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“You’re looking at Adolf Hitler’s personal limousine! It’s roomier than Bonnie & Clyde’s death car, and was the first automobile to come with fahrvergnugen.” – Rich Texan
“Wow, it’s fuhrerriffic!” – Bart Simpson
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Homer is hypnotized at a circus into believing he is ten years old. Bart has fun with him at first, making him his new best friend and accomplice. However, it becomes a pain when the hypnotist dies and the family is unable to turn Homer into his old self again
So I guess this was originally written by Judd Apatow more than 2 decades ago. On just that fact alone I would be intrigued, but now that Al Jean has had his greasy mitts on it, I believe I won’t be all that inclined to switch on FOX tonight.
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“Then me and my friend were about to press it, but the man said not to press it, but we pressed it anyway! And we ran and we hid in a giant tire, oh yeah, and my other friend was already there!” – Homer Simpson
In yet another desperate bid for attention, Zombie Simpsons has once again hitched its cart to a more currently successful person. In this case, it’s Judd Apatow (who wrote a couple of good episodes of The Critic back in the day), who dusted off an old spec script he wrote twenty odd years ago. The premise is that Homer gets hypnotized and thinks he’s Bart’s age. I’ll just say this: there’s a reason this didn’t get made when the show was good, and it’s not because Apatow wasn’t famous then.
- Oof, that couch gag took an awful long time.
- And we get an early start on this week’s unnecessary exposition with Homer singing to himself about walking.
- So there’s another safety inspector? I’m sure glad he and Homer repeated who he was and what he did several times. I never would’ve caught it in one.
- The book titles are pretty good, “The Core: Mistress of Death”. As usual, the sign gags are the best thing here.
- Lenny and Carl were there, then they weren’t.
- Now Lenny’s back.
- Ah, that’s good exposition, unneeded, nonsensical, the whole megillah: “You need to relax. So, I got us all tickets to see the circus on Saturday.”
- Homer is ranting about parking now. It’s like they believe that the famous phrase is “tell, don’t show” instead of the other way around.
- I get that the sideshow signs are Apatow references, but reminding the audience about the existence of Funny People isn’t a good idea. I gave up on that movie halfway through and have never talked to a single person who liked it.
- So, Marge needed to explain to Homer that she had to use the port-a-potty, why, exactly?
- “No, I’m not”/”Yes you are” just keeps going, doesn’t it?
- “Mom, Dad’s been hypnotized to think he was ten.” – Thanks, Exposition Lisa!
- “Buddy Ebsen Died Here” on the hospital sign is pretty good. Sadly, this episode would probably be funnier on mute.
- Hey, a briefly popped eyeball.
- I’ll give them this, 10-year-old Homer is at least a novel take on Jerkass Homer. It’s not funny or entertaining or anything, but he’s never been an asshole quite like this.
- Culottes were funny that one time; here, not so much,
- Uh, why is Homer at the school?
- Naturally, Chalmers is there. Remember when he was the superintendent? Good times.
- They’re reusing the happy music from “Treehouse of Horror II” when Bart and Homer bond. It was ironic then. It’s kinda ironic now, but in a different way.
- Also, Chalmers and Skinner are back.
- Speaking of re-used music, Lisa’s playing “Baker Street“.
- “Lis, you know how Dad thinks he’s a ten-year-old?”/”I’ve been emotionally dealing with that all week, so, yes.” We just saw Lisa have fun with Homer. Also too, unnecessary exposition.
- And now Bart’s explaining what we just saw.
- Now they’re at Itchy & Scratchy Land for some reason. That was unexpected.
- The MST3K robots on the amusement park ride are a nice touch, though once again the best parts of this episode have nothing to do with its story and work fine without any sound whatsoever.
- Incidentally, if you ever do get suckered into going to Disney’s California Adventure park, the Soarin’ Over California ride is one of the few things really worth doing. It’s a lot more entertaining in person than as filler in Zombie Simpsons.
- Marge, Chief Wiggum, Lou, and the hypnotist just showed up out of nowhere. How did they find Bart and Homer? Enh. At least Wiggum re-explained things.
- And Homer’s back to normal now, though he also recapped things.
- I guess the “Je Suis Charlie” thing is a nice gesture, but why was it in between the end of the story and this weird Marvel thing they needed to fill the contractually obligated runtime?
- Huh, that was Stacy Keach at the beginning.
Anyway, the numbers aren’t in for some reason, but given the lack of late football on FOX and competition from yet another awards show, I wouldn’t expect much. I’ll update after TV By the Numbers does.
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“What about Clemens?” – C.M. Burns
“Sir, he’s in no condition to play.” – Mr. Smithers
A person suddenly changing their whole personality basically only happens in fiction. It can be the steel screw who becomes a softy, the wallflower gaining rock solid confidence, even the idiot who’s suddenly smart. The usual way to do this is with a bonk on the head, which generally comes complete with a second one near the end to put everything back the way it was. (NOTE: Brains don’t actually work that way, please do not attempt at home.)
Sometime in the very early 1990s, a then unknown Judd Apatow sat down and wrote a teleplay that took that tried and true television premise and applied it to Homer Simpson. The twist, if it can be called that, is that instead of his noggin getting a floggin’, Homer got himself altered through hypnosis. A few meaningfully pronounced words, and, presto change-o, Homer Simpson thinks he’s a little kid again. Hilarity is presumed to ensue. (He and the episode would’ve been better off if he’d cornered the real-estate market instead, but that’s neither here nor there.)
The problem is that this premise is parchment paper thin even before you start noticing all the holes in it. The go to joke for the personality switch episode is “whoa, s/he’s acting totally out of character”, beyond that there isn’t much there. What’s worse, your character’s normal personality is the one that makes sense in context. Having them act completely abnormally is generally an awkward fit, at best.
“Bart’s New Friend”, as Zombie Simpsons so often does, brings out the worst of this old and not terribly good premise. By making Homer a little kid who’s friends with Bart, they not only have to shoehorn Kid-Homer into all kinds of bizarre places, but also gave him nothing to do while he was there. When he (twice) shows up to play with actual kids, he doesn’t interact with them or really do anything, the episode just wants us to know he’s there. The same is true when they’re at home, where all that happens is “Homer is a kid”. The family barely reacts and nothing outside of that is even happening.
The beginning of the episode is Homer working a ton because he’s now the only safety inspector and actually has to do his job. That whole rationale is dropped completely for the rest of the episode until a lone mention at the end that the other guy game back. We don’t see anything with the plant or Homer’s co-workers after their safety inspector reverts to childhood. Lenny and Carl don’t try to take him to Moe’s to jog his memory, Burns doesn’t disbelieve his story, nothing.
Similarly, Marge, Lisa and Bart don’t have anything but Homer going on. Basically the only time we see any effect on anything is Homer’s brief appearances with the other kids, but even those are glossed over to the point of barely happening. Here’s the dialogue from when Bart and Homer are playing in the park:
Bart: If you wedgie me, my friend will beat you up.
Dolph: That’s not your friend, it’s your screwed up Dad.
Jimbo: Pretty sad, really.
Kearney: We’ll leave you alone.
Bart: You did it, Homer! You saved me from the bullies! You’re the coolest kid I ever met.
Milhouse: What about me?
Bart: You’re in the top hundred.
Milhouse: Boo-yeah!
Bart: Now you’re not.
Milhouse: Oh.
For one thing, this is hacktacularly expository. Bart and Dolph explain what’s going on, then Bart recaps it for us (“You saved me from the bullies!”), but nobody actually does anything but stand around. More importantly, in that entire scene Homer doesn’t say a single word. He is literally a prop.
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Please do not interact with the story’s main character.
That silent cameo is about the closest this episode comes to actually showing us some of the effects of the tortured premise it went out of its way to employ. This is the mid-life crisis equivalent of buying that sports car model that was cool when you were fifteen and then leaving it in the garage. It was a dumb idea even before they didn’t try to have any fun with it.
Compare that to the time The Simpsons employed the exact same premise with, of all people, Roger Clemens. In just a few quick scenes, Clemens goes through an identical story to Kid-Homer, and we actually get to see some of the effects of it, with Clemens being unavailable for the championship game and clucking away instead of pitching.
