Dead Homer Society

“Just gonna relax with my U.S. News and World whatnot.  Ah, good, roasting the new guy.” – Bush the Elder

Before we get to this week’s links, I’d like to show you something that illustrates just how different the attitude of the Zombie Simpsons writing staff is from that of The Simpsons.  Yesterday, Matt Selman, who is the longtime second-in-command at Zombie Simpsons and who’s been running some of his own episodes the last two seasons, tweeted this:

Zombie Simpsons has long acted as unpaid advertising for businesses The Simpsons genuinely mocked, but it’s another level of commercial apathy to have one of the head writers take to Twitter and personally help his “pals” at Axe advertise the shitty and laughably stupid perfume they sell to insecure and sexually naive adolescents.  (Selman, by the way, is in his 40s.)  Twitter didn’t exist twenty years ago, but it’s damn hard to imagine the guys who wrote the beer parody ad where dour feminists turn into giddy bikini babes at a splash of Duff personally endorsing Budweiser or Miller Lite in their spare time, much less repeating the ads they mocked so harshly.  That tweet is some shameful shit.

In more pleasant Simpsons news, the big story this week was the release of official pictures of the new Lego Simpsons set.  There were uncountable tweets, blog posts, and articles about this, but there’s only one link below because all of them were just reposting the same pictures and information.  In addition to that, we’ve got two links each this week to people getting themselves Simpsonized and politicians invoking the show to lambaste their enemies.  And in addition to that, we’ve got quite a few excellent fan made drawings, some excellent usage, several people who agree with us, and some real life turnip juice, just like they make in Shelbyville.

The Merciless Peppers of Quetzalacatenango – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is this scientist’s discussion of those merciless peppers:

When Homer just barely puts one of these peppers on his tongue, it burns so much he has to find something to drink; beer is at hand, but he doesn’t drink it only dipping his tongue in it to remove the heat (capsaicin is not water soluble, but is in fat, so milk or drinking straight up butter is the way to go, alcohol actually makes it worse),

Say cheese! You’re being Simpsonized – The first of our two Simpsonizing posts this week has the entire process, from sketch to done, of Simpsonizing a picture of two young women.  Looks great.

You Can Add Lego’s Simpson Set To Your Must Have List For 2014 – All New Pics AND A Video! – Lots and lots of pics from the Lego set, including a video of nice Scandinavian people explaining how they were designed.  You can buy it next month for $200 (ouch).

Turn Your Handsome Face into a Simpsons Cartoon – The “Simpsonize Me” site has been dead for a few years now, but you can get yourself done that way for a mere $5 if you’re so inclined.

homer.jpg – Just because it was 15 KBBL degrees below zero on my way to work Tuesday doesn’t mean it isn’t blazing hot on the other side of the planet.  Heh.

How ‘The Simpsons’ Taught ‘Parks and Recreation’ to Create Rich, Memorable Characters – Sadly, this stopped being true about fifteen seasons ago:

The success of the formula boils down to the writer’s diligence for giving each character a specific role to play from episode to episode. Dr. Hibbert is the doctor, and that’s it; we see him every time there’s a storyline related to medicine. Moe is always serving drinks at Moe’s, and Apu is always behind the counter of the Kwik-E-Mart. Similarly, you’ll rarely see Groundskeeper Willie away from Springfield Elementary.

They have turned most of the secondary characters into goo and will mash them willy-nilly into any scene, no matter how out of place they are.

Hank Scorpio – #310/#365 – Somebody slapped a Scorpio sticker on a trash can in Ireland.

The Boy – Cool fan made drawing of a very pissed off Homer.

Bartfink – An awesomely creepy fan made Bart drawing.

Kick-flip Triptych: Rad Dogs. The United Geekdom Geek Dogs Expo. – Fan made drawing of Santa’s Little Helper flipping over a car on a skateboard.  (The Back to the Future one is pretty good, too.)

Ogni volta che un autore spagnolo usa un laismo, in Italia un traduttore muore. – Nelson photoshopped into laughing at the Death of Marat.

