“That took a lot of class.” – Troy McClure I had genuinely forgotten just how bad some of these Season 12 episodes are. I remember when this boy band episode was first broadcast, and I remember hating it, but I’d forgotten how painfully long it is. And I know it clocks in at the usual amount of time, but the third act of this one is terribly boring, even by the standards of Zombie Simpsons. There’s a concert on the ship, then it sails to New York, then they blow up the Mad Magazine building for some reason and it…
Month: August 2009
Quote of the Day
“Oh go eat some flowers!” – Bart Simpson “(shrieks) My secret shame!” – Homer Simpson
Quote of the Day
“And you see that queen over there? Her name is Smithers.” – C. Montgomery Burns
“Tennis the Menace” Makes Baby Jesus Cry
“I don’t want to judge the rightness of your ego orientation, but my inner critic says you should have done your job.” – Marge Simpson There is a definite theme on the Season 12 commentaries so far. That theme is an almost complete indifference to telling a coherent story. I say “almost complete” because when the commentators do acknowledge the lack of story they seem kinda pleased with themselves. It’s like a mechanic telling you, “Yeah, I didn’t fix your transmission, but who really needs one of those, amirite?” Anyway, this episode sucks ass. 1:00: There are eight guys commenting,…
Quote of the Day
“More friends! More allies! More I say! Hang those who talk of less!” – Martin Prince
Friday Link Dump – Skepticism Edition
“I’m telling you people, the Earth revolves around the Sun!” – Principal Skinner “Burn him!” – Abe “Grandpa” Simpson There’s a nice menagerie this week. We’ve got the usual random internet crap, a spectacular usage fail, me hating on astrology, Simpsonized skeptics, and an oblique reference to the Miss Universe pageant. 10 Best Father/Son Wisdom Exchanges from TV and Movies – Bart and Homer make the list for Homer’s awesome “You’re not talking about killing anyone, are you?” speech. Miss Kosovo vs Marge Simpson – You be the judge. – Miss Kosovo (it’s a country now!) lost the Miss Universe…
Homer Guitar!
“Hey, cherry ax, Bart dude.” – Otto This Homer guitar is simply too cool to be part of today’s link dump. Instructables user captainserious created it from a leftover guitar neck and some wood. (The full list of the steps to create it are here.) What makes this thing really impressive is the fact that it’s a dead-on Homer drawing. I’d be impressed if someone just drew that freehand, much less made it out of wood and painted it. Mad Jon is the resident musician around here, but would it even matter what this guitar sounded like? I mean, you…
Quote of the Day
“You’re my agent, you have to do something about this. How can it be the same movie if they’ve changed my character from a tightly wound convenience store clerk to a jittery Eskimo firefighter? . . . uh huh . . . uh huh . . . mmm hmm, well actually, that’s . . . that’s a pretty good explanation.” – James Woods
How to Put Homer Simpson Properly Out of Character
Homer Simpson is an ill educated moron. He is a loser of the first caliber and is locked into a perpetual cycle of stupidity and defeat. Then again, all his best lines were written by rich, over-educated nerds, which made the task of putting trenchant insights into his mouth that much more difficult. That’s why this little exchange from “The Spingfield Connection” is so great: “This police radio entertains me with other people’s miseries. We get a free funeral for Marge, God forbid. And I can run backround checks on whomever I want! . . . Mohmar.” – Homer Simspon I’m…
Crazy Noises: Homer’s Enemy
“I’m better than okay, I’m Homer Simpson!” – Frank Grimes “You wish.” – Homer Simpson In an attempt to fill the summer with love, hate and pointless Simpsons commentary we at the Dead Homer Society are going to spend some time overthinking Season 8. Why Season 8? Because Season 8 is when The Simpsons really began to deteriorate into Zombie Simpsons. That’s why. Because we’re cutting edge and ultra-modern we’re using a newfangled, information-superhighway fad called a “chatroom” to conduct our conversation. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (though not on “mitochondrial”). Today’s episode is 823 “Homer’s Enemy“.…
Zombie Simpsons is not better than “most” TV