Better yet, it’s one of those perfect note jokes that builds on everything around it. A man acting like a chicken is one thing; maybe it’s funny, maybe it’s not. But a big league star pitcher acting like a chicken because he was hypnotized by a quack on orders from an evil rich man who paid him to be a ringer in a smalltown softball game? That’s so good that your final (non-song) call back to it can be a minor part of a still photo and it’s still hilarious:
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Look at Roger Clemens, he just did an entire episode of Zombie Simpsons in two scenes and you can tell it just by looking at him.
A young Judd Apatow who didn’t know how to write yet may have once pronounced himself satisfied with this, but The Simpsons did it better in less than a page. Bloated out to full script length, it’s typical Zombie Simpsons.
By Roisin Peddle
Forgiveness, please, for some pointless nostalgia right off the bat. Just like The Simpsons, I turned 25 this year. Being a kid without ‘the channels’ [i.e. cable] in 90s Ireland turned me into discerning Simpsons fan. For one thing, our state broadcaster, RTE, was ridiculously behind in broadcasting ‘new’ episodes. In 1998, I remember enjoying ‘Bart’s Friend Falls in Love’ for the first time. The episode was already six years old; so as a result I didn’t see anything from the newer seasons until well after I’d developed my critical faculties.
Secondly, RTE never cut anything out of the original broadcast. Watching “Sideshow Bob Roberts” on prime time on Channel 4 or Sky 1, the lack of Kelsey Grammer’s marvellously-delivered “Is that what you want, you smarmy little bastards?” jars every time. The generous might say the Irish didn’t believe in censorship (ha!). More likely, the RTE mandarins were terrified to cut up expensive tape from America. You should have seen them inserting ad breaks mid-sentence in BBC programmes before the advent of digital.
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Saved by cheapness.
What I am getting at here is that I loved The Simpsons, and it’s shaped me in quite a few ways; my sense of humour, my cynicism, my love of rich creamery butter, all owe a little something to Groening, Brooks, Simon and co. And then, when I was about 12 or 13, and RTE finally caught up with Zombie Simpsons, it was over. But unlike other things that are over, it kept going.
Many who have given up on the show have their own tipping point. It might be as far back as Armin Tamzarian or Frank Grimes, or it might be Season 22. For me it was a little thing called “Homer Simpson In: Kidney Trouble” when he ran out on his own father who needed a transplant. I was done with the show; it wasn’t what I used to love. Any Zombie Simpsons I’ve seen since have failed to win me back to the fold. And while the movie was alright, it was only alright by the standard of Zombie Simpsons.
I’ve watched an awful lot of the classics lately, and they hold up. The references may be a little dated, but the jokes are so good you don’t care. One of my old college mates made the point that he only knew the names Lee Majors and Eudora Welty through The Simpsons, and he had no intention of finding out more about the people themselves. When Mr. Burns compares a puppy to Rory Calhoun, it doesn’t matter who that is, it matters that a) this old, heartless man spares lives due to his ridiculous whims and b) he’s so out of touch he doesn’t realise that dogs stand up on their hind legs on quite a regular basis. Zombie Simpsons, like Family Guy, assumes the viewer knows something about the figure being joked about, and the joke relies on this knowledge to be funny.
But the biggest problem I have with Zombie Simpsons is that the characters are no longer real people. It’s too simplistic to say the problem with Homer is that he’s now a jerk. In Season 6’s “Lisa on Ice”, for example, he behaves appallingly. He bullies his kids, rides roughshod over everybody and everything, and values victory over all else. But he’s a jerk in a realistic way. He’s relatively low down the ladder of a society where winning is everything. His kids are the only way he can taste some success, and he just loses the run of himself. We can see why this is happening. He’s still a fundamentally decent (and therefore normal) person underneath.
Bart and Lisa (and Maggie) were real children too. The writers in the classic era understood kids: their misconceptions (“reverse vampires”), thier fears (“can’t sleep, clown will eat me”) and their utter confusion regarding the adult world. When you’re ten, you can’t understand why you’re not allowed to spend an afternoon smashing mustard sachets with a hammer.
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Why are you doing that? I dunno.
As a kid, I could identify with Bart’s pain at not being allowed to see The Itchy and Scratchy Movie and his disgust at Milhouse and Samantha’s little relationship. But it was Lisa I ‘got’, seeing her was like seeing myself on screen. Like her, I was a clever child who sometimes found it hard to fit in with my peers. I got excited over history and books and I soon found out that that made me a bit weird.
Lisa would later become a mouthpiece for whatever views the writers wanted to put across to their audience (environmentalism, etc.), but in the classic seasons she was a real kid. She fell out with Bart regularly and could be petty (“That’ll learn him to squish my tomater”). Her inner fantasies were sometimes bitter and vengeful. At one point she daydreams about kicking Bart and impaling him on her Nobel Peace Prize. Yet the sibling love of the oldest Simpson kids was palpable too. In later seasons they’re almost strangers sharing the same house, but in the classics they were a little team.
The arrival of Alison in “Lisa’s Rival” would teach Lisa that she would not always be the smartest person in the room. It was the first challenge to the arrogance that can come with being a clever kid (luckily, I had my mediocrity in Maths to save me from that fate), and Lisa reacted like a real eight-year-old would. She got jealous and angry, and concocted a pathetic revenge scheme before feeling horribly guilty.
In Zombie Simpsons, Lisa is a forty-year-old left-leaning feminist in an eight-year-old body (apt, really, because if she was real she’d be 34). But in the classic era her precocious intelligence was tempered by her youth: she worshipped actors called Corey and played with dolls.
Back to “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love”, the subplot of which involves Lisa becoming concerned about Homer’s weight. Throughout the episode she reads from Eternity magazine about various improbable ways science will improve our lives. It’s all hokum, but it’s precisely the kind of hokum I fell for when I was eight.
“Lisa’s Substitute”, which I just watched and hadn’t seen in years (it seems Seasons 1 and 2 are never shown on TV anymore) is just like it. It’s a beautiful piece of TV: heart-warming and funny. Ms Hoover, Lisa’s teacher, develops psychosomatic Lyme disease (“Does that mean you’re crazy?” “No, it means she was faking it!”), and during her recuperation, the second grade gets a Dustin Hoffman-voiced substitute called Mr Bergstrom. He’s funny, good-humoured and has a genuine passion for teaching. Lisa falls – hard – and it’s through her childish adulation and insecurities (like refusing to play the sax in class, which would be unthinkable in later seasons) that we see her as she is: a bright little girl, an outcast in a family where the boorish Homer and incorrigible Bart dominate.
Homer and Lisa argue when he dismisses her heartbreak at Mr Bergstrom’s departure. The structure of the argument (Lisa snaps, calling Homer a baboon, who wins her round by impersonating one) would be unthinkable in Zombie Simpsons. Reflecting a realistic father-daughter dynamic isn’t what they do. Mr Bergstrom’s final note “You are Lisa Simpson” would be mocked in a fifteenth season episode, where Marge gives her the same handwritten note, only to be dismissed; “I already have one of those”.
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It only works once.
Mr Bergstrom would not write a Zombie Lisa Simpson a note. She isn’t anything, just a collection of poorly-thought out gags and outdated political issues.
Girl nerds were an endangered species on TV when I was a child, and they are still a rarity. I wonder if nerdy little eight-year olds see anyone they recognise on the box now. It’s sure as hell not Lisa Simpson, that’s for sure.
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“I was twenty-four years old with a beautiful girlfriend and a job with a future. . . . Hey, you’re supposed to be listening to my story!” – Homer Simpson
“I thought it was over. You had a problem turning blades, you overcame it, the feel good story of the year.” – Bart Simpson
So the 25th anniversary of “Bart the Genius” was this week, which gave lots of people another chance to go back and talk about all the things the show has done. Most notably, this included internet pop culture factory The A.V. Club, which had a “Simpsons Week“. We’ve got a few of their articles linked below as well as a bunch more, plus the usual assortment of usage, fan made stuff, and weird stories from foreign countries.
Enjoy.
10 Simpsons from the last 10 seasons that aren’t the… Worst. Episodes. Ever. – I’ll admit that part of the reason I’m linking this here is that it mentions us (thanks for the extra few thousand pageviews!). More importantly, however, are the pretzel like word-knots needed to in any way shape or form defend Zombie Simpsons. Observe:
Placed one episode after the other, 220-plus hours of Simpsons episodes doesn’t look like a steady rise through the early years, a pleasant plateau from seasons six through 10, and then a precipitous drop. Viewed in this context, with the filters of nostalgia and goosed-up memories removed, The Simpsons maintains a remarkable consistency through its 25 years on the air. Yes, it’s produced a few genuine clunkers over the years, but between the truly great moments and the truly regrettable ones, there’s a midrange of Simpsons episodes that any other series would be proud to claim.
