GREATEST SIMPSONS QUOTES – There’s bit more Zombie Simpsons on here than there should be, but it’s pretty good nevertheless.

Krusty the Clown on Faith – Castellaneta’s delivery on this one is fantastic from start to finish.

TV Thursday #8: BBQ pit – BBQ pit YouTube?  BBQ pit YouTube.

mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures – I’ve never heard of this before, but now I’m intrigued:

I’m watching Phantom Museums by the Brothers Quay, whose work I’ve never watched before. This will probably be an ongoing topic, because there are thirteen short films and although each is no longer than twenty minutes, this stuff is dense. I don’t think I can watch more than one per night.

It’s pretty dark, and it’s pretty sparse, and it feels super eastern european. it reminds me of “Worker and Parasite,” the soviet version of Itchy and Scratchy.

There’s Worker & Parasite YouTube at the link as well.

DJ Shadow-The Simpsons Theme-Breakbeat Routine – Pretty much what it says.

Drinking the LOST-Aid: The Mythology, Duality, & Significance of Cult Television – Some animated trivia for you:

Alex Hirsch, creator of Disney Channel’s latest animated series Gravity Falls, decided to include this world building mythology into his show right from the beginning. In an interview with The A.V. Club, Hirsch discussed his inspiration and motivation for taking this extra step:

    “In terms of the world-building, there was always a wonderful thing that The Simpsons did: It respected its audience enough to reward our attention. They’d say, ‘We’re going to cram this thing with references, with jokes, with little callbacks, and if you are obsessive enough, if you love it enough, it will reward your obsession.’… And that just made the show so much more compelling… It gave me a reward every time I tried to watch it more closely.”

Too bad these days all of Zombie Simpsons’ attempts to do that are just naked fan service.

1600 Penn…In 10 Words – I find it hard to believe that a baby could’ve risen to the rank of admiral.  Also, Lone Star as the President?  Nobody’s gonna believe that.

Parental Guidance…In 10 Words – I’ll get you for this, Midler!

The Fiscal Cliff…In 10 Words – It’s a testament to the never give up and never think things through spirit of our representatives.

Last day of work before the holidays – Holiday break makes Homer something something:

After endulging on one or two too many of the office lunch room’s christmas sweets, I’ve begun to compare myself to a young Homer Simpson in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror V. Please see below. And word to the wise – donuts and fudge for breakfast is never a good idea…

Never trust Bart Simpson – Those of us with both younger and older siblings know what each side of this conversation is like.

Just another night at the movies – Homer and the ice never gets old.

Moderately Interesting Morning Fact Dec. 17: Back When ‘The Simpsons’ Were Funny Edition – And finally, not only does this headline agree with us, but there’s also this:

The show was a spin-off of cartoon shorts that appeared on the network’s wildly popular “The Tracey Ullman Show.” The episode was called “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.” Nothing ever really came of it.

Heh.  Merry Christmas everyone, and remember to bet on #8. 

« Previous Entries

E-Mail

deadhomersociety (at) gmail

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

 Subscribe in a reader

Twitter Updates

  • “Now put your left leg into the left side of the pants, and you’re done.” – Lisa “I dress myself.” – Ralph Wiggum ow.ly/lhhA5 // 18 hours ago
  • #QotD: “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 // 1 day ago
  • Happy birthday to former #Simpsons writer and all around cartoon superstar Richard Appel! // 1 day ago
  • #QotD: “Without a strong male presence in the house, you could turn sissy overnight! Oh, these stubborn grass stains.” – Homer Simpson // 2 days ago
  • #QotD “I don’t need a card, you live in the room next to me.” – Lisa Simpson “Note: next year, order fewer cards.” – Bart Simpson // 3 days ago

Useful Legal Tidbit

Even though it’s obvious to anyone with a functional frontal lobe and a shred of morality, we feel the need to include this disclaimer. This website (which openly advocates for the cancellation of a beloved television series) is in no way, shape or form affiliated with the FOX Network, the News Corporation, subsidiaries thereof, or any of Rupert Murdoch’s wives or children. “The Simpsons” is (unfortunately) the intellectual property of FOX. We and our crack team of one (1) lawyer believe that everything on this site falls under the definition of Fair Use and is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. No revenue is generated from this endeavor; we’re here because we love “The Simpsons”. And besides, you can’t like, own a potato, man, it’s one of Mother Earth’s creatures.
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 248 other followers