Archive for the 'Simpsons' Category

17
May
13

Reading Digest: Missing Canadian Edition

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

The PTA Disbands12

“It took the children forty minutes to locate Canada on the map.” – Marge Simpson
“Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there.” – Homer Simpson

Whenever Zombie Simpsons hitches its fading star to a currently popular celebrity, your Katys Perry and Ladys Gaga, the internet throws a brief but mild fit wherein huge numbers of pop culture sites that normally couldn’t give a fuck about the show write about how Celebrity X is gonna be Simpsonized.  That very thing happened this week in regards to Justin Bieber’s brief and pointless cameo, so it’s a bit of a clipped Reading Digest.  Bieber clogged the tubes, and once you’ve read one blog post lamenting the brevity of his appearance, you’ve read all several thousand of them.   Besides that deliberate omission, we’ve got some cool fan art, a statistical analysis of other celebrity guests, some excellent usage, several people who agree with us, some (possibly dubious) statistics about Duff, and a plastic donut.

Enjoy.

Oh, and this is basically obligatory today:

The Curse of the Simpsons! – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this statistical look at whether or not guest voicing on The Simpsons is bad for your health.  Short answer, no:

So there is no curse, celebrities who appear on the Simpsons live about an extra 3 years (on average at least).  If we look at the ages Simpson guests have been dying, the average is 76 years, with some folks pushing 100.

No wonder they keep having pointless cameos like Bieber and Captain Picard, it makes people live longer.  Jean’s probably got a lucrative, off the books sideline in selling guest spots.  (At this rate, Bieber’s going to be alive until 2130.) 

Went to get my oil changed and found this… – This is a reddit link to a positively amazing set of images of styrofoam cups with elaborate drawings, including the Simpson family on the inside of one.

Bizarro Baseball: the Isotopes – Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made:

Perhaps the strangest, most incredible part of this origin story lies in the annals (or lack thereof) of subsidiary rights:

In the three months after the team’s name was announced in September 2002, before the team ever took the field, the team sold more merchandise than the Albuquerque Dukes sold in any single season, and led minor league baseball in merchandising revenue in 2003.

The real life Simpsons: The Groening family tree – This is what happens when you have to come up with characters in the waiting cubicle at 1987 FOX.

Canadian ‘couch gag’ a dream come true for ‘Simpsons’ fan – So that couch gag contest they’re running isn’t just a desperate ploy for attention, it’s an internationally desperate ploy for attention:

Savaya, 22, earned the trip to Hollywood by coming up with a “couch gag” for the opening credits of the season 24 finale of The Simpsons. It airs Sunday at 8:30 p.m. on Global.

Savaya’s couch gag will air only on the Canadian broadcast of the show.

“I’ve never seen a Canadian couch gag before so I figured I might as well make it as Canadian as possible,” he says of his decision to include Sir John A. MacDonald, a hockey player, a loon and a beaver — and Maggie replacing her pacifier with a hockey puck.

Not now, Ralph. 

Top 8½ Overlooked Games – Video game nostalgia that agrees with us:

lots of people bought it but many dismissed it as another crappy licensed game. And those who did so were wrong. Sure, it’s a GTA clone without the violence, but it’s also some of the best ones out there. Good gameplay, good Simpsons-esque humor (not nearly as good or daring as in the golden age of Simpsons, but still), voice acting by the original cast and so on.

The Simpsons writer hails North West talent – More about that new British show Weinstein is doing.

Voice to Vexed – Perfectly quoted excellent usage:

This is a verbatim message I recently spoke to my brother’s Voice-to-Text service, quoting Chief Clancy Wiggum from The Simpsons: “This is Papa Bear. Put out an APB for a male suspect, driving a . . . car of some sort, heading in the direction of, uh, you know, that place that sells chili. Suspect is hatless. Repeat: hatless.”

I can’t wait till they throw his hatless butt in jail.

Huzzah! – Because all dictionary entries should reference The Simpsons and be written on bar napkins. 

“Mad Men” accidentally includes anachronism, sets Internet ablaze – Quoted at length because, yeah:

As aforementioned, “The Simpsons” provides an excellent send up of this. But Comic Book Guy does not only pick apart fictional TV shows and comic books of the “Simpsons” universe. In thinly veiled moments of meta-commentary, he pokes fun at the “Simpsons’” devoted fan base. This is done beautifully in an old episode when the Simpson family obtains a pet horse. Comic Book Guy references a previous “Simpsons” episode with a similar plotline. To a crowd of surrounding people, he cattily insinuates the series’ laziness. The “Simpsons” writers proceed to throw shade at obsessive fans such as Comic Book Guy, as Homer asks aloud: “Anybody care what this guy thinks?” The crowd resoundingly replies: “No!”

In the past weeks, some voices in the media have played Comic Book Guy to “Mad Men’s” “The Simpsons.” In a recent episode of “Mad Men,” Joan Holloway referenced eating at New York restaurant Le Cirque. Upon fact checking, people discovered that there was no Le Cirque in 1968 New York. Ostensibly, this quibble seems reasonable; historical authenticity is a vital part of “Mad Men’s” mojo, and to let if fall by the wayside seems a disregard for what the viewers love about the show.

Joan has the Wizard Key, I knew it! 

Childhood Nostalgia: Mmm Donuts. – Eat it, Freeman and Nicholson:

Around the time the Simpsons Movie came out, 7-11 came out with these pink sprinkled donuts, identical to the one from the character. Of course I immediately bought it when it came out and man did I fell in love with it. It wasn’t the best donut I have ever eaten, overload on sugar and frosting and mediocre dough. But the fact that I accomplished a childhood dream (to eat that little pink donut), the taste didn’t really matter to me. Besides that feeling where you eat that little pink donut alongside the POP! Homer Simpsons figurine that has the same little pink donut in his hand, priceless.

Bucket List: Eat a Homer Simpsons donut – CHECK

Your childhood dream was to run out onto the field during a baseball game, and you did it last year, remember?

Dag 097 – Yet more t-shirt. 

Best. Episode. Ever. (Round 25) – In a competition between “Homer the Heretic” and “Lost Our Lisa”, I must respectfully disagree.

7 Pensamentos de Homer Simpson – You know it’s a good joke when you can recognize it even in a foreign language:

5. Lisa, vampiros são faz-de-conta, como elfos, gremlins e esquimós.

♫♫ I don’t care, I love it ♫♫ – Speaking of languages I don’t speak, I have no idea what’s going on here, but there are two ladies painting Homer on a wall.  Cool. 

The Great Gatsby…In 10 Words – And then I saw the lighthouse, and I remembered how you love blinking lights.

Doctor Who Monday: Nightmare in Silver…In 10 Words – Oh, I forgot to, uh, carry the one.

Randy Jackson Leaving American Idol…In 10 Words – I wouldn’t. 

The Office (US)…In 10 Words – Determined or not, that cat is long dead by now.

You’re Wrong about the Worst Draft Pick in Packers History – Excellent usage:

Everyone is feeling pretty good about the prospects picked. We’re in that afterglow period where we can imagine all the good things that our team can do without being pestered by the reality of games played, injuries suffered, potentials not reached.

As Homer Simpson would say, “that Bart is a little miracle … he reminds me of me before the weight of the world crushed my spirit.”

Homer actually says “that Bart of ours”, but close enough.

I lack direction – The show has always provided a roundabout introduction to pop culture:

I also realized that, though I had not really heard of or seen Doctor Who before then, I had glimpsed Doctor Who out of the corner of my eye; I started watching The Simpsons maybe in 2000, or thereabouts, both the new shows on Sundays and the reruns that played in the afternoons, and there was that Halloween episode where the Comic Book Guy turned into a Comic Book Villain, The Collector, and started collecting famous people, including ‘Doctor Who’ or the Fourth Doctor.