That’s the opening paragraph. It would seem to not agree with the third one:
To admit that the “good” version of The Simpsons couldn’t last for 26 seasons is to admit that the greatest TV show ever made is also just another TV show. The Simpsons was so transcendently good for so long, but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to the vagaries of inspiration and production that every other show deals with.
So, wait, where’s the twenty-five years of “remarkable consistency” if it was “transcendently good for so long” before falling victim to the same forces that destroy all television shows? It can be consistent, or it can be great and then fall apart, hard to see how it can be both. Here’s the kicker, the last sentence of that paragraph:
Quality be damned, the show remains a cultural force.
Under all the verbiage, there remains no denying that the show that’s on now isn’t the same one that started all those years ago.
What’s your favorite Simpsons quote? – For further evidence, here’s nineteen A.V. Club people picking their favorite quote. Eighteen of them pick from a non-Zombie Simpsons season (including the author of “10 Episodes” link above). The one dissenter writes this:
I’m going to court controversy—and possibly incite a whacking stick-wielding mob—but my choice comes from an episode that aired within the last 10 years. “Papa Don’t Leech,” from the 19th season, is not, by any conceivable measure of quality, a good episode of The Simpsons. Its sins are various—the opening dream sequence of Homer gleefully murdering Abe is bad, but that’s nothing compared to the way the episode craps on the show’s past by unnecessarily revisiting country music seductress Lurleen Lumpkin, from the classic “Colonel Homer.”
You’ve got to pick through a lot of shit to find something worthwhile in Zombie Simpsons. The same cannot be said of The Simpsons.
The irrational rightness of The Simpsons – Our old friend Alec-Nevala Lee on the show’s inexplicable weirdness:
What I’d like to highlight here is a quality that doesn’t get mentioned often enough: the show’s underlying strangeness. Looking back at the golden years of the series, it’s striking how many lines, scenes, and images are both inexplicable and totally right. They’re often tangential beats that go on longer than seem comedically possible—not just the rake gag from “Cape Feare,” but Mr. Burns laughing over the crippled Irishman in “Last Exit to Springfield,” or Homer twiddling his thumbs in “Bart’s Comet.” They’re the comedic version of what Donald Richie, in his discussion of Kurosawa, calls “the irrational rightness of an apparently gratuitous image in its proper place,” and as Richie points out, they’re often the things we remember.
The Simpsons: The Genius of “Bart the Genius” After 25 Years – Den of Geek with a tremendous write up of “Bart the Genius”. A sample:
The episode crystallized the Simpsons vision. The writers turned intelligence and authority on its head. They ridiculed open education and peppered it with subversion. Left, right and center are all off-kilter in Springfield. Blue noses were tweaked and ratting was rewarded. Bart runs bare-assed across the family living room.
Top 5 Kubrick References in ‘The Simpsons’ – With no Zombie Simpsons whatsoever.
On Endings – Very true:
The truly sad thing about these endings is that they can all be done so well, yet many shows never get a chance to try them, since it is far easier to milk a show until it stops paying, then cancel it abruptly. If The Simpsons had ended when it seemed appropriate to wrap it up, a lot of money would have been lost.
Judd Apatow’s ‘Simpsons’ Episode — Season 26 Interview With Writer – Jean and Apatow doing a short publicity interview. I’d kinda like to read this:
JEAN | I actually had a Golden Girls [spec script]. … It was one where Dorothy had an auto accident with Mother Teresa and everyone hated Dorothy.
APATOW | Did you get the job?
JEAN | No, they hated it. [Laughs]
Springfield Stitches – Excellent fan made versions of Ralph not getting any valentines and Kirk van Houten’s master pictionary skills. Some are even for sale if you click through.
Here’s the unfinished first line of paintings at about 97% complete all around and many more to come soon on Etsy! – The devilish look on Bart’s face is great.
Russian Man to Build Copy of ‘The Simpsons’ House in Moscow Region – That’s a much better headline than “Man to Build House”.
This guy recorded alternate versions of your favorite TV theme songs, and they’re incredible – Here’s the Simpsons one:
Find Your Somate, Homer – Heh:
Sometimes, though, the curtain gets pulled back, and great search terms come through. Today, I was treated to this:
“Find your somate, Homer.”
This was either a typo (“find your soulmate, Homer” are the immortal words of Johnny Cash, in his guise as Space Coyote, to Homer Simpson) or an earnest call for Homer Simpson to manifest in the physical world.
What’s Marge Simpson’s problem? – Never thought of it like this:
The thing that bothers me is that in many previous episodes, Marge has consistently stood by Homer no matter how stupid he was, but in this episode, Marge is always against Homer and is constantly locking horns with him over religion. What I’m wondering is, in “Homer the Heretic”, why does Marge get so easily flared up over religion? In every episode where the family goes to church, Marge always has to play the role of the traffic cop, rushing the entire family to go to church looking clean.
Seems pretty Marge like to me for her to pray (“he just likes to sleep in on Sundays”), invite Reverend Lovejoy over, and just keep going back, but that’s just me.
Simpson And Delilah – Some Season 2 love.
Treehouse Of Horror – And some more.
Ript Apparel: Future City, Action Packed 1st Issue!, and Police Dept. of Springfield – Wink wink, indeed.
Wade Boggs — 107 Beers – Pitt the Elder!
Simpsons did it: Springfield’s denizens coming to Minecraft for Xbox – The headline tells you pretty much everything you need to know, but click through and try to count all the references in the actual article. I dare you.
Photo of the Week: The Simpsons in NYC – Nice.
The Simpsons Serves Up a Stinker – Man, people really didn’t like that alien episode.
Mobile Gaming: The Simpsons vs Family Guy – Heh:
I agree: You can’t really compare The Simpsons to Family Guy on television. They’re different shows and comparing those two would be like comparing cats to dogs. Whichever you like best is your own opinion. But, their mobile games… Those I can compare.
If You Can Do The Bartman, You’re Bad Like Michael Jackson – A history of the show’s early musical success.
Orange juice – Heh.
Why ‘The Simpsons’? – The show remains very useful:
do worry that one day “The Simpsons” will be completely out of date and every year I find fewer students who are able to fill in “how does this episode end?” questions. However, I still get good reception from students on the whole. I’ve had older students who said before class they avoided the show because it was “trashy” but really enjoyed the clips. That being said, 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.
Stick with those and you’ll be okay.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker-snax! – A guinea pig (I think) wearing sunglasses and a tiny Duff foam dome. Excellent.
Random Photos – Jan13 – Ah, the world of Legos, where Spider-man can drink a coffee next to Marge.
Flaming Moe’s – Episode #045 – Ash heads to a place right down the block where you can drink your misery away.
No Need To Worry When Playing With House Money – Oregon’s crushed football hopes put into perspective with excellent usage:
Homer: Will you remember this the next time I wreck your life?
Lisa: It’s a deal.
That episode reminds us that we can’t look at tonight’s game from the filter of where the season is now, but rather from where the season began, through a lens of the preseason narratives that the cynical fans believed and the optimistic feared going into the season.
Kitty Says Cobrashark – Pretty creepy Burns/skull design.
I hate being Ill but its a great excuse to watch Simpsons under my duvet and not move. – Well put:
Unfortunately after all of those cuddles from the children within the nursery I am not poorly I’m all flued up with a poorly stomach so this is my perfect excuse for not moving and watching Simpson episode after Simpson episode there is something about the Simpsons that cheers me up im not quite sure whether its cause it takes me back to my childhood and sitting with my dad to watch them or whether its just because they are awesome and by awesome I mean seasons 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 there are none of the newest ones I don’t like them end of lol.
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“Wow, a bustling metropolitan newsroom, funneling scoops from all over the globe.” – Lisa Simpson
“Hi, are you interested in a subscription to the Shopper?” – Sales Dude
“Low introductory rates.” – Sales Lady
“No, please, you gotta help old Gil. What’s it gonna take to keep you on the phone? Dance for you? But you wouldn’t even see it. Alright, I’m a dancin’!” – Gil
This week, I make only tangentially relevant complaints about several linked articles: lazy sourcing, inappropriate pageview whoring, and two instances of recycled content that sort of, somehow had something to do with the show. Happily, we’ve got a lot more stuff as well, including more Season 2 breakdowns, a couple of great pieces of fan art, Lego Grampa, and a real life electric hammer.
