“You call that a knife? This is a knife.” – Not Paul Hogan
“That’s not a knife, that’s a spoon.” – Bart Simpson
“Alright, alright, you win. I see you’ve played knifey-spoony before.” – Not Paul Hogan
This week we’ve got two links to the Australian sporting scene, one a commentary and one about an Australian rules football player whose name is Grimes. And yes, his teammates call him exactly what you think they’d call him. In addition to that we’ve got an excellent piece of (officially sanctioned) fan art, lots of excellent usage (including a teacher using the Simpsons against the students for a change), TV Guide, and two items about Connecticut, though I’m not even sure why they bothered to show up.
Enjoy.
Exclusive: Dave Perillo’s ‘Dancing Homer’ Poster From ‘The Simpsons’ – Smooth Charlie’s Link of the Week is the first in what is apparently going to be a series of officially licensed Simpsons posters. They’re limiting it to only 250 copies, so it’s another way to squeeze money out of collectors, but that doesn’t make it any less cool. This is interesting as well:
/Film: The world of The Simpsons is so vast and expansive. Was Dancing Homer your first choice and what is it about the episode that sticks with you?
Dave Perillo: Had to do Homer J. Simpson first, he’s the patriarch of the family and really the most important character of the series. I thought it would be great to represent him as one of his most memorable personas, “Dancin’ Homer”. It was one of the best episodes of “The Simpsons” and really showed the epic success/fame to the ultimate flop of Homer which ends up being a recurring theme throughout the series.
As the series goes on, I’ll be curious to see what the Simpsons:Zombie Simpsons ratio is.
To do today: Submit ‘Simpsons’ trivia – Speaking of unusually clever merchandising:
Here’s a cool opportunity for fans of The Simpsons: The folks at Cardinal Games are creating a Simpsons trivia game, and they’re soliciting questions from fans.
A whopping 300 fans will be chosen for the game and have their names on the cards! Come up with a good question and submit it at www.simpsonstriviagame.com before April 19. If you’re picked, you’ll get a free copy of the game. If you aren’t, the company may consider you for a future edition.
The game comes out in September.
Again, the most interesting thing here is the ratio of Simpsons:Zombie Simpsons stuff, but I can always make my own trivia game, with hookers and blackjack!
A 10 Word Tribute to Roger Ebert – Gonna watch the Critic episode with him and Siskel tonight. Both of them nail some great jokes in that one, like Ebert’s “Our next movie features Sylvester and Frank Stallone in ‘Yo, Godot, I’m Waitin’ Here’.”.
Pont’s Comics: Teaser – Stacks of old comic books from . . . twenty years ago(!) might get the county to take your kids away, but also sounds fun:
I have recently been given access to a motley assortment of comics from many different publishers ranging from the late eighties to the early ninetines (more than twenty years ago now, wtf?). I just finished cataloging them, so I’m very pleased to announce my spring comics reading list!
This collection includes some “vintage simpsons illustrated”, and I’ll be curious to see what’s in them.
Groundskeeper Willie – Wow, I did not know this:
It was difficult to recreate all the features of this character in the Italian version of the show: in fact, the translators had to recreate Willie’s solitary and aggressive nature, which in the U.S. version correspond to the stereotype of Scottish people. “The fundamental difficulty that the Italian translator and dialogue writer encountered was the fact that the Scottish stereotype in Italy does not correspond to the characteristics that Willie presents.” In fact, Italians think that the Scottish people are red-headed, avid people who drink a lot; therefore, the Italian stereotype cannot correspond to Willie’s nature and his constant reference to rural childhood. The solution adopted by the translators was drastic: they completely changed Willie’s country of origin. In the Italian version, in fact, he comes from Italy or, more precisely, from Sardinia!
The post itself is full of the little absurdities this creates (the kilt becomes a skirt). Worth a click.
top 10: Simpsons Episodes: 10 -Lisa’s First Word – A countdown begins with a detailed look at “Lisa’s First Word”, including a YouTube video of “can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me” on a loop. Carl Lewis, I could kiss you.
“Stop Grabbing the Electric Cupcake” – Excellent, real world usage:
An analogy I came up with last week to help enlighten my students, far too many of whom have tried to slide by, giving the minimal amount of effort they could and still pass the class, and who (shockingly!) failed my class for the last grading period:
[…]
Lisa notes in her journal that the hamster has learned a lesson.
