Archive for the 'Reading Digest' Category

25
May
12

Reading Digest: Outsourcing Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
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Trash of the Titans5

“Can’t someone else do it?” – Homer Simpson

This week we’ve got two links to reviews of “Lisa Goes Gaga” that use my favored technique of pointing out how crappy Zombie Simpsons is compared to The Simpsons.  If this keeps up, maybe I can just outsource all of the criticism next season.  In addition to that, we’ve got a great new Tumblr, a couple of longer reads about The Simpsons and other comedies, some fresh information about the Maggie short that’ll be in theaters this summer, an old video game review, two people who agree with us, and lots more about that post-apocalyptic Simpsons play that’s opening this weekend.

Also, Chapters 9 & 10 of the book are now on-line for your Friday afternoon distraction.  And don’t forget to vote for tomorrow’s Simpsons-Beer Marathon.  Season 2 is ahead right now, but Season 7 is still very much in the running. 

Enjoy.

MOVIE SIMPSONS – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is my new favorite Tumblr.  (via)

Sunset for the Animated Giants – A thoughtful (albeit somewhat soft on Zombie Simpsons) discourse on how old so many of the original generation of animated comedies have become.  Between Zombie Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy (and it’s various spinoffs), and South Park, pretty much every big animated series that’s still running was started a long time ago. 

SNEAK PREVIEW: Mr Burns Goes to Washington – Feature – May 23, 2012 – Lots more detail about the play that’s opening this weekend in Washington D.C.:

The second act of Mr. Burns, set seven years later, finds the same group of survivors readying themselves for a live reenactment of "Cape Feare," complete with staged commercials, and vying for audience members with rival troupes of sometimes violent fellow reenactors.

And in the third act, set 75 years in the future, the actors — now dressed in yellow face paint and four-fingered gloves to approximate the Simpson look — are now enmeshed within what Washburn calls "an institutionalized Simpsons theater that produces the Simpsons legend." In their play-within-a-play, Sideshow Bob has been replaced by a version of Mr. Burns, the proprietor of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, who serves, according to Washburn, as an "amalgam of a lot of figures…but has become the [personified] fear without a name or face."

See, Zombie Simpsons?  This isn’t that hard.  You make each act build upon the one before it.  If you’re in or around D.C., you can get tickets here.

‘The Simpsons’: Exclusive details on Maggie’s (short) big-screen adventure – Jean gave out a few tidbits about the animated short, most notably that it’s four minutes long, has no dialogue, and will feature a return to Ayn Rand School for Tots as well as the baby with the one eyebrow.  More on this next week. 

Worst Simpsons Episode Ever – The first of two epic takedowns of “Lisa Goes Gaga”.  This one explicitly compares it to several episodes (including “Stark Raving Dad”:

I went in thinking to myself that this was going to be a half hour advertisement for her and I even considered not watching, but you know what, I gave the episode the benefit of the doubt. I went ahead and sat down to watch, I chuckled at the couch gag thinking this might not be that bad. That chuckle was the only positive response I made towards the episode, the rest was just too unbearable to watch (at least that one Ke$ha opening sequence a few seasons back was relegated just to the credits). I honestly do not know whose idea it was to base an ENTIRE episode around Lady Gaga, but it was exactly what I thought it was going to be, just a half hour promotion for her. It seems as having  Lisa depressed that she was the most unpopular girl in school (which was already done to better effect in Season 8′s  “Summer of 4 Ft. 2″) was the best reason to work Lady Gaga into the “story”, what followed was stupid costume changes, dance and music sequences, and a kiss between Gaga and Marge (what the %*$# was that about!?) that only seemed to serve the purpose as to cater to Gaga fans.

There’s more at the link. 

Lady Gaga, Lisa Simpson, and Self Esteem – And this one basically is a Compare & Contrast, with “Lisa’s Substitute” as the good side of the Force:

All in all, “Lisa’s Substitute” achieves the same goals that “Lisa Goes Gaga” does, making Lisa feel better about herself. But it does so in a larger context, with more complexity, and in a sweeter and far more realistic way, highlighting how far this show has fallen.

So, I have a summer to decide if I really want to keep watching The Simpsons. I’m not a quitter, but there is only so much I can take before I start forgetting that the show had episodes like “Lisa’s Substitute”, and begin thinking that this is the show that brought us 22 minutes devoted to glorifying Gaga.

I say go ahead and quit, it feels great.  There’s also YouTube of Ralph’s Lyme disease report, which never gets old. 

Fandemonium: Super Fans and Building Communities – Yet more stuff from the play, specifically about what fandom, now so associated with being on-line, would look like after the lights went out. 

Eulogy: Remembering the 2011-12 Phoenix Coyotes – Excellent reference:

But it all came to an end, as the Homer Simpson boxing approach to hockey finally ran out of luck when the Coyotes came up against the Drederick Tatum of the Western Conference in the Kings. The extra fluid padding the brain — known as Mike Smith — that let the rest of the Yotes pretty much get pummeled for large portions of the playoffs without a knockout finally succumbed.

Anonymous Works: Early Bart Simpson – That is kind of creepy looking. 

More Simpsons Cat Humor – A single image with all the signs outside Burns Manor from “Rosebud”.

Wiz Khalifa, ‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ – A couple of people have determined that this video was at least partially inspired by “Homer’s Phobia”.  Can’t say I disagree.  Some women finally show up toward the end, but . . . yeah. 

Krusty’s Super Crap House – A video review of “Krusty’s Super Fun House” for Sega Genesis.  The game is not very good, though since it has basically nothing to do with the show or any of its characters, it is a perfect example of Simpsons merchandise.  (Thanks to reader Toad Titan for sending in the link.) 

How well do you know Mr. Burns? Find out at Simpsons trivia night – There are still quite a few upcoming D.C. area trivia nights if you want free tickets to the play. 

Girl on Girl on TV: Week of May 13-May 20 – I still like “Are you even left handed?”, but this would’ve been good:

The Simpsons: This week Edna walked in on Ned when he was in the middle of his LGBT meeting. “Left-gifted, bidextrous and trans-handed.” My first thought was that the acronym was an unbelievable stretch. Not a single part of that is something that people actually say. My second thought was that in the bickering that followed they missed out on an opportunity to have one of the left-handed people say that “ambidextrous” isn’t a real thing and those are just right-handed people who want attention.

Heh.

Remix: The Combining of Genres in The Simpsons – Student paper on exactly what the title says.

Homer Simpson, eat your heart out – Shh, do you want to get sued?

Jury Duty…In 10 Words – That’s right, I think words I would never say.

Chernobyl Diaries…In 10 Words – This reporter promises to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future. 

Woo-Hoo – Neck-to-shoulder body paint advertising the Simpsons game.  The rest of the site is in a similar vein, though you may want to wait until you get home to view some of them.  There are quite a few Homer face labias. 

Bud Selig and the Homer Simpson Approach – Criticizing baseball’s long time commissioner with excellent usage:

Nerd 2: What are you going to do, Mr. Simpson?

Homer: Actually, I’ve been working on a plan. During the exam, I’ll hide under some coats, and hope that somehow everything will work out.

The preceding quote is from one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons entitled “Homer Goes To College.” Not only is it a classic Homer moment, it also perfectly sums up the way Bud Selig has handled the A’s stadium situation.

Well done.

An interview with David Mitchell – Refined British sophisticates agree with us:

And do you think it’s still as good?

No, I think probably it isn’t but I think, to be fair, it’s been going on so long that it’s had an up and down graph and I only have a vague sense of what’s more recent. I believe it’s had a better patch of late than it did a few years ago but it’ll probably never return to being as good as it was in the late 90s. But I love those characters so much that I’ll watch them even in the slightly less good episodes. And still, there’s got to be 150 amazing episodes which is a huge achievement.

It’s still mind blowing that there are so many that are so damned good.

A good show dies, and it turns out that’s sometimes alright – And finally, a spectacular agreement with us:

The reason I’m happy, then, is — well, how do I put this kindly? I don’t want to see 30 Rock turn into the Simpsons. Or as I like to call them anymore, the Zombies.

Yet again, don’t misunderstand and murder me. I think The Simpsons was a great show in its prime, a show that was easily the best animated sitcom for years, and arguably the best show on air altogether. But the problem is, The Simpsons hasn’t been in its prime for over a decade.

He basically called it Zombie Simpsons!  Awesome. 

18
May
12

Reading Digest: The Popularity of Others Edition

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

Popularity Name Change

“The easiest way to be popular, is to leech of the popularity of others.” – Patty Bouvier
“So we propose changing our name from ‘Springfield’, to ‘Seinfeld’.” – Selma Bouvier

As expected, the word “Simpsons” appeared near the word “Gaga” an awful lot this week; there were links about seeing her behind the scenes, about what she thought of doing the voice, and just about any other bit of non-news that can be used to put the words “Lady Gaga” in a headline and generate some pageviews.  As there is no need to worry about any of that until Sunday, none of those links are below.  Instead, we’ve got an internet ton of more interesting Simpsons content.

This week there are several awesome fan made items (including some cartoon sculptures that change depending on how you look at them), a bunch of people who agree with us, a brief history of “embiggen”, coffee mugs, and even Mitt Romney citing the show.  As an odd coincidence, there are also three pieces of otherwise excellent usage that are just a single word off. 

Enjoy.

[Note: You may have noticed that the URL for this site is now “www.deadhomersociety.com” instead of “www.deadhomersociety.wordpress.com”.  For reasons that will be apparent in a few hours (in a post which should be up around 1pm Eastern), we’ve finally purchased our domain name.  WordPress tells me that all the old links will redirect automatically, and any RSS or other feeds should continue to work as well.  Please e-mail me if you experience any problems.] 

Just an Illusion # 26 – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week are these fantastic optical illusion cartoon sculptures.  The Itchy & Scratchy one is just amazing. 

The Civilians and the Development of Mr. Burns, a post-electric play – Background on how that play came together:

They did many different kinds of improvisation exercises, one of which was focused on recreating the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons from memory (and as it turns out, our Associate Artist Matt Maher was incredibly good at this). Anne Washburn then took her notes and audio recordings and started writing what is now Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. The Act 1 recollection of the Simpsons episode is pulled almost verbatim from these exercises.

Just a reminder, it opens in D.C. on May 28th and runs until July 1st. 

Skittlebrau – Yes:

People add slices of fruit to beer all the time, so why not add fruit candy? Skittlebrau works best with lagers; IPAs and Ales are too hoppy to taste the rainbow. I don’t float the Skittles in the beer, that would be a waste of Skittles and beer. Instead I pop a few Skittles in my mouth and wash it down with a swig or two. It gives the beer a fruity flavor. It actually improves the taste if you are drinking a swill beer or a forty. Skittles and beer go hand in hand. Skittles are good. Beer is great. Good + Great = Amazing.

Note to self: do this. 

Bart Simpson custom graffiti cans and more!! – Cool as hell spray pain cans with a smirking picture of Bart on them.

Cruisers – Santa Cruz x The Simpsons – Four new Simpsons skateboards, including a bloodshot and very scared looking Homer, a creepy looking one with a Krusty doll, and my personal favorite, a straight up Krusty one that’s so much like actual Krusty stuff that it’s endearing. 

Simpsons + Bread = Awesomeness – A picture of lots and lots of loaves of bread in a Homer Simpson bag.  Going solely by the fact that the currency is abbreviated as “kr”, I’m guessing Denmark or Sweden. 

Mugshots (dedicated to coffee) – Lots of coffee mugs, including two Simpsons ones. 

lisa simpson feminist patch by nastynasty on Etsy – Exactly what it says.

Appointment Viewing: May 14-May 20 – It’s gonna suck, but just remember that it’s the last one before summer vacation:

In the Season 23 finale, Lisa tries to boost her popularity by ghostwriting positive things about herself on the school blog. The effort fails miserably—until a psychic force tells Lady Gaga (who provides her own voice) that Lisa needs her help. So, I guess there will be a couple scenes of Lisa being sad until Lady Gaga shows up and they can do a rundown of every memorable thing Lady Gaga has done. Also, I think even people who don’t give a shit about continuity will have trouble making this episode jive with the one where Lisa invents Springface.

Almost there.  Almost there. 

Inside Pitch – Crashing the K market – Mostly excellent usage:

According to Homer Simpson, when it comes to compliments, "women are like ravenous, bloodsucking monsters, always wanting more, more, more!" That pretty much describes fantasy owners with strikeouts.

Homer doesn’t actually say “like”, but other than that it’s dead on.

Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock Set For May 23rd on PSN – Video game fluffing contains mostly excellent usage:

As Grandpa Simpson once said, "If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything. Because even the slightest change can alter the future in ways you can’t imagine." You hear that, Doctor Who companions? Quit wandering off!

Grampa actually says “tiniest” not “slightest”, but other than that it’s dead on.

Occasions When Cow Bells Aren’t Good Enough lisa simpson tattoo cropped – Sweet tattoo of Lisa meditating.

Shawarma…In 10 Words – I love me some specialty foods. 

The Dictator…In 10 Words – To be fair, Burns was thinking about making himself a god, not a dictator, but the sentiment certainly applies. 

Battleship (movie)…In 10 Words – I don’t like to pre-judge a movie, but being deaf and senile would probably help one’s enjoyment of Battleship. 

Is ‘all-you-can-eat’ an opportunity or a challenge? – Pretty much everyone and their webmaster referenced “New Kid on the Block” in regards to this story about a guy in Wisconsin who didn’t get all he could eat.  I don’t use the word hero very often, but Bill Wisth is the greatest hero in American history.

Bartzers – I chuckled.

Young Mitt Romney, odd man out – Color me surprised:

He insisted to me that he had always found a way to fit in with his friends as a teenager.

“My faith was not a burden for me. I didn’t smoke and drink, and that was about it,” in terms of distinguishing him from his classmates, he said. Romney did allow that there had been some “boyhood indiscretions,” but when I pressed him, he laughed: “I won’t elaborate.”

Then he started recounting — of all things — a episode of “The Simpsons” that had struck a chord with him. It was one where brainy, earnest Lisa Simpson was feeling like an outcast, until her mom, Marge, explains that being different is also being special.

“It’s a helpful thing for the development of the character of a young person to be different from their peers,” Romney told me. “It’s a blessing to be different, to stand up for that.”

That description is vague and second hand enough that it could be about a dozen different episodes from The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons. 

Simpsons (1993 – Cut Off The Supply) – Butterfinger – YouTube of the Butterfinger ad that weirdly anticipated “Grade School Confidential”. 

Woo Candy Candy – Animated .gif of Homer’s “Sugar Sugar” hallucination from “Boy Scoutz ‘N the Hood”. 

Adulthood Has Snuck Up On Me At Last – Excellent usage:

7. Wanting to say ‘back in my day’: I have half-siblings significantly younger than me. I found myself almost saying to them ‘back in my day, we had this thing called dial-up, and I would set my computer up to download music videos and it would take me two days and stopping and starting to get one’. Thankfully I caught myself in time before I suffered their blank looks. I realized my comment was along the lines of old man Simpson rambling about how back in the day ‘So then I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time’.

Grampa doesn’t actually says “then”, but other than that it’s dead on.  Moreover, I love that Grampa’s inanity is so ingrained in our culture now that it’s something even young people think of when dealing with someone younger. 

No Words Forum: Homer Simpson (Pictorial) – The only way to make one of those rubber Homer masks even creepier is to hang it from the ceiling.

The Shinnin’ – This post opens up with excellent usage in the form of an extended quote from Willie and Bart.  It then earns my love by continuing thusly:

Why am I quoting a Treehouse of Horrors episode of The Simpsons, you ask?
Well first of all, a Simpsons reference will only ever improve a situation.
And second of all, shut up.

Heh. 

May 17, 2012 The 11th 24 Hours – Some interesting history about “embiggen”:

“Embiggen” was actually born in 1884, in a British journal entitled Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc.  It sounds official enough, doesn’t it?  Just wait until you read the sentence that introduced the world to this new verb–”but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything.”  So, there we are.  Embiggen=make great.

The 22nd Edition of the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival – Excellent usage:

Last Monday, I nervously twitched my way through an hour of traffic as Homer Simpson’s quotable, "Oh my God, I’m missing the chili cook-off! I’m missing the cook-off, it’s going on right now, and I’m missing it!" ran its whiny loop through my mind. MainLine Theatre’s chili cook-off press conference was unfolding at Les Katacombes and come Hell, high water or a turtle pace commute, I was not going to miss it.

Perfectly quoted and very apt.  No word on whether or not she got as drunk as a poet on payday when she got there.

The Weekly Feed: Mad About Mango Edition – More food related excellent usage:

In the immortal words of Marge Simpson, "Fruit is nature’s candy," and few things are sweeter than ripe mango over a bed of sticky coconut milk-laced rice.

Homer Simpson – A fan made drawing of a very touched looking Homer getting a tear in his eye as he contemplates the donut to come.  There’s far more emotion on his face than you get in most of Zombie Simpsons. 

How to Capture Pips with the Humble Triangle – I generally steer clear of lottery tips, but this one agrees with us:

Back in the 1990s, when Homer Simpson was still funny and new retail traders were first discovering technical analysis, there was a greater focus on price action alone without the use of indicators.

Well, I like the first part of that sentence.

Renewals Bitchezzzz – The season numbers are off here, but the sentiment is dead on:

American Dad as mentioned before takes the tally to three leaving me with the gout infested leg that is The Simpsons. 2012-13 will see The Simpsons go into its 26th season, a mammoth achievement and something which will probably never be matched again. Having watched some of the 25th season however, I have come to the decision that enough is enough. It is still an amusing show, in the same way that if one was stranded on a desert island, counting the grains of sand would amuse you for a period of time. What I’m trying to get at is, The Simpsons used to be funny, there were parts in every episode which would be genuinely spit-your-drink-out hilarious. Not any more.

Definitely not. 

Whatever happened to The Simpsons? – An epic rant from someone deeply disappointed in Zombie Simpsons:

The series started to decline (ever so slightly) from the 9th season onwards – it bottomed out in the 13th season and has settled on the bottom of the ocean after repeated torpedo attacks.
But why Groening? We used to love you so and your yellow-skinned creations. You used to make me laugh, no other  tv show could make me laugh like you could. You charmed me, and I fell in love with your characters. But then something changed – you tried to be like the other shows on Fox and suddenly you didn’t have any more time for me and the audience. You were so busy trying to bring in celebrities and to be like Family Guy that you forgot about what I loved you to start with.

The Simpsons – Season One – And finally, I get to end with someone who picked up Season 1 on DVD to relive the old episodes and agrees with us:

As for me, I guess I’m in the middle when it comes to that debate regarding the current quality of The Simpsons, but I lean towards the side that says the show is well past its prime.  I really don’t watch it anymore and haven’t for years.  When I do catch an episode I’m usually left underwhelmed.  Rarely do I hate it, but I forget about them pretty fast.  The only one I’ll go out of my way to watch is the annual “Treehouse of Horror,” and that’s mostly just out of tradition.

They are indeed very forgettable. 

11
May
12

Reading Digest: Baby Gaga Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
Tags:

Mother Simpson6

Give Lady Gaga credit, she’s so popular right now that a little thing like Zombie Simpsons releasing a picture and short clip of her doing a guest voice for an episode that doesn’t even air for a week and a half caused a minor internet conniption.  I’ve been expecting the Gaga explosion since last year when her guest spot was first announced, but even I didn’t think it’d start the week before the episode.  It’s impressive, though next week when the full grown hysteria hits I’ll be lucky to find five links that aren’t about her. 

Anyway, none of those Gaga links are below because they’re all just the same thing, and I feel no need to jump ahead and start letting next week’s Zombie Simpsons bother me before I get through with this week’s.  Speaking of which, among the links we do have is a sad preview of Sunday’s episode from our old friend Lenny.  On top of that, there’s a couple of people who agree with us, a kick ass Chicago punk band, a couple of Mother’s Day lists, some fan made stuff (including a cool Diablo 3 picture), a child star of the 1990s, two lists that brush against Zombie Simpsons without venturing too deep, and the people of New Zealand indirectly rebuking Zombie Simpsons.

Enjoy.

Rising Stars of Geek Rock III: Hired Goons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this post about a Chicago band called Hired Goons.  There’s YouTube of one of their songs, “Stupid Sexy Flanders”, cover art from their album “Bigger Than Jebus” and lots of background about how they combine The Simpsons and The Ramones.  Their other album is called “Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse”.  Sweet.

The Simpsons Breaking Bad Mashup Makes Me Miss The Simpsons – A long, praise filled rant for our favorite show, and it agrees with us:

I don’t tape The Simpsons anymore, or rather I DVR it and immediately delete it. I stopped buying the DVDs and I sold the toys. I will watch it limp along to a landmark 25 seasons and then I kind of hope it stops.

The Simpsons at 500: your favourites – The 500th episode was finally broadcast in New Zealand, which prompted a website to ask people for their favorite moments and episodes.  I didn’t read all the comments, but, as you’d expect, the overwhelming majority of favorites are from the before time, the long long ago.   

Simply Cakes Melbourne: Homer Simpson and Marge Simpson Cupcakes set – Awesome professionally made cupcakes for a couple’s 10th wedding anniversary. 

An Open Letter to Adele – If you are old enough to remember the 1990s, then you probably remember Mara Wilson, even if the name isn’t familiar.  She was the cute little girl in Mrs. Doubtfire, Matilda, and that remake of Miracle on 34th Street.  Well, she’s got a blog now, and she quoted an episode that first aired when she was about three years old, so good on her:

You have managed to capture the feeling of utter hopelessness perfectly. It has been said, by the late Bleeding Gums Murphy, that “Jazz isn’t about making yourself feel better; it’s about making other people feel worse – and making a few bucks while you’re at it!

She fumbles the first part of the quote, it’s actually “The blues isn’t about feeling better”, but she’s got the rest dead on, and anyone who had to deal with Robin Williams at the tender age of six deserves some slack, so it’s still excellent usage.  (Thanks to reader Chase for sending this one in.) 

Top 25 Episodes of The Simpsons: Part 1 – #26-20 . . .

Top 25 Episodes of The Simpsons (Parts 2,3 & 4) . . . and #19-1.  This list has more Season 11/12/13/14 than I’d like, but it doesn’t have anything past that. 

HOMER – Fan made, computer drawn Homer.  This is basically accurate:

Homer looks high. And for whatever reason, one eye is swollen. Not sure what happened here.

Heh.

Smart Education: How Lynda.com Hit $70M In Revenue Without A Penny From Investors – Excellent usage:

As Ned Flanders would say, education in the U.S. is in “a dilly of a pickle.” At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the cost of education has become unsustainable.

Not only is this perfectly quoted, but it’s also from when Ned was trying to mediate the fight over school funding in “The PTA Disbands”.  Well done.

5 Awesome and 5 Terrible Moms of Nerd-Dom – Marge makes the “Awesome” list at #1, and Mom from Futurama is on the “Terrible” one.  

Woolly Mammoth hosts Simpsons-themed trivia – The post-apocalyptic Simpsons play that’s opening in D.C. soon is holding a series of Simpsons trivia nights in local bars as a promotional gimmick:

The specially-themed games will take place from May 21-31 at various destinations, which means you’ll have the opportunity to show off your smarts whether you live in Silver Spring (Fire Station 1) or along H Street (Star and Shamrock), in Fairfax (P. J. Skidoos) or Georgetown (Old Glory). And while a bar tab is nice, these quiz nights promise an extra special prize — tickets to the show.

A list of dates and participating bars can be found here.  There are a lot of them, so if you’re anywhere in or around Washington, it looks like you’ll be covered. 

The Avengers…In 10 Words – Heh, well done.

