“See? You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a first class wedding reception.” – Homer Simpson
Zombie Simpsons had a gimmick last Sunday, which was Castellaneta taking live calls while very little happened on screen. It was novel but pointless, so as far as the desperation of their publicity stunts go, this ranks somewhere in the middle. Marketing and pageview desperation being what they are, plenty of people on the internet wrote it up. There’s a couple links below, though none of it is really all that interesting. The tl;dr version is that they used thinking machine super computers. In more savory and less advertised news, we also have two links to Simpsons cakes.
Enjoy.
Celebrating 25 Years Of The Simpsons With Cake – This is fantastic, custom baked cakes with Simpsons characters based off of other art and images. Fair use has never been this delicious.
Cooking The Simpsons: Whale of a Wife Cake – More cake! (And this one includes step-by-step instructions.)
15 Simpsons Coffee Gifs You Need In Your Life – Sprudge – These are great (thanks again, Frinkiac!), and there’s nary a trace of Zombie Simpsons.
The Simpsons live – how you can do it yourself – This is kinda neat in and of itself, but there’s no getting around the fact that it looked awful. I remember when Forrest Gump came out, there were stories on the news about all the fancy computer machines they used to make the various Presidents mouth movements from old footage. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, all of them looked like crap then and still do now. So does this.
Woo Hoo! The Simpsons TV Show and Adobe Make Live Animation Television History – For the curious, here’s Adobe’s official explanation of it.
How ‘The Simpsons’ Will Pull Off a ‘Live’ Episode – Speakeasy – WSJ – Jean doing publicity. He’s a trooper.
The Simpsons: “Simprovised” Review – IGN – Reader Noah B sent in this link and reminded me of the old “Syngery” segment I used to do here. For those who haven’t been reading this blog since 2010, IGN (which was owned by FOX at the time) used to write these fawning reviews of Zombie Simpsons, and I used to fisk them. This isn’t nearly as bad, but is still desperately scratching for nice things to say:
The seminar itself was fairly entertaining. Having had his one and only ice-breaker stolen by Mr. Burns, Homer had a complete and total meltdown on stage. It was there we learned that Mr. Burns keeps a group of therapy hounds on call for just such a situation. Sadly, like so many episodes in recent years, the writers never managed to follow through on their initial premise.
Office workers start a Post-it war, and stick with it – Marge and Maggie made with post-it notes in a window. It’s great, they even got he pearls right.
‘The Simpsons’ Recap: 9 Truths (and 5 Lies) in Live Comedy – Here’s a fawning recap of their latest dumb publicity stunt.
America’s trendiest new bar is your living room – There are fewer bars and more liquor stores than there used to be. Since I am pro bar and pro liquor store, I don’t know how to feel about this, but here’s a nice quote from a scientist:
The local bar is a classic “third place” in American life — after work and home, it’s a place where people can go to relax, catch up on local news and above all, connect with friends and neighbors. Think of Moe’s from “The Simpsons” or Cheers from, uh, “Cheers.” Third places “are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy, but sadly, they constitute a diminishing aspect of the American social landscape,” sociologist Ray Oldenburg has written.
The Eerie Unsolved Mystery of THE SIMPSONS’ Infamous “Dead Bart” Episode – This is clickbait to the point that I almost don’t want to link it. Do people actually think this is a thing? The YouTube video they link is obviously footage from other episodes layered under a bunch of dumb video effects. Anyway, it’s not true.
5YJevvW.jpg (JPEG Image, 750 × 897 pixels) – Scaled (82%) – The kids are alright.
Vtg 90’s Bart Simpson Cropped Stonewash Denim Jacket-JKL1042 – Swanky.
Student turns Raspberry Pi into epic Simpsons episode shuffler – This is a wonderful use of technology.
Here’s how old The Simpsons family would be if they aged in real time – If we were only so lucky.
The One TV Show To Watch With Your Mother Isn’t One You’d Expect | Bustle – Via our old friends Denise and Karma, comes this belated Mother’s Day link.
Homer Simpson celebrates his 60th birthday today – Homer’s driver’s license in “Duffless” puts his birthday on May 12th, 1956. I’ve said this before and I’ll probably say it again, but part of what makes Homer (and Marge) great is that they are perfect caricatures of late model Baby Boomers.
Man Getting Hit By Football (Film) – TV Tropes – There is important stuff on the internet. (Thanks, Noah B!)
Mike Reiss, CoCreator Of The Simpsons, Gives Us 10 Quotes So Funny Youll Be Rolling On The Floor – They’re not that funny, but they’re kinda funny:
“Donald Duck is a character right out of gay porn. He wears a sailor’s suit and no pants!”
The Simpsons Autographed Movie Poster – This is a Craigslist post:
This is a 27 x 40 “Simpsons” Movie Poster Hand Signed by Yeardley Smith, Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, and Julie Kavner Albert Brooks, Minnie Driver, Kelsey Grammer, Pamela Hayden, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Joe Mantegna, Maggie Roswell, Russi Taylor, Matt Groening
All signatures are hand signed and Guaranteed to be Authentic.
Minnie Driver?
‘Family Guy’ was renewed and hardly anyone noticed – Family Guy got renewed. The dusty remnants of FOX’s animation Sunday will remain on the air for another year at least.
Admirable Animation #47: Homer Badman [The Simpsons] – YouTube – Reader Toadat sends in this YouTube video that accurately points out that “Homer Badman” and its vicious portrayal of scandal media has aged very, very well.
How the Simpsons are helping Derby Uni students learn about handwriting – This is nice and all, but I thought handwriting analysis was dismissed as quackery a hundred and sixty years ago.
The Simpsons isn’t really very funny anymore: everything we learned from Homer’s live chat – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us, even about Zombie Simpsons’ most recent stunt:
1) Live is a magic word
2) Homer didn’t exactly bomb, but he ’s better with a script.
3) The Simpsons isn’t really very funny anymore
Yup.