Duff Beer | Beer Of The World – Not entirely sure that this is trustworthy, but five percent seems about right:

BEER DETAILS

  • Name: Duff Beer
  • Brewery: Duff Breweries
  • City: Springfield
  • Country: USA
  • Produced since: 1989
  • Style: Pilsener
  • ABV: 5%
  • Ingredients: water, malted barley, maize, hops

TV – The Top 15 episodes of The Simpsons (Part 2) – An otherwise fine list spoiled by an entry from Season 19. 

PIXIE and PIXIER: Lisa Simpson Girl Gang – A snazzy Lisa hat for the fashionable Simpsons fan.

Homer Simpson Listening to Ned Flanders – An animated .gif of Homer not caring about that rowboat of decorative geraniums. 

The Simpsons/Robot Chicken Couch Gag – In case you missed it, here’s the YouTube.  (It took too long and it was still the best part of the episode.) 

Analog 365 Project Day 133 – Good enough:

I found this giant plastic doughnut my boyfriend has from a Simpson’s game and couldn’t resist taking a goofy self portrait with it.

Everyone loves plastic donuts. 

You Don’t Make Friends with Salad! – Weight loss sucks:

Homer Simpson was right; you don’t make friends with salad.

1-800-COLLECT – I’d forgotten that the show did collect call ads.  Why collect call numbers were ever worth advertising on television I will never know.

When my blog gets foreign visits: – Animated .gif of the shifty eyed dog from “Beyond Blunderdome”.

lenny loves carl – This is a new blog with the fantastic title you see at left.  Also: just one week until Arrested Development! 

The Simpsons Season 7 Review – Yup:

After re-watching The Simpsons Season 7 it made me realise how good the show was and how much it has gone downhill.

My Hero: Lisa Simpson – And finally, I get to end the way I like, with someone who agrees with us.  And besides, who doesn’t love Lisa?:

Now, right off the bat, I have to admit that I haven’t been as much of a Simpson’s fanatic as I was as a child. When I talk about The Simpsons, I’m talking about post-the-three-eyed-crow-opening, the old school Simpsons that had obscure literary references, sexual innuendos and morally thematic episodes. It was in these early years that I first fell in love with Lisa Lionheart, the girl who never backed down from a fight.

Amen.  (Also, lotta good screen grabs and YouTube there.)

14
May
13

Behind Us Forever: Fabulous Faker Boy

By Charlie Sweatpants 29 Comments
Categories: Behind Us Forever and Simpsons
Tags: ,

Itchy and Scratchy Land12

“My hair!  You chopped off my hair!  Oh, God, I’m ugly!” – Homer Simpson 

  • Well, it was certainly nice of the Robot Chicken guys to eat up ninety seconds of screentime with that opening. 
  • And it’s a good thing they did, because if this scene with Marge and Skinner is any indication, we’re mostly in for filler here.  Skinner is now playing a guitar he pulled from behind his desk as surely as if it was a rabbit from a hat, and this goes on until well after Marge had left the building.
  • Sideshow Mel is now giving Bart music lessons, why?
  • And then Frink and Comic Book Guy because . . . oh, the hell with it.
  • What’s with the licorice thing?
  • “Let’s drink vodka” – Good advice for anyone watching this episode.
  • The scene where Bart walks across the playground to deliberately run into the bullies made very little sense, then they topped themselves by having Marge and this Russian guy sitting in her car in her driveway.  Impressive.
  • I’m confused by the Russian Makin’ Whoopee montage, though I really shouldn’t be.  It’s 30 seconds long, the entire episode (credits to credits) is only 18:30, so that ate almost 3% of the runtime right there.  And it was only the first of two montages.
  • Krusty and Captain McAllister sure had valid reasons for being at that recital we never learned anything about.  Someone in comments pointed out that this one was heavy on people just showing up for no reason, and they were correct.
  • Uh, is that going to be the whole Patrick Stewart thing?  [End of episode note: Yes, yes it was.]
  • Whoa, Helen Lovejoy really doesn’t sound like herself anymore.
  • Hey the Russian guy is back to exposit the end for us.  That was nice of him.
  • “It was wrong of me to force my dreams on you”, where did that come from?  Marge made Bart take up music because Skinner suggested it, not because she wanted to be a piano player.  Is it possible that by the end of these they’re phoning it in so badly that no one remembers the beginning?

The incoherence of this episode cannot be overstated, and yet I also cannot use any extreme superlatives because, let’s face it, it’s no more or less incoherent than most episodes these days.  Characters appear out of thin air, stories are dropped for no reason whatsoever, the plots (such as they are) get resolved with single scene twists instead of having anything to do with what came before. 

To take but one example from this episode, here is the entirety of Homer’s plot:

1.  Homer’s last two hairs fall out (note that this has happened before).

2.  Homer goes to the Kwik-E-Mart where he gets atrocious jokes spat at him by Apu, Flanders’ Dad (for some reason), and the Rich Texan.

3. Homer goes to Moe’s where Moe rips off his own hair and gives some to Homer.

4. Homer goes to work where he talks to Patrick Stewart, who tells him being bald is okay.

5. Homer reveals his baldness to Marge, who doesn’t care, which in turn causes his hair to grow back.

That’s it.  That’s the entire story.  Homer doesn’t do anything, he isn’t in any way affected by his brief loss of hair, and then it’s over.  And this was – by far – the most put together of the various goings on here.  It certainly made more sense than the Russian guy learning to drive, or Bart’s story, which started with him wanting to impress his teacher and then abruptly switched gears mid-episode to him being afraid to disappoint Marge. 

Anyway, the ratings are in and they are just as bad as the episode itself.  On Sunday, just 4.05 million viewers wished they had bootleg Russian vodka to make the time go faster.  That dismal total is good for second worst on the all time list.  Next week is the two episode season finale, which appears to be just two random episodes crammed together and not an actual two-parter, though the descriptions FOX has released are so vague and pointless that I really can’t tell.  Oh well, we’ll find out soon enough.

10
May
13

Reading Digest: Audio Visual Club Edition

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

Homerpalooza9

“The hometown show’s the big one, Homer.” – Jimmy Chamberlin
“Yeah, people who called you a weirdo in high school get to see what a successful freak you’ve become.” – James Iha
“Hey, I wasn’t a weirdo.  I was in the audio-visual club.” – D’arcy Wretzky  
“Really?  Me too.  But I got kicked out cause of my views on Vietnam . . . also, I was stealing projectors.” – Homer Simpson

Happy Whacking Day everybody!  This week we’ve got two links to those cool geeks at the A.V. Club, and while both take specific episodes (“Homer’s Enemy” and “Lady Bouvier’s Lover”) as their starting points, they also both end up in broader discussions of the show and television in general.  In addition to that, we are positively swamped with cool fan made stuff this week, from arts & crafts projects to drawings to a simple Star Wars/Simpsons sketch that I can’t believe someone hasn’t turned into a painting yet.  And, of course, we’ve also got the usual assortment of lists and random stuff, from usage to the widely linked obituary for Groening’s mom. 

Enjoy.

Wacking Day! – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week (Whacking Day Special Edition) is this fantastic fan knitted . . . you know what?  Just click the damn thing.  It’s not quite hat, it’s not quite a scarf, but it is damned cool.

Works In Progress: “Portraits Of Awesomeness” solo show. – This is just some sketches, but scroll down for the one of Chief Wiggum, as Darth Vader, telling Luke/Ralph that he’s his father.  I’m going to have Mark Hamill’s voice screaming, “That’s unpossible!” in my head for the rest of the day.  Bravo.

Don Draper vs. Principal Skinner – I put this on Twitter yesterday, but it’s worth linking twice.  (And when you think about it, one of Draper’s early sexual conquests could’ve been Agnes.)

The Simpsons, the Welsh designer and the new book celebrating Pembrokeshire – Josh Weinstein has a Kickstarter set up for a Welsh kids book:

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

For £15 you get a signed copy of the book.

D’oh(nt) Cancel Them Just Yet – Take this as a sign of just how low Zombie Simpsons has sunk on the pop culture totem pole.  This is a defense of the show, and even it contains this:

I know, of course, that the show is not as good as it once was. And ratings are showing this. Season 2 of the show, brought highs of 33 million viewers, whereas season 24 brought lows of 3 million.

