Archive for the 'The Simpsons' Category

17
May
13

Reading Digest: Missing Canadian Edition

By Charlie Sweatpants 3 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.)

12
May
13

Sunday Preview: The Fabulous Faker Boy

By Mad Jon 59 Comments
Categories: Sunday Preview and The Simpsons
Tags:

DSC_2613

Marge encourages Bart to explore his creative side and take music lessons and Bart develops a crush on his beautiful piano teacher, Zhenya. To pay for Bart’s music lessons, Marge agrees to be Slava’s driving instructor. Homer is shocked when he loses the last two remaining hairs on his head and Patrick Stewart teaches Homer how to live with his newfound baldness. Justin Bieber tries to get into a talent show that Bart is playing piano in and they won’t admit him.

Oh goodie, Justin Bieber plays himself tonight.  At least Bart will fall in love again, because lord knows how long it has been since he last did that.

10
May
13

Friday Evening Cartoons

By Charlie Sweatpants 6 Comments
Categories: The Simpsons
Tags:

Duffless12

“My name is Homer, and I’m just here because the court made me come.” – Homer Simpson
“Homer, with our help you’ll never touch a beer again.” – Reverend Lovejoy
“Ahh!” – Homer Simpson

I had a rather exhausting and awful week; but it is at an end now, which means I can sit on my ass and watch TV like a civilized person.  In doing so, I noticed something I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before.  At his first AA meeting, Homer bails out the window.  At his next meeting, there’s this:

Duffless13

That shot is only on screen very briefly before they cut to closeups of Lovejoy reassuring Homer and then Homer confessing that he ate the dirt under the bleachers.  But you can see that Homer’s escape window has now been boarded up.  Not repaired, just boarded up.  Twenty years and Jebus knows how many viewings, and I’m still catching things.  Gotta love The Simpsons. 

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.

10
May
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 2 Comments
Categories: QotD and The Simpsons
Tags:

Whacking Day11

“Take that snake!  And you too!  Snakes, snakes everywhere!” – Barney Gumble
“Getting ready for Whacking Day?” – Lenny
“What’s Whacking Day?” – Barney Gumble

Happy Whacking Day!

05
May
13

Sunday Preview: Whiskey Business

By Mad Jon 6 Comments
Categories: Sunday Preview and The Simpsons
Tags:

Whiskey_Business_Promo_1

Moe is flying high after venture capitalists take a shine to his homemade whiskey, while Grampa, after injuring himself babysitting Bart, decides he would rather be looked after by his grandson than be at the nursing home. Also, Lisa voices her displeasure at a hologram of music legend Bleeding Gums Murphy, and Sonny Rollins (as himself) shows up to ask her to stop all that jazz about boycotting a record label.

Again, we’ve got a lot going on at once tonight.  For you betting folk, I put the over/under for Moe sobbing scenes at 3 1/2, and number of duets Lisa plays with Sonny Rollings at 1 1/2.

 

 

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. 

28
Apr
13

Sunday Preview: Pulpit Friction

By Mad Jon 26 Comments
Categories: Sunday Preview and The Simpsons
Tags:

th

Homer heeds the call when he is recruited to be a deacon by the cutting-edge new pastor, but Bart wants to bring back Rev. Lovejoy after Homer embraces the faith a little too zealously. Meanwhile, it is no laughing matter when the dry cleaner mistakenly switches Marge’s wedding dress for one of Krusty’s costumes.

A bit of a contrast from the time Homer was a minister to profit off of gay marriage, but hey, it’s 2013.  Apparently there is also a bedbug infestation during this episode, so we got that going for us too!

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. 

25
Apr
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 4 Comments
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and The Simpsons
Tags: ,

Lisa the Iconoclast10

“Hello, town jubilation committee?  Yeah, I got something that’s gonna make you a lot less jubilant.” – Moe

Happy birthday Hank Azaria!

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.

18
Apr
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 12 Comments
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and The Simpsons
Tags: ,

Homer Goes to College11

“We played Dungeons & Dragons for three hours, then I was slain by en elf.” – Homer Simpson
“Listen to yourself, man, you’re hanging with nerds.” – Bart Simpson
“You take that back!” – Homer Simpson
“Homer, please, these boys sound very nice, but they’re clearly nerds.” – Marge Simpson

Happy birthday Conan O’Brien!