Then she puts a cupcake in the kitchen, and likewise puts an electrified wire in the back. Bart comes by and grabs for the cupcake. It zaps him but, unlike the hamster, Bart does not learn his lesson. He keeps grabbing the cupcake, and keeps getting zapped. He’s immediately addicted to a pointless cycle of self-destruction.
[…]
Now, when I see students slacking off, or otherwise doing things that will hurt their chances for success, I tell them, “Stop grabbing the electric cupcake.” They’re already sick of it.
Heh. Well done.
Cuts – Indeed:
I coach a girl’s soccer team. Its time to make cuts. The girls who smiled at me yesterday won’t make eye contact tomorrow. You always break someone’s heart. But you can’t have a team without reducing numbers. I love the Simpson’s take on it. It is so callous and the opposite of how you feel.
Comes with shakycam YouTube of Homer making his cuts.
Jobs that pay big money, no college degree required – Shame on you, ABC:
Does Homer Simpson hold a four-year college degree? And is that what qualifies him to run Springfield’s nuclear reactor? "The Simpsons" doesn’t say. But in the real world you don’t need a B.A. to run a nuclear reactor, work as an air traffic controller or registered nurse, manage a construction site or hold down dozens of other good-paying jobs.
Homer got his job because he broke into Burns’ office and promised to be the kind of employee who takes abuse and never stands up for himself. I thought everybody knew that.
Dag 058 – Awesome Moe’s t-shirt.
Hulu Does Something Actually Useful for April Fool’s: Itchy & Scratchy Videos Are Live – It’s just a Hulu video of the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon from “Krusty Gets Busted”, but what’s not to love?
TV Guide Magazine Celebrates 60th Anniversary With Mosaic Covers Featuring ‘I Love Lucy,’ ‘Lost’ And More – Apparently TV Guide is still a printed magazine, and they have composite covers for all of their decades. They’ve got Cosby for the 80s, The Simpsons for the 90s, and . . . Star Trek for the 60s? They do know that nobody watched it and it got cancelled quickly, right? Anyway, the images are pretty cool, even if calling them “Special Collector’s Issues” seems like wishful thinking.
Bracket of the Week: The 2013 TV Sitcom Sweet Sixteen Part Two, The Elite 8 – Tis the time of the year for fake brackets on-line, though this one comes with a creative twist. Instead of just pitting shows against one another, it pits the fictional universities of shows against one another. Springfield U has beaten schools from 3rd Rock from the Sun and Boy Meets World and is now head to head with “California University” from Saved by the Bell. Click through for the excellent ESPN score photoshops.
SVP & Russillo’s TV Moms Bracket – Speaking of brackets, here’s a much lamer one by a couple of ESPN radio dudes. Marge is in the Final Four against Carol Brady.
Love is on the air: Who is the greatest TV couple of all time? Round 1, part 3 – See above, but with couples. Homer and Marge went against Wash and Zoe from Firefly, which is an awfully tough draw in terms of internet fan voting, but they appear to have pulled it out because . . .
Love is on the air: Who is the greatest TV couple of all time? Round 2, part 3 – . . . Now they’re up against Desmond and Penny from Lost.
Are you a movie star? Yes? Then you love John Lautner – Well, I learned something today:
From Troy McClure to Vincent Gallo or Robert Downey Jr, Lautner’s houses are part of the Hollywood dna, even if Mel Gibson destroyed one of them in Lethal Weapon 2.
It’s like living in the not too distant future.
Blind Date With a Book: Results! – The Camden Public Library had a “blind date with a book” promotion going on last month, and they illustrated the results with some of the more tragic dates ever to grace The Simpsons. Excellent usage. (And no Zombie Simpsons.)
Brookfield Film Festival offers award-winning lineup – Short films live forever, in this case a festival in Connecticut is screening “The Longest Daycare” among other offerings.
The Blues – A short appreciation through Bleeding Gums.
Emergency Use Only – Perfectly quoted:
Oh, “meltdown”. It’s one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an “unrequested fission surplus”.
-Mr. Burns
Never gets old.
Gratitude – I must respectfully disagree:
I just want to take a moment and thank every episode of The Simpsons that I have ever seen. Which is pretty much all of them.
Thank you for your insight and vast sense of humor.
My life is better with The Simpsons in it.
Please don’t ever go away.
Happily, the old ones won’t.
Chatting Basketball, ‘Disarm The Descent’, And The Simpsons With Killswitch Engage’s Justin Foley – Everyone loves “Treehouse of Horror V”:
BD: Coming around to a different topic, I know that you’re huge fan of The Simpsons. Since I come from Bloody-Disgusting and horror, I was wondering which of the Treehouse Of Horror episodes are your favorite?