I’ve got the current all time low at a flat 4.00 million (for that vile episode where Flanders and Krabappel start dating), but the point stands.

The Simpsons Season 9: The Beginning of the End. – A detailed breakdown of Season 9, including best, worst and one underrated episode.

FULL MCBAIN MOVIE HIDDEN THROUGHOUT ‘THE SIMPSONS’ – Hey, that McBain mashup is back from copyright hell.

Today in Period #3 (Wednesday, May 8) – You can’t discuss Tennessee Williams without Llewellyn Sinclair:

We finished reading/watching/discussing A Streetcar Named Desire – there will be a final quiz on the entire play tomorrow.

We also discussed parody and how an episode of the The Simpsons (“A Streetcar Named Marge”) so effectively parodied the play.

Was The Simpsons Arcade the best of all? – Some nostalgia for the arcade game includes YouTube of the ending that I never even got close to seeing in the arcade.

Maggie Simpson | Hama Bead Patterns – The whole family done in those little beads, with guidelines on how to make them yourself.

Style Inspiration: Homer and Bart Simpson – From the same blog that brought you how to dress like Marge without it being Halloween, here’s Bart and Homer (provided you’re a lady).

Springfield is about to E X P L O D E – Bartkira rolls forward.

15 Common Struggles For Music Lovers (As Told Through Simpsons GIFs) – Pretty much what it says, and except for the first one there isn’t any Zombie Simpsons.

Homer Simpson’s Thought Bubbles: A Collection – Also what it says (and most of them are .gifs).

27 Things "The Simpsons" Taught Us About Love – Buzzfeed does good with a Zombie Simpsons free list.  Some good animated .gifs here as well.

This Week in Music History (May 8th-May 14th) – I like how this is important enough to count as music history:

5/13- On this day in 1993, Fox aired the season 4 finale of The Simpsons, “Krusty Gets Kancelled”. Guest voices on the show included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Barry White and Bette Midler.

Patented Skinner Burgers – Heh.

Movie 99 Plump Fiction (1997) – Apparently Castellaneta was in a Pulp Fiction spoof so atrocious that it’s currently #98 on IMDb’s Bottom 100.  This is a rather amusing write up of it.

10 marvelously funny cartoon scenes – Just some screen grabs and .gifs from various cartoon shows.

Peaceful Tuesday – A tale of ditching cable includes this excellent reference:

Also, don’t you just think that the very idea of stating things like “I’ve got to catch up on my shows” not only sounds like its work, but also kinda like “I’ve gots to get ma dialin’ wand” or “I wash ma self wit a rag on a stick.” And yes, those are both references to The Simpson, where Homer gets really fat and wears a muumuu.

I haven’t had regular TV in a while, and I really can’t complain.

A classic Simpsons episode explores the universality of being Frank Grimes – A long A.V. Club discussion of “Homer’s Enemy”, including how dark it is or isn’t and how it makes Homer relate to the real world. 

Play It Again – Westworld – Agreed:

The malfunctioning robots at Itchy & Scratchy Land in The Simpsons prove to be more entertaining than their aged source material, Michael Crichton’s 1973 sci-fi western Westworld.

I hadn’t seen Westworld until a couple of years ago, but it definitely hasn’t aged well.

TV – The Top 15 episodes of “The Simpsons” (Part 1) – Nary a trace of Zombie Simpsons at spots 15-11.

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned From Marge Simpson – Ten things Marge taught us, with little to no Zombie Simpsons used as examples.

Bringing The Simpsons to North Korea – Presumably kids getting taught by an Aussie aren’t among the nation’s downtrodden, but still:

From 2010 to 2012, Lone, a history professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, traveled every six months to North Korea to teach high-school boys (and occasionally girls).

“I wanted to explain that there is a variety of experiences,” he said. “My experiences were different.”

For instance, when Lone brought an English-language comic book of The Simpsons for his classroom, he was surprised to learn that everybody was already familiar with the American cartoon.

Whacking Day…In 10 Words – No, it says here Larry White.

Iron Man 3…In 10 Words – Professor Frink has really pulled himself together. 

Nancy Grace…In 10 Words – Of course, this is just a television show, which is not legally binding, unless proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.

I’m pretty selfish – Kicking off a new travel blog with some excellent usage:

As it’s a self-confessed obnoxiousness, I’m reminded of Troy Mcclure:

Selma: Is this a sham marriage?
Troy: Sure baby, is that a problemo?
Selma: But… don’t you love me?
Troy: Sure I do! Like I love Fresca. Isn’t that enough? The only difference between our marriage and any one else’s is: we know ours is a sham.

And so too is the difference between this and other travel blogs: we know this one is obnoxious.

The quote’s had some stuff excised from the middle, but it’s dead on, so that’s excellent usage.

Matt Groening’s mom dies; maiden name Wiggum, she inspired Marge Simpson – She was 94 years old, and the on-line guest log has filled up with fan tributes from around the world.  Condolences.

Maggie as a Teenager – Maggie Simpson Fan Art (653742) – Pretty much what it says.  Well done.

Rafa Benitez refuses to be drawn into discussing Simpsons characters in press conference – Heh:

When asked about The Simpsons character to whom Luiz is so often compared, Chelsea interim manager refused to divulge any knowledge of him.

From PA Sport:

Asked if he was aware who Sideshow Bob is, Benitez said: "I’m aware David Luiz is one of the best players in the Premier League, by miles – miles away from a lot of players. He’s one of the best, without doubt.

According to the Telegraph’s Ben Rumsby a Sky Sports reporter even produced a picture of Sideshow Bob to show Benitez, which is just a bit weird.

That’s right, professional soccer coaches are being belittled with pictures from The Simpsons. 

homer simpson – An animated .gif of Homer doing the shifty eyes thing from “Beyond Blunderdome”.

Dag 089 – Another vintage Homer t-shirt. 

“Lady Bouvier’s Lover” – And finally, this A.V. Club writeup includes a summation of why The Simpsons was so damned good:

That’s the thing I find when I return to these old episodes of this show. They’re crammed with gags, yeah, but they’re also crammed with gags I remember incredibly well and maybe even think about in my day-to-day life. I wouldn’t call “Lady Bouvier’s Lover” one of the finest half-hours the show ever produced—unless we’re going wide-scale and pulling in every episode ever, in which case it’s in the top 100 or so just by dint of being in this season—but it’s got so many jokes in it I didn’t even know were part of this particular episode that I’m sort of in awe of it. For instance, I remembered that the “Play It Cool” sequence between Homer and Grampa was here, because it was directly related to the plot, but not, for instance, the bit about Homer imagining the kids as looking what we might perceive as “normal.”

That was the genius of The Simpsons—likely my favorite TV show ever made—when it was on a roll. The show did lots and lots of jokes, yes, but it also did many different kinds of jokes. The slapstick of Bart getting punched in the face bumps up against Grampa lifting wholesale from old movies (and getting trouble from legal departments representing the Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Durante estates), which bumps up against a surrealistic cutaway gag like Homer’s imagination running wild. I’ll occasionally read sniffing from people who don’t like early Simpsons saying that it’s “just” a bunch of pop-culture gags, like, say, Family Guy (and even if it was that, the pop-culture gags draw from so many varied sources that they’d win just based on sheer scope), but even a less instantly classic episode like this one gives the lie to that notion. In addition to strong, heartfelt stories, the show packed in gags as far as the eye could see, then made sure that they hit so many different targets that there would be something for everyone to laugh at. I don’t suppose I need to make the argument here that The Simpsons was the birth of what we think of as much of “modern” TV, but it sure seems that way to me, and that idea gets reinforced every time I go back and look again.

Indeed.

09
May
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and Simpsons
Tags: ,

Dancin' Homer9

“A Simpson on a t-shirt, I never thought I’d see the day.” – Marge Simpson

Happy birthday James L. Brooks!

