“Relax, Chief, you seem tense. You know, the boy here makes an excellent Manhattan.” – Fat Tony
“I’m still gonna put you away, you know.” – Chief Wiggum
“Good for you.” – Fat Tony
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One of my favorite recurring gags in the earlier seasons of The Simpsons were the power struggles between Mayor Quimby and Police Chief Wiggum. Likewise Wiggum’s interaction with Fat Tony were always good too.
I love how Fat Tony’s being so smug and condescending here, but Wiggum doesn’t even notice. Since you mentioned Wiggum and Quimby too, that scene where they were talking about the town charter is pure gold.
I’ve always enjoyed how Sullen Wiggum looks when Quimby is declaring it Marge Simpson Day in “Homer Alone”.
That is fucking gold. I wonder why they dropped the Quimby-Wiggum interactions.
By far, my least favorite Simpsons character is Fat Tony. Gil, Database, and the Rich Texan all rank pretty low with me but Fat Tony, as well as the other gangsters, are my least favorite regular chracters. He played a great role in this episode but he was clearly meant to be a one-shot character and that’s where he should have stayed, just like Jaques the bowling instructor, Lurleen Lumpkin, Lyle Lanley, Mindy Simmons, Stampy, Sharry Bobbins, Poochie, Frank Grimes, and George Bush in their respective episodes.
Springfield is supposed to be Anytown USA and an organized criminal syndicate just doesn’t fit in the same way that all the other elements of the show do. The one and only Boogyman in town is supposed to be Monty Burns. In reality capitalism is what squashes the hopes and dreams of Americans, not the mafia, and the constant pressence of Fat Tony chips away at that construct. It perplexes me to see Joe Mantegna on a Simpsons discussion pannel acting like he’s Kelsey Grammer.
I may remember wrong, but there’s only one other real Simpsons episode where Fat Tony is relevant to the plot (“Homie the Clown”). He’s also in “The Twisted World of Marge Simpson”, but that episode suffers from some Zombie problems (not as much as other Season 8 episodes, sure, but it isn’t flawless). He also has a worthless not-exactly-cameo in “Faith Off”, but that’s Season 11. Other than that, Fat Tony has only had small cameos here and there.
I understand your point, I also thought of it in the past, but to be honest, how does having a local billonaire that met Elvis, played golf with Nixon and blocked the sun makes Springfield Anytown, USA? Or how about Krusty? He had the least consistent characterization of any character in the show, at sone points defined as a national celebrity and loved figure, at some other times a pathetic bad comedian. If he’s a national celebrity, why is he making a program for a local TV channel?
The real problems, IMO, is when something makes Springfield a fantastical land or closer to a theme park, or it’s an element that could only happen in some but not all of the U.S. states: the hurricane in “Hurricane Neddie”, for example, because unlike so many other jokes in earlier episodes it is relevant to the plot. Fat Tony’s character might be something you wouldn’t see on any U.S. town but doesn’t really degrade the plausibility and realism of the show.
Have to completely disagree with you about capitalism. It is the natural way humans interact with each other. Capitalism has enabled all the wealth around you (including your computer and the TV you watched The Simpsons on).
I realize you probably don’t mean “capitalism” but something else (unless you’re a communist of course ) but I can’t let that pass. Sorry.
You give us Anons a bad name. Dissing Fat Tony? That’s a paddlin’.
David Abell: Like everything else, capitalism has its upside and its downside, but the kind of extreme capitalism we’ve got going on in the US of A (and the knee-jerk reaction to praise it unquestioningly while trashing other systems, like, predictably, communism) has caused a lot of problems in this country.
DA: Rather than getting into a discussion about the pros and cons of capitalism, and just speaking for myself, it’s the thought of trust-fund billionaires buying politicians that causes me more worry than the mafia.
BGM: True, most towns don’t have an evil billionaire in it. It’s more about what Burns represents in general that makes him the ideal villain regardless of the realism. And in retrospect I see my disdain for Fat Tony comes more from his overuse in Zombie Simpsons than in anything from the first eleven seasons. The overuse of characters I like (Moe, Lenny, and Carl) is also annoying. I suppose if the Simpsons ended production in 2000 like it should have I wouldn’t have any strong feelings about Fat Tony one way or the other and my vote for worst character would be Database. Ugh, I hate that kid.
I understand but I wouldn’t blame The Simpsons for Zombie Simpsons’ awfulness.
For example, Marge Simpson. On Season 13 (which I’m currently watching to see the missing links with current ZS and how different the Jean era is, and my god it’s godawful) she’s way out of character (I inmediately thought of Marge when reading your post, that’s why I’m using her as example). The first time she was written in an out of character way (ignoring “Marge on the Lam”, where it was only slightly OOC, it made sense and it was a great episode, and the weirdness of Season 1) was in “Lisa the Skeptic” and it has gone down since. She has bad episodes in 10 and 11, but it 13 she becomes her own Jerkass version of herself, interfering with other people’s lifes because it’s her life mission or something. In Season 14 she rapes Homer. In any Zombie Lisa-Marge episode since the downfall of the show, either Lisa is the bitter, resentful character, or it’s Marge, and it doesn’t make sense (Marge and Lisa has always loved each other, regardless of their differences). She’s a really awful parent and person in Zombie Sinpsons, with basically no redeemable characteristics.
That’s not the Marge I love and appreciate, the Marge who had good reasons to consider cheating Homer with Jacques (I rewatched that episode yesterday, it’s great), the Marge who tries to be funny in very boring Marge ways, or teaches an embarrased Bart. Same with any other character in the show, even the least likable people like Moe or Burns or, of course, Fat Tony.
Just try to ignore Zombie Simpsons, that’s all.