The Simpsons – Fan made drawing of the Simpsons swimming.

The Proverbial Skeptic’s 5 Buzzwords to Stop Using in 2014 – Excellent usage:

There is a scene in an old episode of The Simpsons from 1997 which depicts a corporate meeting held to create a new cartoon character (Poochie, who ends up being voiced by Homer). The executives in the meeting keep throwing out buzzwords until a writer, clearly fed up that the conversation is going nowhere, interrupts to say “Excuse me, but ‘proactive’ and ‘paradigm’? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that. I’m fired, aren’t I?”

But that was 1997. It’s a new year, and it’s also National Hangover Day, so, as The Proverbial Skeptic, it is only right for me to suggest some resolutions. People don’t say “paradigm” or “proactive” or the all-time classic, “synergy”, anymore.

He keeps on rockin’ and stompin’: Greg Rekus stomps his way to the Park Theatre Wednesday – And excellent reference:

Armed with an acoustic guitar and a tambourine-clad stomp box, Winnipeg musician Greg Rekus often gets the “one-man band” tag, a musical term that, according to The Simpsons, will get you attacked by a monkey.

Go for the face!

Isaac Newton in the Simpsons – Did you forget Isaac Newton’s birthday last week?  I sure did.

Round 46, Part 2: The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star – The winner by default wins again.

THE BEST EPISODE THINGY THERE EVER WAS ROUND 1: When Flanders Failed VS. Homer The Heretic – True:

After dancing around in his underwear, Homer heads to the kitchen for something to eat. What’s he cooking? Comedy gold.

THE BEST EPISODE THINGY THERE EVER WAS ROUND 1: Stark Raving Dad VS. Separate Vocations – This line always gets me:

Marge: Doctor, if you just talk to him for five minutes without mentioning our son Bart, you’d see how sane he is.
Doctor: You mean there really is a  Bart?! Good Lord!

Blurst of times – YouTube of those blurst times.

The Simpsons: The Sixteenth Season – True:

There are a few laughs, but overall the 16^th season reminds us just how good we had it during seasons 4-8.

IL Gov. Compares GOP Candidates To The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns – He even got the full name right, calling him “C. Montgomery Burns”.  Well done.

‘The Bart Simpson defence’: Surprising pop culture references in the Dáil and Seanad – Irish politicians like quoting Bart.

Istanbul Grill’s Turn of the Turnip – Excellent reference:

Remember that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart and his pals meet their Shelbyville doppelgangers after the latter steal Springfield‘s hallowed lemon tree? Remember how the episode ended, with Springfield kids quenching their thirst with sweet lemonade, while Shelbyville’s youngsters chugged turnip juice in disgust? And remember how your palate recoiled at the thought of the beverage, even if you had never conceived of it in your life, let alone tasted it? Well, turnip juice has been a Turkish staple for centuries, and you can order a glass of it at Istanbul Grill in Fountain Valley.

Poll: An Affair to Remember – I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that this pretty much sums up my relationship to the Tapped Out game, and I’ve only been playing it for four months:

Longer than the grueling hours it used to take to play Monopoly. Longer than the occasional dalliance with solitaire. Longer than my late night virtual gambling phase with Blackjack and Poker. And longer than any marathon session with Donkey Kong, Solid Snake, or Zelda.

TSTO and I have basically been having an affair for 15 months now – it’s been an illicit affair, one my family and friends don’t quite approve of.

The Liebster Award!!! – Good answer:

5. What is your favorite TV show?

All time? Probably “The Simpsons”. There was a time in my life when a 24-hour all-Simpsons channel would have made perfect sense to me.

An Important Announcement From In 10 Words – This post is actually 130 words, but I’m glad it’ll keep going.

Line(s) of the Day #TheSimpsons – Heh.

‘The Simpsons’: Judd Apatow on playing ‘self-involved’ Judd Apatow – A short interview with Apatow.  No real news, but there wouldn’t be, would there?