“You’ve really done it this time, dum-dum.” – Ozmodiar Read our manifesto. Time and time again we hear people say that because Zombie Simpsons is better than “most” TV today, it’s still worth watching. It’s an impossibly tired and empty argument that we’ve discussed at length and beaten to a bloody pulp. And yet, I feel compelled to revisit this premise once again. Like my colleague Mr. Sweatpants, I too have been watching the Season 12 DVDs with a combination of dread and revulsion. I haven’t the stomach to sit through the commentaries, but I did transfer “HOMЯ” onto my iPod…
Spurlock Update: Goin’ Global
Morgan Spurlock is filming in Scotland for his Simpsons special. We’ve mentioned this briefly in the past, but in Scotland there’s a small dispute over which part of Scotland Groundskeeper Willie calls home. The two main contenders are Aberdeen and Glasgow. Spurlock visited both: When the ginger-haired janitor first appeared on the show, Glaswegians claimed he was from the Dear Green Place. But a counter-claim was then made by Aberdonians who insisted he hailed from the granite city because he was heard to shout: “Go on Aberdeen” in one episode of the cartoon series. In Glasgow Spurlock interviewed people on…
Quote of the Day
“Hey, you! Get out of my office!” – Lionel Hutz
Stained Glass Simpsons
On the same day we’re talking about St. Eleutherius of Nicomedia, I come across the work of Joseph Cavalieri, an artist who makes stained glass windows with Simpsons characters. The one on the left is from Cavalieri’s site, the one on the right is from Stuff Boston. Much like that hyper-elaborate Homer drawing from a couple of weeks ago, I’m just incredibly impressed by the skill it must take to create something like this. It’s the little touches that really make it, like Patty & Selma having those conical bras and all of the scrapped televisions beneath Bart & Lisa.…
Crazy Noises: In Marge We Trust
“Mr. Sparkle, a joint venture of Matsumura Fish Works and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern.” – Mr. Sparkle Video In an attempt to fill the summer with love, hate and pointless Simpsons commentary we at the Dead Homer Society are going to spend some time overthinking Season 8. Why Season 8? Because Season 8 is when The Simpsons really began to deteriorate into Zombie Simpsons. That’s why. Because we’re cutting edge and ultra-modern we’re using a newfangled, information-superhighway fad called a “chatroom” to conduct our conversation. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (surprisingly enough NOT on “St. Eleutherius of…
Quote of the Day
“Ecch, that Barlow’s a right wing crackpot. He said Ted Kennedy lacked integrity, can you believe that?” – Carl Rest in peace, Teddy.
Please, Sir, We Want No More
Yesterday Digital Spy put up an interview with longtime Simpsonista David Mirkin. (He worked on the show from the beginning pretty much through the start of Zombie Simpsons and then on-again, off-again in more recent seasons.) It’s an interesting read, including the welcome information that we’re a long way off from a second movie. Here’s the part that rankles: Matt Groening said that he doesn’t see an ending in sight for the show. Do you agree? “I pray for an end! I would like to meet another human being who doesn’t work on the show! And maybe say ‘hi’ to a…
2 Simpson Quizes: 1 Live, 1 YouTube
There’s a Simpsons pub trivia competition tonight (Aug 25th) in Denver at a bar called, no shit, Moe’s. I do not live in Denver, oh well. However for all us non-Front Range people there is also a Simpsons YouTube quiz at that link: Setting aside the remix-techno-soundtrack I find this quiz a bit bizarre. On the positive side it’s moderately difficult (I got all ten right, but I had to guess on one) and features no Zombie Simpsons questions. Hooray. Against it is the fact that it misspells (among other things) Smithers’ first name. It’s “Waylon” not: I just find…
Quote of the Day
“Ah, Smithers. How’d the beating go?” – C. Montgomery Burns “Sir, I– there was no beating.” – Waylon Smithers “What? Well that’s a hell of a thing, why?” – C. Montgomery Burns “Because I– I called it off.” – Waylon Smithers “Judas!” – C. Montgomery Burns
Simpsons Drawn in Sand
“Bikini girls, dune buggies, daredevil surfers! Ordinarily this beach would be swarming with them, but not today, oh, no. They’ve all been cleared out to make way for painstaking sand preparation.” – TV Announcer A Briton named Martin Artman took to the beach and made some remarkably precise sand drawings of Homer, Marge and Bart: Click over to his Flickr page for higher resolution images of Bart and equally detailed sand drawings of Marge and Homer. Awesome. (found via)