“Sir, the actors are here to audition for the part of you.” – Mr. Smithers
“Excellent.” – C.M. Burns
It’s a short Reading Digest this week because I’m still behind the eight-ball, and the Dead Homer Society inbox still has rainbow wigs and floppy shoes everywhere, but some Reading Digest is better than no Reading Digest (right?). Since the announcement of the (possible, still very unconfirmed) departure of Harry Shearer, plenty of people have been throwing their voices into the ring. This week, we’ve got three of them (kinda). We’ve also got some excellent usage, another Simpsons recasting, globetrotting Nancy Cartwright, (Britain, hurt feelings of), and a free silent movie starring Weird Al.
Enjoy.
I Hate the Sea and Everything In It: JAWS – Our friends at FLIM Springfield have done another of their .gif-tastic recastings, and this one is maybe their best yet. Here’s some chum to get you swimming their way:
Prof. Frink as Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss)
Elementary chaos theory tells us that all Great White Sharks will eventually turn against humans and run amok in an orgy of blood!
Here’s What The Opening of “The Simpsons” Looks Like Recreated With Stock Footage – This was making the rounds last week. It’s impressive, but pretty uneven. Some of the shorts are really good and pretty close to the intro. Others are a bit tenuous.
This dude could easily replace Harry Shearer on ‘The Simpsons’ – This guy is very good (though some of the voices are a lot better than others), but it’s not hard to tell the difference, either.
▶ 28 Simpsons Impressions! Comedy Brian’s tribute to the Simpsons. – This is more than just Shearer voices, and again there are some very good ones in here (Burns and Patty & Selma, particularly). (Thanks for sending this in, Brian!)
Harry Shearer Replacements for Mr. Burns – Reader Gary Lee sent in this compilation of clips with celebrities doing Burns lines. Way more Zombie Simpsons than I would’ve used, but some of them are very good.
Michiana man aims to break world record for largest Simpsons collection – That is a lot of Simpsons stuff.
What If The Simpsons Became Our Post-Apocalyptic Mythology? – A nice writeup of the play in Portland.
‘The Simpsons’ Nancy Cartwright Interview: Cannes Film Festival – Cartwright went to France to promote a small movie she did based on a one-woman show she did twenty years ago called “In Search of Fellini”. She does talk a bit about doing French for “The Crepes of Wrath” and artfully dodges a question about Shearer leaving.
Nancy Cartwright Added To Supanova Perth & Sydney – And then she’s off to Australia.
The Moving Picture Co. 1914 – Remember that silent movie with Weird Al that Mark Kirkland made? Well, now you can watch it.
Movie review: Even the cast is too familiar with the plot to be scared by ‘Poltergeist’ – Excellent reference:
The 1982 Tobe Hooper-Steven Spielberg film is an oft-telecast classic. But generations have been exposed to the plot and its loopiness, thanks to reruns of “The Simpsons.” Hard to get too worked up about a “Treehouse of Horror” tale.
Skyler: Parents, foster the success of dealing with failure – Another excellent reference:
Eighty percent of the baby boys continued to pull on the string, yanking harder and harder, some even getting a foot into the pulling action, until they were exhausted with anger and frustration.
Eighty percent of the baby girls tried the string once or twice, realized immediately it no longer worked, then began to cry.
I was reminded of the “Simpsons” episode in which Lisa devised an experiment called “Is my brother dumber than a hamster?” Every time Bart reached for a cupcake, his hand was shocked. Despite this pain, he reached for the cupcake over and over and over.
Someone got a Drake as Bart Simpson tattoo (Photo) – The headline says it all. Well done, someone.
The myth of bad British teeth – The BBC takes exception to a stereotype:
Having bad teeth is one of the stock American jokes about British people. In the world of film, spoof super-spy Austin Powers cavorts around London as a would-be sex symbol, not realising that his discoloured, crooked grin is being mocked.
In one episode of the Simpsons, a dentist scares a young patient into better oral hygiene by exposing him to a horrific publication called The Big Book of British Smiles. It features mocked-up pictures of gappy, unaligned teeth belonging, among others, to Buckingham Palace guards, the Prince of Wales and Sherlock Holmes.
Chris van Tulleken, a British doctor and TV presenter, has joined the criticism by telling Radio Times magazine that British dental standards are globally infamous and having “brown, foul teeth doesn’t really bother us”.
But are British mouths really in such a state and is there such a lack of vanity?
Oinkster Burger Week 2015 is here! Get ready for seven days of burgers – Heh:
Also, for the first time, the folks at Oinkster have collaborated with their neighbors at Highland Park Brewing to create a Burger Week beer. Red Tick ale is a sessionable red ale, the name for which is an obscure “Simpsons” reference (one episode from the eighth season).
Here’s what it sounds like when Generation X runs for president – The Washington Post – Weak reference:
Declaring Tupac Shakur superior to The Notorious B.I.G. Listing off favorite Clinton-era episodes of The Simpsons. A romantic epiphany that involved a foam party and a pay phone.
It could all be late-night chatter in a mid-1990s dorm room – or the recent musings of Republican men vying to be the leader of the free world.
Generation X has hit the campaign trail.
[Rant]There is no such thing as “Generation X”. There is no such thing as “The Greatest Generation” or “The Silent Generation” or “Millennials” or “Generation Y” or (and I have seen this) “Generation Z”. There was a “Baby Boom“, it was the result of a unique set of historical circumstances, the big one being that it was a lot harder to have and raise kids from 1929-1945 than it was after that. Once those circumstances faded, population growth went back to normal. The only demographic bulge is the post-WWII one, everything else is just lazy shorthand for trend piece writers that means nothing.[/rant]