Enjoy.
Snowpiercer: “Sorry Mom, the Mob has spoken!” – How would you cast a dystopian train movie with Simpsons characters? Start with Mr. Burns taking Ed Harris’s part and work backwards. (Thanks to JRC & Diana for e-mailing their post in.)
Bart Vs. Thanksgiving – Our buddy Noah continues his adventures through Season 2.
Dead Putting Society – This is the episode that really turned Flanders into Flanders. It’s not just that he’s richer, nicer, and more popular than Homer, there’s a real guy under there, one who can get pissed off but who’s still relaxed enough to not care about mowing the lawn in his wife’s Sunday dress.
Dancin’ Homer – The original story of degradation and humiliation.
Two Cars In Every Garage And Three Eyes On Every Fish – Heh:
The first time I saw this episode, I honestly thought Mary Bailey was a real governor (I was young, OK?), and I was wondering why the show was kissing this person’s butt so much.
But it’s “Not Just Another State”.
Abe Simpson – Click this. It’s Grampa made out of Legos.
Gr8at: The Simpsons Jokes – Just some gags from the show.
29 Jokes Only “Simpsons” Fans Will Find Funny – This is a Buzzfeed link, so the headline is misleading clickbait and the actual post is mostly a rehash of stuff that’s been floating around forever. That said, there were a couple I’d never seen before.
‘The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening will attend Saturday screening of his father Homer’s films – The headline tells you pretty much what you need to know. If you’re in or around Portland, tickets are $15.
My Favorite Simpsons Quotes – It’s a twofer, with YouTube.
The Top 5 Best Movie-Inspired Theme Park Rides – The Simpsons ride comes in at #3, but it’s worth the click for the aerial photo of the Harry Potter ride. The castle the visitors see is dwarfed by the warehouse that actually has the ride.
One Image Shows Just How Talented The Simpsons’ Voice Actors Are – This old chart of who does the Simpsons voices was making the rounds this week.
TV’s best shows mostly exist because of crappy sitcom reruns – How reruns of The Simpsons and other shows pay for all those critical darlings. I have no real objection to the article, but I must object to this:
FXX paid so much money — $750 million — for The Simpsons because it knew this, and because The Simpsons was one of the few remaining cash cows without a cable deal.
That link takes you to this:
The deal also is set to make TV history as the priciest off-network pact ever, expected to fetch at least $750 million, and the first one to include full digital rights. The enormous size of the deal — which some say could potentially reach $1 billion if the series keeps producing new seasons — stems from the staggering volume of Simpsons episodes available
Not only is the $750,000,000 number just “expected”, but it also doesn’t have a source. It’s like numbers for how much each cast member makes per episode of Zombie Simpsons: a rumor repeated so many times that people take it as fact. The reality is that nobody outside of News Corp really knows what’s in that deal or how much it’s worth. I get that writers need to cite facts and stuff, but the entertainment press is really sloppy and lazy and publishing these numbers again doesn’t make them any more trustworthy.
Homer Simpson’s Electric Hammer Created In Real Life (video) – Good idea, but sadly it doesn’t appear to actually hammer nails very well.
Dudeoir Photography – Remember when Homer got Homerotic for that boudoir photo shoot? Turns out there’s actually a term for that:
Dudeoir is Boudoir for men wrapped up in the “macho” phrase to make it more appealing to men who are insecure of their masculinity.
The Simpsons: three notes that pay composer Danny Elfman’s health insurance – Heh:
“Those are the three notes that kept me in health insurance for 25 years,” composer Danny Elfman says of the opening to The Simpsons theme music.
REVIEW: Mr. Burns a Post-Electric Play at Theater Wit – The Chicago version of the play gets a nice review.
Artist aleXsandro Palombo depicts The Simpsons as Jews in a concentration camp to mark 70th anniversay of Auschwitz liberation – This is that same Italian guy who’s been on a roll with these lately. (Pro tip: if the word “Auschwitz” appears in the headline, maybe don’t make the related stories sexy celebrities and a bikini model so emaciated I can count her ribs.)
Mr Sparkle – Homer Simpson by Lucas Jubb – Fan made Homer, complete with sunshine, stars and those creepy eyes.
Five Questions For A Blogger. (3) – Including some Simpsons love and a .gif of Milhouse petting that nice doggy on the beach.
What I Watched: Week 2 (Jan 11- Jan 17) – This is wise:
The Simpsons is by far my favourite TV show of all time. I own the first 12 seasons and they’re definitely the most watched discs in my collection because I often grab a season and put in whatever disc. This week I was watching some of season 8 which features Homer’s best buddy Frank Grimes (or Grimey, as he liked to be called).
Monday has spoken… – Heh.
Simpsons at its finest – Heh.
Osteology everywhere: Graffiti – Explaining the lack of graffiti in Kazakhstan with “Lemon of Troy”.
That’s a Coconut Cake! Part 1 | You Can’t Have That One, That’s a Coconut Cake – Trying to recreate Agnes’ inviolable cake on a blog named after it. Good luck.
An Open Letter to Great Indian Litterbugs – Never having been to India, I can’t comment much on the main subject here, but there is a .gif of Homer and Bart making garbage angels.
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When inventor Elon Musk arrives in Springfield and befriends Homer, the two revolutionize the nuclear plant. But the ambitious Musk soon has Mr. Burns seething and Burns tries to have him removed, forcing Homer to make a tough decision.
While I find the real life Elon Musk to be a relatively interesting person, I have absolutely zero desire to see him interact with zombie Homer. At least they didn’t try to rope him and SpaceX into the insane Kang and Kodos episode from a few weeks back.
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“Eww, this place has got old man stink!” – Hitman
“Oh.” – C.M. Burns
“Don’t listen to him, sir. You’ve got an enchanting musk.” – Mr. Smithers
I never bothered to watch the Lady Gaga episode a second time, so this comparison may be a little looser than I think it is, but the Elon Musk episode sure felt a lot like it. A mega famous person arrives out of nowhere in Springfield (Gaga in a giant train, Musk in a spaceship that lands in the Simpsons backyard), crazy shit happens for a little while, then the mega famous person leaves. There isn’t anything that remotely resembles story, conflict or satire, and the jokes, for whatever little they’re worth, are mostly just exaggerated plays on that mega famous person. Lady Gaga had a crazy bra, Elon Musk has self packing luggage, har har.
Even by Zombie Simpsons standards, this one was disorganized and scatterbrained, so buckle up.
– No couch gag.
– Homer just showed up to hold up a quarter against an eagle.
– Marge is here now too.
– The Eagle has Maggie, and now Homer is punching it.
– “Ha ha, stupid eagle, it wasn’t the mouse we were after, it was you!”
– Oh, good, the broom vs. eagle fight is continuing.
– Homer’s eyeball popped out.
– So, Homer trained the eagle for four weeks?
– And now Elon Musk is descending in a space pod.
– Homer is weeping and bowing now. This is more schizo than usual.
– Lisa is now explaining who Musk is.
– “So, what brings you to Springfield, Mr. Musk?” Exposition Marge is here for us.
– After Musk explains why he’s here, Homer asks him if he’s interested in visiting him at the plant. Musk replies, “I am, and I will”.
– Lisa just read out loud what Musk wrote on a piece of paper. This is also going slower than usual.
– I was going to try to explain what’s happening now, but Lisa did it for me, “He’s taking your Homerisms and turning them into his own great ideas.” This will go on for a while.
– Musk and Homer drove by Lou and Wiggum. There were gunshots.
– Burns is reading suggestions out loud.
– Burns is being happy and nice, always his best traits.
– This Imaginer(sp?) guy interlude was bizarre.
– But it got weirder as Homer and Musk sit on top of the cooling towers.
– Then they hugged.
– “I don’t trust Musk.” Exposition Smithers is trying to move the plot along. I do like that he simply told us how he was feeling instead of us getting to see why he thinks that way, though. It saves time for all the great stuff they’ve got here.
– Smithers just woke Burns up in the middle of the night for some reason. Then the hounds were released indoors.
– So, everyone has self driving cars now. That was unexpected.
– I didn’t see this musical interlude coming.
– Burns just informed us that he’s going to have Musk killed.
– Marge and Homer are in bed. Marge reminded everyone of what’s going on, then Homer described Musk again.
