“I see wedding bells for Vanna White and Teddy Kennedy.” – Princess Opal
“Please, Princess Opal, if we could just stick to Principal Skinner.” – Chief Wiggum
“Chief Wiggum, I am merely a conduit for the spirits. Ah! Willie Nelson will astound his fans by swimming the English Channel.” – Princess Opal
“Really, Willie Nelson?” – Chief Wiggum
Happy birthday Jo Ann Harris!
“I can’t think of a better place to spend a balmy summer’s night than the old ball yard. There’s just the green grass of the outfield, the crushed brick of the infield, and the white chalk lines that divide the man from the little boy.” – Lisa Simpson
“Lisa, honey, you’re forgetting the beer. It comes in seventy-two ounce tubs here.” – Homer Simpson
Good morning and welcome to the sixth Simpsons-Beer Marathon. Today we’re doing Season 2. As with previous efforts, I will make use of the pause and reverse buttons to get a quote right or take a screen grab, but the fast-forward button will go totally unused.
Since I’ll be in no condition to do it later in the day, Chapters 11 & 12 of the book are on-line right now. That gets us through the bulk of the text. Most of the appendices are short, and I’ll put them up sometime next week. Serious thanks once again to everyone who has read the book, found one of my mistakes, linked it somewhere, or actually bought it. And now, it’s been Simpsons-Beer Marathon day for hours and I’m still not drunk yet, so let’s get going.
1. Bart Gets an F
2. Simpson and Delilah
3. Treehouse of Horror
4. Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish
5. Dancin’ Homer
6. Dead Putting Society
7. Bart vs. Thanksgiving
8. Bart the Daredevil
9. Itchy & Scratchy & Marge
10. Bart Gets Hit by a Car
11. One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish
12. The Way We Was
13. Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment
14. Principal Charming
15. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
16. Bart’s Dog Gets an F
17. Old Money
18. Brush with Greatness
19. Lisa’s Substitute
20. The War of the Simpsons
21. Three Men and a Comic Book
22. Blood Feud
“Can’t someone else do it?” – Homer Simpson
This week we’ve got two links to reviews of “Lisa Goes Gaga” that use my favored technique of pointing out how crappy Zombie Simpsons is compared to The Simpsons. If this keeps up, maybe I can just outsource all of the criticism next season. In addition to that, we’ve got a great new Tumblr, a couple of longer reads about The Simpsons and other comedies, some fresh information about the Maggie short that’ll be in theaters this summer, an old video game review, two people who agree with us, and lots more about that post-apocalyptic Simpsons play that’s opening this weekend.
Also, Chapters 9 & 10 of the book are now on-line for your Friday afternoon distraction. And don’t forget to vote for tomorrow’s Simpsons-Beer Marathon. Season 2 is ahead right now, but Season 7 is still very much in the running.
Enjoy.
MOVIE SIMPSONS – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is my new favorite Tumblr. (via)
Sunset for the Animated Giants – A thoughtful (albeit somewhat soft on Zombie Simpsons) discourse on how old so many of the original generation of animated comedies have become. Between Zombie Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy (and it’s various spinoffs), and South Park, pretty much every big animated series that’s still running was started a long time ago.
SNEAK PREVIEW: Mr Burns Goes to Washington – Feature – May 23, 2012 – Lots more detail about the play that’s opening this weekend in Washington D.C.:
The second act of Mr. Burns, set seven years later, finds the same group of survivors readying themselves for a live reenactment of "Cape Feare," complete with staged commercials, and vying for audience members with rival troupes of sometimes violent fellow reenactors.
And in the third act, set 75 years in the future, the actors — now dressed in yellow face paint and four-fingered gloves to approximate the Simpson look — are now enmeshed within what Washburn calls "an institutionalized Simpsons theater that produces the Simpsons legend." In their play-within-a-play, Sideshow Bob has been replaced by a version of Mr. Burns, the proprietor of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, who serves, according to Washburn, as an "amalgam of a lot of figures…but has become the [personified] fear without a name or face."
See, Zombie Simpsons? This isn’t that hard. You make each act build upon the one before it. If you’re in or around D.C., you can get tickets here.
‘The Simpsons’: Exclusive details on Maggie’s (short) big-screen adventure – Jean gave out a few tidbits about the animated short, most notably that it’s four minutes long, has no dialogue, and will feature a return to Ayn Rand School for Tots as well as the baby with the one eyebrow. More on this next week.
Worst Simpsons Episode Ever – The first of two epic takedowns of “Lisa Goes Gaga”. This one explicitly compares it to several episodes (including “Stark Raving Dad”:
I went in thinking to myself that this was going to be a half hour advertisement for her and I even considered not watching, but you know what, I gave the episode the benefit of the doubt. I went ahead and sat down to watch, I chuckled at the couch gag thinking this might not be that bad. That chuckle was the only positive response I made towards the episode, the rest was just too unbearable to watch (at least that one Ke$ha opening sequence a few seasons back was relegated just to the credits). I honestly do not know whose idea it was to base an ENTIRE episode around Lady Gaga, but it was exactly what I thought it was going to be, just a half hour promotion for her. It seems as having Lisa depressed that she was the most unpopular girl in school (which was already done to better effect in Season 8′s “Summer of 4 Ft. 2″) was the best reason to work Lady Gaga into the “story”, what followed was stupid costume changes, dance and music sequences, and a kiss between Gaga and Marge (what the %*$# was that about!?) that only seemed to serve the purpose as to cater to Gaga fans.
There’s more at the link.
Lady Gaga, Lisa Simpson, and Self Esteem – And this one basically is a Compare & Contrast, with “Lisa’s Substitute” as the good side of the Force:
All in all, “Lisa’s Substitute” achieves the same goals that “Lisa Goes Gaga” does, making Lisa feel better about herself. But it does so in a larger context, with more complexity, and in a sweeter and far more realistic way, highlighting how far this show has fallen.
So, I have a summer to decide if I really want to keep watching The Simpsons. I’m not a quitter, but there is only so much I can take before I start forgetting that the show had episodes like “Lisa’s Substitute”, and begin thinking that this is the show that brought us 22 minutes devoted to glorifying Gaga.
I say go ahead and quit, it feels great. There’s also YouTube of Ralph’s Lyme disease report, which never gets old.
Fandemonium: Super Fans and Building Communities – Yet more stuff from the play, specifically about what fandom, now so associated with being on-line, would look like after the lights went out.
Eulogy: Remembering the 2011-12 Phoenix Coyotes – Excellent reference:
But it all came to an end, as the Homer Simpson boxing approach to hockey finally ran out of luck when the Coyotes came up against the Drederick Tatum of the Western Conference in the Kings. The extra fluid padding the brain — known as Mike Smith — that let the rest of the Yotes pretty much get pummeled for large portions of the playoffs without a knockout finally succumbed.
Anonymous Works: Early Bart Simpson – That is kind of creepy looking.
More Simpsons Cat Humor – A single image with all the signs outside Burns Manor from “Rosebud”.
Wiz Khalifa, ‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ – A couple of people have determined that this video was at least partially inspired by “Homer’s Phobia”. Can’t say I disagree. Some women finally show up toward the end, but . . . yeah.
Krusty’s Super Crap House – A video review of “Krusty’s Super Fun House” for Sega Genesis. The game is not very good, though since it has basically nothing to do with the show or any of its characters, it is a perfect example of Simpsons merchandise. (Thanks to reader Toad Titan for sending in the link.)
How well do you know Mr. Burns? Find out at Simpsons trivia night – There are still quite a few upcoming D.C. area trivia nights if you want free tickets to the play.
Girl on Girl on TV: Week of May 13-May 20 – I still like “Are you even left handed?”, but this would’ve been good:
The Simpsons: This week Edna walked in on Ned when he was in the middle of his LGBT meeting. “Left-gifted, bidextrous and trans-handed.” My first thought was that the acronym was an unbelievable stretch. Not a single part of that is something that people actually say. My second thought was that in the bickering that followed they missed out on an opportunity to have one of the left-handed people say that “ambidextrous” isn’t a real thing and those are just right-handed people who want attention.
Heh.
Remix: The Combining of Genres in The Simpsons – Student paper on exactly what the title says.
Homer Simpson, eat your heart out – Shh, do you want to get sued?
Jury Duty…In 10 Words – That’s right, I think words I would never say.
Chernobyl Diaries…In 10 Words – This reporter promises to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future.