"Stopping" For Art – A little Bart themed alteration to an Atlanta area stop sign.

Homer’s Escape – Animated .gif of Homer fleeing the candy conventioneers. 

Accidental Brilliance – Using “The Crepes of Wrath” to help ESL students learn to write English as well as they speak it.  Bravo.

Sermon: “Ralph Wiggum Apocalypse!” – The first draft of some preacher’s sermon is about the “Ralph Wiggum Apocalypse”.  Click through for a picture of the excellent sign.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the… BLURST of Times? You Stupid Monkey! – YouTube. 

Appointment Viewing: May 7-May 13. – Lenny reminds us that Sunday will be here sooner than we think:

8:00 – The Simpsons (Fox): When word gets out that Edna and Ned have secretly wed, Marge offers to throw them a party. But bringing folks together makes them all realize that no marriage is perfect. Meanwhile, Edna tries to help Ned’s children become more socially acceptable by changing some of the rules. Screw the advisory board, Edna, I said no sugar!

Oh goody, an episode with lots of pointless, fake character development. 

The Ten Best Simpsons Sports Episodes – This list is mostly non-Zombie Simpsons, though there’s a few episodes from the twilight of the show. 

Simpsons Sums Up: 90210 – Nits must be picked, Lisa actually says “never be anything more”, but other than that it’s dead on. 

Pikachomer – A picture of what looks like socks with a very odd pop culture mashup. 

Day 08: 10 Things We Don’t Know About You – I’m just going to assume he’s not referring to Zombie Simpsons here, because that way I can completely agree with him:

Out of anything in the world, The Simpsons is the only thing that I can enjoy from A-Z/1-100/all the way through. There’s something so pleasant and wonderful about The Simpsons and it’s not just the simplicity that it’s a television show that rarely repeats itself. It’s the fact that the writing is so great. Each time you  watch it, you tend to see something new that you hadn’t seen before, you’ll understand a new joke or you’ll laugh at something you’ve never laughed at before.

Matt Groening Original Marge Simpson Cartoon Drawing – This is an auction for a sketch Groening did of Marge.  I like the marketing chutzpah of this description:

A minimalist original drawing of the head and shoulders of Marge Simpson.

It’s not a quick sketch, it’s a “minimalist original drawing”.  The “current bid” is £150.00.  Good luck with that.

SideShow Bob – TrueArtist Photo (30672728) – A fan made minimalist original drawing of a maniacal looking Sideshow Bob.

10 Great TV Moms – These sorts of lists are pretty common around Mother’s Day, but this one stands out for including not only Marge, but Morticia Addams as well. 

Damned Yankees – The New York Yankees have been somewhat bitten by the injury bug this year, prompting excellent usage:

Somehow, Mr. Burns’s speech in “Homer At The Bat” keeps resonating this week:

“Three misfortunes, that’s possible. Seven misfortunes, there’s an outside chance. But nine misfortunes? I’d like to see that!”

Everybody hates the euro. Sorta. – More excellent usage:

"He slept, he stole, he was rude to the customers. Still, there goes the best damned employee a convenience store ever had."

The euro’s "strength" is all relative. It may just be the cream of a sorry crop of currencies.

The Simpsons As Diablo 3 Characters – Fan made drawing of the family as classes from Diablo 3.  Homer’s tattoos are pretty good. 

My 2012 Season Finale Predictions, 100% Accurate on Some Alternate Earth – And finally, someone who agrees with us from the future:

The Simpsons: Absolutely nothing of consequence occurs, except maybe another great couch gag by outside artists. My vote is for Studio Ghibli.

Heh.

04
May
12

Reading Digest: A Tale of Two Cultural Uses

By Charlie Sweatpants 3 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
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Treehouse of Horror I5

“You know what would’ve been scarier than nothing?” – Bart Simpson
“What?” – Lisa Simpson
“Anything!” – Bart Simpson

It’s a shorter than average Reading Digest this week because two different Simpsons related things were clogging the tubes.  The first is the release of this new John Cusack movie where he plays Edgar Allen Poe and has to solve mysteries.  The second is the use of songs from Hot Chip and Animal Collective in last week’s Zombie Simpsons.  In the case of the movie, I lost count of the number of reviews that mentioned “Treehouse of Horror”; and in the case of the songs, I lost count of the number of blogs and websites (from very small to very large) that mentioned Zombie Simpsons.

There is one link to each below, but what was so funny about it was the way each was used.  When mentioning James Earl Jones and Homer Simpson doing Poe, the tenor of the articles was very much hey-remember-how-and-popular-it-was.  Whereas with Zombie Simpsons it was much more, so-that-happened.  It’s just another example of Zombie Simpsons being content with simply employing or referencing something where The Simpsons gave everything it used a unique and memorable twist.

There’s also the usual smattering of usage and fan made stuff.  And we’ve got a couple of way above average animated .gifs, a proper academic Simpsons citation, and a cool Homer Simpson workout t-shirt.

Enjoy.

mmmm, beer – An animated .gif of Homer thinking about the time the beer truck crashed.  It’s in black & white, which makes it oddly more profound.

Existentialism – a return to the child? – A short article on existentialism through the lens of American Beauty and “Bart’s Inner Child”.  I enjoy the precision of the citation:

Meyer, G. (Writer) & Anderson, B. (Director) (1993). Bart’s Inner Child. In D. Merkin, The Simpsons. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox Television.

If you’re going to take The Simpsons seriously, that’s how to do it.

Lenny & Steve’s Excellent Adventure Through the 100 Best TV Episodes of the Past 20 Years: Part 7 – “Lisa’s Wedding” and “22 Short Films About Springfield” are on here along with “War Is the H-Word” from Futurama.  Looking like that he talked his way into Jill St. John’s bed.  ’Nuff said.

Buy a ticket to ‘The Avengers’ and see old friends – Excellent usage:

“Last night’s ‘Itchy & Scratchy’ was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.”

That line, spoken by Comic Book Guy on “The Simpsons,” comes to mind for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s just a funny, well-written line delivered by Hank Azaria’s comic book shop owner character. Secondly, it hits just close enough to home that it’s one of the first things I think of when a big comic book movie, such as “The Avengers,” comes out.

Early Sketches of 11 Famous Cartoon Characters – I’m pretty sure I’ve linked the Simpsons one on here before, but there’s quite a few other cool sketches as well (Simba from The Lion King in particular).

Movie Review: The Raven – There were a lot of these this week:

I should begin by stating that I am not an expert in the works, life, or personality of Edgar Allan Poe. However, I have seen both the Lisa’s Rival and the original Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons at least 10 times.

The movie is apparently not very good.  (It’s sporting a 22% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this morning.)

Warning! Five classic shocker endings – Excellent usage:

“Planet of the Apes” (1968): The planet is actually Earth. As Charlton Heston laments, we’re maniacs, we blew it all up. Or as “The Simpsons” so brilliantly phrased it in the Troy McClure musical parody, “Oh my god, I was wrong/It was Earth all along.”

I love you, Dr. Zaius!

Pony Time: The Simpsons – Lenny goes Pony on the Simpsons.  But where’s Maggie?

Simpsons Sums Up: Desperate Housewives – Give that show credit, it started crazy and stayed that way.

Well Played, Simpsons – The late stages of “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet” and the Beatles picture that inspired it.

On “Proactive” – The origins of a word with excellent usage.

Fun Facts About The Simpsons – From the blog of the theater that’s putting on the post-apocalyptic Simpsons play:

The play opens soon after the apocalypse hits—there’s no TV, no radio, no Internet.  A group of survivors sit around a campfire and recall an episode of The Simpsons to escape from despair. From their collective memories, a new industry struggles to be born: a crude theatrical re-creation of the digital culture we can’t possibly live without.

Their Twitter feed is here, the hashtag is #WoollyBurns.

Mmmmmmmm! CFL DRAFT DAY! – Apparently the Roughriders were terrible last years:

Way back in 1992 during Season 3 of the long-running Fox series, The Simpsons, there was a CFL draft gag in the memorable episode when Ned Flanders briefly opens a store exclusively for left-handers, The Leftorium.

As a bored-looking Homer Simpson looks on from his couch, a crude graphic of a football emblazoned with a maple leaf and the words ‘CFL draft’ appears on his television, dissolving into a shot of two announcers seated in front of a CFL draft board divided into Eastern and Western Divisions.

Welcoming viewers to more “exciting 15th-round action at the Canadian Football League draft,” the announcers go on to note with some concern that “the Saskatchewan Roughriders only had four rouges all last year.”

The Roughriders can only wish their biggest problem heading into the 2012 draft was their lack of singles production in a disastrous 5-13 season in 2011 in which they were dead-last by a mile in points scored (51 points behind seventh-place Toronto and 169 points behind first-place Montreal).

He actually says “the Saskatchewan Roughriders who scored only four rouges all last season”, but I’m still calling it excellent usage because the front of the quote is right and for actually knowing about Canadian football.

A Homer Simpson t-shirt I’d wear to the gym from 80sTees – Heh.

Sideshow Bob by ~Rufina72 on deviantART – Two Sideshow Bobs, one popping out of a birthday cake.

Alucard, Sideshow Bob and kitties by =jesterry on deviantART – More Sideshow Bob, this time in more of a Japanese style.

Crabby Golightly: Chicago Silkscreen Artist Seeks ‘Kickstart’ For Gig Poster Gallery – Scroll down for a cool looking off color Marge.

FYI – YouTube of Maggie axing Willie in the back.  It is indeed disturbing.

Simpsons – Mr Sparkle (gif) – Exactly what it says.  I like the way only the background changes, makes it look like a street sign or something.

Newt Gingrich…In 10 Words – And kudos for bringing the public back to the Republican Party.

Animal Collective and Hot Chip appear on The Simpsons – And finally, the only link about last week’s pair of songs agrees with us:

Like most people in this day and age, you probably don’t watch the wacky hijinks of the Simpsons anymore, mostly due to the unerring fact that the show just isn’t very good.

Indeed it is not.  There’s video of the songs there, if you’re so inclined.

27
Apr
12

Reading Digest: Long Reads Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 8 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
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Lisa the Iconoclast8

“To celebrate our bicentennial, all twenty of you will write an essay about Jebediah Springfield; and the best eighteen will be put on file in the school library, available to anyone who requests them.” – Miss Hoover

Quite a few people took to their keyboards this week, producing thoughtful and well written tracts about various topics from Poochie to “Bart the Genius” and the slippery nature of hero worship.  On top of that, we’ve got lots of usage, an old story from Sam Simon, a couple of fan made drawings, two links to upcoming crappy merchandise, and a solicitation for people who can do Marge and Lisa impressions. 

Enjoy.

Exclusive: "Simpsons" Co-Creator Sam Simon On The Show’s History With Gambling In "All In: The Poker Movie" – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this clip from a new poker documentary.  It’s part of an interview with Simon where he talks about how real sports handicappers complimented him on “Lisa the Greek” as a show that, unlike the rest of teevee, was credibly written by degenerate gamblers.  Apparently, at some special screening, they used to change the voices for whichever teams were in the Super Bowl that year.  Lisa was right three straight years before they stopped.   

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Presents MR. BURNS, A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY, 5/28-7/1 – That play about people recreating society through The Simpsons after the apocalypse is finally premiering in Washington, D.C. at the end of May.  It runs through July.

‘Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie:’ Totally in your face – An appreciation of Poochie.

A Reflection on Hero-Worship – As usual, The Simpsons shows the way:

Though we no longer tend to engage in the open power worship of a Carlyle, we yet have a need to make heroes. If one was to make a massive generalization, the Victorian era was the time of power worship and the late 20th/ early 21st century is that of victim worship. The wittiest and most succinct illustration of this I can recall, and one that often reoccurs to me when I witness the phenomenon, is from an early episode of The Simpsons:

Homer: That Timmy is a real hero!

Lisa:  How do you mean, Dad?

Homer: Well, he fell down a well, and… he can’t get out.

Lisa:  How does that make him a hero?

Homer: Well, that’s more than you did!

Excellent usage. 

15 Big Little Things You Can Do in 15 Minutes – Excellent usage:

6. Complain/get angry. When Homer Simpson went to purchase a gun and was told that there was a mandatory five-day waiting period, he yelled in protest, “Five days? But I’m mad now!”

Branson Invites You to "Come On Down" – Moderate usage:

Branson, Missouri, once described by Homer Simpson as being like "Las Vegas if it were run by Ned Flanders" is actually getting an injection of genuine Vegas glitz. No, not the Spearmint Rhino – it’s Branson, remember — the Las Vegas stage version of "The Price Is Right Live" will open in Branson this July.

Bart recounts Homer’s description as “My Dad says it’s like Vegas, if it were run by Ned Flanders.”  More importantly, there’s a stage version of “The Price Is Right”?  Heaven help us. 

HOMER SIMPSON CANVAS PAINTING – Live in Queensland, Australia?  This cool fan made Homer painting can be yours for only $30.  I like the drool and the hammock, but since when does Homer read books?

Angry Birds Space adds ten levels – Simpsons could be next – Oh good, another tie in.

Former producer speaks of his humble beginnings – Simpsons alum Joseph Boucher gave a talk at Cal State Fullerton.  Not much fresh information here, but plenty of encouragement for anyone wanting to get into animation.

Simpsons – McBain, These are Loafers – I’ve always liked the way Wolfcastle just bends straight over and stares right at his shoes. 

Talkin’ Softball – Baseball season’s started, and someone put up a new copy of the song on YouTube.  There’s also this:

I have a fairly short list of ‘favourite things’.

  • Baseball
  • The Simpsons
  • Beer
  • Freinds & Family
  • Playing Guitar
  • Animals
  • Eating Food

But I’m lucky because most of these things mix very well together:

  • Baseball (watching it, anyway) + Beer
  • Family & Friends + Beer
  • Beer + Eating Food + (with) Friends and Family
  • The Simpsons + Friends and Family (watching it together)
  • Playing Guitar + Beer
  • Simpsons + Baseball

“Simpsons + Baseball”?  I’m intrigued.  I’ve always wanted to try playing a real a Simpsons rules softball game, but where would you find a park that would let you set up a keg at first base?

NFL.com news: Five takeaways from Seahawks’ pre-draft presser – The Seahawks GM apparently lapsed into a Homer impression during a press conference.  Sadly, no video.

Fox at 25 & Growing Up With The Simpsons – There’s some Zombie Simpsons in here, but I do enjoy this:

I was living in Canada during those years, the ’90s, and I remember having this English teacher who, as far as I could tell, didn’t really teach us much, but would stand at her podium, lecturing us about the ills of the world. She would fill us in on the details of the war in Kosovo, denounce America as a nation of gun-toting buffoons, and–frequently–get into a tizzy about how awful The Simpsons was. “Completely inappropriate for children,” “racist,” and sexist” were a few of the charges she levied against the show–and, in her criticism, she wasn’t too far removed from the show’s detractors in authoritarian China and Venezuela, and its critics in the United States, a country that she hated so much (I’m sure the writers of The Simpsons would have found a delicious irony in this). At the time, I reasoned that if someone like that–my teacher–hated the show so much, then it must be even better than I realized.

My teachers hated The Simpsons, which, of course, just made us love it all the more.  Ah, memories. 

Fox’s 25th Anniversary Special…In 10 Words – And we can’t watch FOX because they own those chemical weapons plants in Syria. 

Happy National Pretzel Day; AKA A Dark Day For Baseball – YouTube of exactly what you think it is.

#16: Margetini – A fan made sketch of Marge as a martini.  That’s all well and good, but what’s in it?

Simpsons Sums Up: The Vampire Diaries – Again, I’m taking Lenny’s word for this, but that guy on the bottom is smashingly handsome.

What it pays to teach your kids – Excellent usage:

If you’ve seen the episode, you’ll recall Homer Simpson’s devastation as he pulls from under a bed not the last peanut he was searching for – ”overflowing with the oil and salt of its departed brothers” – but a $20 bill. Until, that is, he remembers ”money can be exchanged for goods and services”, so $20 can buy many peanuts.

Doctor Robotnik Meets His Match, Sort Of – I chuckled. 

Voice Over/Impressionists – Seeking Lisa Simpson and Marge Simpson – A New York area Craigslist posting:

Seeking VO artists or impressionists who can do a great Lisa and/or Marge Simpson impression. We need a small number of lines recorded in their likeness for a proposal project.

Good luck, those are not easily duplicated voices. 

HAHA ! I WIN! – Animated .gif of Homer taunting Marge with her own affection from “Lisa’s Pony”.

It Happened to YOUUUUUU – A Radiohead infused illustration of Grampa’s “It’ll happen to you” quote.

Which MBTI type are the characters from The Simpsons? – A Myers-Briggs list of Simpsons characters.

Simpsons – Homer ‘Whoop whoop whoop’ walk (gif) – Just what it says it is. 

Four Nights Of A Dreamer (Quatre nuits d’un rêveur) – Allow me to help:

Throughout the film, there are several instances of brilliant philosophical dialogue. The most important of these, insofar as it sets a framework for the film and, simultaneously, reflects on Bresson’s aesthetic tendencies, is the conversation between Jacques (Guilliaume des Forets) and his artist friend. They speak about what I — and several distinguished writers, including Noel Carroll — now consider a fundamental truth in the appreciation of artwork: what matters isn’t what is there, but what isn’t. For example, with a painting, art arises from the spaces between the lines — what is not shown — rather than what is physically evident. Even the Simpsons understood this. In an episode I cannot quite recall, Lisa tells Bart to listen to the notes “they are not playing”. In just the same way, it’s the space that is created that instills art.

I believe this is what you’re looking for:

“Sounds like she’s hitting a baby with a cat.” – Jazz Prick
“You have to listen to the notes she’s not playing.” – Lisa Simpson
“I can do that at home.” – Jazz Prick

How Working in a Warehouse Feels While Using an MP3 Player – Animated .gif of The Anvil.

The Forbes Fictional 15 – It’s that time of year again.  Bereft of any decent ideas, Forbes has once again made up a list of the richest fictional characters.  This year Burns comes in at #13. 

Rubies adds The Simpsons – Some company I’ve never heard of got a license to sell adult Simpsons costumes in Europe.  As usual, the marketspeak is knee deep:

Carl Lumbard from Fox Consumer Products has commented: “A key component of the success of The Simpsons has been the appeal, fun nature and recognisable appearance of the iconic yellow characters. Rubies have done a terrific job creating costumes based on the characters from the show which promises to bring a whole lot of pleasure to Halloween and dress up parties everywhere.”

Media and licensing manager at Rubies, Holly Oldham, has said: “As costume designers and manufacturers The Simpsons is a dream property. We have absolutely no doubt that Homer, Marge, Bart and Krusty will rank amongst our best selling costumes and we hope that this is the start of a long and very successful relationship with FCP EMEA.”

“bring a whole lot of pleasure to Halloween and dress up parties everywhere”?  Jebus. 

Snapshot: Juan Mata Buys David Luiz ‘Sideshow Bob’ Birthday Cake – Pretty much what it says.  I’m impressed that they got Bob’s hair like that.

Omer Counting in the Digital Age – Modern technology, The Simpsons, and homophonic pronunciation come together to help Jews count the days after Passover. 

The Simpsons, Season 1, Episode 2: “Bart the Genius” – And finally, our last long read of the day is another person embarking on a rewatching of the show.  (Here’s the first one, which I somehow missed.)  I especially like this:

It’s not hammered in by the plot really, but watching this again I was a bit depressed by the implication that a ten year old boy is fully aware that his father’s love for him is totally conditional. Even more depressing is that Bart is absolutely correct. Once he inevitably confesses out of guilt driven how Homer has been doting over him, Homer curses him and chases him through the house, causing Lisa to grimly comment to Marge that things really are back to normal. Who knew that the “reset the status quo” nature of the sitcom could be used to put a bit of tragedy into the proceedings?

That was one of the things that was so great about the show.  Their status quo sucked.  Naturally, that essential misery is almost totally lacking from Zombie Simpsons. 

20
Apr
12

Reading Digest: Not Worth Reading Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 3 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
Tags:

El Viaje Misterioso De Nuestro Jomer9

“Oh, why do they have to put all this crud in my newspaper?  World.  The Arts.  Religion.  Ah ha!  Here it is, ‘Kickin’ Back!’” – Homer Simpson

This week we’ve got several links to things that really aren’t worth the click.  They exist, and I think they were worth noting, but having actually read them, I can’t honestly recommend that you do the same.  Of course, there are even more links that are worth your time, including some more minimalist Simpsons designs, several people who agree with us, quite a few lists, what real yearbook people think of Retrospecticus, and a new television show from Harry Shearer that I want to watch. 

Enjoy.

Five Ways ‘The Simpsons’ Ruined My Life – The title is a bit of an overstatement for Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week.  It’s really more five things she does because she’s a Simpsons fan (naming a cat that can stand on its hind legs Rory Calhoun is brilliant).  The wedding tables and cufflinks are fantastic. 

The Summer of 4 ft. 2 – Some well deserved love for Season 7 generally and “Summer of 4 ft. 2” specifically.  He shows the episode to the actual yearbook club every year, apparently the fonts joke gets them every time. 

What Do You Watch? Part I – Our old friend ilmozart agrees with us:

I struggle every Sunday, trying to find the funny and legitimize the fact that I still watch it. It gets harder every week. There’s always one or two good little jokes or sight gags, but I compare that to the golden days….and I sigh.

Indeed.

10 Most Prolific ‘Simpsons’ Characters – There’s nothing really worth reading here.  Someone at ABC News looked through IMDb and listed the characters who’ve been in the most episodes.  And since this is link trawling of the lowest form, they actually counted all four talking family members in the list at 500 episodes each instead of concentrating on the more interesting idea of what other characters had been in the most episodes.  For what it’s worth, according to them, it goes Moe (334 episodes), Milhouse (298), Skinner (274), Flanders (271), Burns (237) and Grampa (204).  (via)

Simpsons’ Beer ‘Duff’ Trademark Sought by German Brewer – This is awesome:

Duff Beer, based in Eschwege, Germany, filed a suit with the EU’s general court in Luxembourg, asking the court to overturn a decision by the EU trademark agency that prevented it from registering “the figurative trademark ‘Duff’ in black, white and red,” according to a filing published on April 14.

A Belgian court last year annulled Twentieth Century Fox’s two European trademarks for Duff as misleading because they weren’t registered for an actual beverage.

Good luck, German brewers. 

FOX to Rebroadcast First-Ever, Full-Length SIMPSONS Episode, 4/22 – Pretty much what it says.  They were going to repeat that awful 500th episode, but instead went with “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”.  Wise choice.  I might even tune in. 

Simpsodyne Art Print by John Tibbott – Once again, we have more minimalist fan made Simpsons art.  You can get this one as everything from a framed print to an iPhone case.  (via)

Harry Shearer plays Nixon in ‘The One’: 30-minute show to air on Sky Arts – Harry Shearer’s in a small television show (that’s being broadcast in Britain before America, for some reason) where he plays Nixon and acts out the things Nixon actually said on the tapes in all their racist, warmongering, paranoid glory.  I would watch this in a heartbeat.   

10 Comedians We Aren’t Meant to Find Funny – Our friend Philip has the rundown of ten acts so deliberately unfunny that they’re actually kinda funny, from Fozzie Bear to Steve Martin, with Krusty right in the middle:

His Krusty the Clown Show sketches are the stuff of huge mustaches and pie fights, something that might be written by somebody who grew up watching classic comedians, but could never figure out why they were supposed to be funny.

Paying attention, Zombie Simpsons writing staff?   

It’s Nice That : The Simpsons in chair form from the fascinating 56th Studio – These pretty but uncomfortable Simpsons chairs were linked in a few places this week.  The design is excellent, but couldn’t at least the Homer chair have some padding on it? 