07
May
13

Behind Us Forever: Whiskey Business

By Charlie Sweatpants 14 Comments
Categories: Behind Us Forever and Simpsons
Tags: ,

Dumbbell Indemnity3

“Your bowtie is just darling.” – Rene
“Well, thanks.  Yeah, it kinda draws the eye away from the old mug.” – Moe

[Note: Apologies for not getting this up yesterday.  I’m having grotesque technical problems at the spinoff site and reliable ratings numbers were delayed a day by NASCAR overrun anyway.]

  • They don’t take long to get right into the shitty writing, do they?  Immediately after showing us the 2009 Oscars on the TV, Homer says exactly that.  Zombie Simpsons really doesn’t trust the audience to pay attention in the least, do they? 
  • Looks like we’re doing sad Moe this week.  Naturally, he’s not standing behind the bar when he tries to talk to Homer, Lenny and Carl but is instead off alone for no reason. 
  • Setting aside the cheap emotion they’re going for, the suicide hotline didn’t have to be terrible.  But it also didn’t have to be that long and drawn out, either.
  • They really needed to drop the prank call thing when cell phones made it stupid, but they’ve been clinging to it for years now.
  • “This trip is about turning your life around.”  Stupid plots are not aided by equally stupid dialogue.
  • What’s with the limo, and why is Marge dressed like that?
  • I wasn’t going to bitch about the fact that this trip would be horribly expensive for theoretically working class people, but then they had to rub my nose in it: “Are you sure you want to spring for something that expensive. / Yes, cause every time you wear it, you’ll know how much we love you.”  Marge’s lines in this episode are just atrociously obvious and literal. 
  • “And look over there, Moe”.  She’s not going to get anything better to say, is she?
  • Lisa’s “maybe if it’s in good taste/Oh, come on” thing is just as bad.  It’s a hacktacular setup, and the punchline is “come on”.  Why not just have her look at a dog and say, “Don’t even say it”? 
  • The whole waterslide thing, I just, what the fuck?
  • Wow, they’re combining lots of ideas they’ve done before.  Moe is suddenly happy and handsome and the bar is getting redone.  I’ve only seen that like seven times before.
  • And now Marge is back and apparently never noticed that Grampa was gone?
  • Hey, speaking of repeat jokes, hot and cold water in the shower. 
  • So this Lisa subplot is just going to get worse, isn’t it?
  • “The suit wasn’t magic, Moe.  Don’t you know the story of Dumbo the elephant?”  Multiple people approved that line, and not one of them asked whether or not there was any reason for Moe to think it’s magic, why he didn’t just get another suit, or why they had to then recap the whole movie right after that.
  • Well, I was wrong about the Lisa subplot.  It didn’t get worse.  It just ended abruptly and for no reason.  Probably for the best. 
  • And it ends, just as nonsensically as it began.

Here at the end of Season 24, Zombie Simpsons is sticking to its long tradition of incoherence with the big new innovation being the inclusion of two crappy, underdone B-plots instead of one.  Lisa’s little encounters with, uh, holographic marketing, were so straight ahead dull that they couldn’t even make fun of things that are crying out to be made fun of.  Bart’s was a little more traditional in that it made no sense and combined two characters acting wildly unlike themselves, and none of that even includes Grampa climbing on the roof. 

The main plot was yet another fascinating look at how terribly sad and depressed Moe is.  The twist here was that now Marge cares for some reason, and Moe got his own brand of whiskey for which he apparently needed to wear a single, not-quite Chanel suit at all times.  That about two-thirds of all the dialogue was either hacktacular sitcom setup-punchline clunkers or repetitive exposition made the thing aggravating in addition to being boring.

Anyway, the final ratings are in and they are just as bad as late Season 24 has come to expect.  A tiny 4.43 million viewers wished they were watching Dumbo on Sunday.  That replaces last week’s episode at #6 on the all time least watched list.  With three episodes to go, Season 24 is locked into being the least watched ever by a fair margin.  The only question between now and the end is how low it’ll sink. 

07
May
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and Simpsons
Tags: ,

Lisa's Pony17

“Hurry, Moe, hurry!  I’ve only got five minutes until the music store closes.” – Homer Simpson
“Well, why don’t you go there first?” – Moe
“Hey, do I tell you how to do your job?” – Homer Simpson
“Sorry, Homer.” – Moe
“You know, if you tip the glass there won’t be so much foam on top.” – Homer Simpson
“Sorry, Homer.” – Moe

Happy birthday Mike Reiss!

04
May
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 8 Comments
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and Simpsons
Tags: ,

Three Men and a Comic Book9

“Can you let me have it for forty dollars?” – Martin Prince
“Forty bucks?  Forget it!  You made me get off my stool for that?” – Comic Book Guy
“It’s all I’ve got!  I sold seeds, I visited my aunt in the nursing home, I fished a dime out of the sewer for God’s sake!” – Martin Prince

Happy Birthday Russi Taylor! 

03
May
13

Reading Digest: Quantifying Zombie Simpsons Edition

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

Lisa's Sax9

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

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

Enjoy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So is Ugly Americans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Under the sea

there’ll be no accusations,

Just tasty crustaceans.

— Homer Simpson

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

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

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

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

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

29
Apr
13

Behind Us Forever: Pulpit Friction

By Charlie Sweatpants 30 Comments
Categories: Behind Us Forever and Simpsons
Tags: ,

Bart vs Australia13

“Hey, look, those frogs are eating all their crops!” – Homer Simpson

  • Marge has to yell in church to get everyone to sit down, and meanwhile Lovejoy was just standing at the pulpit waiting patiently?  I know they don’t care about this stuff, but it really destroys scenes. 
  • And the new guy is also just standing there before he starts describing Lovejoy for no reason. 
  • Color me surprised, they remembered the bed bug thing for one brief scene after the first segment.  Usually they just drop it all together.
  • And Homer electrocutes himself because of course he does.
  • Why is Lovejoy playing the guitar?
  • And why is Homer on stage without Lovejoy knowing?
  • Montage!
  • Is that it for the wedding dress subplot?  That was thin even for them.
  • Homer singing his deacon song was extremely pointless. 
  • Lovejoy’s got a new job that we didn’t see and we’re supposed to care about this?
  • “First we got every dead bedbug in town” – Thanks exposition fairy!
  • Was that drunk Barney in the Frogger game after sober Barney was in church?  Video review says that yes it was. 
  • And the new reverend is back after disappearing for a while because he’s not a real character.
  • And now Lovejoy back for no reason and has gained the ability to subdue amphibians. 
  • That was certainly a necessary Lunchlady Doris appearance. 

Zombie Simpsons may have lost the capacity to surprise long ago, but having a bunch of frogs come streaming out of the swamp to humiliate a one-dimensional character for some reason is still pretty weird, even for them.  (Not popped-eyeball weird, but pretty weird.)  The rest of the episode was just as much of a mess, and I have no idea what was with that wedding dress subplot about Lisa not wanting to get married.  Was that pasted in from another script?  Homer and Marge’s wedding/past has been retconned a lot, but they usually don’t do so unless they’re going to spend more then forty-seconds of screen time on it. 

It’s also worth noting the sheer number of things that were repeated from previous episodes: Lovejoy feeling displaced, froggie apocalypse, the Simpsons getting a new couch, taking prank inspiration from Biblical plagues, the list goes on.  Zombie Simpsons may have run out of original ideas many years ago, but they’re usually more economical with their copying. 

Anyway, the ratings are in and they are bad again.  Just 4.48 million people wondered why there were suddenly all those frogs.  That puts it sixth on the all time least watched list, which is now dominated by episodes from Season 23 and 24. 

Sometime later this year FOX is going to have to make a call on renewing the show again, and while the numbers they’ll use will be a lot more involved than just the overnights that I track (and the 18-49 numbers continue to be more solid than the overall ones), there’s no getting around the fact that the ratings are down significantly, even from just two years ago.

26
Apr
13

Reading Digest: Futurama Gets Cancelled Again Edition

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

Bart Gets Famous9

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

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

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

Enjoy.

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

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

And:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heh. 