Woo-Hoo – Neck-to-shoulder body paint advertising the Simpsons game. The rest of the site is in a similar vein, though you may want to wait until you get home to view some of them. There are quite a few Homer face labias.
Bud Selig and the Homer Simpson Approach – Criticizing baseball’s long time commissioner with excellent usage:
Nerd 2: What are you going to do, Mr. Simpson?
Homer: Actually, I’ve been working on a plan. During the exam, I’ll hide under some coats, and hope that somehow everything will work out.
The preceding quote is from one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons entitled “Homer Goes To College.” Not only is it a classic Homer moment, it also perfectly sums up the way Bud Selig has handled the A’s stadium situation.
Well done.
An interview with David Mitchell – Refined British sophisticates agree with us:
And do you think it’s still as good?
No, I think probably it isn’t but I think, to be fair, it’s been going on so long that it’s had an up and down graph and I only have a vague sense of what’s more recent. I believe it’s had a better patch of late than it did a few years ago but it’ll probably never return to being as good as it was in the late 90s. But I love those characters so much that I’ll watch them even in the slightly less good episodes. And still, there’s got to be 150 amazing episodes which is a huge achievement.
It’s still mind blowing that there are so many that are so damned good.
A good show dies, and it turns out that’s sometimes alright – And finally, a spectacular agreement with us:
The reason I’m happy, then, is — well, how do I put this kindly? I don’t want to see 30 Rock turn into the Simpsons. Or as I like to call them anymore, the Zombies.
Yet again, don’t misunderstand and murder me. I think The Simpsons was a great show in its prime, a show that was easily the best animated sitcom for years, and arguably the best show on air altogether. But the problem is, The Simpsons hasn’t been in its prime for over a decade.
He basically called it Zombie Simpsons! Awesome.
“We want Michael! We want Michael! We want Michael!” – Crowd
“Here he is, here’s the guy want to see!” – Homer Simpson
“He’s three hundred pounds!” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
“He’s white!” – Woman in Crowd
“He’s dressed without flair!” – Moe
“Boooo! Boo!” – Crowd
It would take an awful lot of words just to catalog, to say nothing of exploring or explaining, the myriad of mistakes that comprise “Lisa Goes Gaga”. The episode had it all: bizarre and comedy free flights of fancy, unvarnished celebrity marketing, excruciatingly bad exposition, magic powers, characters acting bizarrely out of type (Lisa, Skinner, there were a lot), pointless and unrelated scenes, and, to top it all off, the entire thing may or may not have been the dream of some anonymous backup dancer. But all of those problems cascaded from one central failing, the inability of Zombie Simpsons to handle the very famous.
Whether or not you are a fan of her songs or of the outsize public persona to which her music is only tangentially connected, Lady Gaga is undeniably one of the most famous and discussed people on planet Earth here in 2012. She’s enormously popular with her fans, of course, but she’s also reached that rare level of fame where literally anything she does is news to the celebrity press, and her statements and actions frequently push beyond the paparazzi ghetto and into regular news. Even a passing familiarity with popular culture requires you to at least know who she is.
This is Wikipedia’s list of Season 23’s guest stars:
Aron Ralston, Jane Lynch, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Tim Heidecker, Gordon Ramsay, Eric Wareheim, Neil Gaiman, Andy García, Kevin Michael Richardson, John Slattery, Matthew Weiner, Kevin Dillon, Janeane Garofalo, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers, Dana Gould, Ted Nugent, Armie Hammer, David Letterman, The Tiger Lillies, Jeremy Irons, Michael Cera, Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Julian Assange, Kelsey Grammer, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Jackie Mason, Robbie Conal, Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Nicholas McKaig, Kenny Scharf, David Byrne, Glenn Close, Brent Spiner, Kevin Michael Richardson, Steve Coogan, Treat Williams, Bryan Cranston, Eric Idle
There are a lot of recognizable names on that list, but in terms of raw fame, none of them are even in the same league with the one time Stefani Germanotta. Parts assigned to a bunch of television chefs, or a talk show host, or even some well known movie star are basically interchangeable. There are, after all, quite a few television chefs, and if Jeremy Irons doesn’t want to be the talking bar rag, there are plenty of other respectable British actors with great voices out there. There is only one Lady Gaga.
That yawning fame gap means that you have to do something special for her. Just having her show up as somebody’s girlfriend or rival won’t fly. Even more importantly, it’s a fantastic opportunity. Someone who draws that much attention from that many places opens up a nearly unlimited array of potential subjects and stories. Zombie Simpsons wasted all that by having Lady Gaga not just play herself, but play herself as Lady Gaga the Megastar.
We’ll do what she did, and that’ll make people like us, right?
(Second image shamelessly yoinked from here.)
Twenty seasons ago, The Simpsons took a similar opportunity with Michael Jackson – who was, relative to the time, probably even more famous than Gaga is now – and turned it into one of their most memorable episodes. Crucially, they did it by stripping Michael Jackson of everything that made him Michael Jackson the Megastar: his looks, his fame, his fashion, his sex appeal, everything. All they left him with was his talent and his voice, which, if you’re having him play a fictional cartoon character, are the only truly important parts.
Creative, recognizable and funny will always be better than mindless repetition.
They understood that exaggerating the already exaggerated – and that kind of globe spanning fame is nothing if not the exaggeration of one person into something more than a person – was pointless. Once someone has actually taken a chimpanzee with him on tour or gone out in public wearing a dress made of meat, there isn’t anything you can do to make the situation meaningfully stranger. Trying to compete with things like that by making them even bigger or weirder isn’t the least big creative, it’s just an animated imitation of something someone else is already doing. If news broke tomorrow that Lady Gaga was touring in a pink and purple train with giant shoes on its drive wheels and a built in concert stage, you might be impressed, but you wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.
By contrast, making Michael Jackson an ordinary person is a real feat. Unexceptional and unremarkable are two things Michael Jackson never was. From the time he became famous as a child right up until his death, Jackson was always larger than life. But on The Simpsons (and really only on The Simpsons), he was just a guy, a bricklayer from New Jersey who liked it when people were nice to him.
That humanity is why the story in “Stark Raving Dad” has such heart to it and why the episode is unique among all the things Michael Jackson was famous for. Bart and the rest of the town love Michael the Megastar. For them, it’s about the album sales and the dance moves and the one white glove covered in rhinestones. For Leon Kompowsky, however, those things are incidental to Michael Jackson, the talented boy who loves his sisters and writes songs for them.
The only time “Lisa Goes Gaga” even hinted at that kind of depth and creativity was when Lisa went off on Gaga for giving people false hope and unrealistic expectations. All the positive attitude and self confidence in the world can’t change the fact that sometimes people fail, that sometimes life gives you lemons that cannot be turned into lemonade. But the episode dropped that idea almost as soon as it considered it, and ended with Lisa doing things that the overwhelming majority of Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters will never get to do: meet her and sing with her and experience even a little bit of what it’s like to look upon the world from that tremendous height. After all, there’s a parallel universe somewhere in which Germanotta stubbed her toe before an audition or didn’t meet the right people and today she’s wearing regular clothes and working at a temp agency for slightly more than minimum wage.
The Simpsons openly contemplated that idea by showing that what made Michael Jackson special would’ve still made him special even if he’d been a fat mental patient who dressed without flair and never sold a single record. After all, his music could reach deep and bring people together even when it was played on an overturned waste basket. Massive fame and all the glitzy trappings that come with it may be nice, but they are too impersonal to define a person or their talent. Zombie Simpsons was too distracted by the shiny objects to notice that, so they mistook Lady Gaga’s fame and the pizzazz that comes with it as an end in itself rather than as a side effect of something more important. Once that mistake was made, the episode never had a chance.
“What the hell was that?” – Krusty the Klown
Give Zombie Simpsons credit, when they embarrass themselves for a pop star, they really embarrass themselves for a pop star. From start to finish, “Lisa Goes Gaga” relentlessly displayed the pitiful imagination and mediocre craftsmanship behind Zombie Simpsons. In an episode where they outright tell the audience, right up front in an opening narration, that they’re discarding the usual rules and that weird and strange things are going to happen, just about the only weird and strange things that they managed to conjure were a lot of Lady Gaga outfits.