– A bunch of old guys just shot at Musk and Homer. Then Homer told us what just happened.
– Musk is apparently going back to his home planet now.
– But first he built Bart a real lightsaber. Okay.
– And, after some zero-g tears, it’s over. Huh.
Anyway, the numbers are in and they’re about what we expect with no football on. Last night just 3.40 million people wondered why Elon Musk wasn’t doing something more interesting with his time. That’s good for #4 on the all time least watched list and doesn’t auger well for the remaining ten or so episodes this season.
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“I wanted to see your utopia, but now I see it is more of a Fruitopia.” – Stephen Hawking
“I’m sure what Dr. Hawking means is-” – Principal Skinner
“Silence! I don’t need anyone to talk for me, except this voice box.” – Stephen Hawking
Celebrities voicing themselves has long been one of the most widely acknowledged hallmarks of Zombie Simpsons. In truth, of course, the show had been using self voiced celebrities almost since the beginning. What changed was the way those voices were used. In Season 2, Ringo Starr voices himself, but responding to decades old fan mail, not arriving on the Simpsons’ doorstep. In Season 3, an entire baseball team of Major League players voiced themselves, but that’s because they were all getting paid by Burns, not because they all suddenly decided to go to Springfield. Self-voiced celebrities themselves aren’t inherently a problem, how they’re used is more important.
On The Simpsons, not only was there always a reason for some famous person to be there, but what they were doing was always a takeoff on who they were and/or why they were famous. On Zombie Simpsons (in addition to being used far more often), the self voiced celebrities usually appear out of nowhere. And once they are on screen, frequently don’t do much more than be their normal selves. This is how famous street artists repeat their names and do nothing else and the entire cast of American Idol pops up just because. It’s straightforwardly uncreative and almost always looks and feels like nothing more than a plea for attention.
All of those negatives apply to Elon Musk’s episode. He literally drops out of the sky at random, and (like Lady Gaga) once he’s in Springfield he just kinda acts like an even more exaggerated version of himself. Look, there’s drones and electric cars and friggin’ hyperloops! Aren’t they funny?
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Too bad Kang and Kodos weren’t in there.
Even the episode’s attempts to show how his crazy ideas backfire falls apart. Everything he does works, and Springfield becomes a futuristic utopia right up until Burns fires everyone. Does Musk react to this? Nope. He disappears entirely as Springfield falls apart, showing up only at the end to act hurt that Homer doesn’t want to be his friend anymore.
They could’ve shown Musk as Shary Bobbins, a noble creature whose best efforts are eventually overwhelmed by the inherent crappiness of Springfield. Or they could’ve shown Musk as an evil, Hank Scorpio-esque nutbar who loves his inventions more than people. Or, with just a few tweaks, they could’ve shown a Musk vs. Burns battle for the soul of Springfield. (Burns would triumph, of course, because good is dumb.) But they didn’t do any of that. They had Musk show up, then they drew some of his stuff into Springfield, then he vanished while everything fell apart. This is about as shallow and pointless as it is possible to be given the enormous amount of screentime he got.
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The episode manages to find him again, but only with binoculars. He is apparently unaware that all of his improvements to the town have become failures.
Compare that with Stephen Hawking’s brief appearance at the end of Season 10’s “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”. Now, by Season 10 the show was already falling apart, and Hawking’s sudden arrival isn’t without its share of problems. Not only does he drive up with no warning whatsoever, but after he scoops Lisa up in his flying chair to save her from the mob, they land all of thirty feet away while the episode forgets completely that a riot was going on.
But Hawking still has both 1) a reason to show up and 2) is given some things to do. He’s there because eggheads have taken over the town and he wants to check it out. This still being The Simpsons, their efforts were doomed from the get go and he finds nothing of value in their little experiment. Moreover, only on The Simpsons would Hawking be a bullying and arrogant dick who insults everyone and uses an extend-o-glove built into his chair to punch Skinner. Yes, he is smarter than everyone else, but he’s a jerk about it, and that’s what makes it work.
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Stephen Hawking: Face Puncher
Of course, The Simpsons also knew enough not to try and string that out for an entire episode. Hawking is only in two scenes, one of which is an epilogue that doesn’t affect the story. They don’t build the whole thing around him because even in Season 10 the show could still recognize the limits of a guest star. In the filler laden wasteland of Season 26, weak guest ideas are asked to carry the entire runtime, and even a world famous inventor and entrepreneur can’t make that work.
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“I suggest a lengthy, inefficient search, at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.” – NASA Scientist
“I wish there was an easier way.” – NASA Director
It’s a very short Reading Digest this week. The WordPress “Simpsons” tag wasn’t working, those Auschwitz images I linked last week went kinda big, plus all the chatter about Elon Musk meant the signal to noise ratio went to hell again. We’ve got some usage, some more play reviews, a couple of cool fan doodles, and the first few instances of Bacon Day cards, so it’s not like it’s completely barren. Things should smooth out by next week. But first, in the silly fun category, reader Feodor sent in this search suggestion:
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Heh. Thanks, Feodor!
Enjoy.
Definitive proof that The Simpsons is getting worse – This is just the IMDb ratings put into a nice graphic. It’s been done before (here and elsewhere), but it’s nice to see people paying attention to how clearly different The Simpsons and Zombie Simpsons are.
Simpsons Star Wars Doodles… – The one of Homer in the famous Episode I poster is great.
The Avocado is the Hipster of Vegetables! – Scroll down for a printable Choo-Choo-Choose You image.
New Valentine’s Day Cards! – And here’s a fan made Etsy version for all your Bacon Day needs.
The I, Omnibus Top Ten (US) Cartoons of the 1990’s – A short history of why cartoons became much better in the 90s:
There were three major factors that brought US animation out of its “Ghetto Age” that lasted throughout the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s, and into its “Golden Age” of the 90’s. One was the Disney Renaissance – its rebirth of motion picture animation, which funnelled over to the television side. The second was the success of The Simpsons, which brought animation back to “Prime Time.” And the third was the success Ren and Stimpy, which reminded network executives that cartoons were once catered towards adults, and could be once again.
Reviews: Theater for thought and laughter – The play in Chicago gets some more critical love.
THEATER REVIEW Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play – Oh, hell, one more.
The Minimalists – Excellent usage:
The rigidity of minimalism’s reductionism has been parodied in mass entertainment, from Absolutely Fabulous (which taught us that if you make your home a white cube, there’s nowhere to stash the booze) to The Simpsons – think of the early 1990s episode in which a Yoko Ono-esque character sits at Moe’s bar and orders “A single plum, floating in perfume, served in a man’s hat”.
New trending GIF tagged happy the simpsons excited… – Here’s an appealing fellow. They’re a-peeling him off the pavement.
The Full McBain – YouTube of all those McBain clips stitched together.
A kid-filled day – Adorable 4-year-old discovers Simpsons arcade game at a roller rink. Aww, the kids love it too.
Boo-Urns Night. – Heh:
Nonetheless, Burns Nicht is celebrated all over Scotland (and indeed in many other places worldwide) and the celebration typically features more outlandishly Scottish stereotypes than a heroin-fueled Caber-Toss between Groundskeeper Willie and Ewan McGregor.
Excellent reference.
Rod McKuen, Prolific Poet and Lyricist, Dies at 81 – And finally, this is Critic rather than Simpsons, but this scene always cracks me up:
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“Many interesting and important things have been put into boxes over the years: textiles, other boxes, even children’s candy.” – Box Factory Manager
“Do any of these boxes have candy in ‘em?” – Milhouse van Houten
“No.” – Box Factory Manager
“Will they ever?” – Milhouse van Houten
“No, we only make boxes to ship nails.” – Box Factory Manager
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“Keep cool, Simpson. Be in the game, but not of the game.” – Bart Simpson
“No es bueno!” – Panamanian Strongman
There was one link that dominated the Simpsons internet this week. Usually when that happens it’s yet another lame publicity stunt or the latest celebrity to do a guest voice. This time, however, it is truly worthy:
Watch it. Then watch it again. It’s so slick and professional that at first I thought it was another one that Zombie Simpsons had commissioned. Nope. Just some guys who have serious skills and love the show. Excellent. Bravo. Well done. Kudos to you, Paul Robertson, Ivan Dixon, and Jeremy Dower!