The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh – A book review that agrees with us:

Another fun thing about this book is reminiscing about old Simpsons episodes from my childhood. This book describes different episodes that have secret mathematical equations or anecdotes built-in. When the author describes the episodes and the deeper mathematical meaning, I gain a newfound appreciation for the episode. Nothing beats old Simpsons episodes in my humble opinion, and now I know why – the writers are so smart!

Wendy Wept – This is about the most recent finale of South Park, but it does nicely agree with us:

The show filled a subversive void that The Simpsons had left back in the nineties, when they transitioned from being edgy to over to just plain sad.

True.

• This was not done as any kind of political statement at all.

• Indeed, production just needed severed heads, and the prop department had a Bush head laying about.

• As you can tell from the pic — which is a severe close-up of part of the shot where Joffrey makes Sansa look at her dad’s head on a pike and not an actual shot in the show — they put a wig on it and turned it away from the camera to minimize the chance anyone could tell it was Bush.

• In fact, no one would have even know it was Bush except that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss mentioned that it’s Bush in episode 10 director’s commentary track.

Homer described “Calvin Klein, Gloria Vanderbilt and Antoine Bugleboy” as “people who saw an overcrowded market and said, ‘Me, too!’ ”

Well, Kathy Griffin is nothing if not brave. She saw an overcrowded talk-and-comment market and said, “Me, too!”

most of my clips are from the first eight seasons when the show was focused on the characters much more than the newer episodes are.

Speaking of body parts, welcome to the strangest fruit that I have ever encountered–the Buddha’s Hand (a clever segue, even if I do say so myself).  This citrus fruit is kind of creepy looking–like the hands of a Simpsons  character that has hung out at Mr. Burns Nuclear Power plant a little too long.

Just take a photo of whatever is on your TV. it could be a funny moment in your favourite show, an advert that annoys you, or a cool scene from a video game you’re playing. Whatever really, as long as it’s a photo and not a screen grab. Keep it pure people.

Dialogue from an episode of The Simpsons tells us the kind of image the shirts have today. Homer: "Marge, our son was wearing a Hawaiian shirt today! There’s only two kinds of guys who wear Hawaiian shirts: gay guys or big fat party animals! And Bart doesn’t look like a big fat party animal to me!" Marge: "So if you wore a Hawaiian shirt, it wouldn’t be gay?" Homer: "Right! Thank you."

Homer:  Marge, the boy was wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
Marge:  So?
Homer:  There’s only two kinds of guys who wear those shirts, gay guys and big fat party animals.  And Bart doesn’t look like a big fat party animal to me.
Marge:  So if you wore a Hawaiian shirt it wouldn’t be gay.
Homer:  Right.  Thank you.

The key to this fine example of deixis is of course (17-year-old spoiler alert) that we assume that “it” is a gun and “you” is a would-be murderer, but in fact Mr. Burns has come upon baby Maggie Simpson with a piece of candy that he decides to take (after having earlier declared an interest in taking candy from a baby). He only gets shot when the gun accidentally goes off in the struggle for the lollipop. Performance– or an imagined performance– is therefore the key to interpreting deictic language. We begin by imagining one version of events, only to see an entirely different one unfold through the same dialogue.

The comedy is where the references come in. The "dance of the dinner rolls" is probably the most recognizable as Abe Simpson did the same thing on "The Simpsons" while the show was in its prime.

For those, like me, who haven’t ventured down the "five weeklies for $5" aisle of a Civic Video store lately, just think of that episode of The Simpsons when Homer carries Marge out of the nuclear power plant and declares: "I’m going to the back seat of my car with the woman I love and I won’t be back for 10 minutes!"

The man has a way with romance, it’s true, and if your film hasn’t been referenced in The Simpsons, you haven’t really made it in Hollywood.

But just because a film was once popular doesn’t mean it will be a hit on stage.

The Simpsons. The longest-running primetime television sitcom of all time, in its 23rd season with two more secured, The Simpsons has simply run its course. No longer as funny, edgy or interesting as it was in its first 10 seasons it’s time to get out of Dodge, er Springfield.