“Yep, so because of me, all the dorms now have security phones.” – Homer Simpson
Posts Tagged ‘Faith Off
16
Jan
20
Quote of the Day
16
Jan
19
Quote of the Day
“When I was your age I was a hell raiser, too. My slingshot was my cross. But I saw the light and changed my wicked ways!” – Brother Faith
“I figure I’ll go for the life of sin followed by the presto-change-o deathbed repentance.” – Bart Simpson
“Wow, that’s a good angle. . . . But that’s not God’s angle!” – Brother Faith
20
Oct
18
Quote of the Day
“A&M is gonna kick your ivy covered butts!” – Carl
“Yeah, well you went to a cow college!” – Homer Simpson
“Oh, you’re only calling us a cow college cause we was founded by a cow.” – Lenny
16
Jan
17
Quote of the Day
“Lisa, ham hock? Tri-tip?” – Homer Simpson
“Do we have any food that wasn’t brutally slaughtered?” – Lisa Simpson
“Well, I think the veal might’ve died of loneliness.” – Homer Simpson
16
Jul
16
Quote of the Day
“Finally, a chance to relive my golden college years.” – Homer Simpson
“Dad, you only took one course.” – Lisa Simpson
“Remember my love affair with Ali McGraw? She used to call me preppy. Then she died.” – Homer Simpson
16
Jan
16
Quote of the Day
“Excuse me, neighbor, I couldn’t help but notice you picked pretty much all my flowers.” – Ned Flanders
“Can’t make a float without flowers.” – Homer Simpson
“True enough. But did you have to salt the earth so nothing would ever grow again?” – Ned Flanders
17
Jan
15
Quote of the Day
“You’re the miracle boy with the healing hands, arghhn’t ya?” – Captain McAllister
“Nah, I don’t do that anymore.” – Bart Simpson
“So I guess I’ll have to see someone else about my crippling depression.” – Captain McAllister
“My old roommates, the nerds! Aww. You working?” – Homer Simpson
“Oh, my, yes, I’m on a secret project that I’m not at liberty to divulge . . . cough, cyborgs.” – Fat Nerd
We’ve got a bunch of news this week about current and former Simpsons staffers: David Silverman got a new job, Harry Shearer is in Wales, Mike Reiss gave a talk at Harvard, and Sam Simon continues to be awesome. (There’s also a Zombie Simpsons writer making an ass of himself, but he doesn’t count.) In addition to that, there’s plenty of video game YouTube, fancy New York musicians, some excellent usage, several good lists, and Family Guy once again following in the profitable footsteps of The Simpsons.
Enjoy.
The Simpsons: 10 Real Unaired Pitches (And What They Could Have Been About) – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this collection of unaired episodes that appear to all be from the early years. A few of these I’d heard of before because they’re discussed on commentary tracks, others were new to me (and some have more dubious sourcing that others), but it’s worth a look even if it is in an annoying pageview whore click-for-each-one format.
Laughing in Purgatory: Mike Reiss of The Simpsons at the Humanist Hub – Video of a talk Reiss gave to a bunch of people at Harvard. It’s long, but funny throughout:
“Or, as the old joke goes, I’m Jew-ish, and by that I mean that I would never eat a ham sandwich . . . in a synagogue . . . on Yom Kippur . . . if there was anybody watching.”
The Simpsons’ “Lunchlady Doris” is “Lunchlady Dora” now – Apparently the Zombie Simpsons writers finally realized that having Lunchlady Doris still be on the show after Doris Grau died wasn’t a good look for them. In typical Zombie Simpsons fashion, they half assed it by trying to retcon her name but leaving everything else the same. Then, as if to underscore how butthurt and hacktacular they are, one of them took to Twitter in a hapless attempt to paper it all over:
His story there is that they used the same character model, had someone try to do a voice that sounded like Grau’s, and never mentioned the name change for nineteen years, but that they’ve always thought of her as “Dora” in that time, “out of respect”. Sorry, but I gotta call bullshit on that. You guys replaced her voice and used the same character. It was a shitty thing to do, and I’m glad there’s some attempt to rectify it now, but what’s done is done. You can’t go back and pretend you never did the shitty thing in the first place.
Why I caved and had my Springfield hacked. – A thoughtful post on cheating in Tapped Out. I’m kinda surprised that it worked, but EA deserves no sympathy so I say go for it.
Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff – And, since there’s no point having a hundred million dollar cash cow if you can’t copy it directly to try and make a second one, the Family Guy Tapped Out clone will be available next week.
The Simpsons ‘could last 50 years’ – This was making the rounds the last couple of days because Jean said “I can’t see why we wouldn’t go to 30 . . .and why can’t we go to 40 or even 50”. It’s just his usual boilerplate being blown out of proportion by pageview hungry bloggers and columnists who saw a chance for a clickable headline. Ignore it.
What ‘The Simpsons’ Says About Ukraine’s Language Divide – Apparently they stopped broadcasting an official Ukrainian language version five years ago.
Twin Peaks and The Simpsons – together at last? Characters from David Lynch show get a Simpsons makeover – This was floating around this week, and is kinda good, but where’s the unicorn and the traffic light?
Classic Food-Related Simpsons Moments – Great list:
This is a truly inspired culinary invention. It is no less than a block of butter covered in caramel and waffle mix held together with a cocktail stick. A reminder for all to follow your food related fantasies and it might just result in something beautiful.
And no Zombie Simpsons.
An ode to Lisa Simpson – As usual, Lisa is a hero, but this is impressive remote handling:
Growing up with older siblings, especially my brother Patrick, I was exposed to “The Simpsons” at far, far too early an age. We used to sit around the family room almost every night, flipping between two different episodes of the show, which ran at the same time on two different stations. With this method and my brother’s admirable dedication, I had watched hundreds of episodes by age 10
Calculate your total time spent watching TV shows – The Simpsons comes in at 11d:13h:30m, but that’s if you only watch episodes once, which, yeah. (via)
Top 10 Homer Simpson moments – This is also one of those annoying pageview gluttons, but it does have some good YouTube and there’s no Zombie Simpsons.
The Simpsons: 20 Annoying Mistakes You Didn’t Notice – Yet more pageview whoring, but this one lists a lot of “mistakes” that are all pretty much problems with Zombie Simpsons. Funny how that works.
Animated/Live Action ‘Pink Panther’ Film In The Works, Will Focus On Cartoon Character, Not Inspector Clouseau – David Silverman’s going to direct. I’d watch that.
Simpsons Writer Sam Simon Sponsoring Blackfish Racecar At Talladega – Sam Simon continues to spend money on pretty damn cool things.
Voice of The Simpsons Harry Shearer speaks about Llanelli’s fast-flowing conversation – Harry Shearer goes to Wales and makes nice with the locals.
Video: This cartoon theme song mashup will make you feel nostalgia – A long video of cartoon theme songs put out by Carnegie Hall, of all places:
They don’t play much from each theme, so they pack a ton into just five minutes. (The Simpsons part is at the 3:00 mark.)
Treading Water – The show relieving inter-generational tension:
I requested The Simpsons for my kids via netflix and the dvds happened to arrive during my mom’s visit. Now I know my mom HATES the Simpsons so I waited until she was asleep to put them on for the kids. But she ended up waking up… standing in the living room and even laughed at a few of the jokes.
Later she says to me, “I used to think The Simpsons was disgraceful, but compared to what’s out there today it’s not so bad.”
In other words… I’m letting my kids watch “disgraceful” programming.
And she’s a liberal, what liberal doesn’t love The Simpsons?
She laughed. You did good.
WEEKEND RECAP. – An excellent old Simpsons book found at a second hand store.
Classic Intel Ad! – An old Simpsons ad for the Pentium II. Ha!
Keeping It Cool – His mom says he’s cool.
Happy April Fools! – Call in the Code 8!
Super Soul Simpsons Sunday – Heh.
Kue ulang tahun simpson – DADDY – A pretty awesome Homer birthday cake.
Neither A Review Of “Breaking Bad” Nor Of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” – Excellent usage:
Marge: We drove around until three in the morning looking for another open all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant.
Lionel Hutz: And when you couldn’t find one?
Marge: [crying] We… went… fishing.
Lionel Hutz: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do these sound like the actions of a man whose had ALL he could eat?Does my wife sound like someone who has had all the “Breaking Bad” she could watch?
No!
SAHM (because giving it a natty acronym makes it less painful) – A woman contemplates being at home for the first time:
It was never meant to be easy! I might just have to replace the wine with coffee and take my inspiration from Marge.