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

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

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

I’d give that a shot.

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

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

Ha! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writer Wednesday: Book Apocalypse? – Excellent usage:

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

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

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

The Bart Trend – Yet more fancy Bart threads. 

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

Chocolate and Ginger Muffins – Ah, childhood:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Condolences. 

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

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

The really don’t age.  It’s amazing. 

19
Apr
13

Reading Digest: Tapped Out Is a Bottomless Money Pit Edition

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

Homerpalooza8

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

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

Enjoy.

National Library Week!! – Excellent:

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

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

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

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

Well put. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perfectly quoted and very astute. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indeed it is. 

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

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

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

Which episode of The Simpsons is your favourite one?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ha.  Well done, sir.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today Calls for Some of This – Heh:

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

Enjoy responsibly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A very small fraction. 

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

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

Amen.

15
Apr
13

Behind Us Forever: What Animated Women Want

By Charlie Sweatpants 22 Comments
Categories: Behind Us Forever and Simpsons
Tags: ,

The Way We Was16

“Now that that unpleasantness is behind us forever . . .” – Selma Bouvier

[Note: It has become apparent, much to my disappointment, that I cannot run a website that criticizes Zombie Simpsons without, you know, watching the damn episodes.  So I’m going to try this out as a low effort way to make fun of them and give people a place to bitch.]

  • Oh look, a Breaking Bad opening that comes after that show has been cancelled and the internet did a better job a full year ago. 
  • “The coolest sushi restaurant in town” – Springfield continues to resembled the toniest parts of Los Angeles.
  • The fight/flee thing is total filler.
  • “Ooh, a cupcake!” – Yeah, that’s something Lisa would do.  [sarcasm meter explodes]
  • The kids watching A Streetcar Named Desire is lazy even by Zombie Simpsons standards.  Ms. Hoover is there for some reason, the kids are paying rapt attention to a slow, literary movie from decades before they were born, and it’s something they’ve used and parodied much better (and several times) already.  So it’s nonsense, poorly thought out, and a repeat.  It’s the Zombie Simpsons triple play!
  • And Skinner just showed up for a punchline and then disappeared.
  • Hey, it’s Milhouse in a Bazooka Joe jacket except it’s not a joke, the show is actually presenting him as cool.
  • This school therapist scene is godawful, especially the cheap setup/punchline of I’ll-be-there/I’m-fired.  This dialogue has none of the wit and sparkle of Murphy Brown.
  • Okay, I really shouldn’t have blown up my sarcasm detector so quickly.  Lisa’s behavior in this episode is so far out of character for her it’s hard to describe. 
  • The “Deplete from the ocean” line is kinda funny, and, right on cue, they spoil it by wasting time citing a series of lame examples.
  • Uh, why did the food come alive?
  • How did we get to Moe writing fan fiction?  Did this episode come in fifteen minutes short?
  • “Saying it in a singsong fashion” – Nothing says great comedy writing like explaining your jokes while you’re making them.  They really should just give up and insert a laughtrack already. 
  • Not sure who’s doing the Brando impression, but not a lot of effort went into it.  And it’s not like Brando’s hard to impersonate either. 
  • Seriously, why did the food come alive?

So an episode titled “What Animated Women Want” is filled with voiceover and is based on the kind of cliched dating advice that might have been a bestseller in 1973.  That’s all pretty bad, but when it’s about a) Marge and Homer having marital problems and b) Milhouse’s crush on Lisa, it’s not only the romantic ideas that are stale, it’s the stories as well. 

Anyway, the ratings are in, and they are atrocious.  Just 4.07 million people got retrograde dating advice last night.  That’s good for second place on the all-time least watched list, trailing only last year’s “Ned ‘N Edna’s Blend”. 

12
Apr
13

Reading Digest: Retroactive Conan O’Brien Edition

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

Bart Gets Famous8

“You know, Conan, I have a lot to say.  I’m not just a one line wonder.  Did you know that a section of rain forest the size of Kansas is burned every single-” – Bart Simpson
“Just do the line.” – Conan O’Brien

We’ve got two links to the tall Irishman today, one from the man himself.  O’Brien got Jean, Reiss, Jay Kogen and Jeff Martin to sit down and talk about the show.  The link we have is just the preview, but the whole thing will be up on Monday.  The other O’Brien link is a look back at his various career stops on account of the whole getting-dumped-for-Leno-and-now-Fallon thing.  In addition to that, we’ve also got a Ringo link, a whole bunch of direct and indirect usage, a “First Annual” chili cook off (sort of), a couple of lists, and Australian comic, and some really cool fake ancient art.

Enjoy.

Pont’s Comics: Simpsons Illustrated, Vol 1 (1991) – That blog I linked last week that’s looking at old comics?  The Simpsons got skipped to the front of the line and it’s Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week:

The first series of Simpsons Illustrated comics were published between 1991 and 1993, and read half as a fan magazine, and half as a publication within the Simpsons universe, including mock advertisements, news articles and fake products.

There is a ton to love here, including the grade school seating chart and the 19-year-old in Alaska who got Bart shaved – and bleached! – into the back of his head every three days.  But the best has to be this tip for surviving school:

Fighting Back
A Three-Step Approach

1. Take careful notes on all the boring, stupid and unfair things going on around you
2. Wait 20 Years
3. Use notes as basis for a wildly successful TV series

Heh.  Wish I’d read that in 1991.

Preview: "The Simpsons" Writers Reunion – Want to watch. 

Pre-Colombian Bart Simpson And More From Nadín Ospina – Cool:

After unknowingly purchasing fake pre-Colombian artifacts, artist Nadín Ospina gave serious thought to Latin-American culture and its ancient roots.  His sculptures depicts pop-culture cartoon characters such as Snoopy, Micky Mouse, and Bart Simpson in an often pre-Colombian style.

Click through for some examples.  The Bart one is great. 

Best. Episode. Ever. (Round 4) – Now this is an ambitious Simpsons blogging project.  The author has set up a bracket of 256 episodes, and is running them down one matchup at a time.  With that many episodes there’s bound to be some Zombie Simpsons, but a quick glance at the bracket reveals that the overwhelming majority of them are non-Zombie Simpsons.  Assuming this continues, I’ll be checking in regularly.

The Gallery: Iconic Pop Culture Maps – They’ve got pretty maps for everything from Gotham to Zelda to Springfield.  

Fox could become cable channel, News Corp. COO Chase Carey says – This story was bouncing around all week because a tiny company almost no one uses is theoretically threatening the cable money that FOX gets, which caused Murdoch’s right hand man to make a petulant remark.  Ignore it.  The cable bubble will pop on its own. 

Ringo Starr And His All Starr Band – It’s non-“Brush With Greatness” Ringo usage:

There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa, insecure about being beaten to first place in a saxophone competion by a better player, has a dream about being in a band. They take the stage to the announcement ‘Will you welcome Garfunkel, Messina, Oates, and Lisa singing their number two hit, Born to Runner-Up.’ It’s hard not to conjur this scene when watching Ringo at the Ryman, a concert filmed at Nashville’s famous auditorium. The All Starr Band, here in it’s twelfth incarnation and twenty third year, pull out all the stops to celebrate another milestone – the birthday of the Ringomaster of this very perculiar circus.

But has anyone ever bought tickets just to boo him?

Roger Ebert’s Many Loving Parodies: ‘The Critic,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Godzilla,’ and More – Some very good YouTube here.

Prepare to Burn Your Mouth Off at the First Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo – I love when things are “First Annual”:

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer has to coat his mouth with wax in order to withstand some really hot chili peppers? That should help you prep for New York City’s first-ever Hot Sauce Expo, which will go down at East River Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on April 20.

Drinking candle wax is still probably a bad idea, though.

Amazon Buys Goodreads (and Ron Charles makes a great parody video) – Always nice to see the “overlords” quote used in an inventive way:

While it’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume all publishing outlets or merely enslave them, one thing is for certain — there is no stopping them. Amazon will soon be here.

And I, for one, welcome our new ebook overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a top 10 best seller, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their Kindle Direct Publishing program.

