“Watch out, Laszlo Panaflex!” – Troy McClure
Matt Groening is getting a tile on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I found this out via a press release we got this afternoon, but if you’d asked me this morning whether or not he already had one, I would’ve said “Probably?”. Here are the official details:
MATT GROENING CELEBRATES 500TH EPISODE OF “THE SIMPSONS” WITH
STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAMEWHO: Matt Groening
Emcee: Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, President/CEO Leron Gubler
Guest speakers: Hank Azaria (voice of Moe, Chief Wiggum, plus others)
and Yeardley Smith (voice of Lisa Simpson).WHAT: 2,459th Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Category of
TELEVISIONWHERE: 7021 Hollywood Boulevard at the corner of Sycamore near The
Simpson’s starWHEN: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 11:30 a.m.
“The Simpson’s star”? Does no one at hip, edgy Web 2.0 marketing firms proofread anymore? The rest of the press release contains more indirect comedy, like the mini-biography that uses the registered trademark symbol four times in five sentences, just in case you forgot that “Life In Hell®” after the first one. More amusing still is this bit from the legalese at the end:
The information in this email and any attached files is confidential. It is intended solely for the use of the addressee. Any unauthorized disclosure or use is prohibited.
It’s a fucking press release! The whole point of sending it to me is to get me to disclose its contents, but apparently that’s prohibited. Oops.
Anyway, good for Groening. And if anyone goes to the ceremony, do me a favor and count how many times they make “what an honor to have people’s shoes all over my name” type jokes.
I choose to view the decision to give Groening a star when the Simpsons already have their own as a covert accolade for Futurama and Life in Hell. Hooray!
I just noticed that if you exclude 7000 and double 021 and re-add 7000 to the result and then rearrange the numbers to put the 0 at the beginning, you get:
(0)742 Evergreen Terrace!
Whoa.
Ever since I read Ortved’s book I’ve been somewhat dismissive whenever Groening gets accolades like this. To paraphrase the book (this is probably my most favourite allusion I’ve ever unexpectedly come across), the show didn’t spring fully-formed from his head like a hilarious Athena.
So ditto Mike Amato, about time LA paid their gratitude for “The Los Angeles Way of Death”: http://www.futurama-area.de/LiH/OComics/40.gif