Just set the vacuum on dirt patrol.
Simpsons Hit and Run – Speedrun – Have two hours to kill watching a stranger fly through an eleven-year-old video game? You’re in luck.
Top 5 Simpsons Games – From the same site as the above, a seven minute YouTube video of the best Simpsons games.
Virtual Springfield Gameplay – And our final video game YouTube is that weird encyclopedia type game that they released.
Random Simpsons Screencap of the Day 3/28/14 – I think we should go.
Random Simpsons Screencap of the Day 4/1/14 – Great grab of Homer peeling the duct tape off Bart’s eyes.
Captain’s Log Day #223 – Some magical animal – Heh.
Dissected: The Simpsons by East India Youth – And finally, I get to end as I prefer, with someone who agrees with us, in this case in a long interview about the show with some .gifs and plenty of YouTube:
I think the most important thing to mention here (and you should definitely write this up): I don’t think it’s possible to have that connection to the show anymore, with the new episodes. You know this as well as I do I’d think, but there’s definitely a golden age to that show.
Seasons Two to Nine we’re talking?
EIY: Yeah… And the super fans of the show totally respect that, it’s like an unwritten rule isn’t it? That is the best period.
Well, it’s not unwritten (ahem), but yeah.
31
Aug
13
Quote of the Day
“Now, folks, a seven and five football season doesn’t come cheap, and this is a fundraiser . . . seal the exits.” – Springfield University Chancellor
29
Jul
13
Quote of the Day
“I invented a program that downloads porn off the internet one million times faster.” – Skinny Nerd
“Does anybody need that much porno?” – Marge Simpson
“Ohhh, one million times.” – Homer Simpson
25
Jul
12
Crazy Noises: Faith Off
“You’re playing days are over, my friend. But you can always fall back on your degree in Communications! Oh, dear Lord.” – Dr. Hibbert
“I know. Is phony major. Lubchenko learn nothing! Nothing!” – Anton Lubchenko
For the fourth summer in a row, we here at the Dead Homer Society will be spending some time discussing twelve year old Simpsons episodes. This year we’re doing Season 11. Why Season 11? Because we’ve done Seasons 8, 9 and 10 already, and it’s time to take an unflinching look at the end of the show. Since Skype and podcasts didn’t exist in 1999, and we want to discuss these episodes the way the internet intended, we’re sticking with the UTF-8 world of chat rooms and instant messaging. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (surprisingly enough, not on “Lubchenko”).
Today’s episode is 1111, “Faith Off”. Tomorrow will be 1112, “The Mansion Family”.
[Note: Dave couldn’t make it this week, Mad Jon and I are jealous he didn’t have to watch these.]
Charlie Sweatpants: Ready to get started?
Mad Jon: I am.
Charlie Sweatpants: Bart as the healer/preacher it is, then.
Like “Little Big Mom”, I think there could’ve been a good episode here. And like “Little Big Mom”, I want to like this episode but just can’t.
Mad Jon: Agreed, I was telling my wife that I wasn’t not looking forward to watching this one, but then I realized why I never watch it.
Charlie Sweatpants: Which is?
Mad Jon: Well it is a rich tapestry.
I am sure it will fall along the same lines why you want to like it, but can’t get your head around it.
The common Zombie characteristics are here, and it really could have been a good one. There are lots of good lines, and some solid ideas, but always something is lying around the corner to cut off the potential for sustained enjoyment.
Charlie Sweatpants: The “potential for sustained enjoyment” is a good way to put it.
I can buy Bart becomes a faith healer among the students at the school. He can exploit people’s faith for his own benefit, learn a lesson (but not really) and there you go. But I can’t buy Bart taking all of Lovejoy’s flock, then letting Milhouse get hurt, then seeing Homer crippling a kicker to have Fat Tony show up and all the other crap that makes the ending a swirling mess.
No sooner is there something decent than things get bizarre and out of hand again. And in so many different ways.
This is also one of the few times I can recall wishing the opening wasn’t related to the rest of the episode.
Mad Jon: Why is that?
Do you feel the opening would have been better on its own, or t’other way round?
Charlie Sweatpants: The football game/float subplot was a great source of how bad the ending got. If they had dropped that for a straight Bart-as-preacher angle, the ending might not have ended with Fat Tony and flying legs.