In other news before we get to the links, this Monday will be the first ever Woo-hoo Simpsons Trivia here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If you’ve ever been to one of the ones in Toronto, New York, Chicago or elsewhere, this’ll be pretty much the same. I even went to the trouble of hacking together this little flyer:
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My apologies to everyone who gets tired of me flogging this on Twitter all weekend, but I would vastly prefer not to be the only one who shows up. There will not be free balloons for everyone who enters, but we do have prizes for first, second and third place.
In actual links this week, we’ve got a couple of arcade games, Al Jean accidentally endorsing the idea that Zombie Simpsons sucks, lots of .gifs, frivolous lawsuits, and fan made Homers in the mediums of snow and banana.
Enjoy.
13 Things You Never Noticed About ‘The Simpsons’ Pilot Episode Because A Lot Has Changed In 25 Years – My guess is that most of you have noticed these things, but there are some very good .gifs here, and it’s always nice to see Season 1 get some love. (via @dailysimpsons)
Macedonia man builds winter wonderland – He’s got an Xtapolapocetl sized Homer snow head in his front yard. Bravo.
Bart The Daredevil – Noah takes a look at Homer falling down the cliff, and I agree completely:
This Gorge-jumping scene with Homer is truly the start of the Homer pain gags we’d see often, especially post-season 9. However, here it’s done in a different manner than the latter-season beatings. In this episode, the Homer beating may be brutal, but it’s fairly quick, isn’t overly graphic, and doesn’t involve him screaming for the entire time. Now, we have seen post-classic-era beatings that have been relatively funny, however I feel that this is truly the “right” way, if I may call it that, to beat the living hell out of Homer Simpson.
And he doesn’t bounce right back, he ends up in traction next to Lance Murdock.
The Jazz Hole – A very early look at a Lisa poster they’re apparently releasing next month and that will also be at Comic Con this summer. You can’t quite see the whole thing, but it looks great.
the wit and wisdom of homer j. simpson – A collection of quotes without even a hint of Zombie Simpsons.
Stephan Brusche transforms bananas into icons and famous artworks – Yes, this man turned a banana into Homer Simpson. He will be our new god.
Eddie Huang Rates the Best (and Worst) Coming-of-Age TV Shows of All Time – Publicity interviews are usually a complete waste of time, but occasionally you get a gem:
Okay, let’s go a little more recent: Bart Simpson.
I love Bart, man. One of my first CDs was that Simpsons soundtrack with Bart doing the Bartman. Bart was fucking a downtown New York cartoon character.I don’t think he’s aged well, though.
He got that Asian dolphin skin. And hey: The Simpsons might be the first Asian-American family on television.Because they’re yellow?
They are!That’s fucked up, Eddie.
My last name means yellow.
10 Favorite Arcade Games – A little arcade nostalgia, with the Simpsons game coming in at #4.
Game NOT Over: Pasadena couple resurrects Monster Bash, other retro arcade games – And speaking of the arcade game:
The frustrating difficulty of these games might be their biggest charm. Guenther recalls a group of patrons gathered around The Simpsons Arcade Game on opening night, “They finally beat it just at the end as we were closing down, and I’ve never seen the closing credits on that machine.”
The Simpsons: Road Rage (2001) – A harsh review of an old game.
8 People Who Tried To Sue The Simpsons – This is one page per entry click whoring, but it’s at least got some novel information. I’d only heard about a couple of these.
Harley visits Springfield – A well done photo of a tiny plastic Bart in a tiny plastic Simpsons living room getting visited by a tiny plastic Harley Quinn.
Lisa it’s your birthday – The “Lisa It’s Your Birthday” song works for anyone so long as their first name has two syllables. There’s no way not to think about it.
Look of the week – Hey, hey, hey, there’s nothing “tacky” about Simpsons socks! Oh, wait, yes there is.
A.C.T. Partners with San Francisco Institutions for MR. BURNS, A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY Events – Not only is the play headed west, it’s getting a pretty awesome guest:
Following the 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, March 7, Emmy Award winner and former head writer of The Simpsons, Jon Vitti, will participate in a postshow symposium with Carey Perloff. Vitti has written 25 episodes of The Simpsons, including the “Cape Feare” episode.
TV’s top entrepreneurs: Homer Simpson as Mr. Plow – Homer Simpson, businessman, evaluated.
HIGH FIVE! Homer Simpson’s Parenting Quotes – There’s some good quotes here, and there’s a great YouTube video of Homer getting hurt that’s all non-Zombie Simpsons.
New trending GIF tagged the simpsons pixel art… – Part of that awesome pixelated opening.
New trending GIF tagged the simpsons super bowl… – This mashup of “I Love Lisa” and Richard Sherman’s reaction to the interception that won the Super Bowl was making the rounds this week, for obvious reasons.
New trending GIF tagged the simpsons angry snow… – Brockman cursing the storm that never happened.
Deals of the Week: $30 DualShock 4, Seasons of The Simpsons, $36 Xbox Live – And finally, Al Jean tweeted out this link:
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Where it says:
A few Simpsons Seasons Are Suddenly Cheap
We’re talking good seasons too. Season 4, season 5, and season 6 are all just $10. Our best Simpsons episodes list makes a nice buying guide.
Heh. (That list of best episodes also has no Zombie Simpsons.)
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“Welcome to the dynamic world of mobile pretzel retailing.” – Frank Ormand
“When can I start? What’s my territory?” – Marge Simpson
“Your territory . . . well, let me tell you, wherever a young mother is ignorant of what to feed her baby, you’ll be there. Wherever nacho penetration is less than total, you’ll be there. Wherever a Bavarian is not quite full, you will be there.” – Frank Ormand
“Don’t forget fat people. They can’t stop eating.” – Marge Simpson
“Hey, pretzels.” – Homer Simpson
Jack Lemmon would’ve been 90 today. Happy birthday!
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Lisa discovers that Springfield’s anthem was lifted from another town, so she composes a new one, while Homer gets a big lesson in “Wide Pride.”
Tonight’s guest hat is Pharell Williams. I find him to be quite entertaining, but I since I find zombie simpsons most unentertaining, I guess I will just have to miss whatever hijinks that are in store for him tonight.
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“I’m sick of all your stereotypes and cheap jokes! The overweight individuals in this country are just as smart and talented and hard working as everybody else! And they’re gonna make their voices heard! All they need is a leader!” – Homer Simpson
Conventional wisdom has it that everyone is getting fatter these days and that’s a bad thing. Reality, as usual, is considerably more complicated. Moral panics over fat have been a recurring feature of American culture for over a century; the actual effects of obesity are deeply misunderstood at best; and the amount of societal and cultural abuse heaped on fat people is cruel, idiotic, and generally harmful. In short, a “fat acceptance” support group (like the one Homer joined in “Walking Big & Tall”) is a thoroughly modern byproduct of something about which America is both obsessed and deeply conflicted. In the right hands, it’s a target rich environment for comedy. In Zombie Simpsons, it’s shambolic background for a whole lot of nothing.
Let’s start with what is easily this episode’s go to joke: a rubbery sound effect. They use it when Homer crams himself into the seats at the theater. They use it when he finally gets out of his theater seat (and then immediately again when he gets stuck in the door). They use it over and over again when Homer gets locked up with the other fat people. They even use it when Albert the fat guy puts a straw in a cup. It’s in so much of the episode that they may have simply done that last one out of habit.
In addition to being a pretty weak joke (Once? Sure. Twice? Maybe. Three and more? Uh, no.), it neatly summarizes just how vapid the whole episode is. Their most used gag is that fat people don’t fit into the same spaces as skinny people. That’s it.
You can see that shallowness all over the place: the only other fat person who gets any lines is Comic Book Guy, and most of what he does is list foods, Homer himself doesn’t actually do anything in the episode besides stand around, and roughly half the dialogue is people recapping things we’ve already seen. Even the gag at the end about Albert’s ashes needing a lot of urns goes on way too long, and that’s before they literally spelled it out for us. You really have to wonder at the mentality and incuriosity in the writers room when they do an entire episode on fat acceptance and most of what they come up with is “fat people are big”.
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Get it? GET IT?
By contrast, “King-Size Homer” also sees Homer become proud of being a fat guy. But instead of him joining a support group then not doing anything but talk about joining a support group, we actually get to see him be a proud fat guy. He’s ecstatic about getting out of work. When Marge calls him on it, he redoubles his efforts to be a “big fat dynamo!”. At the end, he stands up to the crowd at the theater that laughs at him. He’s even proud of his “fat guy hat”. “Walking Big & Tall” tells us (ad nausem) that Homer is proud of his fat self. “King-Size” Homer actually shows him doing it.