The Real-life Inspirations for 17 Simpsons Characters – There’s nothing terribly new or interesting here, and some of them seem like stretches to me, but here it is anyway.

Homer choking Bart tattoo – Cool.

PRIMETIME TRAINERS 1991-1992 – A longer article about televised shoes from the 1990s notes that the Assassins were ahead of their time, fashion wise.

The Most Mind Blowing Subtle Pop Culture References From The Simpsons [IMAGES] – These pictures of Simpsons scenes next to their famous movie inspirations is old, but it was making the rounds again this week on Twitter and a couple other places.  This one comes courtesy of reader Steve.  I’ve still never seen that old one where the guy falls off the Statue of Liberty.  

Homer Simpson (NSFW) – What happens when you get someone to paint her vagina to look like Homer Simpson?  Well, you get this, don’t you?  (And this isn’t the first time, either.)

Der Simpsons – What about that tattoo on your chest?

10 little-known facts about Ted Nugent – There’s nothing you really need to click on here.  I just thought it was amusing that one of the “little-known facts” about the Nuge was that he’s been on Zombie Simpsons.  How the mighty have fallen. 

Lenny & Steve’s Excellent Adventure Through the 100 Best TV Episodes of the Past 20 Years: Part 5 – “Homer vs. The 18th Amendment” makes the cut at #55.

Simpsons Sums Up: Supernatural – I’ll just take Lenny’s word for this one.

How You Look Playing Monopoly – The various stages of Monopoly as seen through images of Mr. Burns.

My Five Favorite Pilots of All Time (So Far) – Some love for, among other things, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”. 

Pink Panther Pink? Smurfs Blue? Garfield Orange? Brilliantly simple print ads for Comex paint. – There’ve been a few of these minimalist type things in the last year or two, but I don’t think I’ve seen this one before. 

Fandom marks 25 years of ‘The Simpsons’ – Again, I wouldn’t bother to click on this, it’s just some throwaway article on espn.com, but it foolishly tries to make this work:

But to highlight how "The Simpsons" writers are still on their game, we’re compiling a few examples of plots from recent years that perfectly capture sports in the 21st century — but would have seemed completely alien to the TV viewer of 1987:

And how well does this indirect defense of Zombie Simpsons go?  Not well.  It only lists four episodes, three of which are only notable for being based around guest stars, and the fourth is that terribly boring episode where Homer and Marge become Olympic athletes.  You suck, Zombie Simpsons. 

Catnip – One of those things you can’t quite remember turns into looped YouTube of Mr. Burns’ condiment dilemma.  (Also, great blog title.)

The Szyslak Shuffle – Animated .gif of Moe defending his fly girl. 

Photo Album – Imgur – Heh, “bread” dog (via). 

Wizard World Toronto Comic Con – Sue’s Thoughts – Among other highlights, this woman got herself Simpsonized at a convention, you can see the result about 2/3 of the way down.

“Well, the evening began at the Gentleman’s club, where we were discussing Wittgenstein over a game of backgammon” – Mr. Simpson, it’s a felony to lie to YouTube. 

Coachella 2012…In 10 Words – I wonder if anyone asked the Pepper’s Ghost Tupac to give a message to Jimi Hendrix. 

Top 5 Dads in Television – Homer comes in at #1 here, and there’s lots of good YouTube. 

10 Best Cartoons To Watch As An Adult – It’s a short list, but Simpsons comes in at #1. 

Simpsons – Greased up Scotsman – Heh. 

Lisa Simpson Should Join Our Book Club – And finally:

This catches my eye because I used to be an avid Simpsons fan. I haven’t watched in well over 10 years, but at one point I had seen every episode and quoted it extensively.

I can assure you, there’s no reason to start watching again. 

As a final bonus, here’s a tweet sent in via e-mail by reader Landry:

Cancel Tweet

That’s pretty harsh, but who am I to disagree?

13
Apr
12

Reading Digest: Specious Speculation (Swartzwelder) Edition

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

Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily7

This is a much shorter than usual Reading Digest, entirely due to the fact that just about anytime someone punched “Simpsons” into a keyboard this week it was right next to the word “Oregon”, and all of them were equally worthless.  It’s the internet, so I guess you’ve got to take the bad with the good, but that an awful lot of concentrated stupid.  There is still some good, though, including cool fan made stuff (mmm, cupcakes), a fantastically meta YouTube video, and Superintendent Chalmers on the DC Metro.  There’s also two links about John Swartzwelder, one of which debunked a cool but untrue idea about him and Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation, and another that’s just a general fan letter.

Enjoy.

[Updated at 1:13pm because I got my drafts confused and left out Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week in the one I originally published.]

Kirk’s Movie Blog: Listorama! My Top 10 Simpsons Episodes (Part One) – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is a two parter that came in via e-mail.  It’s a great list, partly because it’s got no Zombie Simpsons, partly because each entry contains an explanation as well as quotes and a picture, and partly because of this:

Some Simpsons fans have queried whether the second season belongs to the ‘Classic Era’ of the Simpsons, but for me, there can be no question about it.

Indeed.

Kirk’s Movie Blog: Listorama! My Top 10 Simpsons Episodes (Part Two) – Just as good.

Too bad they don’t make a Radiation Queen – This is pure YouTube brilliance:

I don’t miss the crappy picture or the tinny sound, but those old televisions definitely had more personality than the generic black rectangle that most of them are today. 

Is Ron Swanson Based On John Swartzwelder, Legendary ‘Simpsons’ Writer? – Bill Oakley tweeted this yesterday, and there are at least some superficial similarities.  Unfortunately, Oakley also quashed it a few hours later:

Swanson-Swartzwelder Tweet

Oh, well.  It was fun while it lasted. 

Cupcake the Simpson Family – SELLY – This is not in English, and I have no idea what it says.  But these are some of the coolest Simpsons cupcakes I’ve ever seen. 

mattachinereview: [Sideshow Bob, from The... – You’re going to need to be aware of relatively uncommon gender pronouns to get this joke, but I chuckled. 

Laura E. Enriquez: How DREAMers Made Me Reconceptualize My Citizenship – Excellent usage:

To encourage participation we say that every voice counts but we also tend to re-frame the event -- Get Out the Vote rallies become concerts, social justice rallies have bands, feature celebrity speakers, or offer food. On The Simpsons, they tried to make jury duty more interesting by framing it as joining the "justice squadron" at the "Municipal Fortress of Vengeance." So maybe citizenship itself is in need of some re-framing so we can increase civic participation and get citizens like myself to appreciate the privileges we are afforded.

I’ve been called for jury duty three times and had to serve on a jury once, and that scene had a smile on my face all the way through orientation. 

Just when you think it can’t get weirder, it does. – Simpsons characters (and others) on parade during a fair in France.

The consolations of poetry: If the foolish call them flowers – Excellent Emily Dickinson usage:

I was first introduced to Emily by way of watching the Simpsons (the same medium by which I discovered Walt Whitman). Lisa follows Bart to military camp and, being the only girl, finds herself in her only lonely quarters: “Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known… then went crazy as a loon.”

Perfectly quoted, well done.

Appointment Viewing: April 9-April 15 – There’s new Zombie Simpsons this Sunday, and Lenny’s got us covered:

8:00 – The Simpsons (Fox): Jimbo’s girlfriend falls for Bart after he’s forced to chaperone her to a movie. School bullies notice, and that’s bad for Bart. Meanwhile, Homer is persuaded to buy an exercise machine, but doesn’t have to be persuaded to use the TV that comes with it. Why would anyone go for Bart over a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules?

Oh good, another girl falls for Bart.  This needs to stop happening so much. 

Distorted Marge Simpson t-shirt at Red Bubble – That is a fantastic idea, but do you get $2 off because it got smeared?

Alex Rocco talks about Magic City, The Godfather and more – Heh:

The Simpsons (1990-1997)—“Roger Meyers Jr.”
AR: Yeah, what’d I do, about six or seven of those? I did a series for Jim Brooks, for Gracie Films, called Sibs. That was a really good show. Marsha Mason was my wife. And because I’m with that family, pretty soon Jim Brooks says, “Play this.” And it’s kind of fun being the owner of Itchy and Scratchy.

AVC: Do you enjoy the opportunity to do voice work on occasion?

AR: Yeah. It really is fun, because you can go in shorts and a beard, you read off a piece of paper, and you're done. It’s like stealing money. [Laughs.]

There’s another reason Zombie Simpsons sucks, no Roger Meyers Jr. 

Simpsons Runway Style Fashion Shopping Guide – To call this pageview whoring would be a gross understatement, but some people at GQ went through a ton of episodes and found real life men’s fashions that look like things on the show.  I clicked through all 36 of them (18 Simpsons screen grabs, each followed by some blank faced, real life model), and while I make no claim as to the clothes, they at least had relatively good taste in episodes.  I didn’t see anything past Season 10. 

The Three Stooges Movie…In 10 Words – Moe is their leader. 

marge simpson – Cool, minimalist fan made image for Marge. 

SQ Drawings: Bart Simpson & Family – Fan made pencil/colored pencil poster of Bart done by a guy for his son’s bedroom.  Cool, though Bart does appear to have five fingers. 

Metro Confirms That the Resurrection Is ‘Not a Standard Announcement’ – An employee of the DC Metro got on the PA on Sunday and delivered a little Easter sermon, which prompted this:

But Flanders quickly runs afoul of public-school decorum when he attempts to "thank the Lord" over the public-address system. Superintendent Chalmers becomes irate, fuming that in a public school, "God has no place in these walls, just as facts have no place in organized religion." Flanders is fired on the spot.

It’s wonderfully apt, though Chalmers actually says “within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion.”  Still, those are minor, so I’m still calling it excellent usage.

Bart Simpson Rag Doll (NEW) – Old school crappy merchandise still in its original packaging. 

WHO WOULDN’T? – Animated .gif of Homer showing off his new chainsaw and hockey mask.

From Duluth to the world – Hopefully this will be on a Behind the Music type show one day:

They also reminisced about the band’s early days just up the hill from the auditorium. Like their very first official band rehearsal in 2003.

"It was a Sunday, and we were supposed to meet at 7 p.m.," Carroll recalled. "We called each other and were like, ‘Dude, "The Simpsons" are on, so … 7:30?’"

Who’s Awesome #6 – Some love for John Swartzwelder that is unrelated to the brief Ran Swanson speculation agrees with us:

The period of the Simpsons that I pay attention to is seasons 3-9. Other than those seasons, very rarely keep watching. Swartzwelder was in his prime then.

Amen.  And . . . charge!

06
Apr
12

Reading Digest: Yup, That Ship Is Still Underwater Edition

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

Roger Corman's Titanic

“And now, the conclusion of our thousand dollar movie, Roger Corman’s ‘Titanic’.” – TV Announcer
“We’re safe now, Clarice.  We made it away from that cursed ship.” – B-Movie Guy
“Now I can relax and take off this stifling bikini.” – B-Movie Gal

Next Sunday is the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  Since there’s apparently some money out there that he still doesn’t have, James Cameron will be re-releasing his movie of the same name.  This prompted two links, one of which may be the only time in the coming hundred years that I say something nice about E!.  In addition to that, we’ve got lots of excellent usage, a list of potential Simpsons spinoffs, several fan made drawings, and a refined epicurean’s guide to beer and donuts.

Enjoy.

The Audacious Epigone: Ranking The Simpsons seasons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is someone who agrees with us, and went through the IMDb ratings to prove it.  We’ve done the same, and it’s nice to see confirmation. 

Best of Geekery: Top 10 Potential Simpsons Spin-Offs – Exactly what it says.  I would definitely watch “Future Maggie in High School”.

Shakespearean fools: Their modern equivalents – The BBC compares Homer to Dogberry in “Much Ado About Nothing”.  (via)

Bart’s Complex House of Mirrors – Very cool fan made image of Bart and Homer (who has hair for some reason). 

All My Simpsons: Lionel Hutz – A slew of great Hutz quotes that is shockingly missing the one about Judge Snyder.

Frampton, Omaha fans love your way – Here’s why you have to be creative with celebrity guests:

A lot of laughs came in the middle of "Do You Feel Like We Do." After dozens of photos moved across a video screen behind Frampton, a clip played from the "Homerpalooza" episode of "The Simpsons" that features him. The bit involves him trying to launch an inflatable pig into the crowd by stomping on a pedal labeled "PIG."

A member of Frampton’s crew placed a "PIG" pedal onstage and he held it up and said "Where’s my pig?" while the video played.

Frampton only has a few lines in that episode, but he still gets to do and say things that are memorable and funny.  Most guests these days just show up and say their names.  Frampton has something that people still recognize a decade and a half later. 

Marge Simpson teasing mr. Burns by ~kuroishin on deviantART – Great fan art that almost looks like a discarded idea from “Marge Gets a Job”. 

Feminist Reading of “The Simpsons” – Collegiate essay that sadly cites two Zombie Simpsons episodes instead of far more interesting offerings like “Marge on the Lam”, “Principal Charming”, “Lisa the Beauty Queen” and, of course, “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy”. 

You Are What You Wear – Science sez: the clothes you wear have a psychological effect on you.  However obvious that may seem, there is this:

The concept for the research stemmed from an episode of  “The Simpsons.”

The episode featured a group of children in gray uniforms who were very quiet. After a rainstorm came and washed the clothing into color, their behaviors changed.

“[I] started thinking about how the clothes you wear and the meaning” behind those clothes, Galinsky said. “If you put on a black T-shirt, you become more aggressive. You put on a nurse’s uniform, you become more helpful.”

Homer Simpson Delight: Pairing Donuts and Beer – Which kinds of beer go best with which donuts?  This handy guide has you covered. 

Movie Review: Titanic 3D’s Impressive Effects Do the Epic Story Justice…for the Most Part – Even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut:

The best 3-D enhancements include any scenes where somebody looks over the deck—Rose’s suicide attempt, for example, or the now-infamous "King of the World" scene (does anyone else remember that, in fact, The Simpsons did that first in the 1990 episode "Bart the Daredevil"?).

Well done, E-online.  Now please go back to sucking, otherwise I might have to start taking you seriously. 

Let’s talk about sex, baby – Excellent usage:

There was a time, not too long ago, when the mere mention of the word "sex" had me cringing in my seat, cautious of what was about to happen on screen. Naturally, I’m talking about an episode of The Simpsons from 1995.

The episode was titled The Last Temptation of Homer, and it featured Homer Simpson contemplating whether to start an affair with co-worker Mindy (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer)*; late in the episode, the pair go to a hotel room and Homer starts crying. Mindy asks what is wrong. "Oh, yeah, like you don’t know," cries Homer. "We’re gonna have sex!"

Perfectly quoted, and bonus points for that slightly lusty look Timothy Olyphant is giving Ian McShane in that Deadwood picture.

Technology: Helping you get a useless education faster! – More excellent usage:

In a classic episode of The Simpsons, Homer changes his name to “Max Power” and declares to Bart and Lisa, “Kids, there’s three ways to do thingsT the right way, the wrong way and the Max Power way!” Bart asks, “Isn’t that the wrong way?” And Homer replies, “Yeah, but faster!”

The belief that using the Internet to teach the same old college material will magically fix higher education is the equivalent of believing in the Max Power way — “Let’s keep doing education wrong, but faster!”

I wouldn’t call that episode a classic, but that is a great line.

Simpsons Nuclear Street Art in Chernobyl – YouTube from Chernobyl of that Simpsons mural from last week.

Team Retrospective: Denver Broncos – The Broncos are worth approximately a billion ($1,000,000,000) dollars, won back-to-back Super Bowls not that long ago, and just signed a four time MVP as their quarterback.  Nevertheless, Homer once said they suck, and so they shall suck forever.  Excellent usage.

Mad Men…In 10 Words – Without it we’d have had no fun since March of 1961!

Funk Dance 101 – YouTube of Moe’s dancing/shotgun lesson.

04.01.12 Danny Elfman and…well…Danny Elfman! – Lots of links for various Elfman projects.

Arranged – Photographic proof that they don’t just sell Duff the beer in England, they also sell Duff the energy drink.

Ulster Unionists’ Mr Burns should take a look at Rab C Nesbitt – A lengthy (and somewhat inaccurate) comparison of Burns’ run for governor with some Irish politician who said he should maybe spend some time with poor people to get to know them. 

100 Best Comedy Characters Currently On Television (10-1) – And the list concludes with Homer falling just short at #2.

Stupid Sexy Flanders! – The animated .gif.

Friday March 23 2012 | The CatBeard Project – A fan made Scratchy looking cat with a cat pirate hat and cat pirate uniform. 

Quote Hanger – Homer Simpson on the movie that made Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock stars, though he says “it would explode”, not “the bus would explode”. 

Santa’s Little Helper Doodle, AKA. Woof Woof! – Very accurate fan sketch of Santa’s Little Helper.

Modern Gentlemen … – YouTube of Homer’s most famous alcohol quote.

Draw Something With Kirk Van Houten – How could anyone make a word out of these lousy letters?

‘The Big Lebowski’: A cloud of weed descends on Jason Reitman’s live-read – It’s always good to have someone on hand who can do a shitload of impressions:

Another slight hitch came just moments later, as Reitman read the stage direction about The Dude, writing out a check for .69 cents in a grocery story, seeing a clip of then-President George H.W. Bush on television. A long pause followed. “Oh, we never assigned that to anybody!”

Hank Azaria jumped in to rescue, with a quavering impression of our 41st president slamming Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait with, “This aggression will not stand, this … this will not stand.” Azaria, an infinite supply of voices on The Simpsons, was also playing the pornstar nihilist Karl Hungus, Steve Buscemi’s Donny, and the private eye Da Fino — doing an incredibly spot-on imitation of character actor Jon Polito (which is an unusual impression to have in one’s repertoire.)

"Lisa Simpson is my president" – At an anti-war protest a few years ago, someone got a great picture of a sign that says “Lisa Simpson Is My President” in front of the White House.  The only odd thing is that the image is of her wearing a Movementarian uniform.  (via)

ObscureSimpsonsQuotes – Someone on Vimeo has been putting up, as the user name would imply, “obscure” Simpsons quotes.  No doubt the fun police will be along at some point, because watching five second clips will naturally destroy someone’s urge to buy a DVD.  In the meantime, enjoy.

The Weekly Listicle: Will Find Weaker Listicles And Attack – A list of famous bullies includes Nelson alongside the likes of Biff Tannen and Rachel McAdams from Mean Girls.

Simpsons Sums Up: Adventure Time – Heh.

Tele-Tuesday: A Pick Per Night 2012, The Funny Results – A fan poll result:

Reader’s Choice:  Family Guy came in first with 30% of the reader’s vote, with The Simpsons following close behind with 26%.  Is anyone else with us who can’t believe The Simpsons is still on air, airing new episodes?  How many seasons is this?  CRAZY!

Yeah, Zombie Simpsons sucks.

Lenny & Steve’s Excellent Adventure Through the 100 Best TV Episodes of the Past 20 Years: Part 3 – “Lisa’s First Word” and “A Streetcar Named Marge” are on here.  As for the latter:

S: The review “EPISODE ENJOYED BY ALL” speaks for itself.

Did he expect too much from fourth graders?

Lenny & Steve’s Excellent Adventure Through the 100 Best TV Episodes of the Past 20 Years: Part 4 – And this one has “A Fish Called Selma” and “The PTA Disbands”. 

SPOILER ALERT! – I like Titanic, but that’s funny.

April 3: cartoon architecture – Talking about Frank Gehry’s appearance on Zombie Simpsons:

Honestly, it’s not a great episode, but if you’d like to see the Gehry part, you need only watch the first twelve minutes are so

Heh. 

Celebrities are pretty much interchangeable – More heh:

Sitting opposite us at breakfast was Matt Groening, genius behind The Simpsons. He said all cartoonists were also considered interchangeable: “One guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you’re a cartoonist? Wow, can you draw Garfield for me?’”

‘The Simpsons’ 9 Best Movie Parodies – This list isn’t what you’d call insightful.  Basically, it just points out things you already knew, like that “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds” took some inspiration from “101 Dalmatians”, but it doesn’t have a whiff of Zombie Simpsons, and for that it deserves a link.

Simpsons Did It – And finally, nice little piece of Zombie Simpsons snark:

Quick, what was Richard Nixon’s middle name? Milhouse. What cat and mouse used to actually blow each other up on Saturday mornings? Tom and Jerry. What clown actually had a live TV show for kids that included variety acts and cartoons? Bozo. Matt Groening and his generation would have taken all of this, and the American nuclear family sitcom – pardon the pun – for granted. Today’s kids have Modern Family, making The Simpsons look increasingly like a time capsule of pop culture and American history.

30
Mar
12

Reading Digest: Monorail Demolition Edition

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

The Future of Sydney

“Go away!  There ain’t no monorail and there never was!” – Monorail Cafe Woman

The monorail in Sydney, Australia is being dismantled.  Clearly the town is doomed, and since the word “monorail” has been used, people have been invoking Lyle Lanley and his cheerful brand of fraud to prove it.  We’ve got two links about it, including a spectacular parody video.  On top of that, we’ve got awesome donuts, I nitpick several pieces of usage, there’s a possible sighting of the very first time Bart Simpson was on television, Lenny’s trying out a couple of new things at her blog, there are alumni updates about Cartwright and Groening, and there is a truly half-assed attempt at making a real Flaming Homer.

Enjoy.

Monorail, Monorail, MONORAIL! – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this excellent monorail song parody from Australia.  The map is a very nice touch, and while I didn’t get most of the local references, bored looking kids in the Rammstein and Evanescence t-shirts require no localization.  Here’s some background on the video and the impressively quick way they put it together. 

Prima Simpsonis: The First Television Appearance of Bart Simpson – I will leave it to people better versed in the obscure early days of the Simpsons to determine if this is true or not, but there is a suspiciously Bart-looking background image in an animated episode of Amazing Stories that was written and directed by Brad Bird.  It was broadcast in February of 1987, two months before they hit the air as part of The Tracey Ullman Show. 

The Simpsons in Chernobyl – Awesome:

A muralist by the name Combo created a very appropriate Simpsons family portrait power plant scene inside a building at the Chernobyl disaster sight.  The artists also created a power plant landscape mural as well.

They’re really well done, too!  Good work, Combo, whoever you are.

Baking With SparkleGirl | Mmmm… Forbidden Donuts – Complete and simple instructions for making pink sprinkle donuts, with drool inducing pictures.  The only thing that’s missing is an incantation so that you can sell your soul to Flanders for one of these.

You Know You’ve Arrived When You’ve Been Simpsonized – A nice review of Rear Window with a couple of screen grabs from “Bart of Darkness” thrown in for good measure.  Bonus points if you can figure out what the blog’s banner image is without looking at the About page.

My Life is Complete: Boo Urns! – Attention California residents, you cannot get “BOOURNS” as your license plate, because someone already has it.  Here’s photographic proof.

Embiggen your vocabulary: 10 coinages from ‘The Simpsons’ – There’s only one thing from Zombie Simpsons on here.  Bravo.

The Simpsons Puzzle – A look at some Simpsons puzzles.  I’ve got to give the Krusty Brand Seal of Approval department credit for the one with Bart writing “I Will Finish What I Sta__” on the front of the box.

Lisa Simpson – I must pick nits, even when I agree:

I was watching and old episode of the Simpsons yesterday, “Mr. Lisa goes to Washington.”  It was aired in 1991 and Lisa goes to DC, there is a line in the show where a senator says “One day you might even grow up to be a senator, there are women senators you know.” To wit Lisa replies, “I know, there are two, I checked.” That made me sit up, I knew there were more female senators now, but didn’t know how many.  Out of 100 senators 17 are female. In over twenty years we went from 2, to 17.  Now the growth rate is tremendous and I applaud that, but when you think about it, 17 out of 100 isn’t that many, especially if you consider that there are more women in the population than men (marginally, sure.)