Heh.  (Oh, and speaking of Kindle Direct Publishing: AARB #4 came out today.)

Another high ranking for Madison, this time as a foodie city – Excellent usage:

Sometimes it feels like Madison has a bit of Lisa Simpson in it.

Part of her self-worth (yes, we know she’s a cartoon) comes from the thoughts others have of her, and it’s no less true of Madison (or more specifically, Madisonians).

"Grade me! Look at me! Evaluate and rank me!," Lisa said in one episode when she wasn’t being analyzed by her teachers.

Perfectly quoted. 

Weekend Box Office: Evil Dead swallows your soul (and wallet) – More excellent usage:

Lest anyone think movie box-office is a zero sum game, it was good news all around this weekend for studio and independent films alike. To paraphrase The Simpsons: “In a way, you’re all winners. But in another, more accurate way, Evil Dead is the winner.” With $26 million against a $17 million budget, the remake of Sam Raimi’s cult classic proved that its possible to open a movie without Bruce Campbell and still be successful.

Well paraphrased.  (Though I was pretty disappointed in Evil Dead, personally.)

Another Winning Interraction With a Human – Heh:

So you know that episode of The Simpsons when Homer eats that orange really fecocious and animal-esque? Well sometimes when I’m alone I like to eat my oranges this way and tonight thought I would treat myself when I was given a left over orange at work, and had some time to spare before closing up. I went to town on that orange, ripping with my teeth and sucking the juice and shredding what I could with my mouth and letting my bizarre animal nature take over. Satisfied, I pulled my head up from the massacre and found a little old lady staring intensely at me, poised to ask a question. Face covered in sticky sweetness, orange shards still in my teeth like angry pubes, I try not to freak out, swallow what remains in my mouth and say calmly, “Can I help you?”. She replies – “I was going to ask for the bathroom, but I actually think I’m ok”, and walks away.

The horrifying of a stranger is a lot like a good marriage . . . Just shut up and eat the damned orange!   

The Simpsons Tapped Out: Pre-Whacking Day Day – There’s a Whacking Day update to the new merchandising cash cow, and it came out yesterday, a full month before the actual Whacking Day on May 10th.  I don’t know if they care or if this particular piece of content ends then, but it seemed worth noting. 

Top Ten Pet Owners- A Mexican Standoff – Cat Lady makes the list here.  Also, well done for including Woody Harrelson from Seven Psychopaths. 

Hey Marge, look at this… – A YouTube heavy Family Guy comparison. 

So you wanna be a blog superstar? – Five blogging tips that culminate with:

5. If all else fails, quote the Simpsons.

Everyone loves the Simpsons. If you have nothing interesting to say, just say any one of the following:

“Slow down tubby. You’re not on the moon yet.”

“The Nye Mets are my favourite squadron.”

“I was saying Boo-urns.”

Hey, that’s what we do! 

Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol…In 10 Words – Happy thoughts.  Happy thoughts.

Spies of Warsaw…In 10 Words – I heard how this ends, it turns out the secret code is the nursery rhyme he told his daughter.  

Facebook Home…In 10 Words – Don’t let the haircut fool you, he’s exceedingly wealthy.

One Face;Different Forms Haha xD – The same face drawn in eight different styles, including Muppet, South Park and Simpsons. 

There are so many Itchy’s – A comedian in Australia went on tour and had medical students tell her about nanobots.  This is a video of her describing what she learned, and around the 2:00 mark it goes all “Itchy & Scratchy Land”. 

Poll Results: Best Cartoon Series – It was close, but the show won the best cartoon series vote here, narrowly edging Looney Tunes. 

April 8 – Grumpy Old Man – It’s a blog about drinking that links to some famous cranky old men of television.  The Simpsons gets two, Burns and Grampa, plus there’s bourbon. 

Six of My Favorite Quotes (Because Any More Would Be Ridiculous) – It’s a quote list that only references, rather than directly quoting, the show.  Don’t see that often:

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!” – Theodor Geisel

In truth, I could have listed any couplet from this entire book. But I think I’m especially fond of this one ever since Smithers and Mr. Burns spoofed it so beautifully back in 1993.

Tell Simpson I’m ready to deal! 

A Canadian Winter Storm… in April?! – Heh:

In other news, I’m watching The Simpsons while trying to edit my last major research essay. Once it’s all done and handed in this Monday, I’ll talk more about it here. I’m watching 4×04 where Lisa becomes Little Miss Springfield after the original winner is struck by lightning. Lisa walks around with the electrocuted tiara for the remainder of the episode. I guess those kind people at Laramie couldn’t fundraise for a new one!

Menthol Moose’s medical bills are outrageous. 

Bureau Of Regrettable Ideas Case File #36: The Simpsons, The Yellow Album – The A.V. Club on the second CD FOX used to cash in on Bartmania . . . in 1998.

Homer and Marge Simpson: Greatest TV couple ever – The staff at EW.com have decided that Homer and Marge are the best TV couple.  That is all. 

20 TV Characters Who Deserve Their Own Spin-Off – This is useless click bait, one entry per pageview (bastards), but I linked to Frink at #5, in case you’re interested. 

Conan The Destroyed – Running down O’Brien’s career with lots of good YouTube.  And it indirectly agrees with us:

As writer and producer for the series between 1991 and 1993, O’Brien scripted some of the most undisputedly superb episodes the show has seen in its 24 years on the air (and, let’s face it, will ever see).

Yeah, probably.

05
Apr
13

Reading Digest: Australian Sports Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 5 Comments
Categories: Simpsons and The Simpsons
Tags:

Bart vs Australia12

“You call that a knife?  This is a knife.” – Not Paul Hogan
“That’s not a knife, that’s a spoon.” – Bart Simpson
“Alright, alright, you win.  I see you’ve played knifey-spoony before.” – Not Paul Hogan

This week we’ve got two links to the Australian sporting scene, one a commentary and one about an Australian rules football player whose name is Grimes.  And yes, his teammates call him exactly what you think they’d call him.  In addition to that we’ve got an excellent piece of (officially sanctioned) fan art, lots of excellent usage (including a teacher using the Simpsons against the students for a change), TV Guide, and two items about Connecticut, though I’m not even sure why they bothered to show up.

Enjoy.

Exclusive: Dave Perillo’s ‘Dancing Homer’ Poster From ‘The Simpsons’ – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is the first in what is apparently going to be a series of officially licensed Simpsons posters.  They’re limiting it to only 250 copies, so it’s another way to squeeze money out of collectors, but that doesn’t make it any less cool.  This is interesting as well:

/Film: The world of The Simpsons is so vast and expansive. Was Dancing Homer your first choice and what is it about the episode that sticks with you?

Dave Perillo: Had to do Homer J. Simpson first, he’s the patriarch of the family and really the most important character of the series. I thought it would be great to represent him as one of his most memorable personas, “Dancin’ Homer”. It was one of the best episodes of “The Simpsons” and really showed the epic success/fame to the ultimate flop of Homer which ends up being a recurring theme throughout the series.

As the series goes on, I’ll be curious to see what the Simpsons:Zombie Simpsons ratio is. 

To do today: Submit ‘Simpsons’ trivia – Speaking of unusually clever merchandising:

Here’s a cool opportunity for fans of The Simpsons: The folks at Cardinal Games are creating a Simpsons trivia game, and they’re soliciting questions from fans.

A whopping 300 fans will be chosen for the game and have their names on the cards! Come up with a good question and submit it at www.simpsonstriviagame.com before April 19. If you’re picked, you’ll get a free copy of the game. If you aren’t, the company may consider you for a future edition.

The game comes out in September.

Again, the most interesting thing here is the ratio of Simpsons:Zombie Simpsons stuff, but I can always make my own trivia game, with hookers and blackjack! 

A 10 Word Tribute to Roger Ebert – Gonna watch the Critic episode with him and Siskel tonight.  Both of them nail some great jokes in that one, like Ebert’s “Our next movie features Sylvester and Frank Stallone in ‘Yo, Godot, I’m Waitin’ Here’.”. 