JF: Oh, definitely the one where they do The Shining take off. That one is really, really good and is definitely one of my favorites. Actually, all three of those in that one are really good. I think that’s the one where they also have the toaster, where he goes back in time with the toaster. And the third one is where they eat the kids in the elementary school. [laughs] That one’s awesome!
Man, there are so many good Halloween ones. I like the Halloween ones because they can get really weird. They can do whatever they want. Like the one where they’re in the Itchy And Scratchy cartoon and it’s drawn all cartoony? I know that they don’t like to draw the show cartoony at all but in that episode they could do what they wanted and it was really fun.
Points for remembering all of the segments.
Barker Character, Comic, and Cartoon Museum: Packed Full of Fun – There is an animation museum in Connecticut, and this guy went there are wrote it up. Looks fun.
SportsDay Live, Thursday March 28 – Australian sports commentary, among other things, counts down ten great Simpsons sports guests. The list has a few too many Zombie Simpsons references for my tastes, although it’s great to see Gerry Cooney on one of these.
Jewish Film Festival Opens With Glimpse Of ‘The Simpsons’ – Mike Reiss continues his coast-to-coast tour of Jewish film festivals. This one is in Baltimore and comes with an interview:
JT: Do you ever get tired of talking about “The Simpsons”?
Reiss: Not really. It’s such a rich topic. Beyond that, I don’t have much to talk about. I’m a lousy conversationalist.Why is it that Krusty the Clown is the show’s Jewish character?
It really had to do with the way we came up with ideas. In the old days, we’d all come in with ideas, and we’d plan the whole year’s shows. The idea of Krusty reuniting with his rabbi father and the parody of the jazz musician thing — there was nothing essentially Jewish about it, except that it was funny.
A Jewish entertainer? Get out of here.
Hamilton’s Armageddon Expo lineup announced – Yeardley Smith is appearing at something called the “Armageddon Expo” in New Zealand this May.
Bart, Butterfinger Back Together – The Simpson family will once again be endorsing Butterfinger bars. Carry on.
For Maggie Simpson: The power of silence – Maggie Simpson, hero to the world’s introverts:
I’ve always been a shadow of a person; my parents and sister are loud, over zealous individuals who love the theatrics of attention. I simply watch them and lament how they never seem to pay attention or truly “see” what is going on around them.
Maggie Simpson lives in such a family. Bart and his “bad boy” image, Lisa’s know-it-all insistence, Homer’s buffoonery, and even Marge to some degree with her helicopter parenting style all overshadow the youngest and mute pacifier sucking baby of the family.
And that is why she is my favorite.
John K – True:
Speaking of John K., his (kinda) recent Simpsons couch gag was the only thing worthwhile the show has done in an age
The Simpsons- Just as Unoriginal as Family Guy – PART 1 – The title sells this post a little short, it’s mostly about which Simpsons characters came from which other characters. And besides, animation is built on plagiarism!
Jack Grimes is ‘different’ to his Demons teammates and he knows it – Awesome:
FRANK Grimes was a character on The Simpsons who had to struggle for everything he got.
Fastidious and neat, Grimes even had a personalised diet and embossed stationery.
But he also had a huge work ethic, attention to detail and he made a successful return to work from injury.
Sound familiar?
Jack Grimes isn’t called "Frank" by his Melbourne teammates simply because he shares the same surname as a cartoon character. This is a nickname that goes beyond cheap laughs in the corridors of AAMI Park.
Well done, Australian rules football.
VIDEO: ‘The Simpsons’ writer tells story of how voice of Homer came to be, says references to Detroit are no accident – Video of Rob Lazebnik (who came on in Season 11) talking about Castellaneta’s accidental audition as Homer. Fun note: says that Castellaneta works about 6 hours a week doing the voice now.
THE SIMPSONS MOMOT – Cool papercraft Homer.
PICTURE OF THE DAY – Fanmade image of Charlie Brown cutting Homer’s hair. Heh.
Letter #17 – And finally, I get to end with someone who agrees with us, albeit in a different than usual form. This is a site that’s dedicated to handwritten letters asking for forgiveness, sort of like Post Secret. The letter in question is borderline illegible in places, but this is how it starts:
I am sorry that I am not into your new episodes anymore. They are not as clever as they once were.
Amen.