Unfortunately for them, dresses made of birds and fire spitting bras will not fill an entire twenty minutes of screen time. They had to fill in the moments when they weren’t expecting us to laugh because Lady Gaga did something weird with empty and pointless scenes like the school awards, Flanders showing up to converse with Gaga and then disappearing, Marge’s weird behavior at the kitchen table (where she apparently lost the ability to let someone touch her and then quickly regained it), the flash mob, and Homer tossing Lisa around like an hourglass for no reason other than it took up a lot of time.
On top of all that, what little plot and story that did manage to exist between the Gaga fluffing and the filler didn’t make any sense and crashed into itself several times. Take, for example, the reaction of the townspeople to Gaga. When she arrives, they’re head over heels in love with her. Then, for no reason we see, they cheer that she’s sad as she’s leaving. Oh, and there were songs, but the less said about those the better.
Somewhere in all that mess, Lisa moped around for a while before she felt better, but we didn’t really know why she felt better until she explicitly exposited it – twice. The first one:
Lisa: Dad, thank you. Like always, the fact that I could tune you out without fearing that I’d miss out on something gave me the time to take stock and realize how ungrateful I have been. Which means, I’ve got a train to catch.
Sure enough, Lisa then catches a train, at which point we get explicit exposition #2:
Lisa: Gaga!
Gaga: Lisa? Why are you here?
Lisa: To thank you.
Gaga: For what?
Lisa: Look at me! You did help me, by allowing me to inappropriately focus eight years of rage and rejection on you. It was like a great sneeze. And now I can say what’s good about me.
That is appallingly bad writing. It basically boils down to this:
Gaga: Why are you here.
Lisa: Let me tell you.
Gaga: Okay, I’ll ask again.
Lisa: Now I’ll tell you.
Fortunately for Lady Gaga, Zombie Simpsons isn’t relevant enough to damage her pop culture standing, but that was weird, dumb, unfunny, and boring, even by their standards.
Anyway, the numbers are in, and Gaga did them no good. Just 4.79 million people tuned in for that hacktacular exercise in misbegotten pop culture references and inane self help statements. That’s good for #4 on the all time least watched list, and leaves Season 23 with an average viewership of just 6.13 million people, by far the lowest ever. Here’s the last five years of Zombie Simpsons:
Season 19 – 8.26 Million
Season 20 – 7.12 Million
Season 21 – 7.13 Million
Season 22 – 7.10 Million
Season 23 – 6.13 Million
At the time, Season 19 was easily the lowest rated ever, and then Seasons 20-22 were even worse. But Season 23 is a down a whopping 14% just from Season 22. This does set the bar low for Season 24 to avoid being the third consecutive least watched season ever, but tripping over low bars has become something of a specialty for Zombie Simpsons.
“Goodbye, Maggie, stay as sweet as you are . . . Goodbye, Lisa, I know you’ll make me proud . . . Goodbye, Bart . . . I like your sheets.” – Homer Simpson
I know all these episodes so well that I often forget just how gobsmackingly amazing they are. The entire premise of “One Fish Two Fish Blowfish Blue Fish” is that Homer is going to die. The episode is mostly heartfelt moments and sadness, and yet it is laugh out loud funny and beautifully drawn. Even compressed and scaled down, you can see the bittersweet emotion on Homer’s face as he bids a silent farewell to his daughters, as well as the more neutral expression when he says goodbye to Bart. This is a legitimately tearjerk moment, and yet it is also funny. Twenty years on, this show blows me away.
“I’m not some dizzy starlet who can’t string two words together!” – C.M. Burns
It is my great relief to announce a project that has been the better part of a year in the making: “Zombie Simpsons: How the Best Show Ever Became the Broadcasting Undead”. It’s a mini-book (~22,000 words) that is as close as I can come to a definitive statement on how The Simpsons became Zombie Simpsons. Table of contents:
Part I – Putting the Spring in Springfield
1 – What Is Zombie Simpsons?
2 – The Terrible World of 1980s Television
3 – The Most Anti-Authority Show Ever
4 – You’re Watching FOX, Shame on You
Part II – Show Business Is a Hideous Bitch Goddess
5 – The Retirements
6 – The Deaths
Part III – Stories of Degradation and Humiliation
Season 7 – A Very Special Episode
Season 8 – Frank Grimes and the Phony Kidnapping
Season 9 – Armin Tamzarian and the Death of Story
Season 10 – Jerkass Homer Gets a Job
Season 11 – The Destruction of Springfield
Season 12 and Beyond – Zombie Simpsons
Appendices
Appendix A – A Note on the Term Zombie Simpsons
Appendix B – Episode Numbers vs. Production Numbers
Appendix C – December 17th: Simpsons Day
Appendix D – A Defense of Mike Scully
Appendix E – Yeah, It Was That Good (1,000,000 A.D.)
You can read the first two chapters right here, right now. And though the entire text will eventually be available for free on-line, before that happens we’re going to conduct an experiment in the strange new world of digital publishing. If you want to read the entire book today, you can purchase it from Amazon’s Kindle store for $2.99. (Why $2.99? Because that’s the minimum price Amazon demands for only taking 30% of the gross instead of 65%.) It will remain available in that format and at that price indefinitely; meanwhile, it will be published in chunks here at Dead Homer Society until every dot, tittle and citation is on-line for anyone to read whenever they like.
The thinking behind this is that some people (especially the kind of people with the disposable income to own Kindles and iPads) are willing and able to pay for words if the price is reasonable and the payment is easy to make. At the same time, making it available only in a paid version is self defeating and stupid. Not only do fewer people read it, but using digital rights management and other convoluted anti-“piracy” measures to police the internet is a fool’s errand. Therefore, the only sensible thing to do is make it easy for people to purchase and easy to get for free, however odd that may seem at first glance. We’ll see how it goes.
You can purchase the book from Amazon right now, or you can read the first two chapters by clicking the new “Zombie Simpsons” button in the navigation bar at the top of this page. This is the current schedule:
Today: Chapters 1 & 2
Tomorrow: Chapters 3 & 4
Sunday: Chapters 5 & 6
Next Week (Probably Thursday): More
One final note, I am not the least bit above making revisions should any of you fine Simpsons fans out there discover that I’ve made any factual errors. My sources are all stated plainly, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t made an unfounded assumption somewhere or screwed up some part of the history of the show. If you (yes, you!) come across something where I’m just flat out wrong and you can point me to some credible evidence of my wrongness, please tell me. It’s the only way I’ll learn.
“The easiest way to be popular, is to leech of the popularity of others.” – Patty Bouvier
“So we propose changing our name from ‘Springfield’, to ‘Seinfeld’.” – Selma Bouvier
As expected, the word “Simpsons” appeared near the word “Gaga” an awful lot this week; there were links about seeing her behind the scenes, about what she thought of doing the voice, and just about any other bit of non-news that can be used to put the words “Lady Gaga” in a headline and generate some pageviews. As there is no need to worry about any of that until Sunday, none of those links are below. Instead, we’ve got an internet ton of more interesting Simpsons content.
This week there are several awesome fan made items (including some cartoon sculptures that change depending on how you look at them), a bunch of people who agree with us, a brief history of “embiggen”, coffee mugs, and even Mitt Romney citing the show. As an odd coincidence, there are also three pieces of otherwise excellent usage that are just a single word off.
Enjoy.
[Note: You may have noticed that the URL for this site is now “www.deadhomersociety.com” instead of “www.deadhomersociety.wordpress.com”. For reasons that will be apparent in a few hours (in a post which should be up around 1pm Eastern), we’ve finally purchased our domain name. WordPress tells me that all the old links will redirect automatically, and any RSS or other feeds should continue to work as well. Please e-mail me if you experience any problems.]
Just an Illusion # 26 – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week are these fantastic optical illusion cartoon sculptures. The Itchy & Scratchy one is just amazing.
The Civilians and the Development of Mr. Burns, a post-electric play – Background on how that play came together:
They did many different kinds of improvisation exercises, one of which was focused on recreating the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons from memory (and as it turns out, our Associate Artist Matt Maher was incredibly good at this). Anne Washburn then took her notes and audio recordings and started writing what is now Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. The Act 1 recollection of the Simpsons episode is pulled almost verbatim from these exercises.
Just a reminder, it opens in D.C. on May 28th and runs until July 1st.