And the opening, which is the best part of the episode, would have been better off, particularly if they transported Lubchenko’s immortal “Is phony major! Lubchenko learn nothing!” to the banquet.
Mad Jon: Oooh, that would have been better.
Charlie Sweatpants: Right?
Though I’ll never get why they replaced Dean Peterson with that weak Dean Wormer knock-off.
Mad Jon: I liked the opening, but I was also a fan of the scene when Bart meets Don Cheadle.
Agreed.
Why on earth was Dean Peterson not the same guy?!?
He didn’t do any of the things that the typical Dean Wormer knock-offs normally do.
Charlie Sweatpants: Well, he was mean, old and crotchety. Though he does get some good lines.
Mad Jon: Not the same. Take for example the Futurama version.
That was good.
This was weak.
Charlie Sweatpants: “A 7-5 football team doesn’t come cheap” and “Professor Rocko and Chancellor Knuckles” being my two favorites.
Mad Jon: I was about to point out that he did have some of the best lines.
Charlie Sweatpants: Agreed on the guy from Mars University. What he loves about being dean of students is the peace and quiet and the respect he receives.
But the opening quickly leads to the bucket thing, which leads to the revival for some reason, which does give Don Cheadle a couple of good lines but makes no sense all the same.
Mad Jon: Yeah, I know. The random event machine didn’t skip a beat this time.
Charlie Sweatpants: I’d forgotten that they got to the revival meeting by just crash landing there.
Mad Jon: Me too.
Charlie Sweatpants: I mean, Jebus, I know this episode has no transitions whatsoever, but that was abrupt, even for a car crash.
Mad Jon: I couldn’t figure out what was going on, I thought it was the circus or something and I just didn’t remember.
Charlie Sweatpants: Nope, they just drop it out of nowhere.
The story priorities here are just weird. Like, they spend that whole seen showing Bart acquiring that tent, and then they skip over just about anything that would lead Lovejoy’s entire congregation to it.
It’s the same with Homer at the game. He’s got a BBQ in the stands, he jumps onto the field, and all this other crap, but they never explain why he’d want to build a float, or why he’d be able to build a float.
Mad Jon: He went from BBQ in the aisle to drunk in the seat, to aware of the fact he isn’t on the field, to drunk driving his float.
Charlie Sweatpants: Yup.
Mad Jon: In addition to your valid float related items. There were 3 floats, and Homer, by himself, makes one.
Charlie Sweatpants: And don’t forget that he just shows up in the locker room with Hibbert (who is the team doctor for some reason) to heal Lubchenko.
Mad Jon: Also true.
Charlie Sweatpants: Or that Fat Tony materializes out of nowhere.
Mad Jon: Yeah, just had to throw that in I guess. Couldn’t let Bart try to heal Lubchenko without Homer being threatened by a laser guided ice pick.
Charlie Sweatpants: There still are good jokes though. The Keith Jackson impersonator is okay (like his “an overdue salute to halftime itself”), and this is where “Lubchenko learn nothing!” landed, but at this point in the episode I have so little idea what’s going on that I’m not even sure if Fat Tony is serious or an apparition.
Mad Jon: The associations are pretty loose here.
But again I think that there is really too much going on to allow a simple mind such as mine to focus on the two major plot lines.
Charlie Sweatpants: Neither of them makes a half lick of sense, is the problem.
And that’s before Fat Tony shows up out of nowhere for one of them.
The whole thing is just a giant mess, and yet we’re supposed to take the ending seriously?
Mad Jon: Yeah whateves.
I do have to ask, why did Lenny blink 3 times after the cow college comment preceding what I assume was the commercial break?
Charlie Sweatpants: I’ve always liked that. Well, not the blinking, but that stern nod he gives. Like it’d be fighting words to contradict him.
I’m also a fan of Brockman getting pissed at “fever”, though I could’ve done without the pan off camera for his nerdy nephew writer.
Mad Jon: The nephew was probably too much.
Charlie Sweatpants: Any other standouts for you here?
Mad Jon: I enjoyed the preacher and Bart’s discussion of religion as full coverage against accidental death.
But other than that, not really.
Charlie Sweatpants: Yeah, Cheadle’s delivery on “wow, that’s a good angle” is a definite highlight.
But this one remains basically unwatchable in my book. There’s just way too much stupid.
Mad Jon: Agreed.
