Dead Homer Society

“What about Bart?” – Marge Bouvier
“Let’s see, Bart, cart, dart, eart . . . nope, can’t see any problem with that.” – Homer Simpson

As the title indicates, we got two reader submissions from the UK, one with a chart, the other involving art.  (This ends the rhyming portion of this post.)  First up, the chart. 

Seb Patrick noticed something while watching Season 8 recently.  He thought the episodes that began with shows-within-the-show ended up being better than those that just started in the regular world of Evergreen Terrace.  Curiosity piqued, he plunged ahead:

And for some reason, when an episode opens with one of these scenes, it instantly feels sharper and more imaginative than one that just brings us in to a random scene somewhere in Springfield or at the Simpsons’ home. This is particularly noticeable during these later seasons (and when I say "later", I mean "later in the good period" – we’re going by the assumption that the programme is largely not worth watching, and thus non-existent in my head, after around season eleven), when it’s the more dull and boring episodes that seem to start in this mundane way, and the better ones that give the laughs by opening with – for example – the Krusty Komedy Klassic, or an edition of Eye on Springfield. It therefore feels to me like I’m simply more likely to enjoy an episode if it’s got one of these opening scenes (which from now on I’m referring to as "TV openings", even though they also covers other forms of media).

So, I’ve decided to test it out. And count up data in Excel. And turn it into a graph. Because that’s how I roll.

And the numbers say . . . “kinda”.  Isn’t data fun?  The whole thing is worth a read.  Thanks Seb! 

Moving along, we come to the art, to something that reader Adam thinks may not have reached America yet.  I’m not entirely sure how to describe this.  It’s a Facebook page titled “Simpsons pictures that I gone and done”, and it’s sort of a cross between Ralph Steadman and MS Paint.  Observe:

Each one is then accompanied by charmingly random blather like this:

I really love to do portraits of the Barney character from The Simpsons. He is always doing the things that we want to do but just don’t have the guts to do. I love when he walks down the street and just punches people in the back of the head or just completely stands still for ages so people think he’s a wood carving. I love his catchphrase "whats wrong with me".

The slideshow is here, and is strangely mesmerizing.  (Note: Facebook pestered me every once and a while to login, but you can just ignore it.)  Thanks Adam!