Skittlebrau – Yes:
People add slices of fruit to beer all the time, so why not add fruit candy? Skittlebrau works best with lagers; IPAs and Ales are too hoppy to taste the rainbow. I don’t float the Skittles in the beer, that would be a waste of Skittles and beer. Instead I pop a few Skittles in my mouth and wash it down with a swig or two. It gives the beer a fruity flavor. It actually improves the taste if you are drinking a swill beer or a forty. Skittles and beer go hand in hand. Skittles are good. Beer is great. Good + Great = Amazing.
Note to self: do this.
Bart Simpson custom graffiti cans and more!! – Cool as hell spray pain cans with a smirking picture of Bart on them.
Cruisers – Santa Cruz x The Simpsons – Four new Simpsons skateboards, including a bloodshot and very scared looking Homer, a creepy looking one with a Krusty doll, and my personal favorite, a straight up Krusty one that’s so much like actual Krusty stuff that it’s endearing.
Simpsons + Bread = Awesomeness – A picture of lots and lots of loaves of bread in a Homer Simpson bag. Going solely by the fact that the currency is abbreviated as “kr”, I’m guessing Denmark or Sweden.
Mugshots (dedicated to coffee) – Lots of coffee mugs, including two Simpsons ones.
lisa simpson feminist patch by nastynasty on Etsy – Exactly what it says.
Appointment Viewing: May 14-May 20 – It’s gonna suck, but just remember that it’s the last one before summer vacation:
In the Season 23 finale, Lisa tries to boost her popularity by ghostwriting positive things about herself on the school blog. The effort fails miserably—until a psychic force tells Lady Gaga (who provides her own voice) that Lisa needs her help. So, I guess there will be a couple scenes of Lisa being sad until Lady Gaga shows up and they can do a rundown of every memorable thing Lady Gaga has done. Also, I think even people who don’t give a shit about continuity will have trouble making this episode jive with the one where Lisa invents Springface.
Almost there. Almost there.
Inside Pitch – Crashing the K market – Mostly excellent usage:
According to Homer Simpson, when it comes to compliments, "women are like ravenous, bloodsucking monsters, always wanting more, more, more!" That pretty much describes fantasy owners with strikeouts.
Homer doesn’t actually say “like”, but other than that it’s dead on.
Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock Set For May 23rd on PSN – Video game fluffing contains mostly excellent usage:
As Grandpa Simpson once said, "If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything. Because even the slightest change can alter the future in ways you can’t imagine." You hear that, Doctor Who companions? Quit wandering off!
Grampa actually says “tiniest” not “slightest”, but other than that it’s dead on.
Occasions When Cow Bells Aren’t Good Enough lisa simpson tattoo cropped – Sweet tattoo of Lisa meditating.
Shawarma…In 10 Words – I love me some specialty foods.
The Dictator…In 10 Words – To be fair, Burns was thinking about making himself a god, not a dictator, but the sentiment certainly applies.
Battleship (movie)…In 10 Words – I don’t like to pre-judge a movie, but being deaf and senile would probably help one’s enjoyment of Battleship.
Is ‘all-you-can-eat’ an opportunity or a challenge? – Pretty much everyone and their webmaster referenced “New Kid on the Block” in regards to this story about a guy in Wisconsin who didn’t get all he could eat. I don’t use the word hero very often, but Bill Wisth is the greatest hero in American history.
Bartzers – I chuckled.
Young Mitt Romney, odd man out – Color me surprised:
He insisted to me that he had always found a way to fit in with his friends as a teenager.
“My faith was not a burden for me. I didn’t smoke and drink, and that was about it,” in terms of distinguishing him from his classmates, he said. Romney did allow that there had been some “boyhood indiscretions,” but when I pressed him, he laughed: “I won’t elaborate.”
Then he started recounting — of all things — a episode of “The Simpsons” that had struck a chord with him. It was one where brainy, earnest Lisa Simpson was feeling like an outcast, until her mom, Marge, explains that being different is also being special.
“It’s a helpful thing for the development of the character of a young person to be different from their peers,” Romney told me. “It’s a blessing to be different, to stand up for that.”
That description is vague and second hand enough that it could be about a dozen different episodes from The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons.
Simpsons (1993 – Cut Off The Supply) – Butterfinger – YouTube of the Butterfinger ad that weirdly anticipated “Grade School Confidential”.
Woo Candy Candy – Animated .gif of Homer’s “Sugar Sugar” hallucination from “Boy Scoutz ‘N the Hood”.
Adulthood Has Snuck Up On Me At Last – Excellent usage:
7. Wanting to say ‘back in my day’: I have half-siblings significantly younger than me. I found myself almost saying to them ‘back in my day, we had this thing called dial-up, and I would set my computer up to download music videos and it would take me two days and stopping and starting to get one’. Thankfully I caught myself in time before I suffered their blank looks. I realized my comment was along the lines of old man Simpson rambling about how back in the day ‘So then I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time’.
Grampa doesn’t actually says “then”, but other than that it’s dead on. Moreover, I love that Grampa’s inanity is so ingrained in our culture now that it’s something even young people think of when dealing with someone younger.
No Words Forum: Homer Simpson (Pictorial) – The only way to make one of those rubber Homer masks even creepier is to hang it from the ceiling.
The Shinnin’ – This post opens up with excellent usage in the form of an extended quote from Willie and Bart. It then earns my love by continuing thusly:
Why am I quoting a Treehouse of Horrors episode of The Simpsons, you ask?
Well first of all, a Simpsons reference will only ever improve a situation.
And second of all, shut up.
Heh.
May 17, 2012 The 11th 24 Hours – Some interesting history about “embiggen”:
“Embiggen” was actually born in 1884, in a British journal entitled Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc. It sounds official enough, doesn’t it? Just wait until you read the sentence that introduced the world to this new verb–”but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything.” So, there we are. Embiggen=make great.
The 22nd Edition of the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival – Excellent usage:
Last Monday, I nervously twitched my way through an hour of traffic as Homer Simpson’s quotable, "Oh my God, I’m missing the chili cook-off! I’m missing the cook-off, it’s going on right now, and I’m missing it!" ran its whiny loop through my mind. MainLine Theatre’s chili cook-off press conference was unfolding at Les Katacombes and come Hell, high water or a turtle pace commute, I was not going to miss it.
Perfectly quoted and very apt. No word on whether or not she got as drunk as a poet on payday when she got there.
The Weekly Feed: Mad About Mango Edition – More food related excellent usage:
In the immortal words of Marge Simpson, "Fruit is nature’s candy," and few things are sweeter than ripe mango over a bed of sticky coconut milk-laced rice.
Homer Simpson – A fan made drawing of a very touched looking Homer getting a tear in his eye as he contemplates the donut to come. There’s far more emotion on his face than you get in most of Zombie Simpsons.
How to Capture Pips with the Humble Triangle – I generally steer clear of lottery tips, but this one agrees with us:
Back in the 1990s, when Homer Simpson was still funny and new retail traders were first discovering technical analysis, there was a greater focus on price action alone without the use of indicators.
Well, I like the first part of that sentence.
Renewals Bitchezzzz – The season numbers are off here, but the sentiment is dead on:
American Dad as mentioned before takes the tally to three leaving me with the gout infested leg that is The Simpsons. 2012-13 will see The Simpsons go into its 26th season, a mammoth achievement and something which will probably never be matched again. Having watched some of the 25th season however, I have come to the decision that enough is enough. It is still an amusing show, in the same way that if one was stranded on a desert island, counting the grains of sand would amuse you for a period of time. What I’m trying to get at is, The Simpsons used to be funny, there were parts in every episode which would be genuinely spit-your-drink-out hilarious. Not any more.
Definitely not.
Whatever happened to The Simpsons? – An epic rant from someone deeply disappointed in Zombie Simpsons:
The series started to decline (ever so slightly) from the 9th season onwards – it bottomed out in the 13th season and has settled on the bottom of the ocean after repeated torpedo attacks.
But why Groening? We used to love you so and your yellow-skinned creations. You used to make me laugh, no other tv show could make me laugh like you could. You charmed me, and I fell in love with your characters. But then something changed – you tried to be like the other shows on Fox and suddenly you didn’t have any more time for me and the audience. You were so busy trying to bring in celebrities and to be like Family Guy that you forgot about what I loved you to start with.
The Simpsons – Season One – And finally, I get to end with someone who picked up Season 1 on DVD to relive the old episodes and agrees with us:
As for me, I guess I’m in the middle when it comes to that debate regarding the current quality of The Simpsons, but I lean towards the side that says the show is well past its prime. I really don’t watch it anymore and haven’t for years. When I do catch an episode I’m usually left underwhelmed. Rarely do I hate it, but I forget about them pretty fast. The only one I’ll go out of my way to watch is the annual “Treehouse of Horror,” and that’s mostly just out of tradition.
