FOX announced their midseason schedule today and the Spurlock special will be airing after a new Zombie Simpsons on Sunday January 10th. (It’s got a whole hour devoted to it from 8:30 to 9:30.) Previously the schedule had been announced (or just assumed) as being January 14th, which is a Thursday. I thought they might be doing a one night only return to Thursday to hit the 20th anniversary on the dot, but I guess not.
Incidentally, I’ve never fully understood why, in television circles at least, the premier of “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” doesn’t seem to count. It was broadcast on 17 December 1989 but was technically a “special”, and apparently that still matters to people all these years later. Anyway, 14 January 1990 saw the first regular broadcast episode, “Bart the Genius”, which I would strongly recommend watching instead of this:
Sunday, Jan. 10, will be devoted to "The Simpsons," beginning with the animated series’ milestone 450th episode, “Once Upon a Time in Springfield” (8-8:30 p.m.), in which Bart and Milhouse try to help Krusty regain his popularity after network executives force him to restructure the format of his TV show by hiring a female sidekick, Princess Penelope (guest voice Anne Hathaway).
(I’m going to guess that the guest voice information there is wrong, Hathaway was Bart’s girlfriend in that execrable one last year where Lisa kept hallucinating to kill time. Her IMDB page lists that one, but nothing for next year so until I hear otherwise I’ll just assume that it’ll be some other actress.)
I’m kinda excited to see Spurlock’s thing. While I’m sure there will be some irritating Zombie Simpsons fellatio, there might also be some neat stuff and it can’t possibly be more boring than the average Zombie Simpsons episode.
charliesweatpants.com
(The crotch really does wear out too fast.)
“Sunday, Jan. 10, will be devoted to “The Simpsons,” beginning with the animated series’ milestone 450th episode, “Once Upon a Time in Springfield” (8-8:30 p.m.), in which Bart and Milhouse try to help Krusty regain his popularity after network executives force him to restructure the format of his TV show by hiring a female sidekick, Princess Penelope (guest voice Anne Hathaway).”
Sheesh, how many times are we going to get episodes in which Bart has to help Krusty revitalise his ailing career? Zombie Simpsons really has a thing for flogging plots that have been done before (not to mention done better). Recently I caught the last few minutes of an episode in which Lisa became a celebrity after appearing as a sidekick on Krusty’s show (it was basically a blatant clone of “Bart Gets Famous” with Lisa taking Bart’s place, and Bart got stuck with a subplot in which he and Homer bonded through the shared hobby of coin-collecting, and no, I didn’t make that up).
I think Krusty is kind of overused. Am I wrong to think that? Perhaps I am. But I suppose the writers know about TV shows and their actors, and they write what they know. Which is not much use for the vast majority of the population who don’t get the injokes.
I don’t really want to look at the characters becoming famous again or anything like that. I’m more interested in the miserable depths of everyday life (the exception being the Who Shot Mr. Burns? two-parter, which is fantastic in pretty much both senses of the word).
Same here. When I heard about that title, I was actually hoping for a “22 short films” style episode (it wouldn’t be as good, of course, but I can dream).
And yes, I’d say Krusty is overused, but he doesn’t annoy me as much as CBG.