Case in point: fat guy insults. At the theater, right before the manager attempts to buy him off with “a garbage bag full of popcorn”, the sarcastic guy shouts at him, “Hey, fatty, I got a movie for ya: A Fridge Too Far!”. That’s a great Simpsons joke: it’s a cultural reference, it’s innovative and mean, it fits the story, and it’s done by one of their best non-named utility characters. And, of course, there’s little stuff to notice, like how the Squeaky Voiced Teen (who’s taking tickets) and the manager both laugh at first before quickly stopping themselves while everyone else keeps going.
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On The Simpsons, there is *always* a reason to pay attention.
Compare that to this unedited brainstorm pad:
Chubby, Chunky, Blob-O, Slob-O, Fat Bastard, Michelen Man, Stay Puft, Chumbawumba, “It is balloon!”, Papa Grande, Augustus Gloop, Beached Whale, Big Boned, Wisconsin Skinny, Butterball, Dump Truck, Jelly Belly, Pudgy Wudgy, Lard Ass, Bloberino, Buddah Belly, Hurry E. Tubman, One Ton Soup, Blob Sagat, Chub Hub, Calvin Coolwhip, Manfred Manboobs, 21-Lump Street, Walking Before Picture, Fatso, Harvey Milk Chocolate, Obese Wan-Canoli, Mahatma Gumbo, Salvadore Deli, Elmer Pantry, KFC & the Spongecake Band, Snacky Onassis, The Foodie Blues, Hoagie Carmichal, and Wide Load
As I said on Monday, there are a couple of decent ones in that mess. But there is also a ton of filler. For every creative one like “Obese Wan-Canoli” there are three or four regular old insults (Fatso, Wide Load, Fat Bastard, Chubby, etc.) or unmodified cultural references (Augustus Gloop, Stay Puft, Butterball, etc.). What’s more, it’s just a list. This is a Buzzfeed headline in Zombie Simpsons form: 40 Great Fat Insults. And, like Buzzfeed, you knew a bunch already, and most of them aren’t great.
The Simpsons picked one (1) good one and slipped it into a scene that’s integral to the plot. If Homer doesn’t want to see “Honk If You’re Horny”, he doesn’t leave the drinking bird in charge, in which case he doesn’t resolve to mend his ways after getting insulted, and, oh yeah, the gas gets vented, preventing explosion. The entire episode doesn’t work without this scene.
In Zombie Simpsons, the list is the only scene at Moe’s and the only time we see any of those characters. It’s a one off tangent that has nothing to do with anything, they just had a list and time to fill.
Finally, there’s Homer himself. It’s not just that we get to see him being a proud fat guy in Season 7, there’s a reason for him to be a proud fat guy. Homer, being Homer, hates exercise and tries, in Lisa’s words, “abusing a program intended to help the unfortunate”. He loves not having to go to work so much (“gas, break, honk”), that he overlooks everything else. In “Walking Big & Tall”, Homer hurls people across entire theaters before happening to walk past the wrong support group. One of these involves the character being himself and matters to the rest of the episode; the other does not. Homer, let me introduce Jerkass Homer; Jerkass Homer, please meet Homer.
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“Aww, honey, that looks just like a real donut.” – Homer Simpson
“Dad, it says ‘non-toxic’.” – Bart Simpson
“Well, that’s a plus.” – Homer Simpson
This week we have two excellent pieces of fan art, one a painting the other some CGI zombies, and both are great. Since Bacon Day is tomorrow, we also have a bunch of links involving “I Love Lisa” one way or another, plus some excellent references, Groening on live TV, a protest south of the equator, someone who agrees with me about the lameness of last week’s Zombie Simpsons, and much more.
Enjoy.
Zombie Simpsons by Dan Osborne – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the week are these fan made images of Zombie Krusty, Zombie Krabappel, Zombie Otto and Zombie Willie. Outstanding.
Rrrrrrrgggggggh~ dOnut on canVas – A picture history of a fan made painting of Homer’s favorite pink donut. Awesome.
Don’t They Have A Job? People In Bolivia Protest For ‘The Simpsons’ TV Slot – I really wasn’t sure this wasn’t a hoax or a prank, but it appears to be legitimate. Viva Bolivia!
Tele Tuesday: The Simpsons is Bad and Matt Groening Should Feel Bad – Yup:
I didn’t walk into last Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons expecting anything great. It hasn’t been great—hell, it hasn’t been tolerable—for quite some time. Regardless, I still found myself impressed by the lack of quality.
[…]
mention current affairs–but don’t talk about them in any meaningful way!–in a stream of consciousness storyline whose only humor lies in half-baked one liners. If the show was a horse I wouldn’t suggest taking it out back to shoot it; that would imply it’s alive and suffering. It’s been dead for some time, we’re just looking at a taxidermied corpse, foolishly expecting it to majestically gallop at any minute.
It goes on about how lazy and one dimensional “Walking Big & Tall” really was, especially with nothing but one note fat jokes.
SMarch at Tattooed Mom- Sunday Smarch 29th – For those of you in and around Philadelphia, this sounds pretty neat:
Screening CLASSIC Simpsons episodes … from the 90’s!
[…]
FREE craft projects including
The Infamous Vincent Price and his diabolical Egg Magic kit,
How to Draw the Simpsons,
7 February 2015. WTF! It’s Got to be Russia! – Some cool (and colored) snow sculptures of the family.
A Guide To The Many Loves of Bart Simpson – This is, for obvious reasons, mostly Zombie Simpsons. I’m only linking it because the comments are about half things like this:
Itchy & Scratchy & Marge – I always thought this too:
-I wonder if Bart’s line about the soapbox racers was intentionally foreshadowing season 3’s “Saturdays Of Thunder”; like they already had that episode set to run.
Probably?
Bye, Boooooook! A Review of Bongo Comics McBain One-Shot – Just what it says.
Whatcha Realizing, Jerk? – Trying to figure out what you do and don’t care about other people’s thinking with help from the show.
Why I am choo choo choosing me – A few Bacon Day resolutions, complete with lots of Simpsons .gifs (though there is some Zombie Simpsons, there’s not much).
Best Episode of the Simpsons Ever: I Love Lisa – Point.
The Best Episode of the Simpsons Ever: Cape Feare – Counterpoint. (Both are pretty well argued and illustrated.)
The top ten most romantic moments in Simpsons history (seasons 1-10) – It’s a countdown:
For Valentine’s Day, and another special reason you will hear about soon, your favorite Film Crickets compiled a list of the ten most romantic moments from the first ten seasons of the Simpsons.
We will be posting one or two a day until Valentine’s day!
And each one gets its own graphic and explanation. Here we go:
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #9! – Homer and Smithers.
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #8! – The family and Mrs. Krabappel.
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #7! – Mr. Bergstrom and Lisa.
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #6! – Milhouse & Samantha.
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #5! – Lisa & Ralph.
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #4! – Homer & Marge
The most romantic moments in Simpsons history: #3! – Marge & Homer (with bonus real life cake for you to ruin). Check back over there to finish up the run between now and Bacon Day tomorrow.
Simpsons-Themed Doughnuts Are Coming, Courtesy of Dynamo and A.C.T. – Not only is the play coming to San Francisco, it’s getting donuts to go with it.
[The Simpsons] Homer Simpson is a vegetable in a coma, and has been for over 20 years. : FanTheories – Long story short, Homer’s still in the coma he lapsed into in “So It’s Come to This”:
‘He is subconsciously aware of time passing, so his mind will often “update” his memories so that the year they occurred matches up with the age he thinks he is (eg. That 90’s Show contradicting other flashback episodes).’
His theories are subsequently backed up by pointing out how different the plots became after this point – with the relatively low-key episodes such as Lisa’s crush on her teacher and Bart cheating on an IQ test replaced by far grander stories.
Yeah, that could be it. Or FOX could just suck at developing new shows and this one stayed around forever because it still earns bread. (Thanks to reader Richard J. for sending this one in!)
7 Valentine’s Day episodes to warm your heart – I think you can all guess which Simpsons episode makes this list.
The Greatest Quotes From Your Favorite ‘Simpsons’ Characters – It’s one big long image, and there are some good ones, but there’s also way too much Zombie Simpsons for my taste. (Thanks to reader Daniel P. for sending it in!)