They are indeed very forgettable.
“But killing snakes is evil.” – Lisa Simpson
“Maybe so, Lisa, but it’s part of our oh so human nature. Inside every man is a struggle between good and evil that cannot be resolved.” – Homer Simpson
“I am Evil Homer! I am Evil Homer! I am Evil Homer! I am Evil Homer!” – Homer’s Brain
It’s May 10th, Happy Whacking Day, Everybody!
“Colonel Klink! Why have you forsaken me?” – Homer Simpson
The hallucinatory Stradivarius Cain in “The Spy Who Learned Me” isn’t quite as bad an idea as a tiny green space alien that only Homer can see, but it’s not far off. Even if we set aside some of the more glaring incongruities about Homer’s imaginary friend (what’s with the other imaginary characters interacting with him? were there any reasons besides killing time and cross promotional masturbation for him to pop out of FOX’s stupid football robot?), we’re still left with a number of problems that illustrate not only how bad an idea this was, but how poorly they executed it as well.
First, consider why Cain is in the episode. He appears when Homer is sitting in Moe’s watching television, bluntly declares that he’s the result of the concussion Homer has suffered, and that he’s there to help Homer get back into Marge’s good graces. Right here at the start, strange things are happening even if we set aside the oddity that apparently some part of Homer’s brain knows how to be suave, confident and charming.
By the time he appears, Homer’s concussion is pretty far in the past. Thanks to Zombie Simpsons’ relentless insistence on terrible pacing, the concussion happens just before the five minute mark but Cain doesn’t show up for six more minutes after that, past the halfway point. On its own this wouldn’t be too terrible, except that at the end, after Homer gets clonked on the head with that guy’s gun, the other characters and Cain show up instantly as Homer pounds on his own skull with a rock.
I didn’t know that rock could do that.
Even more than the usual problems that arise from plot holes and weird leaps of logic, this kind of inconsistency is extremely shitty storytelling. Cain showed up at Moe’s long after the initial injury with only his say so linking his presence to Homer’s getting hit in the head (and even that was done in passing). Then when the unnamed guy bashes Homer with the gun, there’s no indication whatsoever that the blow made Cain disappear, so having Homer start hitting himself to get Cain back is doubly strange. I know I usually complain that Zombie Simpsons over-explains things, but in this case they did the opposite.
Compare that undercooked justification to the simple efficiency of Homer’s guardian angel in “The Last Temptation of Homer”. Homer’s in a panic because his home life is a mess, he thinks teevee is telling him to cheat on his wife, and the marriage counselor to whom he just confessed his secret desires ended up being Ned Flanders. When Flanders tries to get Marge on the line, Homer freaks, hits his head on the side of the phone booth, and poof, Sir Isaac Newton.
See, Zombie Simpsons? This isn’t that hard.
There’s no doubt in the audience’s mind as to who this semi-transparent guy is or why he’s there. He doesn’t need to say, “Homer, I’m here because you hit your head on the side of the phone booth” because we just saw that happen. In turn, that means he can introduce himself quickly and the episode can move immediately to his transformation into Colonel Klink (with Werner Klemperer doing the voice) and his unintentionally disastrous attempts to show Homer what his life would be like if he’d married Mindy instead of Marge (“Madam President, your approval rating is soaring”).
On top of that, The Simpsons had the good sense to keep the character only Homer can see well in the background. Klink doesn’t alter the plot, he’s there in support of things that are happening in the real world. He’s the opposite of those weird digressions Zombie Simpsons likes to take because his presence and his actions as Homer’s supernatural protector make sense for who he is and reinforce what’s already going on in the story. Cain, on the other hand, is basically Ozmodiar. Only Homer can see him, and pretty much all of Homer’s actions are based on Cain’s advice.
In total, we have Zombie Simpsons taking a weak idea and botching it, where The Simpsons took a similar idea and used it well while not asking it to do too much. The kind of show that has even Homer’s guardian angle become frustrated with him knew enough not to make his imaginary friend the center of the plot.
“I won’t lie to you, in this job, you will be shot at. Each of these bullet wounds is a badge of honor.” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
“Badge of honor.” – Homer Simpson
“Here’s a pointer, try to take it in the shoulder.” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Happy Birthday Mike Reiss!
“Hello, I’m actor Troy McClure, you kids might remember me from such educational films as ‘Lead Paint: Delicious but Deadly’, and ‘Here Comes the Metric System’. I’m here to provide the facts about sex in a frank and straightforward manner. And now, here’s ‘Fuzzy Bunny’s Guide to You-Know-What’.” – Troy McClure
Happy 20th Anniversary to “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love”! Original airdate 7 May 1992.
“Isn’t it amazing, the same day you got a pool is the same day we realized we liked you?” – Sherri
“The timing worked out great, don’t you think?” – Terri
Happy Birthday Russi Taylor!
“I’m still trying to figure out what’s bothering Lisa. I don’t know, Bart’s such a handful, and Maggie needs attention, but all the while, our little Lisa’s becoming a young woman.” – Marge Simpson
“Oh, so that’s it. This is some kind of underwear thing.” – Homer Simpson
Beneath the unvarnished cruise line agitprop, the hastily dropped money saving plot, and that bizarre encounter with penguins in Ant-fucking-arctica lies what may be the most half-assed aspect of “A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again”, its blisteringly simplistic and incomplete handling of Bart’s serious melancholy. Though the episode doesn’t really get around to what Bart’s actually feeling until past its midpoint, the Bart we see here is floundering among the deep and unanswerable questions of life. Is this all there is? What should I be doing with my life? Since Zombie Simpsons always – always – follows in the footsteps of The Simpsons, it’s worth looking at the first time the show handled a youthful crisis of self doubt and existential dread, Season 1’s “Moaning Lisa”.
The driving idea of “A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again” is Bart’s unhappiness, his belief that because he doesn’t have enough “fun”, his life is a total waste. To its surprising credit, Zombie Simpsons actually portrays this rather grimly, by having Bart imagine himself on his death bed, looking back on a life wasted at school and work, the only real accomplishment of which was to produce a son capable of wheeling him into the hospital to die.
It’s more bleak than funny, but I’m almost impressed.
Of course, being Zombie Simpsons, they viciously undercut this rather depressing concept in a number of ways. Not only do they place it right after their pathetic song-vertisement, but they actually have Bart say out loud exactly what he’s feeling three (3!) times in succession. First, young Bart laments that vacation will end and fun with it. Then old Bart says the same thing. Then they cut back to young Bart who repeats it again. You can make a case for the third one, because it does have Bart resolving to keep the cruise going forever, but the first two are 100% unnecessary filler.
Being aware of how full frontally bad your writing is doesn’t make it okay.
As poorly and as late in the episode as Zombie Simpsons is presenting it, however, this is some heavy shit Bart is dealing with. (And no, the montage at the beginning doesn’t count, even as foreshadowing. It’s fluff that gets discarded as soon as the cruise commercial comes on.) Even though he’s only kinda sorta still a kid, to have a ten-year-old imagine his unhappy death is both sad and morbid. It’s a meaty enough concept that you could, were you so inclined, base a decent episode around it.
Now that’s foreshadowing.
Naturally, “Moaning Lisa” is better than just “decent”, and that’s due in no small part to the fact that it takes her feelings seriously enough to introduce them at the beginning of the episode and then show us why she feels that way. Lisa is unhappy because her father is a terrible parent, her brother torments her night and day, and her mom doesn’t understand her, and we see each of those happen.
Homer doesn’t mean to make things worse, but that’s exactly what he does:
Homer: Why don’t you climb up on Daddy’s knee and tell him all about it.
Lisa: I’m just wondering, what’s the point? Would it make any difference at all if I never existed? How can we sleep at night when there’s so much suffering in the world?
Homer: Well, uh, eh . . . c’mon, Lisa! Ride the Homer Horsey!
That’s followed by Marge telling her to take a bath, Bart yelling at her, Maggie declaring her love of the TV, and then Homer telling her to stop playing her saxophone in the house. Even at this early stage of The Simpsons, everything is interspersed with jokes and comedy (and there’s the great video boxing B-plot), but the story takes precedence because without it, nothing else matters.