The “honorable” Bob Arnold actually says:

“Lisa, you’re a doer.  And, who knows?  Maybe someday you’ll be a Congressman or a Senator.  We have quite a few women Senators, you know.”

To which the ever astute Lisa replies, “Only two, I checked.”  I’m calling that one moderate usage. 

OU Announces Undergrad Commencement Speaker – On June 9th, Nancy Cartwright will be giving the commencement address at Ohio University.  That is all. 

Jillian’s Bart Simpson Tee – Your chance to own a real 1990 Bart t-shirt, the proceeds of which also buy a new shirt for charity. 

From the Inside: Michael Bay, Ninja Turtles, Star Wars and the Nature of Fandom – More excellent usage from Michael Bay’s latest troll masterpiece:

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Apparently Michael Bay has been reading a lot of Shakespeare lately; too bad he can’t learn anything constructive from The Bard. I also like how Homer Simpson put it: “There’s nothing wrong with crabgrass. It just has a bad name, that’s all. Everyone would love it if it has a cute name, like, uh, elf grass.”

Homer actually says “had a cute name” not “has a cute name”, but that’s close enough for excellent usage. 

Diary of a Cork football fan: Part 5 – Well done:

There is an episode of the Simpsons where Marge is at a ‘pee wee’ ice hockey game between Bart’s team and Lisa’s team and after seeing Bart get tripped, she roars ‘vengeance, I want vengeance!’

Well that is exactly how I felt on the road up to Mayo. The heartbreak of last year’s All-Ireland quarter final defeat was still fresh in the mind of Cork supporters.

Marge actually says, “He tripped my boy!  I demand vengeance!  I want vengeance!”, but all the words are in the right order so it’s definitely excellent usage.

Simpsons Sums Up: Gossip Girl, Season 5 – Since I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than about five minutes of Gossip Girl, I can’t judge the image, but the quote is right, so I’m calling this excellent usage by Lenny.

Lenny & Steve’s Excellent Adventure Through the 100 Best TV Episodes of the Past 20 Years: Part 1 – Lenny’s other new project has “Homer at the Bat” as the 92nd best episode of anything.

MonoFAIL – Sydney fell for Lyle Lanley’s scam a long time ago, and now they’re going to tear it down, but no without YouTube of the original song.  No word on the popsicle stick skyscraper.

The Future, as Predicted by ’90s Cartoons – There’s plenty of “Lisa’s Wedding” here, even though that is now technically in the past.

100 Best Comedy Characters Currently On Television (30-21) – The countdown continues with Itchy & Scratchy sharing the honors at #23, and . . .

100 Best Comedy Characters Currently On Television (20-11) – . . . Bart at #14.

Homer Simpson Stargazer fish found buried in seabed by divers in the Lembeh Strait – This strikes me as a bit of a stretch, but whatever.

Audiovisual Rosetta Stones: 15 foreign words and phrases we learned from film and TV – Grampa’s failed German burlesque show is in here.  I bet no one thought of that scene as educational when they were putting it together. 

1996: A SPACE ODDYSSEY – This one goes out to our Australian readers, where there was apparently a Simpsons tie-in with a Pog knockoff in 1994.  If we had those here in the States, I sure don’t remember them.

Wil Wheaton Speaks the Truth – Via Twitter:

Some days, you’re just going to be Sideshow Bob, and the world is going to be a dozen rakes.

Heh.

A GIF(t) just for you 31 – Animated .gif of Ralph smiling and waving.

Cocktails Everywhere! – This is a list of pop culture inspired cocktails, everything from Harry Potter to Portal.  It contains a link to an amusingly abysmal about.com page for a Flaming Homer:

I cannot say that I’ve ever had this drink, nor do I want to try it. However many people are curious about it. The key is to use a plain children’s cough syrup, nothing too flavorful. Be careful when making any flaming drink and extinguish before drinking. I’d be curious to hear comments about it.

The ingredients:

  • 1 oz brandy
  • 1 oz peppermint schnapps
  • 1 oz sloe gin
  • 1 oz blackberry liqueur
  • 1 oz strawberry juice
  • cough syrup

Other than the cough syrup, none of those are in the episode (though one of the bottles Homer grabs is a Schnapps of some kind).  And I doubt very much there’s enough booze in that to actually get it to ignite, certainly not at room temperature.  And now, the punchline:

Be the first to write a review

Nah.

The Shatterer of Myths – Exploring the real meaning and definition of “myths”, with a nice assist from “Lisa the Iconoclast”.

Planet of The Aches – Animated .gif of the Itchy & Scratchy where Itchy walls up Scratchy and then dices him in the future.

Jamming with Matt Groening – Groening did some impromptu sketches for charity at the Shanghai International Literary Festival.

Top 10 Great Television Comedies – A great list with quite a bit of YouTube, and you know who comes in at #1.  He’s easier on Zombie Simpsons than I am, but I wholeheartedly agree with this:

But when it was in the highlight of its years, it is the best comedy that was ever on television. Seasons 3-8 have so many classic moments and are just as funny today as they were when they aired.

Those episodes have aged so well that it’s genuinely frightening.  Just look at the monorail video up top.

23
Mar
12

Reading Digest: Forgotten Stuff Edition

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

The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show5

“Look Scratchy, it’s our new friend, Poochie.” – Itchy
“What’s that name again?  I forgot.” – Scratchy

Thanks to its relentless insistence on being both bland and repetitive, Zombie Simpsons manages to be incredibly forgettable despite its long run on television.  Earlier in the week, I joked about “Them, Robot” swarming with magic robots, but I’d completely forgotten that they already did an episode swarming magic robots this season, “Replaceable You”.  In case you also forgot (though not everyone did), that was the one where Bart and Martin build an army of robot seals who turn evil and then good again. 

If Zombie Simpsons has a virtue, it is that it is easy to forget most of it, and this week we’ve got two links about exactly that, one with great imagery.  In addition to that, we’ve got an excellent variety of fan made stuff in mediums as diverse as sand and yarn, an interview with Alf Clausen, some Lego ads, a YouTube video that makes me want to sit down, and several people who agree with us.

Enjoy.

Noiseless Chatter Spotlight: “AWESOM-O,” South Park season 8, episode 5 (2004) – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this thorough look at the “AWESOM-O” episode of South Park, the process that created it, and how that stacks up against The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons.  He makes one point in particular that I want to agree with: 

If you think I’m going to bring up The Simpsons again as a point of comparison, you’re right. After all, there’s no better reference point for either of the two shows than each other, and whereas The Simpsons has been recycling plots and echoing itself in gradually deteriorating whispers for the sake of remaining familiar to whatever small audience still chooses to follow it, South Park has been ditching characters and ideas since season two, scrambling up core dynamics and introducing new regular characters in order to explore avenues that they previously couldn’t reach without stretching characters beyond their scope of believability.

South Park has benefitted tremendously from its ability to shift its format and focus between different characters.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but they aren’t stuck repeating things because they’re wedded to a specific template.  The only thing I’d add is that they can do that because Parker and Stone have all the leverage vis-a-vis them and Comedy Central.  That show is the two of them, including the bulk of the voices.  On Zombie Simpsons, no one person has the ability to say “That sucked, we’ve got to try something new”.  Even if Brooks, Jean and Groening all walked off the show, you know what would happen?  FOX would keep making episodes with whoever stayed.  On South Park, Parker and Stone have the kill switch; on Zombie Simpsons, FOX has it.

I highly recommend the whole thing.

Drinks’ On Simpsons – A nicely photo-documented project to create customized, homemade Simpsons coasters.  If I had any furniture that needed coasters used, I would want those.  They’re fantastic. 

Homer Simpson Crochet Toy – Check out this amazing foot tall, fan made Homer doll.  All the details are there, right down to the eyelids. 

Watching 130 Episodes of “The Simpsons” Simultaneously – That guy who put up all the Itchy & Scratchy videos also did this:

Here’s what you’re watching:

-Top to bottom: each row shows a season (from season 1 to season 10)
-Left to right: each column shows an episode (from episode 1 to episode 13)

A total of 130 episodes is displayed, framerate is 25fps, thumbnails have been captured at 80x60px

That’s fun and all, and bonus points for no Zombie Simpsons, but I kind of feel like Chief Wiggum watching the monorail race around the city.

All Kids out of the Pool: The Best Adult Cartoons – A look at some adult animation going all the way back to 1943, with lots of YouTube.  And it agrees with us:

The Simpsons is a classic cartoon, and it is extremely unlikely that anyone hasn’t heard of it. It has severely declined in quality since the first few seasons, and the jokes most people remember as hilarious are actually from the first few seasons.

In all the times I come across poor, moderate and excellent usage (not all of which I post about), it is amazing how infrequently people mention anything from Zombie Simpsons.  Whether it’s someone writing a blog post about being pregnant or going on vacation, a reporter opening a story, or anything else, it feels like I see a hundred or more references to The Simpsons for every one I see for Zombie Simpsons.  I don’t keep count or anything, but it’s overwhelming.  Speaking of remembering jokes . . .

Simpsons then and now – This is from Springfield Springfield on Twitter (click to embiggen):

Simpsons Then and Now1

That image has been kicking around on-line for a while now, and obviously the right hand side is nothing but crappy celebrity appearances and desperate cries for attention like Marge kissing Lindsey Naegle.  Here’s the second one (again, click to embiggen):

Simpsons Then and Now2

They called this one “Fixed”, and I agree.  Unless you’re a particular fan of this or that celebrity or band, they’ve had so many people on as themselves now that they all just fade into one incoherent fog.  I’m not sure who created the first one or fixed the second one, but if you want credit just let me know.  Kudos to both. 

National Treasure Director Jon Turteltaub, The Simpsons former Producer Jay Kogen, and New York Times Bestselling Author of Midwives Chris Bohjalian, and Pulitzer Prize winning author James B. Stewart are among the headliners for the SCCE’s 11th Annual Co – As you can tell from this monstrous (yet cutoff) headline, Jay Kogen will be speaking to a group called SCCE, which stands for the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics.  The conference isn’t until October, and there’s no real news here, I just thought it was amusing that they put “Compliance” ahead of “Ethics”.

Santa Cruz X The Simpsons 500th Episode Slasher Deck – An eyes-out, wheels-off Bart skateboard design. 

¡Ay Caramba! Interview with “The Simpsons” composer Alf Clausen – There’s not a lot of new information in here, but Alf seems like he’s having a good time, and this is cool as hell:

At the 500th session, you took time to make special mention of some musicians with whom you’ve worked for decades. In what other capacities have you worked together?
“Trombonist Bob Payne, trumpet player Gary Grant and recently retired percussionist Jules Greenberg were all part of my ‘Donny & Marie Show’ band in 1976. They have been an integral part of every show I’ve recorded since then. Many other members of my ‘Simpsons’ orchestra have worked for me for over 25 years.”

250. Lego Imagination – Much was made this week about these new Lego ads that are minimalist renditions of famous cartoon characters.  Here they are all scrunched together. 

‘Hunger Games’ Characters as ‘Simpsons’ Stars – Speaking of things that were linked all over the place this week, these Hunger Games characters done in yellow with no chins (via). 

Writers for "The Simpsons," "M*A*S*H" among panelists for Aspen Shortsfest – Mike Reiss will be judging a short film festival that runs April 10th-15th in Colorado. 

Deciphering opposition to health care reform – Excellent usage:

One of my all-time favorite episodes of "The Simpsons" was aired way back in 1992. It was called "Homer the Heretic," and towards the end of the episode, there’s a serious fire in the Simpsons’ home.

After everyone is safe and the fire is put out, an insurance agent asks Homer, "Any valuables in the house?" He replied, "Well, the Picasso, my collection of classic cars…"

The agent replies, "Sorry, this policy only covers actual losses, not made-up stuff."

“Well that’s just great.”

100 Best Comedy Characters Currently On Television (40-31) – Continuing the list from last week, here we have Flanders checking in at #40. 

The Rebooted ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Will Be Aliens, According To Michael Bay – Excellent usage:

I’m suddenly having flashes of the network executive from the “Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie” episode of The Simpsons: “We at the network want a dog with attitude. He’s edgy, he’s ‘in your face.’ You’ve heard the expression, ‘let’s get busy’? Well, this is a dog who gets ‘biz-zay!’ Consistently and thoroughly.”

I’m beginning to think Michael Bay is the greatest troll in the history of the internet (at least the pop culture part of it).  There’s an alternate universe where he’s the assistant manager of a surf shop who spends most of his time posting inane comments on blogs and message boards. 

Marge and Maggie Simpson on Mothers Day 2012 – I’ve linked to this guy’s sand drawings before, and his Flickr page has plenty more.  Cheers to Martin Artman. 

Jason Reitman to stage The Big Lebowski – They’re doing a live reading of The Big Lebowski, which is challenging because there are a ton of small, one or two scene characters.  Enter Azaria:

Luckily, three actors known for their diverse voices have signed on to ensure that worries about the size of the cast don’t drag any negative energy into this tournament.

From the Jesus to pornographer Jackie Treehorn to the irate neighbor who “kills” the Dude’s car, most of the small-but-memorable roles will be handled by a versatile trio. Nick Kroll and Patton Oswalt, two veterans of the live-reads, will be joined by The Simpsons’ Hank Azaria to “cover the field” of different characters in The Big Lebowski, Reitman says. “There will be a moment when the three nihilist will be played by Patton, Nick, and Hank, and we’ll be getting each of their German accents,” he laughs.

I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Zombie Simpsons, Dude, at least its an ethos. 

Muppets return to the big screen with family fun, laughs – The Clarksdale Press Register is one of those self defeating local papers that requires a subscription to read it; fortunately, the excellent usage is right in the first sentence:

When asked what a “Muppet” was, Homer Simpson once said, “Well, it’s not quite a mop and it’s not quite a puppet, but maaaaan! (laughs) So to answer your question, I don’t know.”

Homer and Marge Simpson Beer Bottle Cozies via Flickr – Nice. 

Custom of the Week: Ralph – Last week we had some ponies redone as the Simpsons clan.  Here’s one of Ralph Wiggum. 

Cool Party Trick – Animated .gif of that Irish bartender from “Pygmoelian”.

Scooby Doo Fan Art # 3 (Mash-Ups) – Drawings of the Scooby Doo gang in other franchises, including Simpsons.  The Ghostbusters and Ghost World ones are particularly good. 

Handheld Classics: Bart Simpson’s Escape From Camp Deadly – A review of a Gameboy game I had completely forgotten about. 

Eat More Bikes: Post Apocalyptic Bart Simpson. – A four pane comic.  I chuckled. 

17 reasons to feel proud today – A St. Patrick’s Day list for Irish pride messes up this quote slightly:

The place of Ireland’s national day in popular culture was neatly summed up by that great sage Homer Simpson: "It’s been St Patrick’s Day for hours, and I’m not drunk yet."

It’s actually “I’m still not drunk yet”, but that’s close enough for excellent usage.

Canada News, Commentary, Analysis, Blogs – Excellent YouTube usage about the amount of food that gets thrown away every year. 

Big Data won’t solve your company’s problems – Sigh:

FORTUNE – "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. Fourteen percent of people know that." – Homer Simpson

Forfty.

… He’s Real! – Herschel, pie is for noshing, not for throwing.

Inside The Simpsons’ "Life on the Fast Lane" – Splitsider apparently now has a regular feature where they watch old commentaries.  Huh. 

Need a Hangover Cure? Try Itchy and Scratchy! – Another link to that huge YouTube video of Itchy & Scratchy from last week contains this nice piece of Zombie Simpsons snark:

P.S.  If you’re not a fan of The Simpsons in their halcyon salad days of consistent greatness, (roughly Seasons 1-10, before a team of writers who sound like snooty grad students fresh out of college started working for the show) then I’m not sure we can stay friends.

Simpsons: Them Robots, Them Robots – We weren’t the only ones who didn’t like last week’s episode of Zombie Simpsons either:

At this point, I wonder if the current writers have seen the previous seasons of the show.  Maybe it should be required viewing so that they can be reminded of how great things used to be and what our expectations are, instead of just trotting out the same ideas in lesser forms.  But clearly that is expecting too much.

Dylan Plays The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Dies Inside – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us, and does so in an enjoyably harsh review of that new game:

Long ago, the show had stripped away the humanity of everybody living in Springfield, and The Simpsons: Tapped Out is just another reflection of this trend. The show’s not going anywhere soon, and if the success of the app is any indication, neither is Tapped Out. The characters no longer feel human; they feel like work mules. In the show, they’re plodding through the same tired storylines (oh, the Simpsons are being kicked out of Springfield again?) with none of the same heart. In the game, it doesn’t matter that Milhouse spends his entire day flying the same model airplane in four hour intervals, or that Krusty spends eight hours “Inflating His Own Importance.”

These characters are happy to recycle the same actions again and again without question. Maybe utilizing these things for their money-producing powers is for the best. I have nine levels until I reach level twenty, and these pretend friends won’t impress themselves.

Just Don’t Forget, Citizens of Springfield: You’re Here Forever.

Got that right.

16
Mar
12

Reading Digest: Simpsons Crossover Edition

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

And Maggie Makes Three7

“Attention American workers, your plant has been taken over by an all-star team of freelance terrorists.” – Not Hans Gruber
“Not on my shift! . . . Simpson 10, Terrorists 8.” – Homer Simpson

This week we’ve got three links to fan made pop culture crossovers, two of them are small (one for Lord of the Rings and one for My Little Pony), and one is marvelously epic.  Unlike a recent episode or two I could mention, all three are fine examples of putting Simpsons characters into other fictional universes.  There’s also a great, but most likely short lived, Itchy & Scratchy YouTube, plenty of usage, Canadian municipal politics, and a couple of skateboards. 

Enjoy.

Movies Poster Parodies by Claudia-R on deviantART – Stop the internet.  Claudia-R has won.  Read this post no further, just click through.  (via)

For Fans of Cartoon Violence Everywhere! – This was making the rounds this week:

It’s forty-eight minutes long (Zombie Simpsons start around 25:00 or so), and was uploaded by a random YouTuber, so watch it while you can because the fun police will be after it before too long.

Truly Bad Simpsons Episode Titles – Inspired by the multi-layered stupid of “How I Wet Your Mother”, Lenny breaks down some truly awful episode titles, including the ones where Zombie Simpsons uses the same pun over and over.  The movie titles of Claudia-R’s posters are vastly superior to these. 

Maya’s Homer Simpson donut – An amazing embroidered pink frosting donut.  She even stitched it so you can see where the frosting ran.  Bravo. 

My Precious – I sort of feel like I’ve seen this before, but who cares?  It’s Homer as Gollum and it is awesome.

Jamestown grad keeps ‘The Simpsons’ in music – This is a typical local-boy-makes-good article about Alf Clausen, but it does contain this interesting story about the Stonecutters song:

Over the years Clausen has a few songs that he wrote that he considers favorites. One is “We Do” (The Stonecutters Song), which is a song sung by the members of a secret society that Homer joins.

Back in Jamestown, Clausen was in DeMolay, which is modeled after Free Masonry. He drew some inspiration from his past when he wrote it, he said.

“Homer is being accepted into this secret society in Springfield which he doesn’t know if he wants to do, because he doesn’t know if he respects an organization that will have him as a member,” Clausen said, laughing.

Clausen also cites the Senor Burns song from “Who Shot Mr. Burns, Part 2” and working with Bono for the garbage man song in “Trash of the Titans” as personal favorites.  I’m sure he could come up with something more recent if he were pressed, but, as usual, anytime people on the show talk about their favorites, things naturally gravitate to single digit seasons.

The story of City Council, as told through Simpsons episodes – I know diddly squat about Toronto politics, but this guy managed to work a ton of relevant seeming Simpsons references, including lots of YouTube.

Nostalgia Tripping: Bart’s Nightmare, The Dark Souls of 1992 – A retro review of the SNES game from a guy who loved it back then.

My Little Marge Simpson by ~Tiamatar on deviantART – A very good looking My Little Pony redone to be Marge (there’s a Homer as well).  Crossovers are magic.

‘Super Mario 3D Land’ Director Open to Possibility of Downloadable Content – Excellent usage:

Sure, Super Mario 3D Land has a nice, healthy number of levels. But playing it, we’re reminded of that time on The Simpsons when Barney was worried about the beer supply: “After this case, and the other case, there’s only one case left!”

But, forget beer; who wouldn’t want more Mario?

The Simpsons Windows 7 Theme – I haven’t tried these, but they look neat.

Fear of braces? – This is a self serving article from a site called “Dentistry IQ” about how you really shouldn’t be afraid of braces, but it does get its quotes right:

In a celebrated early episode of "The Simpsons," precocious middle child Lisa finds out that she needs braces. Providing her care is Dr. Wolfe, a sinister and vaguely sadistic man who plans to imprison Lisa’s jaws within a torturous looking piece of headgear because the Simpson family can’t aîord anything better.

"Lisa, so you won’t be scared, I’ll show you some of the tools I’ll be using," Wolfe tells her just before the procedure. "This is the scraper. This is the poker. And this happy little fellow is the gouger. Now the first thing I’ll be doing is chiseling some teeth out of your jawbone. Hold still while I gas you."

I love how disturbingly enthusiastic he is through all of that.

March 14, 2012 – Pt. 3 – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – CNN was doing its customarily thorough job of embarrassing itself on Tuesday night, but they also found a guy counting ballots whose name really is Glasscock.  I guess Jean and Reiss weren’t lying when they got that one past Standards & Practices.

“I’d just like to say this gig SUCKS!” – Homemade bread through the Rolling Stones.

Homer Simpson Skateboard – Cool close up images of a couple of Homer skateboard designs.

Homer Simpson by EndeavourCollegeSAShrowder – From the same people who brought you the 3D printable walking Bart toy last week, here’s the walking Homer toy.

Marge Simpson by EndeavourCollegeSAShrowder – And the cropped looking Marge version.

Steesh Look-a-Likes: Ned Flanders & Bryan Cranston – That drawing of Flanders and picture of Cranston do work well together.

Chauncey Report: More DVR, ‘Sons’ At The Paley Center – From a discussion of Eastbound & Down:

But Stevie, ever the devoted friend, holds his ground (despite looking like a spurned lover at times), gives Kenny a riveting speech starting with my favorite line of the night “I didn’t just come to Myrtle Beach to party and possibly cheat on my wife” and tells him that he is his inspiration. Stevie believes that Kenny is his God and no matter how lousy Kenny treats Stevie, he is, as Lisa Simpson would say, “there to hurl whiskey bottles at when he’s feeling low” and that’s the real emotional spine of the show.

Lisa actually says “Milhouse is still going to need a true friend, someone to tell him he’s great, someone to rub lotion on him, someone he can hurl whisky bottles at when he’s feeling low”.  That’s still close enough for excellent usage.

100 Best Comedy Characters Currently On Television (50-41) – Marge checks in at #49.

Close Enough. – It’s a pun, but it’s only a mostly terrible one.

My Favorite Simpsons: “Marge Be Not Proud” – Lots of people love our one bad episode.

Lisa Simpsons, the Feminist – If women ever take over the Earth, I’m fairly confident that “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy” will be mandatory viewing.  That episode deserves every piece of praise it gets, including this.

Sarcasm and Preternatural Politeness – Excellent usage in the context of the complete lack of sarcasm in Laura Ingalls Wilder:

Yes, they’re fictionalizations, and yes, Laura Ingalls Wilder likely paints those relationships through a rather rosy filter, but still I envy them.