The Television List – I’m all for people watching TV, but spare yourself the horror of Zombie Simpsons:
I foresee a lot of Netflix bingeing in my future. Some it would probably kill me…like to watch all of The Simpsons…so that show I may just watch some from each season ( There are like 25+)
Just let it peter out around Seasons 9/10/11. There isn’t anything worth it past that, and you’ll save yourself a lot of time.
What I Watched: Week 5 (Feb 1-Feb 7) – Gotta have at least some:
And like usual, I watched a few episodes of The Simpsons here and there. This week I was watching the 1st disc of the 5th season which features the Cape Feare, Treehouse of Horror IV, Homer’s Barbershop quartet, and Homer Goes To College episodes.
Great disc.
Aussie duo’s pixel art Simpsons tribute to become the show’s next opening – The behind the scenes story:
Twelve hours after the video was uploaded Ivan received an email from the show’s creators, asking him to call them straight away.
“The email went to my spam folder, so I actually thought it was a hoax, ” said Ivan.
Good on Jean and company. That thing really was well done.
Farmington Hills church shares gospel according to the Simpsons – Speaking of Jean:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Revisiting The Simpsons as Lego – There are more Simpsons Lego sets coming. Much more.
Different Dollhouse Occupants- Simpsons Chess Set – Nice photo of Simpsons chess pieces all lined up, family like.
Just don’t. – A poorly translated (?) Bart t-shirt.
Portlandia Rips Off The Simpsons In This Awesome Clip – Groening did a guest spot on Portlandia. That is all.
A brief history of The Simpson’s Radioactive Man – Just what it says.
The Quietus – Excellent reference:
There’s a great episode of The Simpsons where for several weeks the residents of Springfield are repeatedly bombarded with the name ‘Gabbo’ and informed by billboards and Kent Brockman alike that ‘Gabbo is coming!'; everyone, it seems is “saying ‘Gabbo this’ and ‘Gabbo that'” until the moment Gabbo is finally revealed to be a ventriloquist’s dummy, whose variety show antics captivate and enthral the entire town. Given, then, that the band are self-confessed Simpsons fanatics it seems somewhat fitting that it was in similar circumstances that the Quietus first became aware of the psyche-bludgeoning exploits of Portland-based trio Prizehog.
It started about nine months ago, as most things do these days, on Facebook. Little by little, the odd mention here and there – “Prizehog this” and “Prizehog that”; “Prizehog are melting my brain”; “Look Smithers, ‘Prizehorg’ are coming!” and remarks of that nature seemed to be popping up in newsfeeds with some regularity
New York City: 1 Homer Simpson: 0 – And finally, this look back at the Season 9 premier agrees with us right on the nose:
Hot off the wildly successful marathon of The Simpsons that launched FXX, I decided to watch the first 10 seasons of the series in succession. Paramount among my reasons to sit back and binge watch over 220 episodes of one of the greatest TV shows ever created was to try and analyze when exactly the series started to fly off the rails.[1]
[1] Around season 10, but the writing on the wall was evident as early as season 7.
Sadly, it was.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Fed up with the thankless task of chauffeuring her children around, Marge works for a transportation app service. Homer bankrupts Moe, with Moe being forced to work as a janitor at the power plant.
Oh boy. A zombisode on the topical issue of taxi apps. Also I would like to point out that almost nine years ago to the date they already spun a title off of “My Fair Lady” with the 2006 blockbuster “My Fair Laddy” But now I am just complaining for the sake of it. Also Christopher Lloyd and Rich Sommer are guest stars. Rich is on Mad Men, but although I like that show I couldn’t have told you that if I hadn’t have looked it up. In fact the character he voices is named “Young Man”. That will look good on his resume next to multiple seasons of Mad Men.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“I’m a star again. I don’t know how to thank you kids.” – Krusty the Klown
“That’s alright, Krusty.” – Bart Simpson
“We’re getting fifty percent of the t-shirt sales.” – Lisa Simpson
“What? That’s the sweetest plum!” – Krusty the Klown
Happy (one day belated) birthday, Matt Groening!
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“Chauffeur, seamstress, curator of large mammals?” – Marge Simpson
“Marge, have you seen my lunch box?” – Homer Simpson
“Oh, I see.” – Marge Simpson
In this episode, Moe leaves Homer in charge of the bar. Meanwhile, Marge gets a job as a Not Lyft driver. Then Moe, his bar wrecked, gets a job at the nuclear plant. Then Homer gets a different job at the nuclear plant. Then it ends.
On the plus side, they used that awesome pixel opening that hit the internet a couple of weeks back. Pretty much all downhill from there, though.
– Really was nice of them to use that fan made pixel opening, and it ate up nearly two minutes!
– And speaking of openings, there’s a Jetsons one to eat some more clock.
– “Why Humans Failed” was a nice little reveal to end the Jetsons thing.
– We are off to another rousing expository beginning. Marge explained what all the kids were doing (we saw them in costume, too!), then Homer described what he was feeling, and now Homer’s at Moe’s and Moe is telling us that he’s tying his apron on while he’s, you guessed it, tying his apron on.
– Montage!
– Wow, this is a really long one. We just crossed the one minute mark on it and it’s still going strong.
– Back to the exposition: Moe told us about Sideshow Mel getting drunk (we didn’t see it) and now he, Lenny and Carl are talking about a ticket to see a Joan Rivers type we haven’t seen yet.
– Homer is going to be running the bar, apparently.
– Also, Moe just explained a couple of sign gags to us.
– Some Uber/Lyft guy just showed up to tell Marge about the plot. He will vanish and not come back.
– Marge’s license plate is EP7G08, 7G08 is the production number for “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”. Huh.
– Lenny, Carl and Homer are going to run a ladies night at Moe’s. Carl explained what that is, then Lenny thanked him.
– Moe is at the show, and falling in love with the old Hollywood lady. Meanwhile, Homer and Marge just got new jobs. They’re using a lot of their tired tropes this week.
– Moe’s is now overrun with women. Homer and Carl are explaining who they are. Then there was a brawl.
– Moe just did a comedy “whaa!”, saw his bar was trashed, then explained things.
– Marge’s ride service is off to a rousing start, first the kids were there with Milhouse and Kirk (who popped up out of nowhere, then vanished), then Marge and Shauna explained things we didn’t see:
Shauna: Thanks for the lift. It’s nice to know I can get a ride without having to put out.
Marge: You’re welcome. If you really want to get your belly button pierced, go see a professional.
Kearney: [who just walked out of a house with a staple gun] I’m ready for you, babe.
Shauna: I’m gonna have this done properly, at a kiosk in the mall. I’m Shauna.
That’s the whole scene. It’s like a rejected SNL sketch idea.
– Moe just got a job at the nuclear plant. Now he’s telling us how he feels.
– Nelson, Willie and Gil have all been in Marge’s car now.
– And . . . driving montage!
– Burns was just talking to Moe, and now there’s a surprise nuclear inspection.
– Well, that ended as quickly as it began, now the inspectors are gone.
– Moe is now supervising sector 7-G and reassigning Homer. Wacky hijinks, ahoy.
– Homer just got eaten by a giant Venus fly trap. Such hijinks, such wackiness.
– Moe just got ditched in the cafeteria. Though there was a mercifully brief callback to the guy who whips Homer to make the cupcake display turn.
– Back to the exposition, Marge just said, “Homer Simpson, working with those plants is great. It’s helped you get in touch with your feminine side.” That lead to Homer screaming for no reason and setting plants on fire in the front yard.
– Yet another driving montage. This makes three. The only difference is that this one is an expository song.
– But even an expository song won’t stop them from more expository dialogue, Marge just recapped the montage, “Moe, I think we’d both be a lot happier if we quit our new jobs.”
– Now other cabbies, who we saw for one brief scene where they talked about being cabbies, have surrounded Marge. Then Moe showed up with a shotgun.
– And we end on Moe, alone at his rebuilt bar, getting talked to by the giant Lyft mouth Marge hung on the mirror. Seems about right.
Anyway, the numbers are in and they are just as atrocious as we’d expect. Last night just 2.75 million people wondered how many “new job!” plots they could squeeze into one episode. (The answer, if you count Homer watering plants, is four.) That replaces last week’s “Walking Big & Tall” as #2 on the least watched list, trailing only last year’s 7:30 broadcast of “Diggs”. That one came in at 2.65, so we may see it dethroned if the rest of the season goes on like this.