Consider the scene with Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the television. Bart’s mad at Lisa, Lisa’s sad, and both of them are doing everything they can to get Maggie on their side. When Lisa gives up, and Maggie heads for the television, it works not only because she chose the box over her siblings, but because the stakes have been raised so high. Loving television over people wouldn’t be nearly as funny if it weren’t so serious. It’s the difference between slapping some unrelated jokes into a story, and telling a story that is itself both poignant and funny.
Teacher. Mother. Secret Babysitter.
Of course, that distinction is totally lost on Zombie Simpsons. They’ve got this profoundly ominous cloud hanging over Bart’s head, but instead of making use of it, for comedy or story, they tuck it off to the side so they can continue with their hyperactive gibberish. After Bart manages to convince the ship that the entire world has been destroyed, itself a plot twist that makes no sense on any level whatsoever, all the things he had been loving about the cruise vanish. No more good food, no more water slides, no more endless amusement.
Bart doesn’t react to any of this; he, and he alone, is completely untouched by what’s going on. Like so many other things, this could’ve been used constructively. They could’ve had the family show Bart that it wasn’t the ship that he loved, but being with other people or some such nonsense. Instead, Bart remains bafflingly immune to the horrors all around them while the show trots out whatever apocalypse gags were left over after the “Outlands” episode a couple months ago.
However, even that level of head scratching weirdness isn’t enough for Zombie Simpsons. They decide to ratchet things up even further by stranding the family in Antarctica before finally, at long last, getting Bart to realize some kind of lesson about making the most out of life. Even then, they have to club you over the head with it, though in this case the expository narration is necessary because what they’re showing you – trapped in Antarctica and freezing to death – is so wildly different than what they’re saying:
Lisa: Well, sure life is full of pain and drudgery, but the trick is to enjoy the few perfect experiences we’re given in the moment.
Homer: Yeah, stupid. Stop thinking about fun, and have it!
By this point, the realization, and the depression that necessitated it, are hardly even footnotes to what’s happened and what’s happening. Leave it to Zombie Simpsons to ask the audience to take emotional satisfaction in an ending after enduring the near seizure level mood swings between “triple upgrade”, Homer with an orange mohawk and spiked shoulder pads, and a survival situation that’s set to kill them all very soon.
By contrast, “Moaning Lisa” doesn’t end until the story wraps itself up by actually addressing the problem Lisa’s been having since the beginning. In the car on the way to school, Marge makes another attempt to help Lisa:
Marge: Now, Lisa, listen to me. This is important. I want you to smile today.
Lisa: But I don’t feel like smiling.
Marge: Well, it doesn’t matter how you feel inside, you know? It’s what shows up on the surface that counts. That’s what my mother taught me. Take all your bad feelings and push them down, all the way down, past your knees until you’re almost walking on them. And then, you’ll fit in, and you’ll be invited to parties, and boys will like you, and happiness will follow.
This is terrible, repressive and retrograde advice, but at this moment in the story it’s the best Marge can do. She still doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Lisa, so she falls back on what she was told by her mother, which we in the audience already understand since we saw it earlier.
As soon as Lisa steps out of the car, she starts doing what her mother told her, and this is when the episode shows us both a) how disastrous it is, and b) Marge realizing how disastrous it is. No sooner has Lisa opened her mouth than she’s being taken advantage of and letting her hopes and passions die. That in turn prompts Marge to swoop in and tell Lisa what she’s needed to hear the whole time: that even though it sometimes doesn’t feel like, Lisa is loved and valued for who she is.
Not only is Lisa’s emotional burden lifted, but we the audience get a fulfilling ending, with Marge and Lisa bonding and the whole family going to the jazz club to see Homer embarrassed by Lisa’s song. By comparison, Zombie Simpsons brought up a lot of serious emotions, ignored them for its preferred pastime of lunatic zaniness, and then dropped in a glib and hollow ending at the last second because it had literally reached the end of the world. One of these is thoughtful and funny, the other considered being thoughtful, but dropped it because penguins.
“Well, I never thought it would come to this, but I guess we’ll have to sell Grandma’s Civil War doll.” – Marge Simpson
“Oh, Mom, are you sure you want to sell a family heirloom to pay the gas bill? I mean, what would your Grandma say?” – Lisa Simpson
“I’m sure she’d be proud that her descendant’s had piping hot tap water and plenty of warm, dry underwear.” – Marge Simpson
As part of our tireless efforts to demonstrate the many ways Zombie Simpsons fails to entertain, Season 23 will be subjected to the kind of rigorous examination that can only be produced by people typing short messages at one another. More dedicated or modern individuals might use Twitter for this, but that’s got graphics and short links and little windows that pop up when you put your cursor over things. The only kind of on-line communications we like are the kind that could once be done at 2400 baud. So disable your call waiting, plug in your modem, and join us for another year of Crazy Noises. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “Antarctica”).
When Zombie Simpsons sets the stupid as high as they did with “A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again”, one of the side effects is often scenes that don’t make any sense in and of themselves, much less in the wider context of the episode. To take but one example, before the episode gets to its main topic of showing off how awesome cruises are, Bart sells all of his worldly possessions to earn enough money to go on the cruise. Here he is with his meager proceeds:
Good thing it says “Cruise” on there or I’d be lost.
After the scene at the dinner table, Bart goes up to his room and sleeps on his illogically bare floor. Marge comes up and sees him. In the next scene, which the show explicitly tells us is the following morning, Bart comes running into the living room with a jar full of money. What follows is astonishingly hacktacular, even for this episode.
Starting with Bart and then moving to Lisa, Marge and finally Homer, each Simpson family member gets to monologue some terribly overwrought gag while the others stand by patiently. The following transcript is complete, I’ve included everything they say:
Bart: Mom, Dad! I woke up and the money jar was full! That means the Devil accepted my bargain, now to uphold my end of the deal. Snowball II?
With Bart’s name safely marked off on the checklist, Marge exposits what’s going on (because showing us is counter to the Zombie Simpsons style guide):
Marge: No. We saw how much this cruise means to you, so we all sold something special. And we made just enough for an economy cabin.
Everybody got that? Good. Now, the “jokes”:
Lisa: I sold a couple of my rare jazz records. After a while they all start to sound the same. Still love the genre, of course, not even close to getting sick of it.
Thanks, Yeardley. Julie, you’re next:
Marge: And I sold our good china.
Bart: Really? But that’s been in your family for generations.
Marge: Yeah. Actually, my Mom stole it from a woman she cleaned for. Took her years to get the whole set.
Rim shot! Okay, there’s only one family member left. Dan, if you please:
Lisa: And Dad donated something too.
Homer [Entering from off screen]: What happened to my mini-pool table? I was training to be a mini-pool hustler!
At this point you can almost hear the whistling and hooting as Homer bursts into the scene and hits his mark. Everyone got their line, so it must be time for more exposition:
Marge: We sold it to pay for a family cruise.
Thanks, writing staff. I hadn’t been reminded of that in almost thirty seconds. It goes on from there, with Homer doubling down on the mini-pool idea and more exposition from Bart.
This is writing so blandly dutiful it hardly qualifies as bad. It’s similar to those songs on a commercial pop album that have no chance of becoming singles, but have to be there because no one’s going to buy the whole album if it’s only got three tracks. The hooks are weak and the lyrics are forgettable, but nobody cares because everyone knows that they aren’t really that important. And this episode is full of scenes like this one: Bart’s garage sale, the upgrade lady, pretty much every scene with Lisa and the other smart kids, the list goes on and on.
[Note: This may be even less coherent than usual as we had some technical problems toward the end.]
Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to set sail?
Dave: We are.
Mad Jon: My DVR spared me the couch gag and skipped to Bart being bored. I assume I didn’t miss much…
Charlie Sweatpants: No, the couch gag was mercifully short.
Dave: To my bitter self, it was one of the least offensive couch gags in memory
Just some text
Some font variety
5 seconds, done.
Charlie Sweatpants: But it was also a repeat.
Mad Jon: Oh, well, I might have enjoyed that.
Dave: Oh, didn’t know that.
Also that was followed by Hot Chip
So for about 1.5 minutes I wasn’t so grumpy with the show
Charlie Sweatpants: I’ll grant that was cleverer than most of their montages, but it went on much longer than it needed to.
The commercial for the cruise line was kind of the same way, not terrible.
Dave: Yep, bingo.
Mad Jon: Agreed
Dave: It was almost reasonable.