Pont’s Comics: Teaser – Stacks of old comic books from . . . twenty years ago(!) might get the county to take your kids away, but also sounds fun:

I have recently been given access to a motley assortment of comics from many different publishers ranging from the late eighties to the early ninetines (more than twenty years ago now, wtf?). I just finished cataloging them, so I’m very pleased to announce my spring comics reading list!

This collection includes some “vintage simpsons illustrated”, and I’ll be curious to see what’s in them.

Groundskeeper Willie – Wow, I did not know this:

It was difficult to recreate all the features of this character in the Italian version of the show: in fact, the translators had to recreate Willie’s solitary and aggressive nature, which in the U.S. version correspond to the stereotype of Scottish people. “The fundamental difficulty that the Italian translator and dialogue writer encountered was the fact that the Scottish stereotype in Italy does not correspond to the characteristics that Willie presents.” In fact, Italians think that the Scottish people are red-headed, avid people who drink a lot; therefore, the Italian stereotype cannot correspond to Willie’s nature and his constant reference to rural childhood. The solution adopted by the translators was drastic: they completely changed Willie’s country of origin. In the Italian version, in fact, he comes from Italy or, more precisely, from Sardinia!

The post itself is full of the little absurdities this creates (the kilt becomes a skirt).  Worth a click.

top 10: Simpsons Episodes: 10 -Lisa’s First Word – A countdown begins with a detailed look at “Lisa’s First Word”, including a YouTube video of “can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me” on a loop.  Carl Lewis, I could kiss you.

“Stop Grabbing the Electric Cupcake” – Excellent, real world usage:

An analogy I came up with last week to help enlighten my students, far too many of whom have tried to slide by, giving the minimal amount of effort they could and still pass the class, and who (shockingly!) failed my class for the last grading period:

[…]

Lisa notes in her journal that the hamster has learned a lesson.

Then she puts a cupcake in the kitchen, and likewise puts an electrified wire in the back.  Bart comes by and grabs for the cupcake.  It zaps him but, unlike the hamster, Bart does not learn his lesson.  He keeps grabbing the cupcake, and keeps getting zapped.  He’s immediately addicted to a pointless cycle of self-destruction.

[…]

Now, when I see students slacking off, or otherwise doing things that will hurt their chances for success, I tell them, “Stop grabbing the electric cupcake.”  They’re already sick of it.

Heh.  Well done. 

Cuts – Indeed:

I coach a girl’s soccer team. Its time to make cuts. The girls who smiled at me yesterday won’t make eye contact tomorrow. You always break someone’s heart. But you can’t have a team without reducing numbers. I love the Simpson’s take on it. It is so callous and the opposite of how you feel.

Comes with shakycam YouTube of Homer making his cuts.

Jobs that pay big money, no college degree required – Shame on you, ABC:

Does Homer Simpson hold a four-year college degree? And is that what qualifies him to run Springfield’s nuclear reactor? "The Simpsons" doesn’t say. But in the real world you don’t need a B.A. to run a nuclear reactor, work as an air traffic controller or registered nurse, manage a construction site or hold down dozens of other good-paying jobs.

Homer got his job because he broke into Burns’ office and promised to be the kind of employee who takes abuse and never stands up for himself.  I thought everybody knew that.

Dag 058 – Awesome Moe’s t-shirt. 

Hulu Does Something Actually Useful for April Fool’s: Itchy & Scratchy Videos Are Live – It’s just a Hulu video of the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon from “Krusty Gets Busted”, but what’s not to love? 

TV Guide Magazine Celebrates 60th Anniversary With Mosaic Covers Featuring ‘I Love Lucy,’ ‘Lost’ And More – Apparently TV Guide is still a printed magazine, and they have composite covers for all of their decades.  They’ve got Cosby for the 80s, The Simpsons for the 90s, and . . . Star Trek for the 60s?  They do know that nobody watched it and it got cancelled quickly, right?  Anyway, the images are pretty cool, even if calling them “Special Collector’s Issues” seems like wishful thinking. 

Bracket of the Week: The 2013 TV Sitcom Sweet Sixteen Part Two, The Elite 8 – Tis the time of the year for fake brackets on-line, though this one comes with a creative twist.  Instead of just pitting shows against one another, it pits the fictional universities of shows against one another.  Springfield U has beaten schools from 3rd Rock from the Sun and Boy Meets World and is now head to head with “California University” from Saved by the Bell.  Click through for the excellent ESPN score photoshops. 

SVP & Russillo’s TV Moms Bracket – Speaking of brackets, here’s a much lamer one by a couple of ESPN radio dudes.  Marge is in the Final Four against Carol Brady.

Love is on the air: Who is the greatest TV couple of all time? Round 1, part 3 – See above, but with couples.  Homer and Marge went against Wash and Zoe from Firefly, which is an awfully tough draw in terms of internet fan voting, but they appear to have pulled it out because . . .

Love is on the air: Who is the greatest TV couple of all time? Round 2, part 3 – . . . Now they’re up against Desmond and Penny from Lost. 

Are you a movie star? Yes? Then you love John Lautner – Well, I learned something today:

From Troy McClure to Vincent Gallo or Robert Downey Jr, Lautner’s houses are part of the Hollywood dna, even if Mel Gibson destroyed one of them in Lethal Weapon 2.

It’s like living in the not too distant future. 

Blind Date With a Book: Results! – The Camden Public Library had a “blind date with a book” promotion going on last month, and they illustrated the results with some of the more tragic dates ever to grace The Simpsons.  Excellent usage.  (And no Zombie Simpsons.)   

Brookfield Film Festival offers award-winning lineup – Short films live forever, in this case a festival in Connecticut is screening “The Longest Daycare” among other offerings.

The Blues – A short appreciation through Bleeding Gums. 

Emergency Use Only – Perfectly quoted:

Oh, “meltdown”. It’s one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an “unrequested fission surplus”.

-Mr. Burns

Never gets old. 

Gratitude – I must respectfully disagree:

I just want to take a moment and thank every episode of The Simpsons that I have ever seen. Which is pretty much all of them.

Thank you for your insight and vast sense of humor.

My life is better with The Simpsons in it.

Please don’t ever go away.

Happily, the old ones won’t. 

Chatting Basketball, ‘Disarm The Descent’, And The Simpsons With Killswitch Engage’s Justin Foley – Everyone loves “Treehouse of Horror V”:

BD: Coming around to a different topic, I know that you’re huge fan of The Simpsons. Since I come from Bloody-Disgusting and horror, I was wondering which of the Treehouse Of Horror episodes are your favorite?
JF: Oh, definitely the one where they do The Shining take off. That one is really, really good and is definitely one of my favorites. Actually, all three of those in that one are really good. I think that’s the one where they also have the toaster, where he goes back in time with the toaster. And the third one is where they eat the kids in the elementary school. [laughs] That one’s awesome!
Man, there are so many good Halloween ones. I like the Halloween ones because they can get really weird. They can do whatever they want. Like the one where they’re in the Itchy And Scratchy cartoon and it’s drawn all cartoony? I know that they don’t like to draw the show cartoony at all but in that episode they could do what they wanted and it was really fun.

Points for remembering all of the segments. 

Barker Character, Comic, and Cartoon Museum: Packed Full of Fun – There is an animation museum in Connecticut, and this guy went there are wrote it up.  Looks fun.

SportsDay Live, Thursday March 28 – Australian sports commentary, among other things, counts down ten great Simpsons sports guests.  The list has a few too many Zombie Simpsons references for my tastes, although it’s great to see Gerry Cooney on one of these.

Jewish Film Festival Opens With Glimpse Of ‘The Simpsons’ – Mike Reiss continues his coast-to-coast tour of Jewish film festivals.  This one is in Baltimore and comes with an interview:

JT: Do you ever get tired of talking about “The Simpsons”?
Reiss: Not really. It’s such a rich topic. Beyond that, I don’t have much to talk about. I’m a lousy conversationalist.