But I have an easy solution for us, we can continue not watching it.
Charlie Sweatpants: Good. Onto Burns Manor, then?
Mad Jon: Yep.
“I won’t even subject you to the horrors of our Three Stooges ward.” – Dr. Hibbert
[Note: Crazy Noises for “Faith Off” and “The Mansion Family” will be along on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.]
It’s not exactly news that the show increasingly relied on weird, hyperactive nonsense as it flew apart at the seams and became Zombie Simpsons. The world of Springfield, which originally had been a recognizable if exaggerated stand in for real life, increasingly became the kind of stylized pseudo-reality where actions didn’t really have consequences and physical realities change from scene to scene. The simplest way to see this is to look at the basic stories of so many episodes in Seasons 10 and 11: there’s the Loch Ness Monster, there’s Bart downing a satellite with a tank, there’s Homer and company breaking into Rupert Murdoch’s Super Bowl suite.
But it wasn’t just the big events of the stories that reveal this new commitment to silliness over everything else. Consider the scene in “Faith Off” where Dr. Hibbert shows Homer and Marge some of the other patients in his care. Homer has managed to get a bucket glued to his head (which itself is more than a little reminiscent of Bart getting novelty items glued to his face in Season 9’s “Lost Our Lisa), which gives Hibbert a chance to simply raise some blinds and show off three patients with “traumedy” injuries.
Here’s everything Hibbert says to introduce them:
Hibbert: I’m afraid it’s hopeless. Beneath that bucket he’s more glue than man.
Marge: So he’s stuck like this forever?
Hibbert: Oh, now don’t fret. These days, the victims of comedy-traumas, or traumedies, can still lead rich, full lives.
And that’s the whole joke. The episode pans over each of them, Hibbert doesn’t really say anything after that, and then it’s time for Homer to continue living with the bucket on his head. It’s far from the worst scene in the episode, but it is the kind of unremarkable filler on which Zombie Simpsons leans so heavily. There isn’t anything going on here more than, hey, we drew these slightly amusing pictures that make so little sense that we hope you’ll giggle at them.
Contrast that with a superficially similar scene in “Bart the Daredevil”, where Hibbert shows Bart some of his other patients in an attempt to prevent Bart from again trying to copy daredevil stunts. Here’s the dialogue:
Hibbert: I think I know something that might discourage him from this sort of behavior. Bart, in this ward are the children who have been hurt by imitating stunts they saw on television, movies, and the legitimate stage. . . . This little boy broke his leg, trying to fly like Superman. This boy’s brother hit him in the head with a wrench, mimicking a recent TV wrestling match. I won’t even subject you to the horrors of our Three Stooges ward.
Marge: Gee, I never realized TV was such a dangerous influence.
Hibbert: Well, as tragic as all this is, it’s a small price to pay for countless hours of top notch entertainment.
Homer: Amen.
Unlike the guy with the swordfish through his chest, this scene has more than one thing occurring. Not only are Bart’s motivations and antics central to the plot and Hibbert’s patients believable (if funny) exaggerations, but we’re also treated to that wonderful meta joke where Marge, Hibbert and Homer take a (rather mean) potshot at the show’s critics. It’s one of the subtler “think of the children!” jokes the show ever did, but there’s no mistaking that they’re not only calling television “dangerous”, but saying that it’s perfectly okay for it to be so.
The whole scene and all the gags it contains work because they aren’t filler, aren’t just silly drawings and cheap jokes. We get a callback to earlier in the episode with the wrench, we set up the central conflict of the rest of the story (Marge and Homer trying to stop Bart from being a daredevil), we get the subtle glance at the fourth wall with the meta-television joke, and there’s even some token Stooges silliness (though it would be awesome if real hospitals had Three Stooges wards).
These are just two small scenes, but there’s no denying that each one is attempting very different kinds of entertainment. Zombie Simpsons wastes time because, well, what else are you going to do once you’ve gotten a bucket stuck on Homer’s head? They’ve left anything that could be called recognizable reality behind, so they’re left with nothing more than eating clock with a few drawn out sight gags that don’t make any sense. The Simpsons doesn’t waste time or drop all pretense of reality because it knows that killing time isn’t funny and that for satire to work things can’t be boundlessly silly in one scene and totally normal in the next.
charliesweatpants.com
(The crotch really does wear out too fast.)
The Mob Has Spoken