Mad Jon: Unlike the following Mr. Steak discussion.
Charlie Sweatpants: But then they took it seriously. I thought having it say that the visuals of the commercial “if anything underplay” the actual experience was a joke. Turns out they were serious.
Dave: Prior to that nonsense I will admit to chuckling at the Magazine Hater magazine
Mad Jon: I didn’t catch the Mila Kunis tag line.
Dave: and I do have a soft spot for Homer’s reading glasses. Other than that, it was bloody awful.
Dave: something about her being America’s sexiest magazine hater
Mad Jon: Good for her!
Charlie Sweatpants: From there the episode went into Bart freaking out and selling stuff, and from there he freaked out some more and the rest of the family sold stuff.
All on its own, that doesn’t sound too terrible, but they only know how to take things to extremes.
Mad Jon: There was some good Xanax product placement spots there…
Charlie Sweatpants: So Bart’s whole room gets emptied without anyone noticing, and then the next morning the rest of them have sold something and stuffed cash in his jar. It’s childishly simplistic storytelling.
Mad Jon: Cut to the chase and all that.
Charlie Sweatpants: Something like that. Either make them all selling stuff a real plot point or don’t. Instead they dither with it for a long time and still end up doing nothing but having them exposit about what they sold.
Dave: It’s an effective strategy when you have nothing to write about.
Charlie Sweatpants: True enough. This episode had a lot of filler.
The single-double-triple upgrade thing comes to mind.
Dave: Um yeah.
I was convinced they were going to steal home.
Charlie Sweatpants: So much of the middle of the episode was just them saying “Look how cool we made this ship! Don’t you want to go on a cruise like this?”
There are a lot of shots that are basically brochure porn.
Our courteous staff, gorgeous views, and convenient shopping are there for you 24-hours a day.
Mad Jon: Yeah, but I did like the line about having “before you were born fun.”
Dave: There was that “Life Aquatic” ripoff too.
Mad Jon: Was the cruise director someone famous or something?
Charlie Sweatpants: It was Steve Coogan. He’s much more famous in Britain than he is here, but you’d probably know him if you saw him.
Mad Jon: Meh.
Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, like most guest spots it was a waste. His lines were pretty much all descriptions of what was going on at the time, combined with the word “fun”.
Even the song was crappy.
But pretty much the entire thing on the ship was like that. We’ve got some idea that’s almost a joke, and we’re going to run it into the ground.
Lisa’s little elite playgroup, Marge and Homer’s canoodling, even all the cool stuff Bart did, for all the bright colors it was all one note gags repeated over and over.
Mad Jon: Yep.
Jokes aside, the plot was basically Bart trying to worm out of his panic attacks. Which may or may not actually start at 10 nowadays. I can’t be sure.
However, realistic or not, panic attacks aren’t really that entertaining.
Dave: That didn’t stop them from trying though, did it?
Mad Jon: Never does.
Charlie Sweatpants: And don’t forget that Bart, for whatever reason, is basically immune to noticing how crappy the ship got all of a sudden.
Mad Jon: Especially for 12 extra days.
Dave: Yeah, he’s still having a blast.
Charlie Sweatpants: If they’d included something about how he was in denial or whatever, that would’ve been a sop to making sense. But instead he’s happy as a clam even though all the things he loved about the ship are suddenly gone.
Mad Jon: But the best is still that in the -30 degree weather, when everyone was walking about in their normal clothes, Bart explained that he did it for everyone else, and then they played with penguins and learned a lesson.
Charlie Sweatpants: Did you notice that they suddenly were back in their regular clothes after no being in them for the rest of the episode? That doesn’t even make page one of the list of things that were weird about it, but I thought it was telling.
The scenes really are barely connected to one another.
Mad Jon: True, they were in boatware before that, Homer in the Hawaiian shirt, Bart was wearing a suit or something, and then they are in Antarctica, next to a sign denoting the research station was 3 miles away, wearing their everyday clothes and sledding.
Charlie Sweatpants: The ending was impressively batshit, even by their standards.
The penguin thing came completely out of nowhere, and then all of a sudden everything was okay with a flashforward to Bart’s death many decades from now.
Mad Jon: Yeah, that happened
Charlie Sweatpants: If this was a video installation at a modern art museum it’d be so confusing that people might think it’s good.
As a half hour of supposed comedy, however . . .
Mad Jon: My DVR ended at that, but I assume nothing much happened after the pictures from the future part.
Charlie Sweatpants: No, that was it.
There were a lot of things that could’ve been funny, but none of it was thought through enough to pan out.
A lifeguard as a cult leader, for example, isn’t terrible, but just saying that and then repeating it leaves it half formed.
Mad Jon: Minus the stupid incongruities, such as the clothing from the end, this one was one of the “more boring than stupid, but still pretty stupid” zombiesodes.
I probably would have liked the lifeguard thing if a lifeguard thing hadn’t just happened a few weeks ago.
Charlie Sweatpants: There’s that. But what I meant is, they had this weird post apocalyptic society on the ship and having a lifeguard in charge of a cult there could’ve been funny if they’d developed it a little. Instead, they just race through it as nothing more than a punchline.
They could’ve done more with that idea, but they had to get to Antarctica, so they just leave it there, not quite part of the plot, but also not small enough to just be a joke.
The pacing on this show is non-existent. Things seems to slow down and speed up with no discernable logic.
Mad Jon: I didn’t really notice that, but I wasn’t paying that close of attention.
Charlie Sweatpants: It’s not that important.
Mad Jon: I just saw a panicked Bart start some shit, and then watched that shit fall apart and end up at the south pole.
Charlie Sweatpants: Bet that’s not something you were expecting to type at this time yesterday.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Homer, but it is the policy of the Kwik-E-Mart, and its parent corporation Nordyne Defense Dynamics, to prosecute shoplifters to the full extent of the law.” – Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Happy birthday Hank Azaria!
“Let’s see your license, pal.” – Lou
“No can do, never got one. But if you need proof of my identity, I wrote my name on my underwear . . . oh, wait, these aren’t mine.” – Otto
“Well, that tears it. Until you get a license and wear your own underwear, mister, you are suspended without pay.” – Principal Skinner
Happy 20th Anniversary to “The Otto Show”! Original airdate, 23 April 1992.
“She’s beautiful. Say something clever!” – Bart’s Brain
“I fell on my bottom.” – Bart Simpson
“D’oh!” – Bart’s Brain
There are a lot problems with “Beware My Cheating Bart”. For starters, it’s kinda sexist and disturbing. Beyond that, it’s further evidence that Zombie Simpsons has turned its kid characters into empty, anti-human nobodies. And, of course, it manages to lack any kind of story coherence while doing all those things. What makes it all more glaring than usual is the way “Beware My Cheating Bart” so closely follows the plot, structure, and even jokes of the boundlessly superior “New Kid on the Block”.
One of the most handy things anyone ever told me about sexism was that the easiest way to gauge how sexist something is or isn’t was by reversing the gender roles and seeing how weird or fucked up it would seem. Applying that little rubric, “Beware My Cheating Bart” fails miserably compared to “New Kid on the Block”. In the latter, it would mean a ten-year-old girl developing a crush on the fourteen(ish)-year-old boy next door, showing him that his girlfriend was bad news, and then ending with them bonding as friends by making a prank call. A little unusual, maybe, but certainly not creepy. In Zombie Simpsons, it would mean a fourteen(ish)-year-old boy flashing a ten-year-old girl, then making out with her repeatedly, hanging around with her in little kid pizza joints, and running about town late at night. That is creepy, no two ways about it, and that means you might not want to be doing it at all.
Uh . . . yeah, please don’t do that again.
Leaving that unpleasantness behind us forever, the best way to shake off the weirdness of having a character the episode identifies as a “total pre-puber” getting hot and heavy in the privacy of the principal’s office is to remember that it’s been a long time since Bart was anything like a normal kid, and the same goes for Jimbo and everyone else in this episode. Just in that first scene in the movie theater, we get sitcom-tastic clunkers like this:
Dolph: We’re gonna to be checking out a delightful Hong Kong horror remake known as ‘Crawlspace’, based on Paxing Kongjian.
And this:
Jimbo: Shauna, food for thought, if we don’t watch movies about torture in crawlspaces, how will we know what to do if someone puts us in a torture crawlspace?
Kearney: Not if, when.