Why is it that Krusty the Clown is the show’s Jewish character?
It really had to do with the way we came up with ideas. In the old days, we’d all come in with ideas, and we’d plan the whole year’s shows. The idea of Krusty reuniting with his rabbi father and the parody of the jazz musician thing — there was nothing essentially Jewish about it, except that it was funny.

A Jewish entertainer?  Get out of here. 

Hamilton’s Armageddon Expo lineup announced – Yeardley Smith is appearing at something called the “Armageddon Expo” in New Zealand this May.  

Bart, Butterfinger Back Together – The Simpson family will once again be endorsing Butterfinger bars.  Carry on.

For Maggie Simpson: The power of silence – Maggie Simpson, hero to the world’s introverts:

I’ve always been a shadow of a person; my parents and sister are loud, over zealous individuals who love the theatrics of attention. I simply watch them and lament how they never seem to pay attention or truly “see” what is going on around them.

Maggie Simpson lives in such a family. Bart and his “bad boy” image, Lisa’s know-it-all insistence, Homer’s buffoonery, and even Marge to some degree with her helicopter parenting style all overshadow the youngest and mute pacifier sucking baby of the family.

And that is why she is my favorite.

John K – True:

Speaking of John K., his (kinda) recent Simpsons couch gag was the only thing worthwhile the show has done in an age

The Simpsons- Just as Unoriginal as Family Guy – PART 1 – The title sells this post a little short, it’s mostly about which Simpsons characters came from which other characters.  And besides, animation is built on plagiarism! 

Jack Grimes is ‘different’ to his Demons teammates and he knows it – Awesome:

FRANK Grimes was a character on The Simpsons who had to struggle for everything he got.

Fastidious and neat, Grimes even had a personalised diet and embossed stationery.

But he also had a huge work ethic, attention to detail and he made a successful return to work from injury.

Sound familiar?

Jack Grimes isn’t called "Frank" by his Melbourne teammates simply because he shares the same surname as a cartoon character. This is a nickname that goes beyond cheap laughs in the corridors of AAMI Park.

Well done, Australian rules football.

VIDEO: ‘The Simpsons’ writer tells story of how voice of Homer came to be, says references to Detroit are no accident – Video of Rob Lazebnik (who came on in Season 11) talking about Castellaneta’s accidental audition as Homer.  Fun note: says that Castellaneta works about 6 hours a week doing the voice now. 

THE SIMPSONS MOMOT – Cool papercraft Homer.

PICTURE OF THE DAY – Fanmade image of Charlie Brown cutting Homer’s hair.  Heh.

Letter #17 – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us, albeit in a different than usual form.  This is a site that’s dedicated to handwritten letters asking for forgiveness, sort of like Post Secret.  The letter in question is borderline illegible in places, but this is how it starts:

I am sorry that I am not into your new episodes anymore.  They are not as clever as they once were.

Amen.

29
Mar
13

Reading Digest: President Wolfcastle Edition

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

Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious6

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

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

Enjoy.

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

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

A few fun things:

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

Gary Panter Draws Bart Simpson – Cool:

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

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

Click through for the image and the full story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I guess people really were easier to scare back then.

We Need to Talk About Sidewalks – True:

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

This can lead to two things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3/26: Some favorite things – Pretty much:

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

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

Internet Win of the Day: March 26 – Heh:

Just something I thought was awesome for reals …

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

— Michael Kupperman (@MKupperman) March 26, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

22
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Great (And Not) Songs Edition

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

All Singing, All Dancing1

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

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

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

Aww:

Bea Simmons

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

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

Enjoy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excellent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simpsons Big Ten

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

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

Hallelujah. S1 – Best door ever. 

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

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

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

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

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

Perfectly quoted and highly apt. 

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

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

It’s even aged well.

Bubble Bath Decapitations • Bart Simpson – Heh. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click through for YouTube of that and other hits. 

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

Diary of an Arts Graduate #16 – Heh:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

15
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Sam Simon Rocks His Cancer Edition

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

One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish9

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

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

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

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

Enjoy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That would’ve been a much better ending.

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

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

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

Roomie – Heh:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those bastards!

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

They do.

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

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

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

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

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

Things I Really Hate To Admit – Ha:

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

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

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

Dag 034 – A great Barney shirt.

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

Death of The Simpsons – Yes:

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

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

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

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

Indeed they do.

08
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Overpriced Video Game Edition

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

Waterworld Game

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

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

Enjoy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homer Simpson Bape Character – Just what it says.

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

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

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

I do.  Well done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seems about right.

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

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

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

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

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

Also check out my twitter @chizwozla

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

01
Mar
13

Reading Digest: Late Scratch Edition

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

Lisa the Greek12

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

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

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

Enjoy. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

I liked this exchange:

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

Heh.

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

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

Cross Stitch Simpsons Well done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indeed.  (Also, thanks for the link.)

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

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

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

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

Corey Hotline – Yet another review from long ago:

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

Heh.

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

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

Click through for the impressive picture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Decline Of The Simpsons – Yup:

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

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

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

Amen.

26
Feb
13

Permanent Record: Jimbo Jones

By Charlie Sweatpants 1 Comment
Categories: 23rd Anniversary Yellow Jubilee, Permanent Record and Simpsons
Tags:

The Telltale Head14

“That one looks like a school bus going over a cliff in flames with kids inside screaming.” – Jimbo Jones

Like any other organization or group of people, a school has a natural hierarchy.  The adults are separate from the kids, obviously, but even within groups there are levels and layers.  For the adults there are staff and faculty, for the students there are grades, gender, circles of friends and lots of other ways the students sort themselves out.  One of the things that made Springfield Elementary so compelling and recognizable as a place, even though it’s fictional and inhabited by people with bulging eyes and no chins, is that the show captured the social ecosystem of a grade school with such trenchant clarity.

Among the kids in Bart’s class we have Milhouse, a weak kid who latches onto Bart, Martin, a true nerd who kisses the teacher’s ass, Sherri and Terri, the goody two (four?) shoes twins, and Nelson, the kid who gets to be the bully by dint of being bigger than everyone else.  “The Telltale Head” shows us some of the kids outside of Bart’s class, specifically the three older bullies: Dolph, Kearney and, above all, Jimbo.

Whereas Nelson is in the same grade as Bart and therefore serves as his daily tormentor, Jimbo and his cronies are older.  They wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to harass Bart, but he’s much too small fry for them to care about on a day to day basis.  In the school hierarchy, Jimbo and company are far above Bart.

When Bart and Jimbo first meet, we see this discrepancy in Bart’s awe of Jimbo (“you’re the worst kid in school”) and Jimbo’s total ignorance of Bart (“what’s your name, man?”).  As the story progresses, we see Bart trying as hard as he can to hang out with the older kids his idolizes, so he goes along with things he isn’t comfortable with (stealing from the Kwik-E-Mart, stoning the statue) while struggling to seem cool.

For his part, Jimbo plays the elder bad boy perfectly.  He’s okay with boosting candy and Playdudes and throwing rocks at inanimate objects, and he likes that Bart’s got a smart mouth and willingness to go along with stuff.  But he’s willing to dropkick Bart out of his orbit in an instant once it becomes clear that, for all his enthusiasm, Bart is still too much of a little kid to hang out with them.

Later episodes would use both sides of the relationship.  So Jimbo and Bart will work together when their interests are aligned (like the escape from Utility Basement B in “Whacking Day”), but Jimbo will easily turn on Bart when that suits him (“As soon as the check clears, I’ll let you go”).  When he wasn’t around Bart, Jimbo (and Dolph and Kearney) were the show’s way to make fun of sullen teenagers.  They’ll chase Bart down for doing ballet, but they’ll also rush off to the library to read about the Founding Fathers because of Ralph’s moving portrayal of George Washington.

Like so many of the other recurring minor characters, Jimbo and company made Springfield feel more like a real place.  They didn’t have to be good or bad, and none of them ever really got their own episode, they just had to be there, acting like the mostly harmless juvenile delinquents that they are. 

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