17
Apr
13

O’Brien, Jean, Reiss, Kogen and Martin

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

Cartoon Writers

“Cartoons have writers?” – Bart Simpson
“Enh, sort of.” – Lisa Simpson

The 81 minute roundtable discussion Conan O’Brien hosted with Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen, and Jeff Martin is now live on O’Brien’s website.  (I couldn’t get the embedding to work here on WordPress.)  I must warn you: it is very addictive.  I started it thinking I’d watch a few minutes and then come back to it tonight when I had more time.  Nope.  Watched it straight through my lunch. 

As a Simpsons fan, it’s a must-see.  They talk about the origins of the show, joke about specific memories and episodes, and generally just crack each other up.  It’s funny from start to finish, and at one point O’Brien puts this picture up:

Simpsons Writers Clockwise from lower left: John Swartzwelder, David M. Stern, Mike Reiss, Conan O’Brien, Jeff Martin, Jon Vitti, Matt Groening, George Meyer, Al Jean (facing away from camera). Jean joked that this was a Potemkin village photo in that they brought in all the cutouts and cleaned the place up. 

There’s a lot of great stuff in here, but for now just let me note that at the 28:00 minute mark, Kogen says, “I remember when the show was at it’s, well, it’s still at it’s height.”  Heh.  Caught himself midsentence.

14
Apr
13

Sunday Preview: What Animated Women Want

By Mad Jon 10 Comments
Categories: Sunday Preview and The Simpsons
Tags:

640px-The_Simpsons_-_Episode_24.17_-_What_Animated_Women_Want_-_Promotional_Photos_(4)_FULL

Wanda Sykes and George Takei guest voice as a couple experiencing marital differences. After watching A Streetcar Named Desire Milhouse takes on a Marlon Brando-inspired bad-boy persona to attract Lisa. Milhouse seeks then advice from the school counselor. Homer tries to save his marriage by becoming a better man and fulfilling old promises when Marge becomes fed up with his behavior and he seeks advice from his local sushi chef.

Seems like a lot is going on tonight.  All this and a Breaking Bad couch gag to boot. Which, even as someone who watches Breaking Bad, I am a little lost on.  Its not a parody, its sort of just inspired by Breaking Bad, so my feeble brain is confused. Whatever, I can’t wait for the rest of season 5 this summer.

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.

28
Mar
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 4 Comments
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and The Simpsons
Tags: ,

Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious5

♫“The nanny we want is kindly and sage . . .” – Lisa Simpson
“And one who will work for minimum wage.”♫ – Homer Simpson

Happy birthday Alf Clausen!

27
Mar
13

Quote of the Day

By Charlie Sweatpants 1 Comment
Categories: Happy Birthday, QotD and The Simpsons
Tags: ,

Homer the Heretic10

“Homer, please don’t make me choose between my man and my God, because you just can’t win.” – Marge Simpson
“There you go again, always taking someone else’s side: Flanders, the water department, God.” – Homer Simpson

Happy birthday George Meyer!

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.

« Previous Entries

E-Mail

deadhomersociety (at) gmail

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

 Subscribe in a reader

Twitter Updates

  • #QotD: “My magic bat.” – Homer “That’s it?” – Carl “Yeah, I got a magic bat, too.” – Lenny “And I got an enchanted jockstrap.” – Carl // 10 hours ago
  • It took 20 years, but reality finally caught up with #Simpsons: ow.ly/l82fl. #StarTrek XII: So Very Tired // 1 day ago
  • #Simpsons #QotD: “Hey, Spock, what do you want on your hot dog?” – Hot Dog Guy “Surprise me.” – Leonard Nimoy ow.ly/l81QI // 1 day ago
  • #Simpsons #QotD: “You see me as a god, right, Smithers?” / “Absolutely, sir.” / “You’d kneel before me.” / “Boy, would I.” / “Yes.” // 2 days ago
  • “With us tonight are plant owner C.M. Burns, union kingpin Homer Simpson, and talk show mainstay Dr. Joyce Brothers.” ow.ly/l3332 // 3 days ago

Useful Legal Tidbit

Even though it’s obvious to anyone with a functional frontal lobe and a shred of morality, we feel the need to include this disclaimer. This website (which openly advocates for the cancellation of a beloved television series) is in no way, shape or form affiliated with the FOX Network, the News Corporation, subsidiaries thereof, or any of Rupert Murdoch’s wives or children. “The Simpsons” is (unfortunately) the intellectual property of FOX. We and our crack team of one (1) lawyer believe that everything on this site falls under the definition of Fair Use and is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. No revenue is generated from this endeavor; we’re here because we love “The Simpsons”. And besides, you can’t like, own a potato, man, it’s one of Mother Earth’s creatures.
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 247 other followers