Not only were my husband and I raised after the invention of sarcasm, as part of the tail-end of Generation X we came of age during a time steeped in sarcasm. I think about the Simpsons scene where the GenXers are at the Hullabalooza music festival and the one guy says, “Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He’s cool.”

“Are you being sarcastic, dude?” his friend asks.

“I don’t even know anymore,” the first guy responds.

Oh sure, I’d just love living in a time before sarcasm.

Appointment Viewing: March 12-March 18 – Lenny previews this week’s Zombie Simpsons:

8:00 – The Simpsons (Fox): Mr. Burns replaces all of his employees with robots—with one exception: Homer. This raises the unemployment rate in Springfield significantly, and leads to much misery. And it hits home to Homer, too, when robots attack him. My main comment after last night’s episode was “They know this isn’t a sci-fi/fantasy show, right?” Asked and answered.

Zombie Simpsons does seem to be going all Family Matters on us lately.

The Hyphen vs the Ellipsis – Excellent grammar geek usage:

On the flip side, let’s say you want to communicate a thought trailing off. (from The Simpsons)

    KIRK: “But, will they just find Milhouse, or will they find him and kill him?”
    CHIEF WIGGUM: “Well, they’ll, when they find him they’ll um…“
    KIRK: “Um, excuse me, you didn’t answer me, you just trailed off.”
    CHIEF WIGGUM: “Yeah… yeah, I did kind of trail off there, didn’t I?”

 Five Things Bob’s Burgers Does Better Than The Simpsons – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us.  This week it’s Grantland writer Tara Ariano:

Given that there are now several years’ worth of college graduates who’ve never lived in a world without The Simpsons, it’s natural that the show would have started to seem somewhat careworn over the past year, or the past few years, or the past decade and a half. Bob’s, on the other hand, has a similar premise — it also revolves around a working-class family with three kids — but since it’s still so early in its run, Bob’s has so much fresh ground to cover. Not only that: Bob’s can also explore subjects and territory that The Simpsons has long since exhausted or abandoned: In fact, some of the Five Things Bob’s Burgers Does Better Than The Simpsons are actually Things Bob’s Burgers Does That The Simpsons Doesn’t Do Anymore, But Probably Should.

Among the things she mentions: the kids acting like kids, the family still being poor, and the celebrities not playing themselves.  Amen, sister.  Amen.

09
Mar
12

Reading Digest: Jealous of Canada Edition

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

Das Bus5

Oh, Canada, you guys get all the cool stuff.  Not only is tomorrow the one night only engagement of the Simpsons burlesque show in Toronto, but Canada is also now home to a wine called “D’Oh”.  I would very much like to attend the former, preferably while imbibing the latter.  Sadly, I am stuck Stateside.  This week we’ve also got two awesome paeans to the show from people who grew up watching it, interviews with Groening and Reiss, a video game mishap, two people making fun of the Game of Thrones opening from last week, and a “needs more weed” television conspiracy theory. 

Enjoy.

13. On the Simpsons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this epic open letter to Matt Groening.  It’s got everything: love of the good years, a life changed by The Simpsons, pain at the decline. 

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from ‘The Simpsons’ – Life lessons learned from The Simpsons, with nary a trace of Zombie Simpsons.  And yeah, cat in the furnace is one of the greats. 

We Put The Spring In Springfield: A Simpsons-Themed Burlesque Show – Want to go:

On March 10, Underground Peepshow will unveil their newest burlesque show, a tribute to what they dub “one of the most influential shows of our geeky generation”: The Simpsons. Expect sexy takes on classic characters – Marge has already received the Playboy treatment, but over a dozen performers will show off their sexy interpretations of the classic animated show – I’m hoping for a Selma and Patty-inspired performance, myself. I’m also looking forward to what are quickly becoming hallmarks of Underground Peepshow performances: elaborate costumes, and fearlessly tarting up and playing homage to some of nerd culture’s least obvious characters. Get ready to look at Groundskeeper Willy or Edna Krabappel in a whole new light.

Here are the details:

Toronto Underground Cinema, 186 Spadina Avenue, Toronto ON

Hours

Saturday March 10, 2012

Doors: 9:00 PM
Show: 9:30 PM

Pricing

Advance: $12.00
At the door: $15.00
Advance tickets available at Toronto Underground Cinema, Silver Snail, Eyesore Cinema, Suspect Video

19+

Happily, the official site has a gallery page, so we should get some pictures. 

Project 365 or 366 – #31 – They may have Duff beer in Britain, but in Canada they’ve got “D’Oh” wine.  I can only hope that a nice liquor (“Crumulent” perhaps?) comes to America soon.  

D’OH! The Simpsons: Tapped Out Pulled From App Store – I guess people like Simpsons games:

The Simpsons: Tapped Out has been pulled from the App Store just days after launch. Due to the overwhelming demand for The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the app has suffered connection problems with EA’s servers, D’OH!

For whatever reason, EA simply did not account for a Simpsons game being so popular, that it might cause a meltdown in the EA server power plant.

That’s pretty funny.  According to what I can find on-line, it’s still down. 

Appointment Viewing: March 5-March 11 – Lenny, bringing her weekly thunder to Sunday’s Zombie Simpsons:

8:00 – The Simpsons (Fox): Following a traumatic incident, Homer’s bed-wetting problem worsens, and his family decide to infiltrate his dreams to get to its subconscious source. And in Homer’s dreams is where his late mother (voice of Glenn Close) resides. Coincidentally, a couple days ago I was trying to decide on the worst Simpsons episode title ever and now here comes an episode that wins by a landslide. “How I Wet Your Mother.”

Let’s see, it’s been about a year and a half since Inception came out, yeah, I’d say we’re due.  Bed wetting?  Jebus.

“Oh, boy! The deep fryer’s here. Heh heh, I got it used from the navy. You can flash-fry a buffalo in forty seconds.” -Moe Szyslak (The Simpsons) « Freakoutville Xpress – Forty seconds?  But I want it now!

leme simpsons – Cool fan made photographic montage of a glass of water and a TV playing what looks like “Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder”. 

Who Said It? Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns? – Putting up quotes of Mitt Romney and Mr. Burns, and you didn’t use “What good is money if it can’t inspire terror in your fellow man?”.  For shame, Mad Magazine, for shame.  (via)

Mike Reiss – Reiss will be in Charlotte, NC this weekend for the Charlotte Jewish Film Festival’s closing program. 

Homer and Marge Simpson in my glasses – It’s a blog that’s nothing more than pictures of the famous with this guy’s glasses.  Neat idea. 

Bart Simpson – It’s a 3D printed Bart walking toy, and you can download the file to print your own.

The Simpsons also love Game of Thrones – The couch “gag” with Game of Thrones was obvious linkbait, and lots of people went for it.  This one deserves special commendation however:

Of course the rest of the Simpsons episode kinda went downhill from there – Bart becomes a street artist a la Shepard Fairey to get back at Homer for locking him in a rabbit cage. It was as bland and convoluted as it sounds.  As has been said on the show so many times in so many way, Meh.

Indeed.  I’ve watched it twice, and what bugs me most of all is that everything works.  Shouldn’t some of the gears have seized, causing the power plant to collapse or something? 

Game of Thrones/ The Simpsons – Okay, one more:

Possibly the one good thing to come out of the Simpson’s in like 12 seasons, as featured on /Film today– The Simpsons parody of the Game of Thrones opening sequence.

Homer Simpson – Experimenting with an online doodle application by drawing Homer. 

The Joy of Sect – Arsenal, Arsene Wenger and The Simpsons – A long but amusing comparison of “The Joy of Sect” and the travails of one professional soccer club. 

So Many Possibilities – A bunch of other take offs on “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”, including that Simpsons one. 

The price of eating well – This post is better at making fun of overly expensive food than this week’s Zombie Simpsons, and it comes with appropriate Homer YouTube. 

Rompi Anak Branded Murah Simpsons A2503 – This isn’t in English, but there is a picture of what appears to be an officially licensed baby vest that looks like it might have something to do with soccer and that I don’t recognize from any episode.  It wouldn’t surprise me if this is some goofy bootleg, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if it’s legit. 

March Madness: TV Conspiracy Theory – The Last Five Minutes of St. Elsewhere – I’d never heard of that.  It seems like the kind of thing a stoned Tom Hulce in Animal House would think.

YouTube of My 25 Favorite Original Songs from TV Shows. – Lenny provides a ton of excellent YouTube here, including a couple of great songs from The Simpsons. 

“Simpsons” creator visits UW-Madison and longtime friend (March 9, 2012) – Groening was the surprise guest an art lecture.  And this is great background:

Though the accounts of their meeting differ – Groening, for his part, says he wanted to meet Barry because she struck up a correspondence with author Joseph Heller by pretending to be Ingrid Bergman – they agree that their work on the college’s newspaper solidified their relationship.

And it comes with a nice plug for college papers. 

Matt Groening: I could easily fill up my entire life just working on Futurama – Heh:

You have these two hugely successful shows. Do you have an idea for a third show bubbling away in the back of your mind?

I certainly have enough on my hands to do with these two. But the really great thing about having two TV shows  going on at the same time is that I can go to one and say that I have to go and visit the other and then I can just go home and they don’t know.

The Perfect Moejito – I chuckled.  It’s the look on Moe’s face. 

Cindy’s Return to the Universe – The always tricky, “I vow to blog more often” post comes with two pieces of Futurama fan art and YouTube of two favorite Simpsons quotes.  I love Flanders’ cider enthusiasm. 

Downtown Jersey City bar to host "The Friday After" exhibit featuring local artist – Cool fan made sculpture of Bart standing in front of what kinda looks like the church windows. 

Two Things That I Like But That Are Now Dead – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us:

The first thing that I like but that is now dead is The Simpsons.

[…]

A week or two ago The Simpsons aired its 500th episode. It was really bad. For a hardcore Simpsons fan like myself, it was even depressing.

Indeed it was.  The other dead thing is David Foster Wallace.  Though if he came back as a zombie it might be even worse than Zombie Simpsons. 

02
Mar
12

Reading Digest: Frozen Electoral Fraud Edition

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

Cape Feare7

“Lisa, you got a letter.” – Marge Simpson
“It’s from my pen pal, Anya.” – Lisa Simpson
“Dear Lisa, as I write this I am very sad.  Our president has been overthrown and-” – Anya
“-replaced, by the benevolent General Krull.  All hail Krull and his glorious new regime!  Sincerely, little girl.” – General Krull

Russia is having itself an election on Sunday, and earlier this week allegations emerged in Canada, the world’s other giant frozen country, that the current Prime Minister may have taken a few liberties with the last election.  We’ve got links for both, though, befitting the disparate levels of shenanigans, the Russian one is much, much better.  There’s also a new Simpsons video game, a YouTube video of FOX wasting some money, the final few remnants of the 500th episode stuff, a New Orleans street performer, and the last hurrah for a college basketball rivalry that Grampa Simpson would appreciate.

Enjoy.

An Ode To The Simpsons – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the week comes from a blog called “Dinosaur Boner”, which is tumescently awesome.  It’s a thoughtful, heartfelt, and amusing look at the show and how it has declined.  Not only does it agree with us:

Nothing is meant to last though, and The Simpsons are not immune to that. After about season 12, the jokes and story telling took a nose dive. Every good idea had been used up by then. You can only do so many things with the same characters before a show goes stale.

But it takes plenty of whacks at that self evidently substandard “At Long Last Leave” episode:

- The last joke of the show was ok. Everyone in Springfield ends up following the Simpsons to their new squatter town (The Outlands), but they leave Principle Skinner behind. He looked sad and it was funny. Oh, but then they go and drag it out after a few of the credits run, kinda ruining it.

They do that a lot.  The whole thing is worth reading.

Help Spot The References: Viral Video Mocks Putin Era – This time lapse video of Vladimir Putin in advance of Sunday’s – ahem – election is great:

I only got the bigger references (Khodorkovsky, Beslan, Basayev, that submarine), but there’s a ton of stuff here.  Medvedev gets it particularly bad.  ПРЕВОСХОДНЫЙ!  (That’s what rustran.com gave me for “Excellent”.)

The Simpsons Celebrate New Episodes with Homer Sculpture – Fox released this little YouTube video about a bust of Homer they commissioned:

Check out Jean at the 0:15 mark, “FOX is erecting a bust of Homer in honor of the 500th episode, and I’ve been told if we do another 500 we’ll get a torso.”  Not my preferred course of action, of course, but the way he said cracked me up.

JIM FALL: Despite what I expected, the sun came up Sunday – For business reasons, the universities of Kansas and Missouri will no longer be in the same athletic conference next year.  This means that a rivalry that goes back to guns and bloodshed before the Civil War will become less heated, less frequent, and generally less interesting.  It also means that Kansas won’t have much call to do this at home basketball games:

In Allen Fieldhouse to this day, at least until last Saturday, they still hyped their fans into a frenzy with video clips from “The Outlaw Josey Wales” proclaiming their being “jayhawkers, and proud of it,” and Grandpa Simpson explaining that his flag has only 49 stars because “I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missouri.”

Awesome.  I had no idea they did that.

SPRINGFIELD TRAINING – Omar Vizquel has been invited to the Blue Jays’ spring training camp, and this guy took a look at that through the lens of being in a twenty year old joke on The Simpsons, and he included this:

It’s tough work maintaining excellence over 23 years … just look at The Simpsons. Sure, Springfield’s first family recently passed 500 episodes and are still steaming on. But is the show as incisive, inventive and downright hilarious as in its heyday of the 1990s? Unfortunately, not by a long shot.

Got that right.  Good luck, Mr. Vizquel.

Top 10 goalie masks in the NHL – The Canadiens goalie with Flanders on his mask is #10.

Who holds back the electric car? Not the Stonecutters – Excellent usage from this report at the Canadian International Autoshow:

Homer Simpson — yes, that Homer Simpson — was once a member of the Stonecutters, a secret society made up of Springfield residents.

Though it happened way back in season six of the show, I can’t help but remember the Stonecutters’ “We do” chant. As a matter of fact, I sometimes catch myself singing the tune: “Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?”

TOWIE’s Billie Faiers dresses up as Marge Simpson for Mario Falcone’s birthday party – I’ll leave it to readers who are more familiar than I am with the relative popularity of British television shows to determine whether or not this is actually noteworthy, but that is a pretty damn good Marge costume.

Benefit concert to raise money for Hineburg man battling ALS – Well, it looks like we’ve found another band named after The Simpsons:

The show featuring local groups Phill ‘n the Blanks and Sideshow Bob runs from 5:30-midnight Saturday at the Hampton Inn in Colchester.

That’s in Vermont, by the way.

Parenting Level: Homer Simpson – Screen grabs of Homer offering brownies and showing off his chainsaw and hockey mask.  Surprisingly fun to scroll through.

Editorial: Robocall narrative perilous for the Tories – The Edmonton Journal thinks Stephen Harper might be developing a credibility gap:

The danger is not that the overall election result will be called into question, or even that there will be an upwelling of support for an opposition party in the short term. Rather, it’s the contribution the story makes to a gradually accumulating negative reputation – a reputation of being willing to do and say anything to win – that could ultimately undermine Canadians’ trust and general comfort with a Harper government in power.

In a certain prime-time animated television show, one of the central jokes is trickster Bart Simpson’s automatic denial “I didn’t do it.” Bart’s problem is that even when he is innocent, no one believes him. To this day, former U.S. president Richard Nixon is remembered as Tricky Dick, and as the leader of a party with a culture of chicanery, as much as he is for ending the Vietnam War and for normalizing relations with Communist China.

Ouch.

Marge Simpson mosaic table top. – This is from a Yelp review of a BGR The Burger Joint franchise in Washington D.C.:

BGR The Burger Joint - Marge Simpson Mosaic Tablel

I’ve no idea if the food is any good, but that table top is pretty damn cool.

Alternatively, Milou5e – I get it, and it’s kinda funny, but I could definitely see that as a phase Milhouse goes through on his way to paunchy middle management.

Oh Look – It’s Smarch – The differences between March and Smarch:

Sure, many call it March.  Me?  No way.  Maybe if March was as predicatble as February or January, I might change my attitude.  I think “Smarch” perfectly sums up the antics of this tease of a month.

Here’s the thing: March plays around.  March flirts with spring, but keeps cozy with winter.  March lets you think there will be no more snow one minute, and then presents you with bucket loads of it the next.

March, for lack of a better term, is a bit of a hussy.

Heh.

The 2012 Academy Awards…In 10 Words – Nah, I won’t watch even if Billy Crystal’s involved.

A 10 Word Tribute to Davy Jones – Ewww!

It’s time for a list!: English Stereotypes – The fifth one on here is bad teeth, along with the image I slapped together for this quote back in 2010.  I’ve seen that same image on a few other websites since, and it appears in the first page of Google image results if you search for “British smiles”.  If this blog has accomplished nothing else (and it hasn’t), it did do that.

Simpsons Cake WIN – That can’t possibly be a real cake . . . and yet maybe it is.

Road Trip Randomness #1202252 – I’ll just let this picture of a New Orleans street performer dressed as a drunken, nearly naked Homer speak for itself.

The finest geek TV marriage proposals – Homer and Marge make the list here, but they use a shot of him slipping on the onion ring instead of his actual proposal wherein she read a card while he inadvertently stuck his ass in her face.

Homer Simpson – Cartoon Quotes goes with one of Homer’s occasional forays into cross dressing.

What good is money if it can’t inspire terror in your fellow man? – A short collection of some great Burns quotes.

The Simpsons – You know those grotesque early years dolls with the giant plastic heads?  Someone loved them:

If you’ve ever held this 90s toy (and it’s okay if you haven’t, that means you were probably normal, as opposed to an almost-four-year-old girl with a prized Bart Simpson doll), just know that its head is abnormally huge and heavy. I found an image, though there was no credit (apparently, no one wants to be associated with this terrible thing)

[…]

Who decided it was a good idea to have that large of a head, made entirely of plastic, on a small, plush body? WHO?!

Click through for the frightening picture.

Appointment Viewing: February 27-March 4 – Lenny previewing Sunday’s Zombie Simpsons:

8:00 – The Simpsons (Fox): Bart plasters unflattering graffiti images of Homer all over Springfield. They catch the eyes of established street artists Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Kenny Scharf and Robbie Conal, who catch him in the act, and they invite him to exhibit his work at a gallery show of his own. Meanwhile, a new health-food superstore threatens to put the Kwik-E-Mart out of business. Look, I used to be a teenage girl, so I know what it’s like to desperately want to be cool. But, it’s not edgy to know about street artists if said street artists were in a documentary that my father recommended to me a year ago.

Indeed.

D’Oh! Rebuild Springfield with ‘The Simpsons: Tapped Out’ on iOS – That game I mentioned last week has been released.  I have no idea if it’s any good, but there’s a YouTube ad at the link and you can get it from iTunes.

Zombies Show the Limits of Our Ethics – Apparently someone is taking a zombie apocalypse as a serious philosophical hypothetical, which leads to excellent usage:

My favorite zombie moment may be from a Halloween episode of The Simpsons.   Zombies have overrun the city of Springfield.  The Simpson clan, led by a shotgun-armed homer, flee their house.  As they approach their car, their neighbor and Homer’s nemesis Flanders appears and, if memory serves, says something about nibbling Homer’s ear.  Homer blows him away.  “Dad, you killed Zombie Flanders!” Bart says, astonished.  “He was a zombie?” Homer asks.

The scene is funny because in the real world of The Simpsons, Homer despises Ned Flanders and is obsessively resentful of Flanders’ success, life, and happiness.  He wouldn’t kill Flanders, not in any normal circumstance, but then a zombie apocalypse ain’t normal.  It’s a disaster that’s not part of “the plan,” as the Joker in The Dark Knight would say, and so people panic and forsake their morals to an extent they wouldn’t when faced with a horror that at least makes sense in light of history or normalcy.

Bart actually says “the Zombie Flanders”, but other than that it’s right on.  Sadly, as far as The Simpsons goes, the zombie apocalypse is already upon us.

Life Imitates The Simpsons, Campaign Edition – The Simpsons analogy here is a bit of a stretch, but only a bit, plus there’s YouTube.

The Republican Al Gore – Speaking of Mitt Romney, this is excellent usage:

All these words about Romney apply equally to the man Democrats nominated in 2000. It’s no wonder that when a character on The Simpsons got a talking Al Gore doll, when you pulled the string it said, “You are hearing me talk”—the perfect comment on Gore’`s inability to bypass his listeners’ awareness of the calculation behind an interaction.

That link on “got” is you YouTube of said quote.

As Good as It Gets (1997) – This is a review of that long ago Jack Nicholson movie, but it does contain this nice aside:

Plus it was from James L. Brooks, who I was aware from The Simpsons (still in its period of greatness).

That Was The Week That Was – And finally, yet another person who agrees with us:

And finally… My favorite TV show of all time, The Simpsons, recently marked its 500th (500th!) [500th!!!!] episode. I came *this* close to going back through my collection of DVDs (only through season 9, if you please) for the umpteenth time in order to produce the perfect top ten list of greatest episodes or scenes.

Through Season 9 is fine by me.

24
Feb
12

Reading Digest: Still Digesting Edition

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

'Round Springfield7

“Oh look, here comes Lumpy, the school snake!” – Principal Skinner

The huge spike in on-line chatter leading up to last week’s forgettably indifferent episode of Zombie Simpsons didn’t subside when the credits rolled, so this week’s Reading Digest is just as gargantuan as last week’s.  Once again there was just too damn much going on at once to digest (as it were).  Below you’ll find a few more “500 yay!” type articles and, just like last week, they are an implicit statement about just how very little people care about Zombie Simpsons.  There’s also lots of stuff about Groening, Hank Azaria’s favorite episode, an awesome Georges Seurat-Simpsons mashup, plenty of excellent usage, a new video game, and a ton of great YouTube.

Enjoy.

‘The Simpsons’ Had A Message for Fans Last Night – I put Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week up on Twitter yesterday because even though this video is nearly four years old, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.  And it is eleventeen kinds of awesome:

Bravo.

‘The Simpsons’: Q&A with Matt Groening on reaching 500 episodes – Reason number five million to love Matt Groening:

On Valentine’s Day you’re getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In my previous life working for the Los Angeles Reader, I used to type up the calendar section, and any time any celebrity would get a star on Hollywood Boulevard I would type up the press release. But as an investigative journalist I would actually drive to the address where the star was going to be, and I would note what store it was in front of and write, say, "Curly Joe DeRita is receiving his star in front of the Pussycat Theater," or whatever it was — Joe’s Bong Shop. And I remember getting calls saying, "Please don’t. Please don’t put what stores are at these addresses."

Ha!  And, from the same interview, an (apparently un-ironic) discussion of that computer animated Tintin movie:

Also, for me, as a viewer, perfection is unengaging. And when you see things that are physically impossible, there’s so much physically impossible imagery that can be thrown at you before you stop caring.

Mr. Groening, please call your office.

The Sunday Intertitle: Give Chase a Chance – Apparently, when Selma imagines what her kids by Hans Moleman would be like in “Selma’s Choice”, it was based off an old silent movie where a guy imagines what his family would look like if he married a woman with a wooden leg.  I did not know that.  Cool.

Real Geeks Dine At A Periodic Table Table – A guy named Theo Gray has a wooden table of the periodic table:

You can catch a glimpse of Homer etched into a silicon disc at the 3:45 mark.  It’s in a case with a bunch of other odd samples, which he introduces by saying, “There’s a bunch of stuff in here.  It’s not terribly well organized.”  I love it when chemistry geeks aren’t “terribly well organized”.  That makes things more fun.