Shauna: Nah. I’m gonna go see one of those Jennifer Aniston movies where she rolls her eyes on the poster.
This kind of stilted, formulaic dialogue is hacktacular on a couple of levels. First of all, what little humor they’re trying to wring out of these fake movies dissolves away when you have your characters basically explain the jokes as they’re saying them, not to mention the movie posters behind them that do the same thing.
Ha! That’s what s/he just said. I get it now! I get jokes.
More importantly, nobody talks like this except comedy writers. None of the characters here act like actual characters, instead they’re little more than animated loudspeakers. The things they’re saying don’t work in the context of where or who they are; they only make sense if you’re sitting in a room with a bunch of people constantly hurling punchlines at one another. Zombie Simpsons may not have a laughtrack, but it’d be awfully easy to insert canned laughter into that. Observe:
Jimbo: Shauna, food for thought, if we don’t watch movies about torture in crawlspaces, how will we know what to do if someone puts us in a torture crawlspace?
[Short laugh]
Kearney: Not if, when.
[Longer laugh]
Shauna: Nah. I’m gonna go see one of those Jennifer Aniston movies where she rolls her eyes on the poster.
[Long laugh, with subtle amounts of “ooh”]
Each line is its own self contained piece of cheap fluff, and there’s hardly any interaction between them. Now, consider the first time we see some of the same characters in “New Kid on the Block”. Bart and Laura are sitting on the curb in front of Laura’s new house while their moms are inside talking. They don’t spit ungainly cultural references back and forth, instead they actually get to know each other as Bart tries out his little pranks and Laura impresses him by already knowing them.
Similarly, when Dolph and Kearney walk by, they don’t immediately crack some joke that’s intended for the audience instead of the other people who are supposedly right in front of them. They speak like there really is a girl sitting there, with Kearney trying one of those hideous pick up lines that only seem like good ideas to very naive teenage boys:
Kearney: Hey, baby, how ’bout putting your finger in my ear.
Laura: Well, I don’t know, your boyfriend looks like the jealous type.
Kearney: Hey, what the?
Dolph: That chick’s messing with our minds.
Kearney: Let’s get out of here!
Each line leads directly and necessarily into the next, so not only is this funnier, but it also works naturally with who these characters are and what each of them is trying to do. Laura continues to demonstrate how cool she is by effortlessly annihilating Kearney’s hapless pass at her, while Kearney and Dolph fail, panic and flee from a girl who’s clearly smarter and tougher than they are. On top of all that, the audience sees Bart’s crush on Laura deepen after he watches her defeat his tormentors.
Sigh. She’s dreamy.
This sort of thing can be seen throughout both episodes. In “New Kid on the Block”, Bart and Laura both act like kids their age. Laura babysits, plays video games at the Kwik-E-Mart, and completely overlooks Bart’s puppy love because she has no reason to notice it. Meanwhile, Bart falls head over heels, but has no idea how to go about it (in no small part because Homer gets drunk while failing to explain the facts of life to him). The jokes and humor (Two Guys from Kabul, Escape from Death Row) are inserted into natural interactions for two kids like them to have.
In “Beware My Cheating Bart”, the opposite happens. What jokes there are get blasted into weird situations, while Bart, Shauna, Jimbo, Lisa and everyone else act like dating weary adults. They give each other sophisticated relationship advice, know every cliche, and generally act like the same kind of one dimensional characters you’ll find in those eye rolling Jennifer Aniston movies. They couldn’t be less like real kids if they were played by hard bodied, thirty-something movie stars:
Shauna: I want to find out who I am. And that’s something only an inappropriately older man can tell me.
Bart: Well, that is one lucky, creepy guy.
By this point in the episode, I have no idea who these people are supposed to be, or even if they’re still people at all. When this happens, Jimbo has apparently been patrolling Bart’s back yard for hours on end, Shauna has realized out of the blue that she wants something else, and Bart drops his entire infatuation as though it never happened. There’s no connection between events, things happen because everyone’s been through this so many times before that, when it comes to what should be the climax of the story, they already know what to do.
By contrast, in “New Kid on the Block”, Bart thinks Laura is finally taking a shine to him when she confides in him that she’s started dating Jimbo. Bart doesn’t see this coming, and Laura doesn’t realize how much she just hurt him. Neither of them is really aware of what’s going on with the other because – again – they’re just kids. Check out Laura’s swooning description of what she likes about Jimbo:
Bart: How can you like that guy?
Laura: I don’t know. Maybe cause he’s an outlaw. You know that dead body they found behind the mayor’s house?
Bart: Jimbo killed him?
Laura: No, but he poked him with a stick.
Hey look! Characters emoting.
Just as with Laura’s dismissing of Kearney, everyone here is perfectly in character, and they sneak in that joke about Quimby murdering someone while keeping the dialogue very kid-like. On top of that, none of them knows where things are going to go from here. Laura likes Jimbo because she thinks he’s a good looking rebel who plays by his own rules. Jimbo likes Laura because she’s a cool chick who doesn’t mind when he takes his shirt off. And Bart schemes to break them apart because he knows that Jimbo is bad news. Instead of romance veterans who go through the motions, Laura, Jimbo and Bart all act like themselves right up to the end.
Zombie Simpsons took a bad romantic comedy template, grafted their characters onto it without the least bit of consideration as to why any of them would act like that way, and figured a few semi-clever asides would be enough to redeem it. The Simpsons knew how to create something better than that, because on that show they understood that having kids act like kids isn’t an impediment to having them be funny.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but everything on the menu has fish in it.” – Frying Dutchman Waiter
“What about the bread, does that have much fish in it?” – Marge Simpson
“Yes.” – Frying Dutchman Waiter
Happy birthday Conan O’Brien!
“Mom, this is a little ahead of schedule, but I need help with my love life.” – Bart Simpson
“Oh, my special little guy has a sweetheart.” – Marge Simpson
“I knew it! Alright Bart, who’s your girlfriend?” – Lisa Simpson
“Mrs. Krabappel.” – Bart Simpson
In what I assume was an unintentional irony, early in “Beware My Cheating Bart”, the writers had Bart say, “Doesn’t anyone realize I’m only ten years old?”. The episode certainly didn’t, and it managed to be worse than most “Bart gets a girlfriend” stories to boot. Bart seems to vacillate between being an experienced teenage dater and a little kid, sometimes within the same scene. One moment he’s happily going down a slide, and then next he’s getting hot and heavy with Shauna (who is herself of indeterminate teenage years). It would be creepy if it weren’t so dull.
However, just one oft repeated story wasn’t enough for Zombie Simpsons this week, so they also had Marge and Homer go through a marital spat. That one got resolved in the most pointless way possible when Marge decorated herself and the bedroom in an island theme, but managed not to notice Bart and Jimbo out the clearly open window. Again, this would’ve been creepy if it hadn’t been so boring and nonsensical.
As for the unimaginative Lost parody “Stranded”, I was reminded of their equally insipid Inception parody from a few weeks ago. Lost has been off the air for two years now, and everyone knew it was going to end in 2010 beforehand, which means that if you still want to parody it, you’d better come up with more than the same tired jokes (nothing makes sense, there’s no resolution, it’s all just empty plot twists) people stopped making two years ago. The Futurama alien language plug (it reads “watch futurama thursdays at 10”) was the only thing that was even kind of clever.
The Bill Plympton couch gag was kind of interesting, though it could’ve been half as long and gotten through pretty much the same stuff. I suppose it’s true that this is better than the usual, but the novelty of having someone else do the opening is starting to wear off. And speaking of wearing off, Kavner is really having a hard time doing Marge now. She’s been kinda off for a couple of seasons, but the number of times I’ve thought to myself “wow, that really doesn’t sound like Marge” has been way up since the middle of this season. She just doesn’t have the same range she used to, which makes it really tough to put much feeling into anything.
Anyway, the numbers are in and they are absolutely atrocious. Just 4.86 million viewers briefly lost all interest in sex last night. That’s the second lowest of all time, displacing “How I Wet Your Mother” in that spot. Four of the five least watched episodes ever are now from Season 23, and the average viewership this year is below 6.5 million. Season 22’s was 7.10 million, and there are still at least three episodes to go. Presumably Lady Gaga will give them a boost at the end of the year (and I’m not looking forward to putting Reading Digest together that week), but even her fame isn’t going to be enough to rescue that average.
Charlie Sweatpants
Mad Jon
Unpaid Guest
Dave