Alison Krauss covers The Simpsons theme – Earlier this week I said I liked the rendition of the theme that was done over the closing credits of “At Long Last Leave”.  Turns out it was Alison Krauss:

I somehow missed that in all the 500th hype.

FILTER Magazine Celebrates The Simpsons 500th Episode – There’s an excerpt of an interview with Groening here, but the real treat is the cover image, which is a way cool drawing of a pissed off Homer getting yellow paint all over himself.

The Simpsons’ 500th Episode…In 10 Words – Yeah, but I don’t have a Nielsen box so it didn’t help them.

E o carnaval espanhol? – This is in Spanish, so I’m not sure, but I think it’s pictures taken at a street carnival in Madrid.  I can’t decide which is more terrifying, the Smurfs costumes or the Simpsons ones.

Muppet Show Alfabesi! – I’ve linked Simpsons related picture alphabets before, but not this one.  Some of the faces are a little disturbing, but I like Marge’s hair billowing all the way up to Homer.

The Simpsons – a tale of love and pain – A longtime fan relates a long time spent with the show, though years and continents.  Aww.

the simpsons @ 500 – I couldn’t find a link to the original artist, but click through for an amazing rendition of “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grand-Jatte” with Simpsons characters.  I don’t think I’ve never seen this before, but it is sweet.

Behind the Scenes of the THR’s ‘Simpsons’ Cover Shoot – Speaking of cover images, this is a promotional video from The Hollywood Reporter that’s one half them putting together their cover, and one half David Silverman giving a tour of the studios.

At the 3:30 mark you can see a FOX guy working on one of those Wacom tablets.  He clearly knows what he’s doing, but the computer is also clearly smoothing things out for him as he draws.

YouTube HOF: Best. Simpsons. Moments. Ever. – The writers at Grantland pick some favorite Simpsons moments.  There’s a lot of good YouTube here, and the only thing even remotely from Zombie Simpsons is sexy Flanders from Season 11.

Comparing Each NFL Team to a Character from the Simpsons – Meh.

Love, Death and Bananas: The Early Woody Allen – A long article about Woody Allen twice references Flanders:

There’s a line in an episode of The Simpsons that I believe encapsulates many people’s feelings toward Woody Allen (those who know who he is): during a dinner party, Ned Flanders confesses, “You know, I like his films, except for that nervous fellow that’s always in them.”

Excellent usage.

‘The Simpsons’: It turns out your favorite episode was … about 100 episodes. None of them, uh, hit a homer, but all of them were hits – Yet another reader survey turns into an implicit rejection of Zombie Simpsons.  This one’s from Oregon.

Doug Webb, Ehud Asherie – The guy who does Lisa’s saxophone parts in the opening just put out a new album.

500 Days of Simpsons – Our friend The Byronic Man lists a bunch of old favorites and asks his readers for their suggestions.  As you’d imagine, Zombie Simpsons is thin to non-existent amid all the hilarity.

23 Seasons of The Simpsons, 23 Favorite Episodes – Denise picks a favorite from all 23 seasons.  That looks exhausting.

‘Simpsons’ celebrates 500th episode – Apparently Hank Azaria’s favorite episode is “Homer’s Enemy”.  I saw a lot of love for that one over the last couple of weeks.

The Making Of "Homer At The Bat," The Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight – A fantastic baseball focused writeup of “Homer at the Bat”.  Which leads to . . .

How a Farmington Hills hardware store helped The Simpsons accidentally spoof George Steinbrenner and make tv history – . . . some even more fantastic local color follow up:

Feb. 20, Deadspin: Most fans assumed that the show had cribbed from real-life events. In fact, Mr. Burns’s sociopathic infatuation with sideburns was inspired by showrunner Al Jean’s grandfather, who owned a hardware store in the ’70s and would constantly berate his employees for their excessive follicular growth. Mattingly had recorded his dialogue a full month before his dustup with the Yankees.

Who knew Al Jean’s grandfather was George Steinbrenner 20 years before George Steinbrenner? One wonders if they wear turtlenecks and blazers in Farmington?

Jean’s Hardware is still in business, and Al Jean’s metro Detroit roots possibly explain the many, sometimes subtle, Michigan references on the iconic show. For instance, Homer once shouted at a pack of elk to “go back to Grosse Pointe,” and another time he dreamed of taking a RV to the Holland Tulip Festival.

Neat.

How the Simpsons will spark EA’s freemium push – There’s a new game coming out for iOS soon, though the actual gameplay details are pretty light on the ground.  Here’s a couple more images, for whatever they’re worth.

Slo-Mo Thing of the Day – Some mad genius took the one minute long couch gag from “At Long Last Leave”, slowed it down to 1/4 speed, and then set it to the Portlandia theme.  Gaze in horror as the series degrades before your eyes:

‘The Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening Donates $500,000 to UCLA – In other Groening news:

Matt Groening has donated $500,000 to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) for the endowment of the Matt Groening Chair in Animation.

The endowment will allow visiting artists to teach classes in TFT’s animation program.

Top Fifty Simpsons Episodes (# 30 – 21) – This is the continuation of the list from last week.  There’s one Zombie Simpsons episode here (the 24 one), but that’s it.

Top Fifty Simpsons Episodes (# 20 – 11) – This is all good stuff.

Top Fifty Simpsons Episodes (# 10 – 1) – As is this, with plenty of Season 2 in the top 20.

(Semi)Counter Post – Top 25 Simpsons Episodes – The top 50 guy’s co-blogger wrote up his own list.  There’s a few Zombie Simpsons episodes on here, but not many.  The final score across both bloggers at Bloggius Maximus?

The Simpsons (Season 11 or earlier): 67 
Zombie Simpsons (Season 12+): 7

You suck, Zombie Simpsons.

Classic Moments From The Simpsons – Yet another 500th inspired post.  This has three short YouTube videos, none from Zombie Simpsons.

Episode 13 – Take Two, From the Top – A long Canadian podcast touches on Zombie Simpsons around the 53:50 minute mark.  My favorite exchange:

“You watched it forever.  What do you think of it now?  ’Cause a lot of people are back and forth on it.”
“Uh, well, I don’t know.  It’s kinda garbage, to be honest.”

Heh.

Simpsons Hockey Jerseys – Mockups of Lisa and Bart’s sweaters from “Lisa on Ice”.

Simpsons marathon sets record, spans 10-plus seasons – One final follow up on those two people who broke the official record for consecutive viewing:

The marathon started with Episode 1 on Wednesday at 5 p.m. and the winners made it up to the 11th episode of the 11th season, or through 239 total episodes.

Sadly, this does not clear matters, as the eleventh episode of Season 11 is “Faith Off”, which is episode #237.  Whatever.

Best of the Bull-ogosphere: February 14 – Voodoo Five – Much excellent Valentine’s Day usage in relation to University of Southern Florida football.

a stoned family, is a together family – A fan made image of the entire family stoned.  Since it’s from a blog called The Stoned Dude, it makes perfect sense.

THE FRIDAY FIVE – 24.2.2012 – A top five Simpsons guest stars:

FIVE SIMPSONS GUEST STARS

1. Ringo Starr
2. Michael Jackson
3. Dustin Hoffman
4. Stan Lee
5. Adam West

Stan Lee was Season 13, everything else is solid.  And even if there is one from Zombie Simpsons, it’s still ten years old.

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Homer at the Bat” — the smoothest Simpsons episode ever – Agreed:

Most episodes from the show featured a main story and a side story. But this was one entire story from beginning to end. It didn’t involve anything out of the ordinary. And I think that’s what attracted the audience to it.

There weren’t any distractions throughout the show. It was just one story the entire way. It was just smooth.

The way that they got nine separate guest stars to fall victim to nine separate subplots remains one of the most amazing features of that episode.  Smooth, indeed.

At 500 Episodes, “The Simpsons” Remains Tiresome – This is gentler on Zombie Simpsons than I am, but I agree totally with the sentiment:

The new episodes are not particularly bad, but rather unable to measure up to the gems that made the show so iconic in the ‘90s. But with the show’s increasing number of unmemorable episodes, the duds now outnumber the classics. Each episode feels like a repeat of an idea that the show has already had, though in the show’s defense, such a fate may be impossible to avoid after 23 years on the air.

The Simpsons Tell Gen X Jokes – A look at the humor of the show, and its decline, for people who were in college when it debuted.  (This is what I’m talking about when I say it’s ludicrous to hide behind childhood nostalgia as a way to defend Zombie Simpsons.)

In Which I Discuss Pop Culture References and The Simpsons – As a prologue to a longer discussion about references in the show, we get this excellent summary:

Alas, I no longer turn my TV to FOX every Sunday night at eight. And the reason is simple- The Simpsons is terrible. Awful. Unfunny and sad (alcoholic clown-sad, not Bambi’s mom-sad).

It wasn’t always this way, of course- back in the early to mid nineties, The Simpsons was the smartest, fastest, funniest show on television, and a monstrously huge pop culture phenomenon to boot. Nowadays it’s a shell of it’s former self.

Amen.

Review of The Simpsons’ 500th Episode, "At Long Last Leave" – Time magazine agrees with us:

It probably won’t surprise you that every single episode I came up with was from the show’s first decade. I would love to write the contrarian article saying that 2000s Simpsons is better than 1990s Simpsons, but come on.

[…]

That said, the whole question of whether The Simpsons should go off the air doesn’t excite me, because it’s moot. The Simpsons, which is to say the classic, worldview-defining show that provided me a memorable quote for pretty much every occasion in life, already went off the air. It had a great run–eight or ten years, depending who’s counting, which is far, far longer than even most great TV shows maintain their greatness.

It was replaced by a second Simpsons,** which began around the late ’90s, give or take. This was not as great a show, it was less focused on the Simpsons as a family unit, and in some ways wasn’t even really a sitcom, so much as an institution, like Saturday Night Live, which became known for its famous guest cameos and its parodies and takes on topical issues. It was a lesser show, but that was fine; the world also needs comedies that are just often pretty funny, and to me its existence took nothing away from the preceding seasons.

Preach it, mainstream media brother!

It Ain’t What It Used To Be – And finally, I get to end with a top ten list that wholeheartedly agrees with us:

Last Sunday, The Simpsons broadcast it’s 500th episode. 500th. I mean, that’s just ridiculous. And whilst it’s become a cliché to say that it’s gone considerably downhill in the last ten years, it should never be overlooked that for about 5-6 years, The Simpsons was the funniest, wittiest, cleverest thing on TV, and when it was at it’s best, I’d say it was the greatest thing that has ever been on television.

Thus, I have decided to do a little celebratory post, specifically my top 10 episodes ever, in honour of the greatest programme that ever was, that has now become a sub-Family Guy crapfest. Never forget the good times.

Testify!

17
Feb
12

Reading Digest: Curiously Remembered Anniversary Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 12 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest, Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Simpson and Delilah7

“Happy anniversary, Homer.” – Marge Simpson
“What?  Our anniversary, are you sure?” – Homer Simpson

I lost count of the number of generic blog posts, newspaper articles, magazine profiles, and other such things that crossed my screen this week.  The funny part isn’t how similar they are to one another, it’s how similar they are to articles that come out whenever the show hits a milestone or gets renewed yet again.  Here is an accurate summary of all of them in Mad Libs form:

Can you believe [common phrase from the show]?  That’s right, it’s been on since 1989, and this Sunday is the [three digit positive integer ending in zero]th episode! 

We asked [longtime show personality] if he thought it would ever last this long.  [Personality’s last name] said, “We never thought it would go this long, but now there’s no stopping us!”  This week’s episode features a special guest appearance by [famous person] as the family [wacky adventure premise].  [Personality’s last name] said that [famous person] was great to work with, “S/he’s such a [positive adjective] person.  We [generic anecdote about recording].”

And when will the show end?  [Personality’s last name] said, “When we got to [smaller three digit positive integer ending in zero], I didn’t think we’d get this far.  But we love doing it, so we’ll keep at it [cute description for an indefinite amount of time].” 

In all of those kind of articles I read, I came across one – just one – new fact.  Had the negotiations failed last fall, that wretched future Christmas episode would’ve been the last one.  Other than that, those thousands and thousands of words are a complete waste of time. 

There were a few diamonds in the rough, however, mostly of the variety where people talk about how great the show is and then cite little or nothing from Zombie Simpsons.  There are a lot of those, and while some are better than others (and one even comes from people on the show), they all point to the same conclusion, Zombie Simpsons is a pale shadow of The Simpsons.  This may be the longest Reading Digest ever, and I didn’t find a single article, link or otherwise that went the other way.  Crammed in among all those anniversary links is some usage, some fan art, a couple more video game reviews, real homemade Prozac, and a dynamite Alf Clausen interview. 

Enjoy.

The Simpsons hits 500 episodes: Matt Groening… – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this article Groening, Brooks, Jean, Reiss, Mirkin, Weinstein, Scully list some favorite episodes.  As you’d expect, there’s some token Zombie Simpsons, but even these guys can’t bring themselves to anything approaching equal representation.  Brooks didn’t list anything past Season 7.

"Simpsons" maestro Alf Clausen shares stories behind Springfield’s greatest hits – Fantastic interview with Alf Clausen, featuring plenty of YouTube and detail.  (Also, you may notice a certain trend in which years the songs they discuss first aired.)  It’s a crowded week, but this has a lot of great information in it.  Big hat tip to our old friend Denise.  Hey, speaking of Denise . . .

Fans Say the Darndest Things–To ‘Simpsons’ Creators – . . . she got some of the people behind the show to share the strange things people ask them and say to them.  My favorite:

Michael Price, Bill Oakley, and Marc Wilmore say that the writers are often asked which characters they write for. "We all get that all the time," Mike Price says.

One assumes that would be impractical. 

The Simpsons at 500: your top 10 episodes – The Guardian’s readers and editors came up with a list, on which there is nothing past Season 8.  (And a special thanks to “jpmb” for linking to us in the comments.)

As ‘The Simpsons’ approaches 500 episodes, we pick a baker’s dozen favorite moments – The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette picks some favorite Simpsons moments.  There are a couple of Halloween moments from Zombie Simpsons, but not much.  Their picks are overwhelmingly from the before time, the long long ago. 

‘THE SIMPSONS’ HITS 500th EPISODE: The Top-15 Episodes Ever (*And Top-5 Moments) – Kaplan Test Prep Daily asked “Andrew Farago, curator at the esteemed Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco” for his top 15 episodes.  He listed thirteen, nothing from past Season 8, then tossed in two from Zombie Simpsons.  I’m sensing a pattern.  (via)

500 Episodes? – Via Twitter comes this generous appraisal of the state of the show, and even it says:

It’s pretty much impossible for any show to continue to be good after this long. Every idea has been tried out, every character has been developed, and just about every vacation destination has been visited.

The Simpsons has definitely suffered in this regard. Countless new episodes are retreads of older episodes, and they just don’t have the same impact. Just look at last Sunday’s episode. It involved Lisa falling in love with a faux-intellectual played by Michael Cera (because no one told the writers that Juno is already 4 years old, and the kid is already past his prime), and then dumping him because it turned out he wasn’t as cool as she thought. In this episode’s 22-minute run-time, we learned absolutely nothing about either character. It had no emotional resonance to speak of, and just felt like a perfunctory, by-the-numbers plot, for a show that used to be capable of doing much better.

Fun With Mock Drafts: Simpsons Quotations – Of the twenty five quotes selected by the five main authors here, I only counted two from Zombie Simpsons.  The comment thread is at about four hundred as I write this, and a quick scan says that Zombie Simpsons quotes are few and far between. 

‘The Simpsons’: A soundtrack to our laughter – A pick of some favorite songs from the entire run of the show.  There is a token Zombie Simpsons entry, but only one. 

Top Fifty Simpsons Episodes (# 40 – 31) – This link and the next one are both from the same blog.  There’s one episode from Season 12 here, but it’s “Trilogy of Error”, which was one of the last really clever things they ever did. 

Top Fifty Simpsons Episodes (# 50 – 41) – This part of the list is completely free of Zombie Simpsons.

The Simpsons at 500 – A great retrospective on the show:

It may have been that very Friday night, or the Friday night a week later when I saw my first episode, “Bart The General”. It rang out to me especially as a victim of bullying. In this classic piece of American television, Bart teams up with his grandfather, local military antique dealer Herman and other neighbourhood kids to rail against bully Nelson Muntz.

In the following few Fridays I would see several more episodes of Season 1. I was hooked and entertained. The Simpsons were at the beginning of something really amazing. This was a revolutionary show that would push the edges of humour to a whole new level. Shirts started turning up in stores along with other merchandise.

You could only imagine my disappointment when suddenly the show was not on a channel we could get at the time. My theory is that the CBC received a ton of complaints from parents and religious nuts who completely failed at realizing it was comedy, so they yanked any airing of the show completely.

It would be quite a few years before anyone in Nova Scotia (and perhaps Canada) without a satellite dish could see more episodes.

That is both awesome and sad.  He couldn’t watch them again until they came on in syndication.  Man I miss when The Simpsons was good enough to be thought that dangerous.  He’s also got a Top 5 episodes list, and, naturally, none of them are from past Season 9. 

Meet the two brave souls who watched 86 hours and 37 minutes of ‘The Simpsons’ in a row – FOX turned it off after they broke the record, and they don’t say which episode they were on when it happened.  By my count 86 hours and 37 minutes is somewhere around the beginning of Season 11.  They got a ten minute break every two hours, so if they were stopped for those breaks then it’s more like the middle of Season 10.  Either way, the important thing is that they didn’t have to sit through Zombie Simpsons. 

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Creamy Vanilla Frosting – There’s cupcakes here, but if you scroll down you’ll get a sweet fan drawing of Homer as Lady Gaga.

That Donut Looks Delicious – An excellent knitted Homer . . . with donut!  Well done. 

Here’s Stuff on Jeremy Lin You’ll Read Because I Had You at “Jeremy Lin” – Excellent usage:

-Remember that Simpsons episode, “Lisa’s Rival,” where Lisa, the new kid at school, and the new kid’s pretentious, snooty professor father discuss how they play the anagram game? I’ll let the seven-year-old inexplicably voiced by a fully grown Winona Ryder explain: “We take proper names and rearrange the letters to form a description of that person.”

Lisa stumbles when given the name of Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, only being able to muster up “Jeremy’s Iron.”

Well, since the name of the man of the hour also happens to be Jeremy, I say we try it again.

Jeremy Lin: J In My Reel

Me: One
Fictional cartoon character: Zero

Pants Anyone? – Don’t you hate pants?:

By purchasing pants we are just playing into the buttoned-down role that society has placed on us. Pants have kept us into a tightly folded, well pressed culture, where we fear the consequences of not wearing pants.

There is a certain kind of pants that never need to be folded or pressed, and that never feel confining.  Just sayin’. 

It’s Valentime’s Day OR “Getting Tail” – Valentine’s Day explored through “I Love Lisa” (with YouTube).

Game review: ‘The Simpsons Arcade Game’ – I know there were a lot of these last week, but here’s one more review of the game.

EGM Review: The Simpsons Arcade Game – Okay, two (and I get to keep this old birdcage).

Now & Then: The Simpsons Arcade Game – Alright, three.  This one is a very thoughtful comparison, of what the arcade game was like back then (I do remember the Bart and Homer consoles often having the most wear) and what it brings to your television now.

The 2012 Grammy Awards…In 10 Words – Who likes the Beach Boys?

Appointment Viewing: February 13-February 19 – Lenny sums up this week’s big nth episode:

8:00 – The Simpsons (Fox):  In the series’ 500th episode, the Simpsons are banished from Springfield, thanks to Homer’s drunken antics, Bart’s shenanigans and Lisa’s annoying environmental activism, and end up in an off-the-grid, post-apocalyptic encampment called “The Outlands.” Alison Krauss performs the series’ theme song. Well, that sounds like The Simpsons Movie but more terrible and with Alison Krauss performing. Which cancels out to the same level of quality. Seriously, that Alison Krauss thing makes me more delighted than this show has made me in years. They could get anyone and that’s what they went with.

7 Essential TV Show Hangouts – Moe’s makes the list here, along with things like the banana stand. 

500 Episodes of The Simpsons and 10 Other TV Shows That Outstayed Their Welcome – Agrees with us:

To me, The Simpsons stopped being funny in the late 1990s. A quick look at an Episode Guide and I find that the last episode I truly found amusing was Episode 197 – Simpson Tide – and that one was the only beacon of light in amongst a mostly underwhelming Ninth Season. By

the fifth episode of the following season – When You Dish Upon A Star – I made the decision to give up on a show that I had fallen out of love with.

Don’t feel bad, it happened to all of us.

Bart Simpson’s Chalkboard Quotes – This was linked in a lot of places this week.  It’s every quote in a single image.  Well done (though a version that ends before Zombie Simpsons would be cool too). 

Doh! The Simpsons celebrate 500th episode – Click through for a couple of images of the designs of that Zoolander guy from last week.  There’s a Bartman shirt that’s just a picture of Bart in costume with a logo.  Fashion!

A Five-Day Recipe for Antidepressant Yogurt – This isn’t just excellent usage, it’s also life imitating The Simpsons:

Years ago, Homer Simpson stood in the family’s kitchen and showed Marge his latest creation: a big bowl of homemade Prozac. Homer dug his wooden spoon in, plucked out a mound of the purply goop, and downed it. “Mmm, needs more ice cream,” Homer said.

As is so often the case, it seems Homer was well ahead of his time. Tuur Van Balen, a Belgian designer, has been making the speaking-circuit rounds, showing audiences how to inject yogurt bacteria with antidepressant qualities, making it possible for anyone to have a feel-good breakfast treat.

20 Most Cromulent ‘Simpsons’ GIFs – Pretty much what it says.  And, no, there’s nothing from past Season 10.

Flights from reality – In discussing the recent mostly-non-issue between Britain and Argentina, comes this excellent usage:

Homer Simpson anticipated the key issue in the South Atlantic dispute at the start of the week in the sketch where he says: “Didn’t you hear, Marge, they have no bananas” (his reaction to that inane Broadway ditty of 90 years ago “Yes, we have no bananas”). The lack of bananas on the Malvinas gave most of the edge to the build-up to President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s Tuesday announcement — great expectations of a major escalation in the economic blockade of the islands rather than either war or peace.

And then nothing happened. 

Sideshow Bob by *SilverWolve on deviantART – Cool fan art of Sideshow Bob sitting in a cell with the shadow of bars on him.  Bravo. 

maggie simpson – One of those “persona” add-ons for Firefox with Maggie holding a gun. 

Mellow yellow – And finally, a columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press writes a column about the 500th episode that does nothing but agree with us:

It has been a long time since the cartoon created by Matt Groening regularly made headlines (other than for celebrations of its various century-mark achievements), and there’s now an entire generation of TV viewers who have no memory whatsoever of the hell-in-a-handbasket fuss its early episodes and Bart’s rude-boy catchphrases caused.

The Simpsons is, in 2012, something of a perpetual-motion machine, an efficiently run enterprise that cranks out episodes on time, on budget and of an acceptable quality, requires very little network oversight, and continues to generate decent ratings and mind-boggling revenue streams.

That’s about the size of things.  Lots and lots of discussion of 500, and even when people don’t outright say Zombie Simpsons sucks, you can tell by what they aren’t talking about that no one cares about anything broadcast in the last ten years or so.  Enjoy your party on Sunday Zombie Simpsons.  We’ll all be laughing at you, but not for the reason you’d like.

10
Feb
12

Reading Digest: Worth $10 Edition

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

Simpsons Arcade Console

Image shamelessly yoinked from here.

“So, Bart, what did you learn in karate school today?” – Marge Simpson
“Yeah, come on, boy, this better be worth my ten bucks!” – Homer Simpson

A port of the old Simpsons arcade game came out for Xbox and PS3 this week and there were a metric ton of reviews, many of which are linked below.  I haven’t played it, but most of the reviews I saw said that the nostalgia factor couldn’t overcome the inherent button mashing repetitiveness of a game where the only commands are jump and attack.

A couple of the reviews outright say that the game isn’t worth the $10 they’re charging for it.  Whether or not that’s true for you will depend on how much you want the game and how much that $10 is worth to you.  But it got me to wondering, what would $10 in today’s money have been worth in 1991 when the original game was released?  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $10 in 2011 money is worth about $6.05 in 1991 dollars, or about twenty four quarters.  In other words, if you can get through the game on the equivalent of twenty-four quarters, then you’d have been better off in an arcade in 1991.  If, on the other hand, you require more lives than twenty-four quarters would’ve gotten you, then your console in 2012 comes out ahead.

In addition to lots of old game reviews, the internet was all aflutter because some schmuck in Iran decided to ban Simpsons dolls.  This is news in the same way that Groening’s Hollywood star is news, my initial reactions was “Huh.  I thought that already happened.”  There was also a lot of 500th episode crap, but hardly any of it worth linking (with one glorious exception).  In addition to all that, we’ve got poor editing at The Hollywood Reporter, an enjoyably gruesome Zombie Bart, self described lunatic conspiracy theorists, and the usual smattering of fan made stuff, usage and other ephemera. 

Enjoy.

[Site note: After some screwing around this week, I’ve made it so our Facebook page is now only being “mostly neglected” instead of “completely neglected” like it’s been up to this point.  Basically, I changed the way we push Quotes of the Day to Twitter so that they also get pushed to Facebook without me having to do any extra work.  (That last part is important.)  So if you want to see the quotes directly on your Facebook page, you can now do that.  There was a slight Twitter hiccup this morning, but I think I’ve got everything working.  If you notice anything strange, please e-mail me.]

‘The Simpsons’ Poll: What is the ultimate episode of all time? – A few weeks ago, Digital Spy in the UK asked its readers for their opinion on the best episodes of The Simpsons.  This week they’re back with a poll and it is Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week so hard it should be Link of the Month:

Compiled with the help of your views, our TV team’s opinions and previous ‘best episode’ lists, we’ve cut down the 498 installments that have aired to a manageable cream of the crop shortlist.
The list has been whittled down to 37 primecuts of Simpsons gold and we want your verdict on what is the finest.

Gaze at the ballot below:

Digital Spy Best Episode Survey

That’s thirty-seven episodes, thirty-six of which are from Season 9 or earlier.  The only episode on the list from after 1998 that is “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes” (which they misspelled as “Shows”), which was broadcast in 2000 in Season 12.  According to Digital Spy’s readers and writers, there hasn’t been an episode even worthy of consideration on a top ten list in twelve years!  You suck, Zombie Simpsons.  Massive, massive thanks to longtime reader Kokairu for the link.

500-Episode Simpsons Marathon of the Day – TDW Geeks – Going by the most recent comments on the Facebook page, it sounds like they’re dropping like flies.  (Here’s a picture of what it looked like at the beginning.)  If it started when they said it did (roughly 5pm Pacific on Wednesday), they should be midway through Season 6 right now.  If there’s anyone left, they’ll hit Season 9 tomorrow afternoon and be well into Zombie Simpsons by late Sunday.  Jebus help them.

Video: Jingle Punk Hipster Orchestra TV Theme Melody – Ahh, string instruments (the Simpsons part starts at 2:20):

Sweet.

10" zombie bart in progress – Flickr user andres musta made a Zombie Bart:

Andres Musta - Zombie Bart in Progress

God bless Creative Commons licenses.

In comments, he writes:

It came together at the last moment – yesterday (Thursday) I was distributing flyers for the Dead of Winter show at a local comic book shop that had a pile of old Bart toys. It almost jumped into my arms. Brought it home, and rushed to chopped off the nose, sliced my thumb, removed the lips, and added the teeth from an old plastic skull. It all came together in an hour or two. Added a 10"x10" wooden base, textured and painted to look like sidewalk and screwed him to the base. Will post full pics after the show closes on March 1.

I love anything that involves the words “rushed to to chopped off the nose”.  Can’t wait for the full pictures.  Thanks to Freakoutville for the tip. 

Review The Simpsons Arcade Game – Pretty much what it says.  I especially like this:

Before starting the game you can choose one of four modes. Free Play has unlimited continues, Survival grants only one life and no continues, Quarters gives each player 10 continues and Team Quarters has players share 40 continues.

I really could’ve used that when I was a kid and quarters were scarce.  They recommend knowing what you’re getting before you plunk down the $10 though.

The Simpsons Arcade Game – A rather harsher review:

The Simpsons Arcade Game, much like Ninja Turtles or X-Men, has not exactly aged well.  Let’s face it, it’s a relic.  And not one of those good, Sean Connery type ones.

Heh.  I like this review. 

The Simpsons Arcade: Fireworks Candy & Puppy Dogs Store, or Box Factory? – Yet another review saying the game ain’t worth it.

Go Round – The Simpsions Arcade Game – A YouTube video of four guys playing the four player co-op on the XBox port of the arcade game.  It’s mildly interesting, but I got bored after a few minutes because even watching it gets repetitive pretty fast.

Simpsons Arcade Demo Impressions: Check your Nostalgia at the Door (or not) – Another review that says that the nostalgia can’t override the underlying crappiness of the game.

Month of Codes (Day Seven) – Impressively obscure and pointless cheats for Bart vs. the Space Mutants.

Appointment Viewing: February 6-February 13 – Lenny brings the pre-snark for Sunday’s new Zombie Simpsons:

On Valentine’s Day, Lisa and an intellectual young man named Nick share a fairy-tale romance and make a secret getaway. Meanwhile, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage (“Mythbusters”) inspire Bart and Milhouse to bust Springfield Elementary School myths. Unsurprisingly, Nick is going to be played by Michael Cera.

Homer Simpson – One of Homer’s worst parenting moments courtesy of Cartoon Quotes.

The Sound Of One Hand Clapping – The value of meditating and “Dead Putting Society”.

Iran bans Bart Simpson and Homer Simpson – This was everywhere this week, but I don’t see quite what all the fuss is about.

Bizarro World – Some of those Simpsons-fashion drawings next to the people that inspired them.

Bart Simpson: The New Symbol of High Fashion – Herein I have to link to The Hollywood Reporter for a second time this week, which is unfortunate because their website is so hideously overrun with links, ads, and general marketing stupidity that it’s just this side of unusable.  What is fortunate are these quotes from a guy named Jeremy Scott, whom they describe as an “Avant garde designer”.  I have no idea who he is or whether or not he’s a good designer, but he speaks like he just fell out of a Zoolander sequel:

THR: So this idea came from you, and not Fox, the network that plays the show?

Scott: Oh, I went knockin’ on the door at Fox. I chased them down like a dog in heat. I fell madly in love with Bart. And I’m not even the diehard every-episode fan. It’s just such a part of pop culture. Bart is a nineties teen icon.

THR: Were the execs at Fox surprised at this request?

Scott: I wasn’t really sure how to go about this. I got someone on the phone and took it from there. And it was kismet, synergy, this was supposed to happen. They totally got it: the way I am, who I am.

Reading that I can’t help but think of this scene from the “Unauthorized Cinnamon” episode of Deadwood.  But wait, there’s more:

THR: What’s the general direction of your fall 2012 collection?

Scott: I can tell you it was inspired by the computer, and the way information is disseminated today. The way ideas are profillierating on the internet. How we use icons to show our emotions. The way the way everything is circling around.  I’m into short as a skirt length, but its a new kind of "short long." 

I had no idea people actually talked like that, though it’s hardly his fault that they didn’t run spellcheck on “proliferating”.  But here’s the capper:

THR: Have you met Matt Groening?

Scott: I’ve not met Matt yet – but I’m really looking forward to meeting him. A Fox contingency is coming to see the show, they’re flying in from LA. But Matt will be busy receiving his star on the Walk of Fame.

I don’t know what’s funnier, that he used the word “contingency” when he meant “contingent”, an easy enough mistake to make when speaking off the cuff, or that no one at The Hollywood Reporter fixed it for him. 

Cynics should learn how to stuff their face with cupcakes and reclaim V-Day – Excellent usage:

"Romance is dead – it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece," said Lindsay Cahill quoting Lisa Simpson while waiting for the next band to start. Cahill’s overt ability to express something truly troubling was captured by the quotation, adding a layer of hopelessness into the air.

Perfectly quoted.  Well done, Lindsay Cahill. 

The Connection between Lisa Simpson and the Whore of Babylon – Any time you see the words “UFOs”, “Conspiracy Theorists”, and “Lunatic Fringe” in the banner of a website, you know it’s gonna be good:

Ishtar (aka WHORE OF BABYLON) was the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, war, love, and sex.
The statue of Liberty is basically a monument in dedication to Ishtar. Notice the 7 spikes on her head. It is no coincidence that America is the Great Babylon of our Times.

Interestingly enough, one of the most beloved cartoon characters of the Simpsons, is Lisa Simpson.

She is nothing more than a representation of Ishtar. Notice her spiked head. She also wears the colour red all the time. Red is the colour for PROSTITUTION.

Ishtar was above all associated with sexuality: her cult involved SAC-RED prostitution.

Ironic isn’t it?

And I thought the London Olympics logo was bad.  The replies, including polytheistic theology, involve just as much harmless crazy.

This Music Smells Funny – Dumb, but I chuckled.

anime: lisa simpson by ~teamstar47 on deviantART – Neat fan made Lisa drawing.  It looks like just pen and markers, but it’s shaded and colored really well. 

One down – Excellent therapeutic usage:

I had the simpsons on in the backgroud this morning, one of the old episodes. I wasn’t really listening, but I caught this part:

“Lisa, I apologize to you, I was wrong, I take it
all back. Always be yourself. If you want to be sad, honey, be sad.
We’ll ride it out with you. And when you get finished feeling sad, we’ll
still be there. From now on, let me do the smiling for both of us.” - Marge, The Simpsons

I think I’m now finished feeling sad. Thank you all for riding that out with me, and your support.

Review: The Simpsons Arcade takes us back to the bowling alley – And finally, an arcade game review that agrees with us:

1991 was a good year for The Simpsons. Some all-time classic episodes aired, the series won a couple of Emmy awards, Bart Simpson t-shirts were still in fashion, and the family starred in an A-list arcade game. It was a better year than 2011, where the series closed in on its 500th episode while a few fans kept up the old argument over when the exact shark-jumping moment happened.

Indeed.

03
Feb
12

Reading Digest: Real Life Simpsons Edition

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

Treehouse of Horror VI6

“Eww, this is the worst place yet.” – Homer Simpson

This week we’ve got lots of translations of everyone’s favorite yellow cartoons into the real world.  There’s a fantastic rendition of the theme song done solely by one guy with no instruments, there’s maybe the best Patty & Selma costume I’ve ever seen, there’s more Duff beer, and there’s even a car with speed holes.  On top of that, there’s quite a bit of fan art, plenty of usage, only one Super Bowl link, a great Zombie Simpsons design, and several people who relate to their lives and loved ones courtesy of the show.

Enjoy.

Coki Greenway – The First Tee Design I Did – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is an actual Zombie Simpsons print!  And it’s enjoyably gruesome. 

The Simpsons’ Theme Sung By Nick McKaig, if you the series you’ll love this – This was linked and tweeted by a ton of people this week, deservedly so:

Excellent.  

The Best Simpsons Game Ever Is Coming to PS3 – Speaking of news that was everywhere this week, that old Simpsons arcade game is coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 next week.  Many people are happy about this.  Click through for an awesome – and I mean awesome – Konami ad from when this first came out.  The clothes are exactly what trendy people in 1991 thought everyone would be wearing for the rest of the decade.  Turns out it was just a late 80s hangover. 

The Simpsons Patty & Thelma – Obviously that should be Selma not Thelma, but these homemade costumes are amazing.  Jub Jub and the MacGyver DVD are the perfect touches. 

Everythings Coming Up Millhouse … – Sweet fan made Milhouse drawing, because everything you need to know about Milhouse is in his glasses and eyebrows.  The guy that did these is getting them screen printed, and you can e-mail him if you want one. 

Poll: What is your favorite episode from Season 4 of The Simpsons? – Season 4 ended up winning Lenny’s poll last week, so this week she’s asking the equally difficult question of which is the best Season 4 episode.  Again, I’m going to wuss out and refuse to answer.  Picking one would just make me want to watch all the ones I didn’t pick. 

Norwood is Springfield – Three locations, a church, a convenience store and a bar, all in a small city, reminds someone of Springfield.  This kind of real life familiarity is one of the things Zombie Simpsons has lost with its constant remaking of Springfield into a trendy part of Southern California. 

10 Things I Miss about Canada – Heh:

2. The Simpsons in English.  Lisa sounds the same in Spanish but Homer sounds like a gruff Mexican General.

The Reason I Could Never Live in Kuala Lumpur – More heh:

It has a monorail. I’ve had the Monorail Song from the Simpsons going round my head for the past five days. Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!  I think if I lived here this would eventually drive me crazy.

Black and White in Color: ‘Joyce Pensato: Batman Returns,’ at Friedrich Petzel Gallery – She takes Simpsons and other pop culture icons and remakes them into cool and creepy art.  You can see some examples here. 

Big Game: Great Moments In Halftime History – True:

The advent of CGI put a lot of good people out of work, including the stop-motion geniuses behind the Bud Bowl. From 1989 to 1997, even sober children fresh out of Sunday School could join in the Budweiser fun, albeit with their eyeballs instead of their taste buds (still the best way to enjoy an Anheuser-Busch product). Bottles of Bud Light, Bud Dry and Bud Ice would face off in a bout often better than the game itself. It even managed to be spoofed by The Simpsons, in its prime, which should be more than enough evidence to prove how amazing the Bud Bowl was

There’s YouTube of one of the commercials at the link, and they were epic.  When it first started, my classmates and I were obsessed with the Bud Bowl.  They had “pre-game” commercials running in the weeks up to the game, and then there’d be the actual game during the Super Bowl.  We were so young we hardly knew what beer was, but we talked about it endlessly, which was precisely the point.  

SPEED HOLES – Nice. 

Homer Simpson for the soul – Everybody loves the end of “And Maggie Makes Three”. 

20 Years Ago… – Some nostalgia for TV from twenty years ago, including MST3k, Johnny Carson, and The Simpsons. 

A 10 Word Tribute to Don Cornelius – That’s very righteous. 

QUOTABLE: 3.1 – The Simpsons – Stark Raving Dad – How about some quotes?:

Marge: Doctor, if you just talk to him for five minutes without mentioning our son Bart, you’d see how sane he is.
Doctor: You mean there really is a Bart? Good lord!

Man, I love that psychiatrist.

Sarcasmo To The Rescue! My Wit Cuts Sharp, Cuts Deep – Excellent usage:

Then out of nowhere comes Marv, “Saw it instantly with a glance.”

Me, “‘Oh your powers of deduction are exceptional. I simply can’t allow you to waste them here when there are so many crimes going unsolved at this very moment. Go! Go for the good of the city!’”

Perfectly quoted (and don’t forget Sarcastro). 

Six year olds are insane … – Speaking as someone who had to purchase Seasons 1-7 twice, I agree with this:

If I found the same exact joke funny, over and over I’d save a lot of money on DVD’s and crap. Oh wait, I do have that, it’s called the Simpsons.

Some of the best dollars I ever spent based on sheer amount of time I’ve used them. 

KCLS Offers Study Zone For Kids K-12 – This story about a study group contains excellent usage:

"DOWN WITH HOMEWORK!" was the slogan on Bart Simpson’s tee-shirt that provoked the schoolhouse riot at Springfield Elementary, ultimately leading Principal Skinner to impose a uniform dress code.  The episode featuring Bart’s anti-homework sentiment, “Team Homer,” aired on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1996.

That episode is now 16 years old, which means that for a K-12 study group not one of the kids is old enough to remember it when it was first broadcast.  The endurance of The Simpsons shows up in so many ways. 

 ‘Glee’ by the musical numbers: Maxing out on Michael Jackson – Excellent video usage:

Take this line from Mr. Schuester, which followed the horrifying slushie attack on Blaine by the evil Warbler leader Sebastian: “In all my years as a teacher and a student, I have never known a slushie to do that kind of damage.”(Ah, William Schuester. Clearly you are unaware of the permanent brain damage suffered by Bart Simpson and Milhouse Van Houten following the Great Squishee Bender of 1993.)

OUR VIEW: A thing about machines – Moderate usage:

In an amusing episode of "The Simpsons," Lisa Simpson, playing the bad girl, steals all the teachers’ editions of the school books. Mass chaos and panic ensues, with one teacher wailing, "WHO KNOWS THE MULTIPLICATION TABLES??" It’s a funny line, and could be repeated today if the Internet ceased to exist. One imagines students digging for long-discarded encyclopedias or simply curling up in a fetal-like ball if deprived of technological research tools such as Google or even Wikipedia.

He actually says, “Does anyone know the multiplication table?”, but that’s pretty close.

Whats the value of my Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror issue #1 ? – It says there’s only a couple of hours left to answer, but I thought I’d put it here in case anyone knows the answer:

I have 2 copies of this comic it’s an original print, so it’s over 16 years old. I have one with Matt Groenings autograph on it and one without. I’d like to keep the autographed one and sell the other, they’re both in great quality and I’m wondering what’s the value someone would put on each one, thank you :)

Homer Simpson Glue Gob Sells for $240K on eBay | Gather – Sweet Jebus, I guess those bids were serious.  It’s possible it was a prank bid, but maybe not.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make glue bubbles for the rest of the day.

Duff Beer 24 Can Pack – The price of Duff appears to be coming down, though sadly this remains only available in the UK.  (via)

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach – Excellent usage:

This sort of relationship between young men once attracted no attention by the intensity of its innocence. The feelings it channelled were the ones that powered not just sporting events but armies and empires. Then the Kinsey report was published, and innocence seemed either self-deception or ruse. The buddy movie has never gone away, though recently renamed the bromance, but it can often seem unsure of itself. Even the simplest attitude is mined with contradictions, as when Homer Simpson, unreflecting homophobe, on being informed by tactful Marge that the local antiques dealer prefers the company of men, replies, "Who doesn’t?"

Marge Simpson by ~Babrico-Gurl on deviantART – Cool Marge fan art.

Mmmmm, donuts – A discussion of homemade donuts leads to YouTube of Grampa discovering John F. Kennedy’s terrible secret. 

Smile! – Mother-daughter relations through the lens of “Moaning Lisa”. 

Lazy Saturday « That Thing I Like – If you’re stuck inside you could do far worse than watching what appears to be “Simpson Tide”. 

TV doctors #14 – Dr. Julius Hibbert – And that puts him ahead of Cliff Huxtable, who’s only #17.

Directions from Marge – I’d heard about GPS Mr. Burns a little while ago, but I didn’t know about Marge.  This is on the appropriateness of getting GPS guidance from Marge Simpson:

I’ve watched The Simpsons for a long time, but one of my favorite things about it is the way it creates a bridge between a wide variety of people.  People who might not think they have anything in common can smile together over a Simpsons reference.  They’re a fixture and a reflection of so much in American culture that in some ways Marge is already telling us where we’re going, so it’s only fitting to have her voice on a GPS.

Top 100 Simpsons Episodes – There’s some Zombie Simpsons on here, but barely half a dozen of them, and only like two in the top fifty.  Well done.  And there’s an unusual pick at #1.  It’s a great episode, I just don’t recall ever seeing it at the top of someone’s list before. 

A Tribute to Lisa Simpson: My Feminist Role Model – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us in an awesome way:

I grew up with The Simpsons.

Before I could talk, I could say “D’oh.” I’ve won so many games of Simpsons Scene-It that many of my friends refuse to play with me. Sometimes, my family and I communicate entirely in Simpsons quotes. My ability to relate almost every single life event to a Simpsons scene is often bewildering to those in my anti-capitalist, feminist friend circle, who often question my loyalty to the Simpsons franchise.  However, what they often don’t understand is that this show shaped not only my sense of humor, but also my politics, often from the wisdom of the precocious eight-year-old Lisa Simpson.

She goes on to cite several examples of Lisa’s greatest lines, none of which are even close to Zombie Simpsons.  (And, of course, this is further refutation of that guy’s arguments from last week.)

27
Jan
12

Reading Digest: Dreams Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 5 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
Tags:

Treehouse of Horror VI5

“Groundskeeper Willie was in my nightmare too, but he got me with hedge clippers.” – Lisa Simpson
“He ran his floor buffer over me.” – Nelson Muntz

We’ve got a lot of good links this week.  There’s two promising new blogs, several people who agree with us, and lots of fan made stuff (including a Mexican Bart figurine).  But we’ve also got three – count ’em, three! – people who had the Simpsons in their dreams this week.  Good thing you don’t have to pay a royalty for that yet.  There’s also some good discussion of older episodes, a cool Flash map of Springfield, plenty of usage, and Zombie Simpsons damaging relations with Pakistan (well, sort of). 

Enjoy.

Clickerbox: The Simpsons Season 2 – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this tour of Season 2 courtesy of someone who wasn’t allowed to watch the show as a kid but has seen many of the later episodes.  She’s harsh on some episodes I love, but it’s fascinating to see someone coming at them from a perspective utterly unlike mine.  She goes through the whole season, so there’s a lot here.

Cartoon Quotes – A new blog featuring, as you may have guessed, daily quotes from cartoons.  It’s brand new, and has quotes from several characters ranging from Bugs Bunny to Shaggy from Scooby Doo, but Homer’s on the banner and there have been three Simpsons quotes already.  All three of them are dead on correct, so let’s hope he keeps it up.

Interactive Map of Springfield – I sort of think I’ve posted this before, but it’s damn cool.

Poll: What is your favorite season of The Simpsons? – Lenny says that after much thought she’s got a favorite, but before she reveals it, she wants to know yours.  I don’t think I could pick one, I’d just feel all the seasons I didn’t pick staring at me accusatorily.  But if you’ve got one, go ahead. 

Kidrobot and The Simpsons present Matt Groening – There’s going to be a Matt Groening doll.  I suppose it was inevitable. 

Forrest Gump and the Simpsons via YouTube – What if you took the audio from an extended trailer for Forrest Gump and matched to clips from the show?  Well, you don’t have to, someone else did and it is fantastic:

That is great. 

The Simpsons Meets Skyrim of the Day – Fus Ro D’oh.

10/18/11 – Even in dreams you can’t escape The Simpsons:

We are at our apartment, watching The Simpsons, while we wait to leave for the wedding. The roommate who is getting married points out how the character Lisa has changed in the episode, while my other roommate bakes.

Merman Sideshow Bob and Bart by ~Foxiso on deviantART – Fan made drawing of a Sideshow Bob as a merman drowning Bart, the idea for which originally came in a dream.

20th January – Another Simpsons dream:

Dream 5! Ohh yeah, we’re getting into the big numbers now! I was in our conservatory. I was with my brother, and a man who looked like one of the characters for the Simpsons. We were about to get filmed for an episode. It went well, so I went to watch the premiere. I looked like a Simpson!

That’s just what you’d look like if you were a cartoon character. 

You Built What?! A Wearable LED Television – Remember that guy from last summer who built a television into a coat and had The Simpsons playing on it?  He’s back, this time with a shirt that also plays The Simpsons.  Excelsior to you, David Forbes.  (via)

Obituary: Phil Hartman – Our old friend Gran2 has started a new blog called “Late Obituaries”.  It’s either obituaries written long after the person dies, or an obituary for the genre of obituaries.  This is the first post, and it strong suggests the former.  That is a great picture of Hartman. 

Bidding war over dried glue that looks like Homer Simpson. Sort of. – When this ends, I just picture the two guys who bid thousands for it giggling and running away when one of them wins as the auctioneer has to ask, “Yes, were there any serious bids for this item?”

Fascinating contest in store – Somewhere in New Zealand there is a racing greyhound named Sideshow Bob:

Secondly, the potent Dave and Jean Fahey Canterbury training partnership provided the quinella in both of those heats, although one of them (Sideshow Bob) has since been an injury-enforced scratching.

I really wish there was a picture. 

Valentine’s Day Card – Awesome homemade “Choo Choo Choose” Valentine’s Day card. 

LEGO-Can you guess what they are? – The Simpsons one is very minimalist and cool, but for giggle factor the champion has to be Lego Princess Leia photocopying her own butt. 

Not Even Selma Will Have Him – Memebase – Forever alone!

Cartoon Pick of the Day: The Simpsons: Maggie Makes Three – Very nice writeup of “And Maggie Makes Three”.

Top 10 TV Theme Tunes – There’s a lot of good YouTube here, as well as more British shows than you usually see on lists like this.  And, of course, we all know what’s at #1. 

CAN’T SLEEP – Very Demotivational – That bed never gets old. 

Leading News Resource of Pakistan – Last week I made fun of Zombie Simpsons for basically airing a free commercial for Cinnabon with their barely disguised “Cinnabun”.  Here’s why they deserve your scorn:

‘Cinnabon’ opens newest location in Karachi

[…]

Homer Simpson loves them. Jerry Seinfeld wants to marry them. And now Karachi residents can enjoy the world famous cinnamon rolls filled with the company’s signature Makara Cinnamon.

Somebody’s using it to actually pimp Cinnabon in Pakistan.  This never happened with Duff or Buzz.

Station / Estación # 10: Obrera – Click through for some excellent graffiti of Homer and Bart near a metro station in Mexico City. 

These are the bricks you’re looking for – A take on the evolution of Lego, with a particular knock at a Zombie Simpsons’ joke from a couple of weeks ago. 

Marge and Lisa Simpson Loves Donatella and Allegra Versace. Fashion Simpsons – From the same site as last week’s fashion mashups. 

The GOP’s Seemingly Never-Ending Debates – Poor usage:

Apart from global appeal, intentional comedy, puckish charm and hints of a first-rate mind operating under a veneer of stupidity, Sarah Palin has something in common with Bart Simpson. I’m specifically talking about the scene where Grandpa, forced to babysit the kids, refers to a note card provided to him by Marge. It reads: “Always do the opposite of what Bart says.” Too bad the GOP isn’t as smart as Abe Simpson.

That manages to get the quote wrong and the character wrong, and that’s always poor usage. 

My Favourite Cartoon Character – Cool fan made computer animated Lisa. 

Nice Bart Simpson pictures – There’s two here.  There’s a boring one of a Bartman statue at Comic Con 2009.  The cool one is a homemade Bart figurine from Mexico. 

Brits want to use bees as security guards to protect historic site – Excellent page whoring usage, io9:

Vandals are damaging a historic site in Wales, and its operators have come up with an ingenious solution: protect the place with bees. This should work, for as noted bee expert Homer Simpson once observed, bees will bite your bottom, and then your bottom’s big.

Got a dumb story with no hook?  Gin up a tenuous Simpsons connection and put a picture of Homer on it.  Denton has taught you well, young one. 

The 15 Best Band Cameos on TV – Good list here.  There’s lots of YouTube, and Simpsons makes it three times, for Smashing Pumpkins, The Ramones, and The Beatles, which comes in at #1. 

First You Get the Sugar: The name might confuse, but the music doesn’t – Speaking of bands and the show, here’s another band that took it’s name from an episode:

“People in tune with The Simpsons get it pretty quick,” observes drummer Daniel Moscovitch.

“While others still don’t understand what it is,” chimes in guitarist Adam Kagan. “Which is good – I say go rent Scarface, then watch The Simpsons, and then you’ll understand.”

Australia Day…In 10 Words « In 10 Words – That scene in “Bart vs. Australia” was the only good thing to come out of Crocodile Dundee, and they made two sequels! 

Homer Simpson Kills Ned Flanders by ~darthraner83 on deviantART – Fan art of Homer eating a donut after having just casually beheaded Flanders with a lightsaber.  Definitely works better than a pipe. 

Bart Simpson by ~katval1 on deviantART – Fan art of a slightly disturbing, goggle-eyed Bart.

Lisa Simpson by ~aquariano186 on deviantART – Speaking of disturbing, here’s fan art of a grown up Lisa with an undersized head and an oddly placed bust. 

Simpsons scratchboard art by Edwin Vazquez – Lots more than just Simpsons characters here, very neat.  The urinating Mickey Mouse is particularly depraved looking. 

Man wins €680,000 with one-euro football accumulator bet – Excellent reference:

Anyone who has seen The Simpsons episode where Monty Burns opens a casino knows that betting is evil, and Gamblor will ensnare you with his neon claws if you partake.

Gambling is the finest thing a person can do.

Rangers’ Rookie Hagelin Honed His Skills as a Standout at Michigan – Another NHL player who likes the show:

Hagelin’s adjustment from Sweden to the United States was surprisingly smooth. He was already fluent in English, having learned the language in school and through daily viewings of “The Simpsons” and “That ’70s Show.”

“In Sweden, they broadcast the American shows in English with Swedish subtitles, whereas in many European countries they dub them,” Hagelin said. “Watching those shows in English was big for me.”

The Simpsons Trivia Game – A free, 1500 question Simpsons trivia game for Android. 

Billy Cundiff: An Open Letter to the Baltimore Ravens’ Latest Scapegoat – Lenny actually says “Everybody” not “Everyone”, but this is still excellent usage:

To borrow a line from The Simpsons, "Everyone makes mistakes: that’s why they put erasers on pencils."

Poor Billy Cundiff. 

Family Guy (And Other Controversial Cartoons) – A Family Guy review that agrees with us:

They parody songs, popular sayings, celebrities and other cartoons (such as The Simpsons… And how it’s not been funny since you were 13 – sad but true).

Indeed, sad and true.

30 Rock: Best Comedy on TV or Stuck in Cruise Control? – And here’s a review of 30 Rock that agrees with us:

I get the argument of, ‘Come on, 30 Rock should challenge itself and try something different.’ But look what happened to a show like The Simpsons. That was the funniest show on TV for about 10 years, but its style definitely started to change, and it got terrible, and quite frankly, I cringe when I see ads for an upcoming episode today. And trust me — this is coming from a die hard Simpsons fan back in the day.

And I guess that’s my point. I’m sure after 10-12 years, the creative team of The Simpsons needed to try something else with the show. It didn’t work. Okay, fair enough. Let’s move on. But that show is still on the air today, and it’s getting progressively worse, completely losing what made it so brilliant in the first place. At this point, stop trying to change it, and just end it.

Amen, brother. 

Five TV Shows That Changed The World – Finally, here’s as excellent a one paragraph summary as you will ever read:

The Simpsons (1989-today)

Fully explaining the impact of The Simpsons in anything less than a massive leather bound tome is nearly impossible, considering the brilliant creative minds it has bestowed upon the world (Brad Bird! Conan O’Brien! Greg Daniels!), the countless shows it has influenced (South Park! Family Guy! Every show that’s ever been on Adult Swim!), and the staggering number of classic episodes it is responsible for (“Marge vs The Monorail!” “Homer at the Bat!” “Cape Feare!”). The “Golden Age” of The Simpsons is nearly a decade’s worth of sharp satire, breaking down every facet of American culture into hilarious, endlessly quotable, and sometimes even touching animated half-hours. Without The Simpsons, cartoons may have always been socially unacceptable for people over the age of 12 to watch. That an entire generation is growing up with a watered down, way-past-its-prime version of TV’s greatest dysfunctional cartoon family is a shame, but the first ten seasons of The Simpsons remain mandatory viewing for the pop culture fiends of the future.

Testify! 

20
Jan
12

Reading Digest: One Word Off Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 5 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
Tags:

Lisa's Wedding11

In an odd coincidence, there are three pieces of excellent usage this week that are just one word away from being dead on.  Being my nitpicky self, I’ve added the correct words in, but all three still rate as excellent usage in my book.  In addition to that we’ve got lots of fan art, including a bunch of drawings of Homer and Marge as famous fashion people.  There’s also a couple of great YouTube videos, some love for Season 3 and 5, an unconvincing defense of Season 9’s most infamous episode, and lots of other stuff. 

Enjoy.

The Many D’ohs of Homer Simpson – This was linked in more places than you can count this week, and with good reason.  It’s every annoyed grunt from Seasons 1-20.  It is epic:

As a bonus, you can watch the show deteriorate before your eyes.  There’s a noticeable uptick in the horrendousness of Homer’s injuries and craziness of the situations as you get into the second half of the video.

Religious Anti-Ninja Turtle Propaganda from the Ancient World [Video] – One good four and a half minute YouTube deserves another, and this one is a doozy.  I’ll let Comics Alliance explain:

Canadian men in an early 1990s propaganda film decrying the original TMNT animated series, Vanilla Ice, Bart Simpson and other alleged evils of the ancient world.

These guys put the fun in fundamentalist dogma, but in more of a huggable Canadian way than in a fire-and-brimstone Billy Graham way.  Observe:

Mostly they’re mad at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and this whole thing screams early 90s, but they do fit in two moments of Simpsons vitriol, both courtesy of a sweater clad guy who looks like Rowsdower’s wussy cousin.  At 1:30 he cites Bart’s prayer from “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” with disbelief that modern society allows such blasphemy on television.  Sadly the video is edited so the context is missing, but the general tone is perfectly funny on its own.

You’ve got to watch the video to really get it, but let’s just say that there’s more than hint of “prefers the company of men” to these guys, which makes this at 3:35 doubly hilarious:

Another cartoon character in the script that was a homosexual that became Homer’s secretary that was continually trying to seduce him.

Karl does a lot of things in that episode, even kiss Homer, but “continually trying to seduce him”?  I hope at least one of those guys made it out of the closet.

Defending The Simpsons’ "The Principal and the Pauper" – I saw this linked in a few places this week, but having read it I can comfortably stand by what I said last year.  That episode has so many plot twists and so much retconning that there just isn’t room for anything else in a mere twenty-two minutes.  For further evidence of this, consider that the linked article is a little over a thousand words, a quarter of them are spent just describing the plot of the episode.  Also, this is just not true:

The issue isn’t that people don’t find this episode funny. Some people may find that is the case, and given the subjective nature of comedy that is a reasonable argument.

How many quotable lines are there in that episode?  I doubt I could squeeze more than two or three Quote of the Day posts out of it.  Whether or not someone finds a joke funny is subjective, whether or not something is even trying to be funny is much less so.  There’s far more straight up exposition in that episode than there are gags, and that’s why I don’t buy Ken Keeler’s defense or this one.

Struggling with the question of belief? Homer Simpson’s got the answer – It’s our second week in a row with a link using Homer to illustrate the stupidity of Pascal’s Wager.  There’s more than a hint of freshman level theology here, but he (almost entirely) gets his quotes right:

I think we can safely conclude that the probability of a liberal God fascist – one who doesn’t mind which version of him you believe in, but if you don’t believe in him at all, he’ll let you rot in hell – is negligible. As Homer Simpson put it when arguing that he shouldn’t go to church: "Don’t you think the almighty has better things to worry about than where one little guy spends one measly hour of his week?"

There’s a small nit to pick in that Homer actually says “think that the almighty”, but it continues:

If, on the other hand, it matters which God you believe in, it’s because there are certain important rewards of belief that you will not receive if you don’t believe in the right one, or punishments for failing to believe correctly. But even Homer Simpson can see the problem with this: "What if we’ve picked the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder?" Choosing the wrong God might be worse than believing in none at all.

That quote is dead on, so I’m calling that the rare double excellent usage.

A Conversation with Mike Reiss: One of The Simpsons’ Original Writers Sits Down with Discord – Pretty much what it says.  There isn’t a whole lot of new information here, but Reiss is always good for a laugh or two.  I did get an enjoyable sarcastic eye roll out of this:

J: So, final question, back to The Simpsons, I always wanted to ask, why did Bart’s ‘bad boy’ persona change as seasons went on?

M: We almost ran out of ideas for Bart. We just couldn’t relate to him. We were all more like Lisa in those days. Then we grew up, and all of a sudden we were Homer.

Hello, Smithers! Gizmodo likens SOPA to Mr. Burns – A screen grab a nice little writeup of Gizmodo’s banner on Wednesday.

Lisa Simpson <3 – Image of Lisa with the text of her epic “rich husband” rant from “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy”.  Except for missing the word “anything” between “be” and “more” on the second line the quote is dead on.

Xbox Live Achievements for The Simpsons Arcade Game uncovered – There are ten of these, and while I’m not sure about “easier than arm wrestling”, the ones that are specific references come from Season 10 or earlier.  Just sayin’.

The Simpsons did it. They’ve done everything. – Turns out that “Lisa the Greek” correctly called the 3rd quarter score of last week’s Denver-New England game.

White pranks youth on new show – Another quote off by one word:

As occurs with most things in life, the new series Betty White’s Off Their Rockers brought to mind a quote from The Simpsons.

Homer, speaking to his father (universally known as Grandpa), adopted a sugary sweet tone as he said, "Dad, you’ve done a lot of great things. But you’re a very old man, and old people are useless."

Homer says “very old man now”.  Oh well, still excellent usage.

‘Beauty And The Beast’ Returns And Enchants, Even In Unneeded 3-D – Heh:

Besides, there are kids out there who don’t even know where Mr. Burns’ "See My Vest" number on The Simpsons came from. And they really should.

Don’t forget The Critic!  Though I’d guess lots more kids know “See My Vest” than “Beauty and King Dork”.

Marge Simpson and Homer Simpson. Diane Pernet and Karl Lagerfeld – A blog called Humor Chic, which I’ve linked before, went off this week drawing Simpsons characters like famous fashion people.  I can’t comment on the accuracy of these as I only recognize half the names and have no idea what these people look like, but here’s the full spread of links:

Bravo.

Bart and Lisa – Bart and Lisa Simpson Photo (28324403) – Fan made drawing of Bart wrecking Lisa’s snowman.

Ned Flanders by ~MrsLemmy on deviantART – Yet another fan made drawing, this time of Flanders looking quite butch after he rakes up some leaves.

The Simpsons Fan Art – Fantastic collection of fan made stuff.  I’ve seen some of them before, but there are a lot of new and good ones as well.  (via)

Apu – I chuckled.

NailArt and things: Pink Love and Bart Simpson – A shirt with a fan painted image of Bart peering around a corner.  Cool.

The Simpsons season 3 review – A glowing review of Season 3:

I would give this season a 10 out of 10 due to the fact that it doesn’t matter how many times you watch these episodes they never get old and its worth remembering that they were brought in 1992 and are still funny to this day.

I was listening to an Oakley & Weinstein commentary a month or so ago, and they said they thought Season 3 was the best one.

Bong Of The Day: Bart Bong – I think we can safely say that this does not fall under the Krusty Brand Seal of Approval:

This awesome Bart Bong from Excellent Pipes is pretty sweet, the Bart Simpson bowl is blown with 24ct. gold fumed glass!! It has a cool twist in the tube that act as an ice catcher to cool down your hits. I love the big rounded bowl shape that the base of this bong has.

You can buy a lot of weed for the price of a bong like that. 

Broken Hill Statue Totally Looks Like Homer Simpson – Yeah, kinda.

D’oh, A Simpsons Marathon Challenge – This is a very nice writeup of that stupid marathon FOX is doing to promote the 500th episode, and it doesn’t mention anything past Season 7.

Friday Five: Five Favorite Rolling Stone Covers – The ones with the family drawn as Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana and the Beatles make #1 here.

‘The Simpsons’ approaching 500th episode – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us:

We’ve been watching a lot of episodes of “The Simpsons” in my household lately. Not new episodes, but classics from old DVD collections.

My son has discovered the show and is currently obsessively watching the fifth season which, I’m startled to realize, aired several years before he was born.

I haven’t watched “The Simpsons” in years. As I’ve noted previously in this blog, I think the show ran out of steam somewhere around the 10th season. The few episodes I’ve seen in the past decade seemed cheap and obvious.

The fifth season, currently in “play all” mode at my house, was a whole different story.

Got that right.  It concludes:

The show’s 500th episode is set to air Feb. 19 and I might tune in. I want to enjoy the show like I did when acid-washed jeans were all the rage. I’m afraid both are cultural icons whose time has passed, though.

Yeah.

13
Jan
12

Reading Digest: Internet Tips Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: Reading Digest
Tags:

Radioactive Man6

“Okay, here we are, alt.nerd.obsessive.  Need know star RM pic.” – Comic Book Guy

We have two amazing compilations of Simpsons stuff this week, one is merely big, the other is huge.  The merely big one is a YouTube rich list of Simpsons quotes that get used in everyday conversation.  The huge one is a list of all the famous paintings and such that have been in episodes one way or another.  As befits this modern time, I found both of these through regular people blogs; many thanks to them.  There are also three fan made Simpsons Pokemon cards, some excellent usage, another blog taking a futile whack at ways to revitalize Zombie Simpsons, a sweet fan made quick, a DVD review that agrees with us, and the poignant, life affirming story of a Homer Simpson cardboard cutout.

Oh, and just for fun, in response to this morning’s quote on Twitter, a lonely spam bot replied with this:

@deadhomers Check out here to see if you’ve already met your true love!

Happily, the account has already been suspended.  I don’t know if this has been anyone else’s experience, but Twitter spam seems to be greatly down in the last 6-8 months.

Enjoy.

13 Simpsons Quotes We Use In Everyday Conversation. – The first of our awesome lists comes via The Nerdy Girl Life, and is chock full of YouTube and great examples.

Art History via The Simpsons – Holy crap:

I grew up watching The Simpsons and was introduced to so much history and popular information that way, for better or for worse. Music, fairy tales, world events… I’ve had several occasions where, when asked if I recognize a particular name or fact will instantly brighten up with “oh yeah, that simpsons episode!”.

Art is no exception to this. Complex.com has put together a complete list of all art references during the course of The Simpsons.

When they say “complete” they aren’t screwing around.  Wow.

Quiz: Tom Berenger or Troy McClure Film Title? – Berenger has been in a lot of terrible movies.

Law Man Walking: Nature Treks With Bill Holston – This was making the rounds on Twitter this week, but near Dallas there’s a lake called Bart Simpson Lake.  It was the result of a levee built after floods in 1989.  You can see a satellite picture of the lake here, but you’re going to have to squint if you want it to look like Bart’s head.

The Simpsons aim for viewer world record – As a publicity stunt for the 500th episode, which is officially going to be broadcast on February 19th, FOX is asking people to sit in and watch all the episodes in a row.  The current record is eighty-six hours.  Out of curiosity, I just queued up a bunch of seasons, and if you go from Season 1 through Season 10, it’s 86h:16m:34s.  I wonder if the previous record holder staggered through Season 10, then ran screaming from the room at the thought of beginning Season 11.

The coolest cars from the Detroit auto show – Nice reference:

We’ll admit that every time we hear the words “concept car” we think of Homer Simpson, who designed “The Homer” for his brother, the head of Powell Motors. Complete with extra Homer-ish options (bowler hood ornament, sound bubble for the kids), it turned out to be a hideous, pea-green disaster that cost $82,000 to build and bankrupted poor Herb Powell’s car company.

And yet the Homer is probably closer to the assembly line than many concept cars presented each year at the big car shows. And yet we can’t stop looking at them.

If Your Argument Can’t Beat Homer Simpson, It Probably Sucks – A nice pairing of Pascal’s Wager with a Homer quote.  I’d be in love, except that they botched the quote.  Homer actually says:

And what if we picked the wrong religion?  Every week we’re just making God madder and madder.

The story of life-sized cardboard Homer Simpson – If only all minor marital disagreements could be solved by beheading.

3/4 There – A report on the final stretch of comedy school, complete with non-English clown college YouTube.

Pokemon Card: Marge Simpson by ~Pokecardcreator on deviantART – Exactly what it says.

Pokemon Card: Lisa Simpson by ~Pokecardcreator on deviantART – Same as above.

Pokemon Card: Maggie Simpson by ~Pokecardcreator on deviantART – And Maggie makes three.

Proof positive – A little history about Fermat’s Last Theorem and the equation that appears behind Homer when he’s 3-D.

The Simpsons: The Fourteenth Season – A Season 14 DVD review I can get behind:

The release of The Simpsons’ fourteenth season on DVD and Blu-ray means you can choose to watch the series’ continued slide into mediocrity as often as you want. For longtime fans, it’s a painful descent to watch, but it’s one where the progress is clear as day. Whereas three seasons back the majority of episodes still had that comedy magic that made the series a fan-favorite, seasons 11, 12, and 13 saw the ratio shift dramatically, with unfunny episodes gradually increasing and eventually making up the majority of each season. By the fourteenth, fans should consider themselves lucky to have even five episodes that elicit a belly laugh, but even then the whole episodes don’t match up to the franchise highs. There might be just enough in this fourteenth season set for truly forgiving fans to overlook the fact that laughs are separated by minutes and not seconds, but for everyone else, episodes like “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation”, “Large Marge”, “Dude, Where’s My Ranch”, “’Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky” make it clear the show had made its third jump over the shark.

By Season 14, I’m of the opinion that the series had completely flatlined.

Audio: Stephen Hawking’s Best Quotes – Most of these are about, you know, science and junk, but I’d never heard this:

“My daughter, Lucy, knew one of the scriptwriters for the Simpsons. He said he would like to write an episode involving me. I accepted immediately because it would be fun, and because the Simpsons is the best thing on American television.”

The Why-Are-We-Here Debate: Live Thread – Heh:

9:08: Romney’s explanation of why he didn’t run again, that he had basically achieved everything he needed in four years, sounds an awful lot like what “George H.W. Bush” said in the Simpsons episode where he moved into Springfield.

Not Quite Breakfast, Not Quite Lunch – Excellent usage:

I love doing brunch! “It’s not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don’t exactly get what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal.” ~ The Simpsons

Today I had Sunday brunch with my cousin Jay, a belated 30th birthday outing since I missed her big day when I jetted off to FL for the holidays.

Jacques says “completely” not “exactly”, but other than that it’s dead on.

Dynamic Duos on TV – Lots of good YouTube here, and Bart and Milhouse check in at #1.

Bart Simpson dress up by ~matermctarget223 on deviantART – Fan made Flash dress up program for Bart.  The “I Shot Tupac” t-shirt is a nice touch.

Simpsons Didn’t Do It: Five Plotlines That “The Simpsons” Have Yet to Explore – This is from Dish TV’s in house self promotional blog, but it falls along many of the same lines as those doomed Split Sider suggestions from a few months ago.

The Awesomeness of James Earl Jones – Some YouTube love for James Earl Jones, including “The Raven”.

It’s A Brad, Brad World…In 10 Words – Wow, that looks awful.

Get the Hint…TV Outstaying Welcome – Zombie Simpsons easily makes a list of TV shows that have stayed on longer than they should have.  My dear, we couldn’t have this list without you.

Ode To Spewing Your Drink Out Your Nose And Needing Breath So Bad Your Ribs Hurt – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us on a thing that can always get you to laugh:

I guess this is why things that can always make me laugh are like treasured possessions.   The first 9 seasons of The Simpsons;

Huzzah.

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